 Yeah, it's 6.15 here on July 9th, and before we start, does anybody have any additions to the agenda that's been posted? Start then at the minutes from the last meeting of June 25th. And I found those to be pretty representative of what happened. I'd need to accept those minutes. Okay. Seconded. All in favor? If you guess everything they want to add to the conversation, you sit right up front, Mark. Is there anything on your mind? I always sit up front, and I have a guess. Yeah. And I would like to make a couple of comments. Right. Okay. Since seeing the invitation that's in the paper, the invitation to give input as to how the roadside should be mowed, Jeff has put the information on I, Mark, and Harvey. Yeah. And then I lived on a dirt road my whole life. And I probably will live for the rest of my life. So anyway, roadside mowing was the invitation. Yeah. That's what really dropped me out. Yes. And most all roadside need to have a path of four or five feet over the railroad. Some of these roads need a second path to reach across the ditch. In some cases, the more it needs to be in a vertical position, four to six feet high, to cut back limbs that are reaching out to the road. This vertical method has not been done for many years. And I'm glad that Terry Severy is here. That did it one year. He did us roads when the town rented. And over the road, and over the railroad side more. And that was a very efficient way to mow the roadside. Maybe the rentals aren't so available anymore. And if there's any questions about the vertical, please ask, because what that means is cutting back limbs that are reaching out far across the ditch into almost the travel portion of the road. We all know another harvest is by the same token, we know the limbs are reaching for the light and so forth. And they need to be cut back. And I'm not saying to reach up to the top of a tandem up truck, but something high so that they don't continue growing out. Now, I will also add, it was counterproductive by not mowing the roadside last year. And because now there's a lot more growth, and probably it will take anybody longer than it would have to be mowed last year. OK, that's all I've got. But I would like to go on to the roads themselves. As I said, I've always lived on one. And most roads are poor condition for the lack of grading. They have only been scuffed over for many years and not graded. If I need to explain graded, it means getting to the bottom of the potholes and not just filling them in with loose gravel, either by hand or with a grader. The grass side on the edge of the road and the side of the ditch has been allowed to grow and prevent the stormwater, which is another one of my issues, from getting to the ditch, which is now full of debris that needs to be removed. This can be done with a grader, in most cases, without the need of an excavator, if it is done on a regular basis. We have the best equipment that is not being utilized, utilized to the fullest. Please use the rock rate. It's a very important tool that wasn't always available back in my younger years. Then I have to add that we should not continue stockpiling cross gravel for resurfacing our road. An emergency pile of 200 or 300 yards is great. The trucks that deliver the gravel can be used to spread it on the road that are getting resurfaced. And rather than stockpiling, using a loader, reloading, and so forth, is really counterproductive. And that is comments I've got about the gravel road and the control of stormwater and brush. And that's really, as soon as that, stormwater and brush. All right, thank you. Thank you. To put there, Mar, there's a lot of it that we'll definitely take into account. There's some, like, we can't ditch with the grader anymore because we're not allowed to create a sharp edge in the bottom of a ditch. And you can use a grader to, you know, address the edge, I'm sure, but in terms of ditching, we can't ditch with the grader, really, and satisfy the requirements. So we're looking into the possibilities of getting some equipment that we could actually ditch with. The grader will do it all if it is used on a regular basis. And he keeps us on from growing. We all know the backside of the ditch is gonna be affected. Right. I mean, it's a greater channel. Maybe there's a rounded edge you can put on a grader. They can do that. All right. There are both on, both on rounded edges. Yeah. I've seen some challenges. I mean, I've seen, with an excavator and clamshell, we're ending up with ditches that are so deep and so steep that if you get into them, you can't get out of them. Yeah. If it's done consistently, like Marvin says, with a grader, I don't see why you can't do it with a grader. You can't angle that way. I've seen it done on my road. It's been done in the past. You know, and I just, you're saying that it leaves too sharp of a... Well, it's all about the control of the water and the erosion. And we're just, I'm not making up these rules. Yeah, I get that, but I just want to get this clear is like you're talking about my drop off into it. They want a curved base. Like a swale. Like a swale. Yeah. Well, I don't see why you can't do that with a grader. Well, maybe if you can bolt on a rounded end, but with a square edge, it's going to leave a 90 degree angle in the base of the cut, which is not where you're going to have to move away from that. It increases the water speed going down. The trench, it's going to bother erosion. It's all fine. But there's no question. It's been re-constant reformed and reforming road crews. So the whole strategy of taking care of the roads will evolve and I anticipate a good direction. So a lot of these suggestions and comments will be listened to with fresh ears. I want to say one day into it, I've already seen that. Just one day into it. Excuse me, June. Am I correct? It's just what you were talking about was that there are changes in what the state is asking towns to do about it. You've got to be much more specific about how they want to get it as created and shaped. And in terms of trying to slow down the movement of storm runoff and other road. Right, it's part of Act 64, the Clean Water Act. Just to quickly say the name, can't you agree? I will just, they call it to the swell, you know, something. There are standards for the profile and the depth of all that kind of thing. Right, but are you doing this specifically? No, I mean, I mean, but it's, it's specifically addressed to a square edge of a grater not being appropriate for, for, and there's also cases where there's a lot of material that needs to be moved out and pitches that have been filled in over years and that it's, you know, they need to be integrated into your approach to driveways and things of that nature and culverts that almost dug out the rate of fuel. I'm big enough that you could put a commercial back on a road drive. You know, we've got a mechanic, you know. That's all in that ongoing conversation. And David has mentioned in the last meeting about a possible attempt to slur the road or that we've got to do. I just, I just read something about some of the roads that I've known in the area or something. It's specifically known when the trailer wasn't blown so that we would see. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, yeah. So that should be something right there. Yeah, if we had our own road. Right, right. Exactly, if you do it when it's needed. There's a lot of bar-sharvel in this right along the road. Well, I know, but not doing anything. This isn't getting anywhere that's going backwards. From Joan, who couldn't make it tonight. So there's another meeting that she needed to be at. Stagecoach is expanding their Route 100 service starting this fall. And he was looking for an update on the use of our parking ride as a location for the bus stop. And Stagecoach may be able to provide some assistance in getting a little shelter installed at the parking ride for bus stops. So that's still moving forward. I see that's getting more and more used at the parking area there. It's turned out to be worthwhile. Looking into a hydroceder, which basically is a way of instead of spreading a seed in mulch where you want grass to grow and actually sprays a mulch seed fertilizer mix that will actually stick to steeper banks and not get blown away in the wind. Seen that, saw that used quite a bit after Irene, especially on 107. That's that green stuff, yeah. So, it sprays? It sprays a mixture of... A slurry. A slurry, yeah, seed and fertilizer. As opposed to dry hay and seed. That could be a useful tool in dealing with the control of erosion. Like when we do some fresh ditching, it gets stuff going in there quicker. We've already been talking about, again, we should the town look into an excavator. Jones been looking that there are some grants to purchase equipment for water quality related road projects. Again, it's all driven by the water quality, so. Right now, they're only available for towns in the Lake Champlain and Mimofagod watersheds. Say that again? Memphomegod. Memphomegod, okay, Memphomegod. Looking for possible purchases of, looking for grants for purchasing an excavator, a piece of equipment that we could deal with previous conversation, ditching and such. I-25th is the next wastewater job site meeting, which will take place at the site tree trailer at 11 a.m. on the 25th, which is basically monitoring the progress of the project down there. Terry, you have anything to add on that? I'm in work capacity. They called in now the guys to cut the concrete around there, I know. Yeah. They know how to work with the head on a sub-sub-sum. I'm too busy, which I wish I'd known it because they sprayed a ton of water and mud down in that hole and a short pump that I've done in there. Forced the joy of working on the pumps to get the wiring straightened out, so we had till they were grown. Oh, it's a mess down there. I mean, you left it terrible. So this was the second contract? Yeah. Nobody's there today because they need to clean it out. They're still having troubles with some of the wire knocks and they got, I don't know, they're done cutting because they got tarps up everywhere's in there. But they haven't chilled up, so I don't think they're coming this week. Maybe the end of the week, they're finishing up another project, which, in fact, the school's a good thing because of so much going on in school. Probably not a bad thing because they're gonna be starting a lot of trucking in now that school year when they do come back. But I wish they'd finish this up because had a lot of trouble with the pumps down there and most of it's because it's waiting to be rewired. That's part of the contract is rewire everything and floats and it's just, you know, they haven't got that part yet. They are here to talk about the library today. They need to talk about a worker's policy for what is the state is now requiring if contractors don't have their own policy. Even if they sign a waiver, we're still being charged for that insurance and the worker's compensation insurance on that. So we're ready to lead to the contract that that amount of that insurance will be subtracted from the total or what, I guess we're gonna meet with the LCT and get some specifics about what legally we can't give you a number on that. But enough that it's worth paying attention to the project to figure that now and something like when he worked down there they've got that. Yeah, well, you can definitely have liability policy with problems and some small companies, they can opt out of having their workers come. Yeah. But I mean, we've had, we've been dealing with the workers counseling for a couple of years and if someone we hire doesn't have or you don't accept them, you don't accept a contract if they're going to hire someone else to work for them and do the work. I think is how it's worked here. Well, if you're a sole proprietor, Right. You legally don't have to have one. Right. On yourself. On yourself. You and your employees, right? You're not legally, however. Right, but here's the issue is, yes, they are not required by the state to have it but insurance companies, they want you to have it. Like the LC2. Exactly. So, Right, because they feel if there is an incident, the town could still be sued, even though all of the paperwork is in line, requests to sue the town because they were technically working on for the town. The law doesn't say you have to have it in that situation, but the insurance companies and the lawyers want you to have it. I'm going through this with my own life. I'm going through it with cleanings. We had to, I had to let our clean the service go because they simply couldn't afford this company. You know, they were a mom and pop operation. They used to afford it. So I had to let them go. So who does the cleaning? The employees do. Okay, so cover it. This is a point that is in discussion with the legislature. Didn't get anywhere this year, but they're definitely, the legislature needs to step up to the plate and do some clarification on this because there's a lot of pushing and shoving between insurance companies and how the workers' comp is being written right now. So hopefully it moves up on the agenda next year for the legislature. One of the things the state is attempting to do is level the plaintiff. I mean, whether you believe that or not, that's what they're trying to do. So people who don't have work this time, they automatically have financial advantage if they don't have work this time, do have work this time. So, you know, that's part of it. And it's just trying to level that out as much as they can. But it's really, it's difficult for the small operators. If you have it already on the books and it has to be, it has to be a pin and it has to be truth out there that via the opening and work the time insurance. That's on the books. But the state allows someone to operate without it. Yes. You get an exemption from the state. See, what's happening is it's just recently, the last couple of years, being enforced. It has been on, this has been a rule for a long time. It's just that it hasn't been enforced until recently. Even in my own company. Now they are, they're coming down hard now. Right, it's a way for the insurance companies that provide workers compensation to get more money. Or the insurance companies have seen more lawsuits which have overstepped the state bounds. So there's two things probably going on. But insurance companies are the ones that are including some contractors. This would back a long ways. You know, we shouldn't even have to talk about it today. It is the law. And it is the rule on the book to protect the country. And at this point going forward, that's the way it's going to be. Right. There's an ABC rule that applies, that definitely needs clarification. So when somebody puts a bid in, they should have to provide, you know, proof of all that being covered before you accept a bid. Or you don't accept a bid. It goes back to your sole proprietor again. Right. But in the past, they've had to provide proof of that for the declaration, how to get an declaration made for their employees. But legally, they don't have to have it themselves. It's not the state that's requiring it, you're saying. It's the insurance companies that are requiring it. So they have to have all legal requirements to cover them. And I said, well, they are meeting the legal requirements. They are. They are. It is. It's a catch-22 kind of. So what can the town do to make this better? We're going to write into our contracts, like Dune had mentioned. If we do accept a sole proprietor without workman's comp, there's going to have to be an adjustment made to compensate for the cost of insurance. That's one possibility, or the other possibility is that no one works for the town unless they have workman's comp. It's a hard stand to make. Just sign the contract. It's going to automatically disqualify a lot of people. We just signed a contract last meeting for gardening at the library. Right. I'm pretty suspicious that that would not take place if we go into these new rules. We'll have to hire some fancy company from Rotland to come in and do the gardening. And then if they sub it out to someone who doesn't have it, then it's the same thing. The same thing. This is going to trickle down to our gardeners, our lawnmowers. We're not just talking about major contracts. We're talking about a lot of different subs that the town hires. It makes community and business involvement very different. Primarily driven by insurance companies. And they can deny your insurance. They won't renew your insurance. You don't want to buy it by these rules. And we actually that actually happened then in advance to the 90s. We have an audit where they looked at every service provider we have over the years. Everybody came in to work for us. And they came in because no matter who it was, they wanted a declaration page of Workman's Comp and liability insurance every single month. Period. At one point, we actually lost our insurance carrier because of one Workman's Comp incident. We had to hustle around and go find another AI. I mean, it's... No, but I'm just relieving my own experience that it's a real issue that we have to be cognizant of whether we like it or not. Most of us don't like it. Right, and Joe Mann had correspondents in the past week that pointed the town in the same direction that Tom's already been down and I've been down. He's right on top of it. So we had to get Worker's Comp as tax payers and we pay our taxes to the town because we're working to be out of this. I feel like I add that to our tax books. No. So does the town insurance carrier offer any value for the town at a certain cost to cover all these things with private insurance? Not a rider. I'm just trying to understand how the town would be able to... Yeah. Doesn't that make control of all the dollars on New York Street? And we have this very careful route. And you wouldn't know how to divvy that up with single proprietorships because you don't know how many different people or if you're going to be trying to recover that on. I mean, to give you an example, our house electrician and AI didn't have Worker's Comp for a while, he does now, but that cost him three to $4,000 a year just for itself. So, you know, it increases rates to cover that. You know, we understand that because we pay it. We have to. A lot of small operators. That's a huge up-thung expense. So, you just fall it away. Like a person wants to pay in your house. Yeah, right. We'd love to. You know, there should be a cut off on you. There should be, but someone could get hurt the first time when they were working for you. Work up to $1,000. Yeah, fall off the ladder, make sure it's not the cost. That's later done. At AI, I couldn't even have a guy come to pick up junk. I'm not talking about our rubbish service. It has all the bright conventionals, okay? I'm just talking about a mom and pop guy to come up and pick up stuff that they won't take with their truck. Not even allowed on the property until they flashed that declaration page of Worker's Comp. That's how bad it is. You have to make calls about me and get their work on those departments. They're all town to Palmyra. And Rochester is too. And you should not be hard. Even a volunteer, you could cover a volunteer on the town policy. But a volunteer is a different thing than a... Volunteer is different if they're not being paid. They're not being compensated. However, you're still gonna be protected. They're still gonna get hurt. They're still gonna get hurt. I think the rules are just a little different. I'm not totally clear on volunteers, but we're on this. Yeah, we're on this. You're not gonna be learning. Yeah. Right. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I just know, I've experienced the issues. I'm the first hand. I hope the largest nature makes the better for patients. Yeah, I should, yes. And try to talk to them. But we will definitely stay on top of this. So we've got a driveway construction permit at 1338 Austin Hill Road. I was looking at the map know about this. I do. Okay, yeah. You know, I'm just trying to... It is just access to a piece of property that they can't get to. They want to do some work. So it shows an existing driveway. Yeah. And where is it? About 150 feet below it. So that little mark there? Yeah, a little mark there. Yeah. So it's just a... Yeah. So it's gonna be a permanent? Well, we talked about taking it out, but it's gonna be cheaper for them to leave it in. And so I'd say I'd put an 18-inch covert in and I'd put gravel over it. It'll get used once in a while. This summer, it'll get used quite a little because we're gonna be doing some work in there. But they go in there so often that I'd have to put it in again for a few months. Does the Hawke Association make it these... No, it shouldn't be. It's all pound road. So it has nothing to do with them. They've already given us permission for the trees. And that's how we're gonna get the trees out. They shouldn't need the roads. I don't anticipate that it's gonna be found in the winter? No, no. It'll be grassed over, in fact. Yeah. All right, so I think we could do that. This is 2015, 2016, and 2017. And government, I don't think we'd lose anything by signing on to there if we run a chance of some more money out of the dollars. Yeah, then sign on to it. Not just in Vermont. And just notice, because we're a unit of local government, believe it be a member of this class and have been underpaid from these years, in the county of Utah versus the United States. So it's a class action roster that's a broad-ranging deal. So will we see anything out of it? We don't know, but I don't suppose it's gonna hurt us any and it doesn't hurt to stand up and say, hey, we won our rights. And so, Joanne, you got that in a minute, so you go ahead and sign on to that. I would think I would all win. It does? Okay. It does only have official papers. I've always said power, but I don't think so. Yeah, I think no all wins. We also just finally got from the state the finalized tax rate. So that means we can send our tax bills just in time to have them be due. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Okay, come on, come on, come on. Don't do that. So the non-residential tax rate is 1.3829. Homestead tax rate is 1.4071. So it's interesting that the, again. Again, the homestead rate is higher than if it's a non-residential tax rate. 1.4071, disregard that. That's just part of the country. So, I mean, even though this is basically set by the state, I guess we still have to move to adopt these rates to run our tax bills. So I would move, so I'm excited. I'm excited. And then someone asked about the pile of cans out in the parking lot. There was, no one was there to pick them up and recycling the Joanne is going to deal with that. Is there supposed to be somebody in there? There usually is. All right, like for the people who are used to giving the cans to those people to make money for their organizations. Oh, it was the same. They're used to giving their cans returnable cans to those organizations. So they just started putting them there, but they didn't come that time. So, Joanne's gonna, I'm surprised they're still there every day. There was a time this month. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah. So that'll get cleaned up. $100 a day. Yeah, at least it's not a top cost. I think that there's a list of every first recycling in the month with someone assigned to it. Looks like they missed out on a lot of money. Yeah. Maybe we should save it. Put it down your taxes. Call the cops, please. The phone says that is. That's great. I have a short second session afterwards to talk about the last week of the back parlor. Yeah. And you know, the invoice is from down in Florida. I saw this week, it was in the pile. That's what we got. So we're still at just $20,000 figure. Yeah. That's for, I'm assuming by the date, that covers your questions. Is this lawyer? Questions, is there work? And yeah, there's all, all that. That's, that's, I see his question. Discussion with the attorneys. No, we haven't. We're very. We've got a key that's down there, I think, for diesel. We've been buying a skip mark because we don't have a key for the firehouse. And the skip mark is gone. They don't have diesel there anymore. If you're gonna replace tank, but it could be six to eight weeks, we're good. Oh, they don't know that. They don't know? And also there should be, if we don't have a key, there should be a key here. Someone is, if you're gonna keep the alarm because we have a call there for the joy. And if they don't have to be this there, you could have replaced the door. Yeah. That's right up to the hill there. Right, but middle of the night, I don't usually wait. Every minute you wait, fire more than doubles. Every where else that has alarm systems, we have keys. I guess my saying is, I guess the town is no better, no special than it. Anybody else we ask for the knockbox out there and give us a key. We tried it, but he didn't give me his number. He said he'd come down and fill a month with that. Not only paying half the end more than we should. Yeah, no, I didn't. There's a lot of chains walk down there. We weren't allowed. There are trucks. There's somebody in there. Why should we give up days worth of work when it fills the trucks up? We don't get paid to be out until two in the morning. That's the time they need to get filled up. When they come back, call at three in the morning and the truck's on a quarter tank. We're gonna run out of fuel before we fight much of a fire. We need more support. I can bring the whole fire department. I'll be glad to come. Everyone. Because I've been taking the heat on this for a little bit. That is a new payment. It's very much appreciated. However, on a hill, like I would use to turn those up and say, oh, Lord, I believe. Now, where it is eroding, right on the edges of pavement, it will eventually go under the pavement and the end will break off. That needs to be stopped at the top of the hill. Yeah, it needs to be filled in. That needs to be filled in and compacted. Yeah. With the wheel. It doesn't have to be a compact. Very, right now, it's started. One rain. It's good paper. Let's save it. I'm filling up the procedures to come up. Yeah. Talk to you about. Thank you. Help me out.