 Meeting to order the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is anything any amendments or anything needs to be added. So Kirk's here and I actually saw Kirk out running and on my way home and I was like, Oh, I didn't put him on the agenda. So we'll just pick him up under public comment, Chris. So sorry, Kirk. That was my bad. But I saw you out running and I was like, Oh, there he is. So he can just go under public comment since you don't have any minutes. Appointments, I mean. Okay. Anything else. Not that I'm aware of. No. To accept the agenda is written. Second. You're muted, Chris. We have to work on our signs. All right. So we have a first up public comment. So if there is. If there's anything that's not on the current agenda that anybody would like to bring up now is the time. And then after that, then I'll let Kurt speak for a little bit. So does anybody. Thomas or Leonard. Yep. Yes. I want to bring up the idea of. Focusing a little bit more on Bethel's school. And bringing that into the meeting. So I'm going to go ahead and bring up the agenda. Okay. So I did some light research and. Academically in their achievement test, that was at the lowest part. Of the spectrum. They're ranked really low. I want to know what we can do. You help them to assist them. And, you know, So all the things you're actually voting on it. How much the town folks for. That's cool for their budget. I want the school to perform as well as we were really in a low percent. What. and a low percent. When are we going to think about our new agenda and start talking about that, and seeing what we can do as a town, as a community, as an individual, to help them improve their math and our reading skills? What was that last thing you said, Leonard? To help people know what we can do as a community, I don't have children in the school, but my taxes go to the school. I have a vested interest in the school. I want to know how we can help them to improve their scores. Their test scores are really low. They're at the bottom of the ranking. Right, but you said something about the school meetings? No, I'm talking about us. I don't know what role the elect work plays in talking to them. I don't know anything, but I'd like to find that information out. I was hoping to put that on a future agenda that we can really a lot time for. I addressed that, Chris. Sure. Having served on the school board 13 years, I don't know that we as a select board have the expertise that the school board and their administrators would have. I would I guess I would suggest that you maybe approach the new superintendent, Jamie Canarney and express your concern and ask him if he's got something on it going on, because I know he's working really hard through this COVID thing. I've had a chance to talk to him and I'm surprised or I'm saddened that we are so low because at one time three, four years ago, there was a huge change of this test scores. So I don't know if that's a COVID related item or an instructional related item or whatever it could be, but I would I don't want us to not do anything, but I think that there's more could be done in the educational field first and then maybe they have something they need that we could help them with. I would want to hear that from them. The scores I saw go back beyond COVID. Okay. Also a little while. That's really the concern. If it was just this COVID deal that would be an anomaly. But my concern is that for a few years it's been this and talking to them maybe we can find a way to help parents more parents involved whatever we can do to make it better for the children. That's all. That's been an issue for 15 years of my is getting parents involved is quite a task. There are some that are right there. There are some that are there sometimes and there's some that are very difficult to find. But just want to remind people it sounds like we got a little bit of sanding going in the background. Sometimes we get feedback from different people. I mute them on my end because I'm trying to kill the feedback. But I see Lisa has her. Yes Lisa. As someone who's worked under Jamie I think you'll find him very receptive and very willing to hear your concerns and I think that's a worthwhile phone call to make and just touch base with him and find out what his thoughts are and I think he would probably be very receptive to any kind of support you would be willing to provide but he's a pretty open guy he knows his numbers he knows his data so it should be a pretty fruitful phone call. Thank you Lisa. And I'll say just my only input I think I agree with Dave I don't know what the select word really could do at our level but Jamie's come into it with open mind he's looking at things different over there I will say having have put in school now that the test scores aren't always the perfect example of how well kids are doing in school I have one daughter myself in the elementary school who is very bright but when it comes to taking tests is not pretty so some kids have anxiety of taking tests and things like that I'm aware of that but one of the things I'm learning from people who have children here is that that's what they look at when they think about moving here when they think about staying so before they get to this community they're going to be looking at that so any way we can improve that will be better for the town in general I know if the test scores were higher I would assume that that's what part of what they would be promoting is that they have these high test scores so I'm thinking in my mind let's get them higher so you can promote that if the kids have a testing issue well maybe that's where we go we teach them how to take tests these tests have been given I took these tests I was a kid I had to take the reading test every year so it's nothing new it's just a matter of making sure they are proficient in these tests and not just proficient in that but proficient in taking the test that's something I'm just whatever we can do to help that's where I'm coming from I mean how we got our attention is that our neighbors who have two young kids one of them will be in elementary school in two years they were looking at the scores and we found out now moving away from Bethel because they think the scores are too low that's how we got this whole thing rolling and we started to do some research and stuff like that sure well thank you for bringing that up I'll reach out to Jamie with that as well and I'll do some due diligence looking at what the newest testing scores have been and have a conversation with them thank you thank you do we have any other public comment before we go to Kurt so floor is yours Kurt great thank you thank you for having me mostly I'm just stopping by to say hi see if there are things that you all have concerns you'd like me to look into we are right now full into what they call the crossover period where some of the really big bills have to get done in order to pass over to the other chamber in time for them to work on them and we have a number of big bills coming along we've processed some moderate size bills big ones coming through I'm thinking about stuff that pertains to the might pertain to the town I know that I think tomorrow we'll be probably voting on a bill about making more permanent the idea of take out alcoholic beverages and pre-prepared drinks and those kind of things there's going to be a bill on that also probably tomorrow will be the big bill that they've been working on for accelerated community broadband deployment which is really putting a lot of structures in place for various levels of development grants and loans and some of that is all tied into the money they're expecting to get from the federal government on that and so they're in a process of creating a different program for each of the levels that a development would go through so there's the pre-development stage where you do research on where the polls are and how many polls you need and all that stuff and that would be absolutely grants and then once some polls and things have been put in and they can start to get customers and generate income back in places around the state they may turn that back into a loan and try and set up some kind of a revolving loan so that money doesn't just disappear but it keeps returning but some of that has impact on us but our communications unified district is already EC fiber and so it would be in place to try and help EC fiber get to the end and to the roads basically for our district so that's coming through probably not tomorrow probably the day after tomorrow well tomorrow actually will probably be a whole lot of discussion around the transportation bill and that's a big one and of course that will certainly impact our towns because that's where the money is for appropriations for all the roads and things and as I think Therese can verify from her understanding they're planning on putting quite a lot of money into those kind of things and I know Bethel had some projects that you're hoping to get some money and so hopefully this is an encouraging piece of that so that will be it's a really big piece of legislation we've been told that this week make no plans in the evenings we've been told that it's entirely possible we'll be in meetings still 10 or 11 at night so I'm really looking forward to that and and then on Wednesday there's some bills around Medicaid stuff like that but the big one there's a registration they're talking about registration for construction contractors who are doing jobs over 25,000 I believe and people have to register and that's a pretty there's a lot of controversy around that bill it'll be interesting to see what happens with that for me the big thing, excitement for this coming week is you may recall, Bethel participated in the Better Block project and and so the state is creating it's a version that can roll out for communities around the state called the Better Places Program and the committee on commerce and economic development is the one that's responsible for that, if it's the committee I'm on and since I come from Bethel I have the honor and distinction of presenting that part of the bill to the floor it'll be my first presentation of Bill on the floor and I'm a little nervous but I hope it I'm sure it'll go fine but a little bit nervous about people questioning not having all the facts they need to have I have piles of them they tell me that if you're really heavily prepared no one will ask you a question if you think you know it all but you don't then so I'm just going to find that thing so I'm working on it but those are some of the big things that are coming around anything you've heard about that you're concerned with or have thoughts around at this point it's just you know wave after wave of bills that are starting to come out of committee and so I mean I didn't list all you know 40 of them or two or whatever so there's been information about the you know big numbers keep changing about how much money municipalities are going to get through this program at first I heard Bethel the first email out with the spreadsheet was like .19 million for Bethel now we're down to 20 million dollars per capita which is for 2030 people so all over the map so and anything I've read about that because we've been dealing with two rivers about another program I think that while we're going to see money it's going to be really tied up in you know the US Treasury is not just going to be handing it out and letting us make choices I think it's going to be really tied up with municipalities have lost money during COVID whether it was collections or they've waved and interest and penalties and things like that so what I'm hoping is that maybe it's that but also earmarked for infrastructure because infrastructure issues we got and it'll be interesting to see but have you heard any I haven't I mean the big thing pretty much everything everyone says about these bills that are relying on federal money is we're making plans because we have to because we can't wait until the money shows up to make them but the feds haven't really defined what any of those strings are we know there will be strings we just don't know what they will be just like for example with that broadband bill I was talking about it's set up as a grant and possibly alone and why it's a possibly alone is because they don't know if the feds will allow them to do it as a loan or whether it just has to be a grant or if they allow it to be a loan will they allow it to be a revolving loan or does the money from the loan just have to go back to the feds in which case so they don't really know I don't envy the people on ways and means and appropriations those two committees because they're working with fluid situations definitely a lot of unnotes I had heard about the transportation bill that it looked like they were trying to maybe give the VTRAN some more money to fund back grants because we do have back stuff in the pipeline I just resubmitted a grant from last year for them and then I did reach out to a gentleman at VTRAN about our transportation alternatives project and they said mid-march or early-march and I emailed them and I haven't heard back so I figured he's doing what we're doing which is waiting for us and then it'll pass and then when they need a few days to sugar it out figure out how they're going to spend the money so fingers crossed go ahead Paul you have something yeah correct so listening to the governor at his press conferences there he's kind of hesitant to ask questions about the bills that are being talked about concerning spending money that we don't have yet and spending the money on projects that require long-term investment as opposed to one-shot deal repairs and things like that how's that going over with your counterparts you and your counterparts there first of all most of those bills haven't been passed yet so they're still being kind of debated and those questions come up about it the governor certainly has been strongly emphasizing that if you're getting one-time money it should go toward one-time projects having said that a number of members of his department came to my committee and said we have this really big one-time project it may go for several years and yes there will be ongoing maintenance that will be required but that doesn't really count so everybody hedges but yeah I have not seen very many bills yet that have come to a floor vote that are that have those kinds of things in them but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see some before too long but most of the bills we've seen so far so far have been haven't really had a lot of ongoing expenditure we you know like a big bill that was heavily debated last Friday was the ability of farmers to sell raw milk at other like farm stands not aren't their own farm stands and stuff like that that was a big big debate and I think there is a I think they set up a there's a small commission or something that kind of keeps an eye on that to make sure it goes okay that would probably be an expenditure that come out of the general fund so I know one thing Kirk that I know there's a lot of things that come to mind you know that duffel could use or need but you know driving around with trees we were looking at roads Friday I think it was and it was really nice outside but we also were noticing the large pieces of concrete wall that's flaking off onto the ground again so yeah from our fish wall so you know and I know we've reached out to agency transportation in regards to getting that you know out there to be fixed and you know you know from what we understand that most part the wall is sound this is mostly cosmetic however I mean at some point this wall is going to need repair and I mean is there any way of you know maybe bringing that up to somebody at your level on at least getting it like put out there on a plan you know even if it's ten years out something like because you mean you look at it and you know the rails up top I mean the whole thing is really fast repair and the fish was a good you know articulate item to put up there and kind of at the same time kind of makes fun of the state a little bit like if it's going to be an ugly wall we're putting fish on it but it's kind of like you know at some point we really got to do something with that wall you know yeah exactly and I mean in fact when you know BRI was working on the fish thing I mean that was the we went through all that with them and out if you remember but we had a little campaign where we for Christmas where we had people posting all I want for Christmas is for VTrans to fix our wall and just trying to get their attention because a lot of times it's attention and yes what they told us was that you know you get in a couple inches into the wall and it's sturdy it's just the sort of the coating on the outside and they told us at that time not to expect any major improvements on that wall for quite a while but I remember and Dave probably remembers this I mean this was I mean that wall has been there have been times when suddenly we were told in the town that it was you know okay it's number 10 on the list and then well now it's number 46 on the list and now it's you know all kind of depends on other projects with more priority but yeah I mean I can certainly contact some AV trans to say is it on the list you know and but I think that you know and this is you know what happens I think as I'm watching kind of the way economic development and all that stuff unfolds is that really it's one of those cases where if it looks like you care and you're doing stuff then that gets their attention and if you don't look like you care then they don't care either too much as long as it's not dangerous and so that's why putting the fish on the wall keeps Bethel in their head you know all the things that Bethel can do to keep kind of getting grants and moving forward and developing ourselves tells them that we want to make changes improve things and that just kind of keeps us in their mind and that I think improves your standing a little bit because out of sight out of mind I think that there's a certain little bit of that that goes on all right well we'll have the protest up at your house later on that's great that's good I have 50 acres it's fine it is on the list and the last time I saw it which was recently out of Two Rivers the transportation committee it says after 2025 it has a million plus project you know I remember going to a meeting when we lived on River Street back in the early 90s it was going to be the River Street bridge the T intersection and the wall were going to be it was coming up it was getting close to the top and it was going to be a temporary bridge going from the end of Graham Street over up behind by any monuments and it was they showed us drawings and everything and it kind of fell right off fell off the charts pretty quick so it's out there just has a big price tag I emailed them when I like a property went up behind the wall they bought one but not the other but I do tell them about it I poke Chris Bump hands about it so but it's on the list it's just it's a big project for them and they say the same thing they're still saying the same thing maybe the facade looks yucky but it's still solid and I think one of the hardest parts of the whole thing is actually the part right across from a mask on the bank because because I was talking with them because you've got the bridge ends you have a telephone pole that's got to get moved you have a collapsing cement wall that's holding up what goons you saw in that house up there and so all that would have to be redone and not have the house fall into the road and all that stuff and so that's the part of the project that is the engineering nightmare for them because there's also a drain there if I remember so you know it's an intersection of a whole bunch of things and I wonder if they'll tear it out in the house that they bought because they bought one up there I wonder if they'll tear it down but I don't know as I saw last schedule I saw this last week it just says after 2020 so hey we're still there I'm going to take a minute good yeah Dave Kirk have you heard anything in Montpelier about the state following the feds on forgiving taxes on last year's unemployment you know there is all sorts of confusion discussion about that I just got over the weekend several emails with different people talking about because yes the state doesn't automatically follow the feds on that and there was some question apparently whether or not we automatically did or we automatically didn't the latest thing I've heard is we don't automatically follow it and so there would have to be legislation to say that we are going to and they're trying to get that worked out because people are trying to do their taxes and you don't know if it's taxable or not but yeah it's a problem and so I have not heard exactly that's in ways and means I believe and I don't know where they've fallen on that that was the big that was the big stirrup of emails over the weekend was around that the state disconnected from the federal guidelines there a number of years ago it's also creating additional work for the tax preparers because if you file your taxes then we're going to have to go back and do amended returns and things like that but they may not necessarily get compensated for too I mean I'm glad to keep having these conversations I kind of wish that COVID wasn't happening so we could have those the legislative breakfast so people could get a lot of these questions answered or at least I could tell you I don't know the answer but I'll go get it for you because there's still a lot I don't know and there's still a lot of things when you're in your committee you don't always know all the committees are exactly working on and sometimes you hear one thing and then something else comes out of the committee and you know it's it's an interesting process well we appreciate you keep checking in with us Kurt and I would say at any time if there's something that maybe catches your eye at the higher level that maybe we need to know about or trees feel free to reach out to us at any point absolutely we'll try to only bug you with the bigger stuff there's probably a million things we could bug you with daily but as a town you have certain ones but as individuals if there's stuff that bugs you too you can reach out as as Chris as opposed to select board chair and happy to do what I can to answer questions or get answers and like I said especially when it comes to things that relate to the Feds right now they're they're operating on their best hunches but that's really all they have all right your time Kurt all right have a good rest of your meeting thank you Kurt so Chris we're going to table the outside consumption permit for babes yeah I figured that out yeah I wanted to leave it on the agenda for them um you know just in case they pulled something together at the last minute but the only thing I just wanted to add is like and the members can correct me if I was wrong but what we are looking for when they do come back with call it an amended permit or whatever is that to provide there were a few questions that we had one was how would they designate the area and two then we talked about some hours of service yep and he also talked about materials that they're going to use yeah some of them going to be squared away through the liquor inspector he was meeting with Pat was a local liquor inspector for um Bethel and he had his own concerns about it so I last time exchanged an email or and the one that comes to mind when we talk about the outside consumption permit which you know at the time you know when tessie's tavern went through it we didn't really think until we started to get some complaints on you know certain festivities that were happening there so and this one currently it's um you know it's well you know noon to midnight so um we'll talk about it because and he knows that we had talked a little bit about it before and I mentioned it again and the other thing was the permit that they submitted originally wasn't complete because by law they needed to tell you what the materials were going to be and they obviously wanted a bigger dimension than I think the liquor control is going to give them. Okay well when I saw what was in our packet I figured that we weren't going to be compared uh prepared to act on it because I didn't see all that so I was I just wanted to give them the opportunity if they wanted to you know if they came up with information but so now he knows it will be April so okay especially now that the governor's relaxed COVID restrictions a little bit for bars I figured you know they'll probably be ready in the next couple weeks. Okay just a comment on um sort of following up on what Chris was just saying because it after last meeting I was thinking about it um because we you know Chris I think the one that brought up the DRB and the noise complaints with Tessie's tavern and it sort of made me think that Owen had made a point you know that there have been no complaints up to now except as as it is now their noise would be aiming out the back towards the river where there are no residences whereas if they're really looking at the front side of the building they're now aiming any noise in a really different direction which does have a lot of residents and so just something that I don't know you know might not be something we need to even address right now but if it kind of comes up is that something that goes immediately to the DRB before it becomes an issue or you know how do we how do we kind of get ahead of it becoming an issue I guess is where I was going with that because I think it's a different setup than what they've had and so it might be a different set of scenarios that play out from here. I'll have to look at the zoning issue and see if it's an issue at all I'll double check the um because they're not going to be able to look at it so I'll have to look at it so I just made myself a note but it sounds like hopefully when we meet in two weeks that we'll have more information from them and they'll have some information about their control so then they you know even know what they're looking for and if legislation is going to make things easier for them for takeout drinks then you know they may not even know today exactly what they need so we'll find out if it goes through DRB then that may come into play but um so we'll see I'll double check excuse me and then we have an appointment for David Fair to the Recreation Committee yeah he has a letter he has an email and then we have an appointment for David Fair to the Recreation Committee yeah he has a letter he has an email in his in the packet and Ellie had approached him and to see and I he also had attended a Recreation Committee meeting and had you know an offer and yeah he's attended a couple of them January and February and he started helping with some of the things that that we brought up that needed some help at the ice skating rink and and I first met him when he was four years old and when I was running a daycare center in South Royalton and I've known him even through his teenage years so he's my neighbor now and across the street where Greg used to live and so he would be he's even some stuff from where he works and stuff so it would be a really good asset and we're excited about him joining the committee all right and then once this person is appointed what would your committee be up for size now Ellie nine nine members and all those members are still pretty active yes they've been shoveling the ice skating rink taking turns they've put input in about our new and they did your one and talked about a sign that we need and they they had some input about what to have on the sign where to get some material for it they've put input on that yeah so they're all there's one person that's very busy um um the family from Argentina they're very busy she hasn't been able to make any minutes any meetings but she has taken turns shoveling the snow off the ice rink right I just ask because you know we're normally a committee you know upwards of you know eight to ten members you know once you get over that then you know starts getting pretty large but yeah well having the help of shoveling the ice rink has been very helpful you know and and when we put the lining in you know a lot of the committee members helped with that you know so that we don't always rely on the fire department is very good at helping us with stuff but we've been having more help from committee members and people so the fire department doesn't have to be helping us so much okay so I just need a motion to appoint David Fair to the Recreation Committee I'll move okay move my ball Lindley saying second I think second okay all in favor bye looks good okay we have planning commission did you want Theresa this person here for the planning commission they been attending meetings she attended our last one and then she emailed me the next day and said she wanted to join and she came right in and picked up her copy of the town plan and the zoning bylaws and it was great so she's interested so this would be nice we would be I can't get ahead here but it would be Adam I'll kind of or a one person right you know she's like his alternate and vice versa myself so yeah it would be great we would finally make it to five so are they all three year terms or some of them all three there's staggered because of who comes on when so okay I didn't know if there was staggering terms on that so I would just need a motion to appoint David he's waving us on he's got a hand signal for a motion gene all in favor all right and then we have our yeah you got the big one our usual annual appointments usually these are once we have them all organized they go really fast so and I had made it so that they were that the above is a point in one motion all of them for one year so and you can see from the packet that all these individuals have have said that they do want to do it for another year so usually that's the the hardest part of this is reaching out making sure everybody wants to do it again before we reappoint so unless we have any questions in regards to that I would remain a motion to appoint all of the above for one year term so moved okay moved by Dave second by Lindley all in favor aye and then we have some reappointments for the conservation commission last chance Lisa before we put it in there for another three years Emily and Lisa for another three years with the conservation committee so just need a motion to reappoint so moved okay moved by Paul second second by Jean all in favor aye okay can I ask you a quick question sure is that three years from now or three years from when our terms were sort of really up which is last year well must be no one told us last year right I think that's probably true yeah yeah so um I think they'll make it from this year it'll go from now okay all right thank you obviously people can resign anytime it's not like we're right in company can't resign ever no resigning ever so the second was Jean yeah Paul and Jean yep okay yeah once you're in this club you're in there's no get now right life sentence so no parole yeah no compensation yep all right and then we had two other reappointments for Penny and Keith for the DRB for one of your terms to reappoint motion from Dave second play okay all in favor aye right so we got through most of those appointments and then next on the list is kind of continuing our discussion from last time in regard to the purchase of a mower right so I just wanted to the only question I received in advance was from Dave Eddie so I just um I just wanted to reiterate a couple things um and just remind you have an executive session which is going to take a while too so the um this is the base model commercial this is you know we need a commercial mower this is the lowest model that they have and Dave Eddie had a question about the um you know the dump from seat collection system with the mid-shoot blower and this was actually um you know Paul had addressed this at last meeting he remind you know was telling everybody remember that the John Deere the bagger that it has is just this nylon bagger and Paul's correct there was no power basically shoot it from the mower deck into these bags and when the leaves and grass are wet they get really clogged up and you know Paul had made that point and he's right um that is the collection system that's a step down from this is the bags and and we had someone I think Jean had asked if we needed to um collect the grass and and Paul had you know in some cases really thick and Paul made the point that yeah it's nice to to be able to do that also too for us we mow over by the pool so you know you don't want all that stuff tracking um into the pool and then that creates a big problem there keeping the pool clean and all that that that goes with it so um so anyway so I feel like it was pretty self-explanatory I think it answered all the questions it was a comparison and and certainly did I think what we were looking for so obviously we have the money um because we sold the vent racks which was also the same deck size and um we have um you know the money was set aside in the capital fund uh to purchase a lawn mower so this will hopefully um get us where we need to be so um since I didn't get any questions other questions I'm assuming that hopefully this was good enough to answer everybody's questions I also wanted to reiterate that this thing is gonna last like 10 years so if you look at the cost it's not like this is a two-year you know model so I have a question on that particular point um hopefully does does John Deere have a recommended maintenance schedule of what the owner should be doing yes actually there is and and um what we can do is what we will do actually is you can take it to John Deere so for a couple hundred bucks at the end of each year they do all the maintenance and they do everything that needs to happen and and it needs to be stored properly which wasn't the case with equipment that you've had before it wasn't stored properly as I say we had we have some pieces that weren't taken care of even last year correctly I have a concern about maintenance so if these pieces that are relatively expensive last yep I agree and um you know we in the past um things didn't get taken care of you were right since then we've had a change in staff we've had a change in you know several things happening now so I my concern about that is not as um much as it was you know before but I do believe you know Richard is on top of his game and he knows he's gonna have to make it last and that he'll keep it you know maintained so and obviously I'll make sure that it is you know I I don't want any surprises this is gonna be one of the first pieces of equipment I've purchased and so want to make sure that it's taken care of and stored properly I was angry when I found out a couple things that had happened in the past so we will be making sure that it's taken care of but yes there's maintenance schedule and we'll adhere to it is there any sort of a system that can be put in place so that we're like an automatic beginning a season or end of season or so many miles or hours where we're reminded to do the maintenance that we need to do well I think that it will be you know at the end of the season yeah it's an automatic that it's gonna have to go you know we'll just take it down to the John Deere dealer in Royalton and have it maintained you know before it goes away for the winter that way everything's it's stored properly and maintained so it's an automatic reminder at the end of each season you know it will go down for seasonal maintenance that's the one the only way it's really going to last and and to be stored properly I think the question I had Terese well my thoughts anyways is you know I guess when I think of like lawnmower I'm thinking like you know for this size I'm thinking five six seven thousand dollars you know this just seems more which isn't necessarily bad but now I start thinking of what else we need to get and so it seems like obviously we need a mowing system but also it looked like we were struggling this winter with cleaning up the sidewalks when it came to large events because you know the it just can't push snow once it gets to be you know like that big storm those couple of big storms so you know is you know in talking with Paul a little bit you know is this something that maybe I know we don't want to waste any more time but is this something maybe we could put in front of the equipment committee to maybe say hey there's there's a tractor out there that we can both mow lawns in put a snowblower attachment on for the winter or something you know I mean like is there a way we can get both of these because it does seem like we're going to be spending some of some decent money and you know we do the two birds with one stone type thing so the the dump from C is the 4500 that's what you know obviously the price is 12 so there's a big chunk of it right there the equipment committee I was really in my mind is for bigger equipment than a lawnmower and we actually I have a meeting schedule or I'm scheduling a meeting with them not until for in April because we're looking at the one ton is up because we have a capital equipment plan and one of my questions for them is to deal with the with the Kubota for snow plowing because part of the problem there is there's no weight on the back and so they need to fabricate something to put which is they're you know all capable of doing to put some weight on the back of that of the tractor I know that the floor has some issues and we could certainly do some welding there to to deal with that but I'm not sure if that's that's certainly not on the capital you know equipment plan to get rid of right away because as you know we have limited money so I had met with the capital equipment committee a while ago and we had done a full on you know blown schedule for that so but what I realized after was that that was what had not been but I'm not sure you know sometimes the combination machinery doesn't work I'd actually like to see them try to get a couple more years out of the Kubota the it's just not that old for them to be doing the snow plowing if they can deal with putting the weight on the back then then they're good to go and and yes will they eventually have to replace it sure but I'd like to push it out of ways and right now we don't have a lawn mower so I would just I would just hate to spend $12,000 on on a lawn mower and then a year down the road we're talking about how we're going to sidewalks and needing another whatever 12,000 I mean if you look at Randolph and look at surrounding towns you know that's you know they have you know sidewalk clouds they obviously have much more sidewalk than we do but you can see them it looks like a caterpillar because it has a sander on the back and you know sometimes that's the problem is not always does you know the Ventrax wasn't the perfect machine it was not for lawn mowing and snow plowing it it actually I think you would have been happier with two different pieces of machinery so that's you know my two cents on it but I do have I'm trying to set up an equipment committee we sent out an email for them today but normally I wasn't thinking of bothering them with something so small no well I mean and I agree like dollar figure wise but I just didn't know you know those those good minds and one you know one place and maybe they know of a piece of equipment that they're both purposes you know right so I think I mentioned about you know the equipment committee but also looking at getting a tractor with a good size deck on it that we could also put a snowblower and a sweeper attachment I ran one up in Randolph it was a 345 John Deere you probably want to get something a little bigger but it ran it for 10 years doing sidewalks and driveways with the snowblower 48 inch snowblower attachment and you know it just ate snow like crazy and as long as you do the mutants on any piece of equipment you know it lasted I ran it for 10 years up there so it's just you know how much money is it for a tractor like that I mean we sold the Ventrac specifically for this purpose so how much was a tractor like that gonna I don't know you'd have to you know you'd have to talk to John Deere and get a price for what it is I have no idea I'm just thinking it would be something that could be used and also maintained all year round as opposed to being stored for 6 months at a time so just another thing to think about right you know and I get that it's March 22nd but you know I just I'd whatever I can ask the equipment committee about I guess I did see Teresa if we don't get the mower done tonight I did see a person in town that just had a bunch of baby mini goats could take care of some interim mowing needs there you go well that's I'll just get rid of push mower and we'll just call it a day well I just I guess I'm you know obviously want to get it so we can start mowing but I just you know even if we had to spend I don't know even if we had to spend five to ten thousand dollars more but we could take care of both needs at the same time you know I think it would probably be better off for us to do that rather than I'm just trying to juggle it because I know I mean because we you know money obviously is tight that's you know where we're at so but I have a meeting with them in April so I what is the board field this evening based upon the information that was given to us from Therese for this this piece I have one more question yeah do we have a mode of moving this mower yes yep we have a trailer the same one that he had before right but didn't didn't they load that up with water and sewer stuff that's a stick that's a different trailer okay that was one thing we talked about I said you better be able to get it around the trailer you got because you're not getting both so Richard was good about it so how does the board feel overall on you know do we want to go through it make a motion to purchase the piece that we have in our we like more information or different piece of equipment or you know what are we what are we thinking here I'm going to go out on limb here and agree with Therese that I don't think the proper sidewalk snow removal piece is also a lawn mower of any kind and that sidewalk snow removal piece is going to be considerably more money so even though I may have started out with agreeing I guess I'm going to have to go with the mower for now Gene, Winley, Paul yeah I would I would agree with what Dave's saying on this one of you know I just feel like we went around the we went around it so many times with the ventrax of can it do both and it was never what we wanted it to be for the money that it took and so I worry that if we hold off on a mower in hopes of getting something to do both then we're sort of shooting ourselves in the foot for this season um whereas I like what Therese was saying about like get the guys to do the work to make the Kubota usable for at least a couple more years build up some money to then invest in something that will do the sidewalks that's appropriate for that but really put that off for a couple years and make them modify the piece of equipment that they have and take care of it a bit better and I think that's one of the things that I think is really important to one of the equipment committee members about that specifically the Kubota and then he had a couple ideas about it too and when I meet with them I'll make sure that we get it on the replacement schedule on but his feeling was the same thing was look it's running and you know it wasn't taken care of so um but they he felt there was some ways we could get through it to you know and um you know we'll put it on the equipment on the schedule for an equipment purchase but I just think the two the two pieces of equipment are once I just I just think we're gonna be unhappy with something but I will certainly talk about it I remember uh thinking along the way back in the days of VHS uh whether you wanted to get a VHS thing that was built into your TV kind of get a twofer or whether you wanted separate things and the problem was that one part of it would go and then you had to rebuy the whole thing uh so that part of part of me wants to to say well yeah but if you get a blower attachment it's it well so having that experience I want to I think I go with uh buying the separate units and I want to thank trees for getting a comparison mower uh look at I think that's helpful helps us see where we are uh yeah I I would go with the way it is so it looks like we have uh enough for a vote here so I'll just just we need a motion to purchase of the the mower as specified for the purchasing policy so move so we got Dave moved it Gene second fine okay all in favor aye aye Linley okay oh Teresa lucked out under project 2.8 million dollar water project by camp thousand dollar mower that sounds like our count meetings we pass a million dollar budget and then we can't pass a five hundred dollar item for the blind people um but I definitely will get information or speak to the equipment committee about I mean it's on my list anyways because we're going to be talking about a one the one ton replacing that that's on the schedule and when I had compared it to the depreciation schedule for the audit I realized the law the sidewalk I was missing but I had had a nice conversation with Ryan slack about some ideas to keep it going um because we just need to keep it going right now what we do like um other cities do where everybody's responsible in front of their own residents yeah that's interesting and a friend of mine who lives in Oregon and you know it doesn't snow very often but when it does they have to clean up in front of their place in Vermont which is surprising but there is and if you don't get it done within X amount of time after it snows they find you yeah yeah all right town managers report um let's see if I missed anything um oh so I did I um put in a list of things that I was currently working on I thought that might be helpful um excuse me for all of you to see that um it's obviously just it's a busy time of year right now and um so I'm trying to you know get some grants written and you know Chris's helped me which I appreciate very much and uh Ryan slack is helping me too as well um which is decent of him and so I just wanted to give you a list thought it might be helpful let you know what I was up to um also I want to let you know that I hired uh two people so um as you know Dave Bergeron uh was headed back the pike as was Hazen and um but Hazen is going to come to work for the town of Bethel and um it was great and Chris should get some sort of finders fee of course because he's a great employee and um also um Gabe Feeney is going to come on he graduates from so he was working there part-time over the winter he may be able to do a little bit before he graduates but you know the end of the semester end of this is a little tight so we'll see how that goes but um so it'll be nice we'll have three people year-round and I'm very excited about that um we'll still um probably be Dave back in the winter to allow some more snow but um very excited about it um the other thing is that I had three um myself and Lucian Hinkle had met with three architects at the town garage and it was a no-go nobody's going to bid they think that my our $600,000 price tag is a little too low um it's also the time of year I mean construction costs are exorbitant right now so I talked to Alan about it made a little bit of a list and I'm going to go back up maybe this week I think and meet with Alan and maybe we'll just take a look at doing some general building maintenance on the existing portion of the building um and buys us little time you know we don't have a million dollars and it concerns me but that architects don't just think of our numbers too low obviously I knew we had a hundred thousand in the capital building fund but I figured I'd have to pay out the architect and some fees in advance and have someone wait you know they would have someone look at a mechanical engineer an electrical engineer so we're going to have to regroup a little bit so I talked Alan and I will let you know what my game plan is but right now would it be would it be worth trees with money budgeted there um you know as we were expecting a you know a payment of some sort so I mean would it be worth it at this point maybe an architect or an engineer that could you know call to the site and propose a you know with working with what we need what what a minimal structure that we you know even if they have to tear it down you know what it is and and then maybe get an estimate on it and if they come back and say it's one point two million dollars and I think that's something discussion we need to have yeah absolutely I made me I was thinking the other day about it we need obviously we need to locate the septic system and check that out it wouldn't be bad to have you know I don't know if the panel is big enough you know to for us to take off the addition and then to you know basically double the size of that for the part that the route crew built you know in years prior so yeah there's a couple things I'm going to go up with Alan and just go through the building and have him point out the biggest things and then we'll figure it out just got to regroup life's all about plan B I guess so that's what we're with right now I'm obviously disappointed you know we had felt like you know we had done some rough estimates and also too it's what we can afford you know that's and what the taxpayers can afford so I will let you know what my next plan is but I just wanted to give you a heads up that's where that project is you know on hold right now I'll go meet with Alan and we'll see I might get back in touch with our structural engineer too and see if he you know maybe he recommends somebody and I know you and I had chatted that that there are a couple of towns you know sort of in our area that have have built new facilities in the last couple years Chelsea being one of them that you know maybe we can go up and take a look at theirs and see how that compares to you know the needs of our town and you know maybe you know get some design and cost estimates based off of that yeah they were there if you I mean I think they built a few years ago and they were yeah one but you know fairly new right two million yeah so it's tough so anyways we'll regroup and see what gonna happen there um with a question a question about that uh I know we want to keep taxes as slow as possible but how do we determine what what the community can afford uh I mean that's uh that's that's a tricky question in order to do it and do it right I mean that's the that's just a tricky question and I I don't have an answer other than we want to we want to keep taxes low but we maybe have to spend what we have to spend right exactly I mean I pulled the number out of the air uh yeah I mean you do a little research you go on and you say okay here's what our annual budget looks like and if we like to keep around a three percent increase what's a bond payment going to look like um we did I did some research obviously quite a bit of research on if we reused a part of our facility how much a square foot that would save us um and I met with you know community member um who used to do this line of work so that's kind of the way you do it Jean is you try to look and say okay here's our budget here's what do we foresee coming down the pike for um maybe loan payments things like that taking also into consideration that we know we have a 2.8 million dollar we're get you know project right now for water sewer so you know water sewer rates are going to go up so for people that pay taxes and water sewer so it's really a balance and I just tried to figure out what could keep us in that sweet spot of you know three percent or less so um that's kind of how you do it is taking a look at you know historical what you can do and also what's coming out so and unfortunately there's never grant money for you know garages there is for a salt shed but not necessarily you know if you qualify there's money for salt shed but not usually town garages so so we were trying to do a nice responsible hybrid and basically re evaluate the need of the existing structure and repurpose the steel and things like that so I'm not completely convinced that we can't do that we just maybe need to up our price tags I'm just yeah just coming from the nonprofit world a feasibility study on how much you could raise or how much you need to raise out of community is a different thing than a feasibility study based on the project itself and um I mean in government and taxes and so on I just don't know how that's how you how anyone determines what a community can I can or would be willing to afford and there's not you exactly Jean is what they're willing to afford that's a good point so we kind of went through and looked at the garage and said okay you know if we do this it's going to buy us X amount of years what do we think we'll have for equipment to get everything under cover which has been obviously a concern of select word members we have equipment that's outside so yeah sometimes it's it's a little bit of you know a little bit of logic a little bit of you know crystal ball in it and seeing so it's it's kind of the way it works but so anyways like I said we're just going to regroup regroup and figure it out yeah and some of the things too is you know you may spend a little bit more now to build something but you know interest rates are lower you know we don't know you know a lot of the indicators point that interest late rates are going to start to raise or rise over the next couple years so yeah you know I mean if let's say the structure cost you an extra four hundred thousand dollars right now you know it might be cheaper than then your rate going double you know yeah it's hard to know because exactly what you're saying I mean you know any building materials I mean like a sheet of plywood 70 bucks now so it's crazy to you know you've got the cost of building materials going up plus two people are busy and because they're busy they have a choice of projects one of the architects said who we were hoping would bid was great but he's you know he had a lot of repeat customers and he's like look you know I'd like to do the project but I mean I don't have so much staff and he's a repeat clients that are coming back so so yeah we'll figure it out a 50 year lifespan is better than a 25 year lifespan too so you know renovating may not well there are ways to offer it to the community that might well anyway so all right we were lucky because when we passed the $2.8 million bond that was great we did a good educational push and that's really a lot of it you know for that and it's tough because infrastructure town garages they're not glamorous projects you know people are so so it so sometimes they can be tough sells although we did great with the water project because it was such a need and I think if people drove by the garage they'd see that as well so so I you know I'm just gonna regroup it's gonna be all right it's uh I'll play in a couple of weeks I'll have a better idea after I meet with Alan and go back through the building and see what we have there's some more options so um let's see so I think we've covered everything else on there we're gonna be writing um as I said in here a paving grant for East Bethel um we're gonna end up putting out an RFP to repave the municipal parking lot which is not gonna be covered by a grant that's gonna be out of our pockets um one of the things that we need to talk about is is um and maybe we'll put on the agenda for the next meeting is Gilead we're gonna leave the existing apron of Gilead concrete and then uh put out a bid to reclaim the rest of Gilead where it's pavement I need to get some measurements and see how far up it goes because it's it was never done properly they just came in and dumped pavement on the existing road at that time so what we you know talked about is just basically taking a big chunk of Gilead back to dirt because right now there's major potholes and you fill a pothole and then it you know up the road it destabilizes and breaks open and it just it could be really expensive to go in and do that and Gilead is not a class 2 road so you're not gonna get a paving grant for that that's gonna be all out of pocket Chris and I had talked about that uh last week and um I think there could be some people that may be upset on Gilead because while while be it it's crappy and awful it's pavement so um but it's not and you know it's and you know it's really bad when the paving guy says let's take it to dirt that's right right Chris just wants to paint everything so yeah we want to paint everything you know I can asphalt from here to Timbuktu but yeah it's just we'd be throwing money after bad money there I think not gonna improve really anything and we have 20,000 for ditching so I know there's a piece of it that it looks like maybe on one side going and shave off the barn with the grater but then the other side we have to do some ditching so I think what we're gonna end up doing is taking some of the money and getting some of the resources and ditching Gilead and then spending the rest on Camp Rock which is an obviously an ongoing issue but yeah that's what we're talking about doing so is I'm gonna go out and get some measurements this week for Gilead and then and I talked to the Aldergettes and we talked to a couple people on the road and I'm sure people are gonna be unhappy but they're unhappy right now let me tell you that I get regular complaints about how bad Gilead is we just can't keep doing what we did before which is just dumping good money after bad by throwing skim coats on everything so we'll see what it looks like I'm gonna get some dimensions out there and then we will go from there and then East Bethel will be nice if we get the Paving Grant for East Bethel that would be great because there's a couple of at least two if not three culverts that have been on our survey from two rivers that were noted as poor so we'd be able to get those replaced to do some ditching out there, pave it and we wouldn't have to really worry about it for about ten years which would be nice or longer but at least East Bethel would be nice check so that would be good so that's kind of just a snapshot of a little bit of stuff that I'm dealing with and I think I'm good Chris we had the 18 minutes from the 8th of March unless anybody has any amendments to it I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes as written so we've got move second secondly okay all in favor I like what you did there Paul you let Lisa sweat it just for a couple of seconds while you waited to make that motion I'm saving them up I could I could feel the suspense it was there alright and then there was quite a bit of different communications in our packet not just the information that Teresa had provided us there with some open meeting law pieces there was conservation commission energy equity and inclusion committee so I don't think I think those are all the ones that I had they're planning planning commission as well we have another planning commission meeting this Thursday so yeah so I just tried to give you some information about the meeting law I know that was a question about attending equity and inclusion committee and some other things so that was all in there hope that was helpful to you all you know Chris I know one of the other things I just realized was we talked about maybe starting in May and meeting in person again at the town hall so right currently you know what they're obviously everybody's happy because now they've started the governor has issued the remaining vaccine eligibility timeline and and but now right and if we were to go back in May hopefully by then anybody who wanted to be vaccinated would be vaccinated we obviously at town hall we can you know it's currently the rules like one person per 100 square feet and we certainly know we have the ability of social distance there we can have windows open etc so it would be nice you know to think about keep that in mind that hopefully that first meeting in May we'll be able to get a person again at the town hall so right so we'll just kind of see how it progresses through April we'll know better okay any other business to come before the board before we enter into executive session just a quick thing so I spoke with Penny Griffin is going to attend the BRTS board meeting this Wednesday just as well to see if she's interested in being on the board and I explained to her that if she is she'll submit her name to Terese to give to us for our next meeting so just heads up on that and I think Lyle is also going to attend the meeting so yeah hopefully at least one of them will pan out and Dave and I rock paper scissors for who gets to step down or you can bring four members this time that's right is there I don't think there's anything in the interlocal though that would prevent that I think it's just you guys know I think you might have to do is recourse yourself if there's any disciplinary or financial discussion yeah yeah and I think right now you know usually that's under the you know obviously he works for Jen so he works under the manager so right I didn't I didn't think so I was rereading the interlocal recently I didn't see it so yeah and I actually had talked to Penny about that and just kind of brought it up as a like this might be a point of concern and she acknowledged exactly what Dave said of like if there's ever any discussion that involved her son she would just recuse herself yeah oh Brian's great he's good he's a great worker and he's got a great sense of humor so he's probably the perfect person to work down there well at least we won't have to warn a select team to have our members I know crazy well couldn't that potentially swing the vote though if she had to recuse herself sure yeah well if there was a big disagreement yeah but hopefully there'll be you know more unity on that board Paul I'm not saying it's not a good idea yeah no I don't know but you're right yes it would absolutely if they were yep it could absolutely if there was you know three Bethel against three Royalton sure yeah Chris the only thing I wanted to mention was and you've probably seen this but there's a new grant program that is out there for sole proprietors to take part in and it's being administered through two rivers and you may have seen it on Facebook a couple of postings it's a grant program you have to meet certain income criteria and whatnot but I think three says the information you could also contact me if you know of anybody who has questions about it but it's a large grant program and it's a second phase they actually had another phase of grant this same grant program back I think in the spring or summertime that they had several companies in our county become eligible for grant support for their sole proprietor businesses so I just wanted to throw that out there and I did put it we got it last week as well so I did have Kelly put it out on on Facebook and our website and also she sent it to Cindy but of course Cindy already had it so they put it out on their Bethel Strong website which was great so we do always when we get these grants or different things we do try to disperse them and Cindy was all over it good anything else Teresa you want to read us into executive session means you get quite the paragraph there well you know we discussed this on the prior meeting was when you go into when you go into executive session to discuss certain things to the League of Cities and Towns always recommends that you have this pre-conversation about you know what's public knowledge or what's why are you going to go into executive session to discuss something so sometimes you have to kind of hash out as much as you can in open session before you go in so it's kind of tricky but anyways what I wrote here was we're going to go into executive session to discuss the current interlocal contract for operation of the Bethel Royalton solid waste management facility that is available for discussion and executive session as it is the start of a possible contract negotiation and the town of Bethel does not wish to disclose its negotiation strategy and premature general public knowledge puts us at a disadvantage so that's the motion would be to enter executive session to discuss the town's current contract with the town of Royalton for joint operation of the transfer station but I moved and after all that all Lindley has to say is second okay all in favor three space our job easy so we will not be won't be making any decisions so it won't be anything in public afterwards right right thank you thanks everybody for coming this evening we did invite Trice to stay right yeah yeah have a good night everyone bye guys