 This meeting is Central Vermont Public Safety Authority board meeting and it's going to come to order at 7.03. This meeting is remote only which means the public body is meeting electronically only and consistent with the temporary provisions of Act 78. There is no designated physical space where the public may attend. Please note that while we are striving to provide means for attending remotely to participate in the public comment period there may be technical difficulties or reasons that otherwise prevent or interrupt remote public participation. Please note that when votes are taken if indeed it is not unanimous there will be a roll call and as required by the open meeting law with a fully remote meeting that we need to take a roll call of all the members participating as well as those attending publicly. So I will start first. Donna Bate. I'm an at-large representative. My officer is going first. Doug, are you next? Okay. Jim? I thought I was next in line but he can go. Jim Ward, Barry City representative. Justin? Justin Drescher, Montpellier representative. Thank you. Kim Cheney? Kim Cheney, an at-large member. Okay. And Mel? Mel Chambel, Barry City representative. Thank you. And Deputy Chief Joe Alzworth? Deputy Chief Joe Alzworth, Barry City Fire Department. Yeah, having you say it make sure that we can hear you and you can hear us. That's one of the requirements. Thank you. Dave, is that Rubella? Rubacaba. Rubacaba. Again, why do I keep messing it up? You know, you used to come to live meetings. You've seen, I didn't have to say it. I know. I'm sorry, Donna. Dave Rubacaba, Barry City Fire. Thank you. Doug Brent? Good evening, Doug Brent, Chief of Barry City Fire. Thank you. David Delcourt? David Delcourt from the Times Artists. And Stephen? Stephen's on the phone. Thank you. I just unmuted. Stephen Whitaker, and again requesting the meeting be recorded in accordance with law. Really noted. Thank you. Please unmute yourself. Doug Brent, you also need to be mute. It really helps everyone's connections if we stay mute and we're not talking. Thank you. And every time we speak, again, just say your name. All right. First thing on the agenda is the agenda. I have two things that I missed that I would like to take. Yes. I did not really introduce myself. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes. I know everybody is going to be missing that important detail. But first of all, I'm happy to see Dave here. And my name is Doug White, and I'm a board member from the city of my building. Thank you. All right. So now we will talk about the agenda. The two things I have to add is Jim Ward made a request for us to consider contributing money towards buying some fire equipment. And he would like to be put on the agenda. I'm going to put him in as 4A between Mel's introduction and the Tel Aviv contract. And then the other one is open meeting violation appeal to the head of the agency under other business. Anything else that someone would like added to the agenda that was missed? Okay. Yes, Kim. Donna, I'm not sure I understand the technology of recording, but I think I understand that you as the host can record this. Kim, that's for another discussion. I'm sorry, we're talking about the agenda right now. I'm talking about the agenda. You'd like to add the recording is going to be discussed under how we organize our meetings in the future. All right. Okay. So if there's no other additions or objections, the agenda as modified with those two items added will be accepted. We're now open for public comment anything that's not on the agenda. Okay. Next is approval of March 10th minutes. Any addition to those? I have comments, Madam Chair. Excuse me, Stephen. I couldn't unmute myself as quick as you wanted to skip by me. Oh no. I'm sorry. You want to go back to public comment? Yes, I do. Okay. Go ahead. So as a news item, there is none of the 11 million either in the Senate or the House bill available to Montpelier. Stephen, we're going to talk about state house updates and funding on number six. Do you have something else to talk about? I do. I'm going to start very clearly here. We need new leadership. We need strict adherence to public records and open meeting laws. We should need to adhere to the charter and hire a director and we shall conduct an annual audit. We cannot have a chair who undermines CVPSA frequently offers to make it dissolve or disappear. That's a violation of the oath. I don't see how a chair can honor both an oath to be a Montpelier City Councilor and be dissolving, trying to dissolve CVPSA to the benefit of Montpelier at the same time. So the board members, for instance, for example, telling the clerk that the clerk cannot share a public record without permission or telling board members they cannot discuss items or share records with other board members or misrepresenting her personal points of view as if they were CVPSAs when CVPSAs board has never discussed or agreed to those positions. So we need to turn this organization into a regional, accountable, transparent, credible organization responsible to its member and responsive to its members and clients. And that is clearly we've consumed an enormous amount of time responding to public records, open meeting violations, even tonight. And that's just not sustainable. Okay, anything else, Stephen? Not until later when the topics come up. Okay, thank you. Would you please mute yourself? So now we'll go to minutes of March 10th. Any edits to them? Justin, you have your hand up. Yeah, just for the minutes, I just wanted to check the for the approval of the agenda. I missed it. We amended to add Jim Ward's thing to that. Yes, I'm sorry. It was amended to have Jim Ward as 4A and appeal to for violations of public records rules under other business. Okay. Thanks. That's it. Okay. Always check. Thank you. All right. If there's no edits to the March 10th minutes, I'll entertain a motion. Jim. I tried to raise my hand. Oh, okay. Jim, you're talking, but we're not hearing you. Remember to say your name when you start talking. Can you hear me? Yes. Just a minute. Jim was in front of you, but we'll get you next, Jim. Okay. Jim. Jim Ward. I'll show we'll discuss this when we have the funding request on the budget, but just to correct the record, the request last week was $3995. And the minutes mistakenly coded the total price as the requested amount. That's I'm glad I caught that. That was a my list. Good. Give me the exact amount again. I know Justin will need it and so we're request. We're requesting is $3995. $3995. Okay. Great. Kim. Not to be too picky, but householder's name is not spelled correctly and the board members. Attendance. Okay. Sure. It's household, not householder. So, yes. I think they should spell it. Yep. We'll get that corrected. All right. Entertain a motion to pass the minutes with the addition change of the financial number to $3995. And the correction to Brent's name spelling. All second. Doug Hoyt, all second. Justin, you got that? Okay. All in favor say aye. Raise your hand. Aye. Any opposed? Good. It passed. Thank you very much. Mel, what would you like us to know about you and your interest in public safety? Pardon me? And your interest in public safety? Well, I'm sure you volunteered for and foremost. You were not arm twisted into this. I actually was not arm twisted into this. Good. I volunteered for it. Well, for a few reasons. I do have some interest in it. I didn't know how complicated it is. And it seems like it's very complicated. So I'm probably going to be a listener today. I might be a listener for a while. I'm on the Berry City Council. And I heard about this because Steve Whitaker mentioned it several times at several of our meetings. And so I thought, I'll just do it. I don't know where that came from. Okay. We've all started there at some point. So you're more than welcome. Next is Jim's request. You sent out a wonderful piece for us to look at with links. What would you like for us to know? In addition to that, you're muted again, Jim. I want to apologize again for not being able to run the videos last month. But I hope you also are interested and had a chance to see them. I guess, is there any questions about what we sent out? Are there any questions? Kim, you have a question? I just have a comment. Okay. I thought the video was instructive, particularly the demonstration of the equipment as a former state's attorney. I was a little nervous that some nefarious people would learn these techniques because it looks very efficient. But I'm impressed when the motion is made, I intend to support it, Jim. Thank you. Anyone else? So, Doug, Kim, you were saying you support it. Are you making a motion? Yes, I'll move it, it'd be approval, but I would like to make one other comment. When you first introduced it, you said you were doing so because CBPSA didn't seem to be doing anything. But the fact of the matter is CBPSA has set the entire agenda for the Twin City teams and all our thinking about where we go. It hasn't all been accepted, but it has been the motivating force. And I'm glad to have some money spent for training. And with Doug Brent's support that it would really be useful for firefighters in our area, and it seems obvious to me, I thank you for efforts to raise somebody locally and I'm happy to have us contribute. So I'll move approval of the request. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. I just wanted to comment. I appreciate you bringing that up, Kim, because I think that CBPSA has put a lot of things on the table that have generated a lot of a lot of positive activity. What I was referring to is to the man on the street, so to speak, particularly the public safety community, there's nothing tangible that we can hang our hat on done yet. And so I was just saying that I think it'd be good to get some points on the scoreboard as we go along little things and then maintain our long range plan. But I certainly agree with you a hundred percent that CBPSA has sparked some very positive activities and discussions. Just haven't come to fruition yet. Well, you know, I think if we were on TikTok, we'd be called influencers. I've never been accused of that. I mean, we have gotten dispatchers certified. It's never happened before. And we have got a needs assessment done. So that's really good. All right. Any other discussion directly on this motion? All in favor say aye. Wave your hand. Aye. Any opposed? Now, I also meant just to reassure the board that our fund balance is $42,685. Now, 30 of that we've committed to Telev8 Study, but we had hoped to have a balance of around 10,000 at the end of June, and it looks like we're going to have closer to 12. So that's good. We're on target. All right. Donna. The next year is 30,000. Does that come all at once? Or does that come quarterly? How does that come? They usually pay us quarterly. We have to invoice them starting in July. Okay. So we usually get it when they get their payments after August. Yeah. Thank you. And that's one of the things that our assistant treasurer does do is she sends out invoices quarterly. And that needs to be initiated for us to get it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for your votes. Okay. Well, we want to see, you know, we want them to use it and we want them to know, put our name on it, case or something. Right, David? Yeah. And on behalf of certainly the Berry City firefighters, and I'm sure I'm good to say it on behalf of the Central Vermont firefighters, thank you guys very much for making this possible for all of us. You want to see video tapes with you out there using it? Yeah, it'll be it. It's one of those things that's going to have heavy use. Okay. Good. Next on the agenda is a telebates RFP contract. Good. Pardon me. I'm sorry. Stephen, did you want to? Whoever's folks last didn't identify themselves. And that's a chronic habit here. Oh, you're right. Got to remind us. Thank you, Stephen. All right. So say our name. Donna Bate. I'm probably guilty. Donna Bate speaking. We're going to be talking about the Televate RFP contract update. Doug. Can I interrupt? Sorry. Donna, can you just tell me who spoke last? Was it Dave Rubicalba? Who was that speaker? Dave last spoke saying how they were going to use it and thanking us for it. Introducing ourselves, we just all have to remind one another. It just takes some while to get in the habit. So we have the contract. They actually started work on it. And indeed, it would help having this. If the state funding comes out, as we'll talk about in the next thing, I send it out so you have it to look at. And if you have questions about it, but the contract mainly is their proposal that you all had before was attached. And that is the scope of work. Kim question. I think the scope of work in their proposal is pretty vague. And I would like to see a specific scope of work such as we did for the initial contract so that we can determine whether they have actually met and done what they say they were going to do. And the proposal was fairly general. And I had a hard time teasing out one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 things that they were going to do. And, you know, what we did before was we had an executive director that could do that. I don't know who can do it under the present configuration because few of us have the technical skills to really parse it out and figure out what's going on. I don't know how to remedy that, but I think since you're the chair and you have put us in this position, you should do a draft of an itemized scope of work and submit it to the board. Okay. Well, certainly have a discussion on that. One, we felt that not only was the scope of work attachment of the proposal enough, it goes hand in hand with the need assessments, and in 50 days it's going to be done. And Doug has been the oversight of the day-to-day deliverables, and he has the expertise in the public safety, communication field that I don't, but administratively over what's due, we feel that there's what we need in that contract. And that you're right, the need assessment, you did choose to go very much line by line, lots of detail, and that's just a different style of doing it. What's the board's pleasure? You want us to make an amendment to this contract? Well, I'll make an amendment that a formal motion that the chair and the vice chair prepare an itemized scope of work as an addendum to the contract and submit it to the board. Is there a second to that? Justin is seconding it, a board discussion. I don't know about Doug, but the proposal was accepted, the contract was awarded, this never came up in our discussion, and I don't have the time to do it. I'm already putting a lot of hours in the public safety authority, because we don't have any staff. So I just don't feel it's required. All I would want to know is how much work do we think this is? The reason I seconded it is because that's what I was curious about. We're talking about an enormous amount of work to create a line by line. Well, not only that, but they're giving us, with their proposal, they're giving us like twice as much work as they're charging us, because they've already done so much within the need assessment. And they're working with the very people who are going to put it out, which is Doug Brenn is here, Joe, Bill Fraser, Brian Pete, they're all part of the input that the consultants will work with, just like they work with before. So they should definitely know what's missing or not missing. They're going to go about the RFP in a segment. So here's what the radios look like. Here's what the various tower components look like. So the group can decide which part they can use, given how much money we end up with. And they know that it's going to have to be amended once the actual money arrives, and they want to use this RFP to send out. So I don't, yeah, go ahead. Doug, maybe you can help clarify. Are you talking to me or Doug Hoyt? I'm sorry, probably both of you. Doug's got his hand up. So I'm going to let Doug Hoyt go first. We'll get used to this. Full names and say it yourself when you start speaking. Doug, you're muted. Doug Hoyt, you're muted. Yeah. Doug Hoyt. I'd be more than happy to let Doug Brenn go in front of me because he's much older than I am and has much more experience. Okay. Doug Brenn, go ahead. You have the floor. I'm not older than he is. I don't think. Introduce yourself, Doug. Doug Brenn from Berry City Fire. I don't have an idea how much time it would take to write down or make a list of what you desire to have in the scope of work. We probably have some of the information within, actually, most of the information is in the televate report currently. So I guess it would be just kind of honing it down to exactly what things that we want to see in the scope of work for the next phase of this program. And if we thought we had an idea on how much time it would take, I would, I'm not going to volunteer, so to speak, but I think that Joe and I could probably get together with Brian, excuse me, Brian and Montpelier, and put our heads together and probably come up with a few items to go in that scope. I would like to introduce that Rick or from Televate is connected. He was in the waiting room and I got too involved in the discussion and so perhaps he would like to explain, Rick, there are questions about not having him, Cheney particularly, not having enough detail in the scope of work by using the proposal. And would you like to answer that? Yeah, I got that. If there could repeat the question, I think we provided sufficient scope, but I'll be happy to answer a direct question. Sure. Kim is wanting more detail as he had before in the need assessment. And myself and Doug, when we were working with you, felt that your proposal plus the need assessment not laid everything out of what you were going to do. And he's asking for more step-to-step deliverables. Is that correct, Kim, Cheney? Essentially, but if I think I'd be happy if Doug Brent and Joe and Brian Pete would get together and agree on exactly and talk with Rick Burke, but I'd like to know exactly what's going to be done and you know, at least I don't need, I need an outline of the specific tasks that are going to be done and if there's a timeline for creating them because I would like to, I'd like to know that somebody's keeping an eye on it. Well, it is. Doug Hoyt is keeping an eye on it. And I guess for the fact that we're, this is, rather than to spend anyone's more time, I would rather have Doug and Joe and Brian spending time on the actual RFP material instead of laying out the task that they're actually doing and achieving them so we can hit our target deadline of June 1st. Yes, yes. So if I may, first I want to, I'm very grateful to, you know, to the board and the membership for inviting us back to support the next phase of the project. So I didn't take the opportunity to thank you the last time because I wasn't sure whether or not we would actually get to this stage. So I'm really grateful to be here and you have my commitment as we did on the first project that will give you a, you know, a high quality product that will support your needs. And, and, you know, if we need, you know, a little bit, if we need some additional documentation on the steps we have to undertake, I'll be happy to provide it. You know, we're very, we're a very process-driven organization. So Dom and I, whenever work we do, we work to a plan. And so we develop the plan in order to put the budget and the proposal together. So we, Kim, you know, as we work the first project, there was some additional detail in there that came in even after we had done our first project and, you know, first cut at the contract and we gave you some additional information. So, you know, I've certainly worked with Doug and Joe and whomever if the board needs some additional information on what we're going to do. The process is, you know, is fairly intricate, you know, but I mean, you know, we've done, we've written a number of RFPs and so we, right now we have, the good news is that during the first phase of the project, we actually gather a lot of data that is required in order to put the RFP together. So with Joe's help and Dom spent, you know, two, three days on site, we visited it outside, took a lot of photographs, documented a lot of equipment. Joe has done some additional documentation of what's on site. So, you know, and as we commit it, you know, we were going to create a structured RFP or RFQ, whatever we want to call it. That, you know, is compartmentalized radio equipment, site development, radios, radio consoles, so that, you know, and that a vendor could bid on all our portions of it and however you want to do it, it's really up to the board how you want to strategize it. But our goal is really to create a comprehensive request for quote that that we could go, you know, that and again, interacting with the city of Montpelier, if their procurement department needs something specific in there, we'll certainly provide that. Every procurement department has a different approach, but you know, we're not really procuring it to stage, but it would be fine with, you know, interacting with them to ensure that it satisfies their particular structure. And so, you know, the first thing is really in the documentation. So, we've got it, we've got to create a list of the information that needs to be documented. And we're going to certainly follow what we agreed in the report would be the priority ones. So, that'll all be documented. And when we create the RFP, we're really creating a requirements, a list of requirements. This is what is required. This is what we need. And then we also create a table, a spreadsheet where the vendors would say we comply, we don't comply or we comply with the exception so that when you finally get to the contract, you know exactly what they and what is being purchased and what they've committed to provide. And that allows for a cleaner contract development and management of the implementation. So, the steps in that process, you know, are develop a draft, run the draft by you, get approval on it, make some additions to it, and then, you know, certainly present it to the board as we've agreed once it's completed. But I can, you know, if there isn't sufficient detail in there right now, I'm happy to work with Doug and, you know, and expand it as maybe needed. Right now, that wasn't required, but if it's going to satisfy some, you know, someone needs some additional information, I'm happy to document it. Okay. In order, I have Doug Hoyt-Hannon and I have Joe's. Excuse me, Donna, can you kill that call-in user? He is so disrespectful. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, that's much better. Your hand is up, Doug Hoyt. Yes. Now, it's going to ask a question before I was being so kind to my friend Doug Brent, but I guess I need to hear what it is that is perceived to be missing from the scope of work that you want to see added in. We have a motion on the floor. I can respond to your, Kim Cheney, I can respond. All right, Kim. I think if Doug Brent and the people he described are, my concern was I didn't know there was anybody technically that was deeply involved with monitoring the progress. And if I'm, and I'm very happy with Televates work, but without an executive director, there's nobody representing us in that process. So if the people Doug mentioned are willing to undertake, if it were, you know, a role of monitoring the progress and keep us informed, then that would meet my concerns. Just to add to that, Kim, all the time we've talked about the RFP, it's been in conjunction of using the safety, public safety personnel in Bering, Montpelier, and Capital Fire. So they're definitely right at the table working on this together and wanting to see the deliverables being what they expect and what they need. Okay. I just wanted some reassurance that they're going to report back to us. Yes. Yes. May I contribute? Go ahead, Rick. We were definitely, it would be a serious mistake if we didn't consult with and work closely with with Joe and Doug and Jim and under Doug's supervision. So the document says that we work under Doug's guidance supervision, but it's essential that we continue the relationship that we established during the first phase, you know, with Joe and Doug and Jim and others. Because, you know, it's that, they're the technical leaders on your end. And the document that we create has got to reflect what we've, what we, you know, what we agreed to and drafted in our, you know, in our assessment. But now, you know, it needs to fully, you know, identify the requirements that each of you had. And they may have, they're going to evolve a bit, and they probably have evolved a bit because, you know, there may not be a need for radios or there may need to be a need for radios. But we didn't get into those specific details in the RF, you know, in the assessment. So it's time to get into those now. So, you know, we want, you know, certainly as soon as we're through here, Dom and I, you know, began, and we began architecting the structure of the project and the RF. But we need the input of the community there. And so we're going to work very closely, you know, with, you know, with the, you know, the technical leadership that, that we started with on the, during the assessment phase. Okay. Jim, you're muted, and you need to member to identify yourself. Jim Orton Barry. My familiarity with similar processes would be the final document will be a draft that we would get to approve at that point. And if there were corrections or remissions or inadequacies, we'd send it back before we approve the payment of it. So I would say that we have the final shot at it when they're ready to show it to us. That's not correct. And drafts along the way. But it is, it is that speciality, you have to have your public safety staff there. They're the ones who we're administrative more than technical experts. And that's what I'm saying. Absolutely. It's going to be the, the public safety officials will be involved in it. But from our involvement here at a board level, it's, it either passes or it doesn't, and we send it back. And that will be our oversight at that point, I would imagine. I'm sorry, Joe, I skipped over you. Your hand's been there. Please, your turn. Introduce yourself. Joe Algert. I just like to reiterate that we absolutely, myself, including the team would, would absolutely enjoy working with Rick and Dom again. We were very satisfied with the product that they produced. They were very responsive. And they listened. I, you know, I learned a lot from Dom and Rick. And I look forward to continuing this. I do ask the board in general that the public safety of people can't be mind readers. And I need to know exactly what you're, you're getting at. Because if, if, if you have specific needs or wants that, that really needs to come forward to chief Hoyt. And then it needs to be disseminated down to Rick and his staff, but also to us. So I ask, please, we're not mind readers. If you have specifics that you are, are alluding to, we need to bring them out now so that we can vet them through efficiently. Thank you. Donna, I'm waiting to comment. Okay. Stephen? Yeah, I'm just asking you. Introduce yourself, Stephen. Stephen Whitaker. I'm wondering where and who made the decision that Doug Hoyt. We've got two competent attorneys on this board and who designated Doug Hoyt as contract manager. Because I feel like the folks that you're proposing to rely on are not on the board and they don't have a fiduciary obligation to the voters who vote, who appropriated this money. So I'm, I'm concerned that I guess I want to know how the decision was made that Doug Hoyt was going to manage the contract. Okay. Well, two, two very strong pieces is one, he's an appointed by the Montpellier City Council. Two, he's a former police chief who started the dispatch system that now has the contract with Capital West. So he has one of the most expertise in the public safety communication fields of anybody on our board. And he's an officer of the board and that's who we've used in the past to deal with contracts. No, this, but this board didn't decide to use him rather than one of the attorneys. It hasn't been up for discussion. I believe it's another. If the board members want to change that then they are free to do so, Stephen. Anything else you'd like to comment on? Okay. I see Kim Cheney's hand up. Kim Cheney, I would not be willing to undertake that because I don't have the technical knowledge to be useful at it. Yeah, it's not a legal approach actually this time, is it? Well, it's some of both. We have a motion on the table. We've had a lot of discussion. The motion is to go after more detail. And in fact, I think you named me and Doug Hoyt to do so. I strongly encourage you not to vote for this motion. Okay, all in favor say aye. All opposed. I'm sorry, Kim. I'll vote for my own motion, but with a discussion, I actually, I'll withdraw it as long as the second will because I'm satisfied that we do have some technical participation. Okay, so the second was Jim. Jim, do you agree to withdraw the motion? I didn't make the second. Oh, I'm sorry. Justin made the second. It was seconded by me and I agreed to withdraw. Okay. All right, so motion's gone away. Now, along with this contract, we have an upfront payment of 50% of $14,857. This was really important in a short-term contract and also because we have such a clumsy way of getting our signatures and checks written last time they didn't get paid for months after they did all the work on a huge project. And I didn't want this to fall by the wayside. So I would entertain a motion to pay Tel Aviv as per the contract, $14,857. So moved. Jim Ward. Doug Hoyt second. And Kim, Cheney has a question. Well, I haven't seen an invoice, but that's typical. No, the invoice, no, don't have an invoice. I'm having a request for payment. A warrant will be done. The invoice is in the contract. Well, I think we should have something. We should have something that responds to it. I want them to get paid on time. I thought it was shameful the way we behaved last time, but I do think it was under your control. But I do think we need to make a good record. We'll ask Rick to send us a printed invoice and it will go with the warrant where you do your signatures. So you'll all get it delivered to you electronically. Tonight at this meeting, we're asking for payment. We'll generate the invoice and we'll generate either the electronic signatures or we'll do the warrant at the Montpilier police station for signatures. Okay, that will satisfy me. Okay, so the motion is to make the payment all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Great, unanimous. Thank you. And Mel, I'm sorry, maybe I should give you a chance to say you abstained. You don't have to abstain, even whether or not you were around at the time. You're muted. That's what I am assuming is that for the things I think I understand, I'll vote. And for the things I don't understand or I don't have any background with, I'll abstain happily. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is dealing with the State House update. Doug Brent and Joe. Donna, can I just interrupt? Sorry. Can you give me the exact number again? It's 14,857 dollars. All right, thanks. Yep. So with Doug Brent, Joe Alters would like to share what's going on in the State House. We have this wonderful recommendation from the Public Safety Commissioner and it's in the governor's budget for public safety infrastructure and the commissioner is recommending at 1.3.2 million dollars to the capital region. Now, did everyone attend either Montpelier or Berry's City Council meeting where the twin team did their presentation? Did anybody miss it? I'm just, you know, Doug Brent can say more or less if everybody's already at least seen it once. Yeah. Jim Ward? Yeah, unfortunately I was tied up both evenings working, I had a class last night, but Joe Alters was pretty much updated me on what the presentation probably went and thought it went quite well. Okay. Doug Brent, you want to comment on where things are now and how you felt about the council presentations? So I, can you hear me? It's Doug Brent. Can you hear me, Donna? Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure before I said too much. I think that the presentations went well. Again, we put a lot of time into this and along with Chief Pete from Montpelier, Joe kind of speaking for Berry City as well as for the capital mutual aid where he's vice president and myself. I don't think any of us were crazy about being the lead speaker on it, but as I joked at the council meetings, I got the short straw. So I don't mind speaking about it and I think we had some good questions and it was very reassuring to know with the amount of work that we've put into this and in such a short amount of time, working with Commissioner Sherling and his captain Lance, Lance Burnham, that we did a lot of work in a short amount of time and tried to get across what we're needing to and certainly the televate report was an important part of our presentation and we look forward to seeing what more information Rick has to offer hoping that the legislature will look kindly on us and grant us the money that we need for our area and I don't know if the CVPSA had really ever looked at it in the same terms that we did but a couple of those were what's the population that are served by both of the dispatch centers. It's about 75,000 people. It's about 750 square miles and we have some real important state infrastructure facilities that lie within our service territories. We have 27 major state office buildings and things as well as the capital that lie in the catchment area of our dispatch centers and so we feel real strongly that we need these tools in order to move forward and do it in the right manner and I think I've never made any secret right from the start about this. This to me is all about firefighter safety and getting the best tools out there in the field for our field forces to use. I told you before, I told you this story, I haven't blazing in my mind until the day that I die doing CPR on a firefighter and it's not fun and if there's tools that can afford us to do a better job out in the field then we need to do whatever we can to make sure that our field forces are protected that way and I'll shut up and if there's anything left that Joe's got to add on, sorry that Brian can't be with us tonight but that's kind of where we're at. Okay Joe, you want to make some comments? Yeah, Joe Algeworth, Barry City. No, the chief pretty much covered it all. We have been working with the commissioner in developing pretty much all the aspects that the legislature has asked us. We assisted in developing the application process that will lead to their requests for the funds. We testified, we provided plenty of literature actually quite a bit. I think we may have overwhelmed the committee just a little bit, the senate committee but we supplied basically the same to the house committee also. Our project is head over heels ahead of most of the state. A lot of people haven't prepared, a lot of people haven't done the due diligence that we're doing and I have to use the televate report that was provided by Rick's staff, that that was really the gold standard that we used to really to push this forward so I'll be quiet now. That's good to know. We spent a lot of time and money and Rick a lot of work. Anyone else want to talk about the state health portion of the capital region application? Kim, you have your hand up. Yes, after the meeting I had a talk with Joe Algeworth and Doug Brent and I think I had two factual errors that they corrected for me. One, I understand there now is a contract signed between Cap Fire and the city. Second, I guess the commissioner Schirling has made it clear that PSAP is not involved anymore. I think his position is evolved on that point, but they both make a difference to me. So Joe and Doug, I found our post-hearing conference helpful and I do want to set the record straight on those points. Thank you. Okay, I did write a letter in support of the state funding, the capital region plan. I saw it totally aligned with the fact that we spent money on the need assessment to find out what we needed. The board approved an RFP to help implement that equipment and we all knew that the cities were looking for money. We were told that public safety authority didn't have the capacity or the rating to get any kind of bond bank to help us do the financing. So we were out of the possibility of dealing with any kind of federal or state grant money. I felt it was in totally support of what the board had done up to that point and wrote a letter supporting them being funded. If the board members object to that, I want to hear it. If Stephen objects to it, that's just his opinion. So I would just really like to confirm that that's where the board is at or not. Okay, Justin, hands up, then Jim, then Kim. So I absolutely support this. I made some comments at the Montpelier City Council meeting last night about how frustrated I was with this process that were unrelated to us securing these funds. I think this is a great idea. This is a great idea. My frustration stems simply from the fact that I don't think CVPSA has been given clear guidance about what we're supposed to do and it is frustrated to not be told what we're supposed to do because it creates more work for everybody. Yes, yes. Jim, your hand is next. I just wanted to pass along a nice comment that I heard. Chief Brent told me of your telephone call to the committee and he says she was just absolutely eloquent in the way that she presented it. Oh, thank you. Brent definitely had a much more prepared presentation, but between all of us in the different styles and there were other regions there who had people from their dispatch places or their firefighters. And it was very impressive. The committee may have started out behind in hearing enough, but that one day they really did good work. Kim, Cheney, your hand is next. Well, look, if we get the money, everything's wonderful. If we don't get the money, I think CVPSA will have a task which is to have a real regional authority that can figure out how we're either going to get what the grant doesn't cover or if we don't get the money or none of that, then we've got a whole new problem. But those things we can, it's a preview of coming attractions or perhaps not a preview, but time will tell. Okay. I don't see any other hands on this topic. The one that's underneath of it, Stephen, you're muted, please. I'm trying to talk. Is that I've been approached by the Public Safety Service and this gets really confusing. Initials are the same. Stephen, you're not recognized. The Public Safety Service is also got an allocation before the Senate government ops and the deputy commissioner approached me to write a letter of support from Central Vermont Public Safety Authority that we support getting free space on any towers they put up. Now, is there any reason I talked to Doug Brent as far as Barry Far, they thought it was a good idea. I talked to Brian Pete. He thought freeze, sell, tower space was a good idea. We know that this is like, you know, I don't know, four or five years out, but it would help improve coverage. So it's a straightforward letter of supporting the Public Service Department's request for more money for more sell towers and that indeed we would greatly appreciate freeze tower space for land mobile radios. Kim, Cheney, your hand is up. It shouldn't be, so I'll take it down. I'm still waiting to speak on the last topic. You mute me every time I try to. Stephen, this is a board discussion right now, Stephen. So I'm sorry, so all the words are not on the board and you left. So I'm talking about the free tower space. Would the board feel more comfortable of actually get a motion to make this letter of support or is a general consensus enough? If you're looking for a motion to go. No, I don't need it unless you need it. If I have your consent. That this is along the path we want. I'm back to why wouldn't we want free tower space? But Doug Hoyt, your hand is up. Doug Hoyt talking. I need to be clear. The free space on towers is free space for who? Public safety agencies. They're negotiating with their vendor who's creating the towers that they're going to give free space to public safety entities to put what they need up there. It is most likely hand radios. All right, so it wouldn't be wouldn't be on any towers that we have because we don't have any towers. No, it's on their new towers. They're doing this tower expansion. They have this huge contract. It was some time ago when the valley was at public safety. He came to us and talked about that AT&T had this commitment to outbuild more towers. He saw it five years out and that was like two years ago. It's those towers. It's new cell towers they're putting up around the state because they are increasing coverage for citizens. Instead of charging public safety to put whatever they want up there, they would offer them free space. It doesn't tell you how much just is at least I feel a change in attitude that we would want to cement in legislation. Okay. You answered my questions. Thank you. That makes sense. Okay. Doug Cheney, hands up. Too many buttons to push. Yes. Members, say your name. No, I don't have any further comments. Okay. All right. All right. So I'll go ahead and write this letter. They appreciate our support and I think it would be good for us to have a good relationship and proving our relationship with them. Thank you. Doug, I'm still trying to speak. Let Stephen talk before he has a heart attack. Okay. If he promises the million. All right. But besides public comment, whatever space we give the public to comment, on what we're discussing, is really up to the board. And so indeed, if you feel I'm not giving people enough time in the general public, tell me. But for right now, Stephen, we're going to give you a couple minutes to talk about our previous discussion. I'm asking for the same benefit you give to Altsworth and Doug Brandt. They're not board members. You need to manage this in a fair and equitable manner. I was calling on their expertise, Stephen. I asked them to speak. I have expertise as well. You're misinformed about the towers that the public service department is proposing. They were asking for $51 million for 100 new towers. The institutions committee voted them $21 million. And those towers won't be bid out for construction until the sites are identified a year from now, because they haven't even done the mapping of the cell coverage. So the information about asking for approval, these are not AT&T's first net towers. They don't own those towers to grant you free space. That's not retroactive under the first net contract. But back to the other discussion about the legislative business, the chair was, the chair of the government operations committee was befuddled on the ambiguity and the confusion between what the city of Montpelier, the city of Barrie, what Capital Fire Mutual Aid and what central Vermont Public Safety Authority, and she really was beside herself with confusion because there is no unified plan or proposal for who's doing what for whom. And that's very fundamental to the existence of this organization. And that's why adherence to the charter is so crucial. We disregarded the charter on so many things that we have lost our way. And we're wondering- Okay, Stephen, we've gotten off topic. I'm sorry. We're not going to get into charter discussion. Stephen, can you tell me the name of the chair for the minutes? What's the name of that chair? Jeanette White. J-E-A-N-E-T-T-E. All right. Next item is opening up the organizational meeting. So we need to make a formal decision on are we still going to continue to meet on the second Thursday? Or is it going to be at 7 p.m.? Is it going to be remote? So first, let's talk about the day. People want to keep the same second Thursday? Thumbs up? Okay. And do they want to stay remote? Thumbs up. Okay. Now just have a few things to share in that open meeting law packet from the Vermont League. There were several things about if you're fully remote that we do have to do. So I'd really like people who are willing to read into this really deeply because we have the option to and the need to not only post printed, but we have a choice to post our meeting so much printed and so much electronic if we're fully remote. It's very different. If we meet live, we have different kind of filing, posting of agendas. So when you make this decision, there is another decision that's happening. Some of it's more helpful. Some of it's less work, more work, you know, but it will fall on, particularly the secretary and the chair, but even some of the rest of you, those kind of decisions. So I guess I'm going to actually ask for a motion, but there's actually another part to it. So we have the day, location, and we have what are our designated posting places. Right now we post in the two city halls a printed agenda and our two libraries and in some situations when we're required a third, we do the senior centers in both Berry and Montpelier. Electronically, we don't have any set place. Would you want to define anything more than those two city halls, the two libraries, and one needed the two senior centers? Kim, Cheney, is that hand really up? Yes. And Mel, then Mel's after you. Could they be on the website? They're always on the website. Yes, that is one of the places. I didn't mention that, but it's so automatic. Yes. And you mentioned the League of Cities memorandum. I wonder if you could, is that on? Yeah, I sent it out. It actually says, oh, I have that fuzz. It says Vermont League of City and Towns, Model Public Record Policy and Guidance. What's the date of that because I lost it? I'll resend it. I'll resend it. With something we're going to have to study, even though there's some decisions we need to make tonight, there's a lot of subtleties within it. Please resend it. But they have a whole checklist and script for if it's a hybrid, if it's fully remote, just like they do live. So yes, a real resend it. Some of the pieces I feel like we can make the date, location, and as we did, we're going to be remote, and that's three biggies. If we can designate, agree on posting places, that would be good for tonight. Some of the other things that I'm going to bring up, I think may take a little longer discussion. One is they suggest you really appoint and designate someone custodian of all the records. And that custodian would then be the one to be the point person for any records request. No matter who gets it, would then go to that person and that person would assist and know what the rules were and help dealing with that request. And they become then the catalyst of our reference point and almost our in-house expert. Now I did talk to Justin, and I think on a weak moment, he said, oh, I think I might do that. Are you still thinking that way, Justin? I'm happy to do it. I do have some logistical questions, and so far as like, if you're asked for records that are not in your possession, is the idea here that that particular person would then email all the relevant parties on the committee and say, hey, look, I need you to forward me all emails on this particular topic. I'll compile them and get them to the, yeah, that's fine. You either direct them to send it to you or you direct them where they go, but you help them. And likewise, if they ever get anything direct request to them, instead of them personally doing it, they should go through the custodian so that you know what's going out and you're keeping track of it. Here came the request. Here's the response because even though it's our personal records in some way, it's still under the umbrella of public safety authority, so we need to have some guidance and assurance what went out and what didn't go out. And people need help sometimes figuring it out. I'm happy to do that. I am going to make one request, which I will send out by email, which is that everyone create a separate email address for CVPSA business, which is something that I'm planning on doing to just create a Justin Dreschler underscore CVPSA secretary at Gmail email address. I think that's going to make everybody's life a million times easier if we just correspond with CVPSA business only through your CVPSA email. It's very, very easy to just create another Gmail address and Gmail profile. So that would be my request, which you don't have to do, but I'll be really mad if you don't. And you're going to put that in an email remind us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Okay. All right. So I got all involved in some of these steps and Mel, I skip back over you, although I put your name down here to call on you. So you have space to talk. Just back to the subject of where to do it online. I know Barry city posts practically all their meetings, agendas on front porch forum. I don't know if that's something that would be of interest. Certainly. Right. So for the minutes we're deciding, Kim, you're back. Was your hand still up? Well, I'm on favor of it. On front porch would have to be in both cities, of course. Well, you can put it on front porch and just mark all the cities. I mean, they, you know, they'll go to all of them. I'm not sure how it works, but yeah. Okay. So we have this second Thursday. I forgot the time. I like seven o'clock because for once I get supper. City council, you never get supper done. But what's the time preference for the board as a whole? We had been 630 and I moved it to seven. Do people like seven? Does it work? Okay. Cool. So second Thursday, 7pm remote. And Justin has volunteered to be our custodian of our records. All right. See, now I had some other notes. What else do we have? Oh, we're going to, okay. So, and we're going to post at the two city halls, our website, of course, which we do website, two city halls, libraries, senior center when we need to, and a front porch forum. Donna, is there a Barry senior center? Is it just Montpelier? Barry and Montpelier. I do the same in both cities. Yeah. There are some of our, go to our charter, some of our hearing request three places instead of two. Okay. Oh, we also need to decide on our standard format for our video. Right now, we are using Orca. We have had requests to also use Zoom and keep our own recordings. I have opposed this because it means once you make a record, you have to keep it up to a year. And you have to make it available to the public. So we need to decide as a board what our format's going to be for our recordings. And then if indeed, if it stays with Orca, they put it on YouTube, it's there forever. If we do it any other way, then we're going to have to keep the records. What's the board's pleasure? I'd like to comment on this when you get a chance, Donna. Steve Whitaker. Sure. Justin's hand went up and then Jim. Does anybody know what the consequences are of a hard drive fails when you're keeping one of these records? I suppose I just keep these things and I keep a hard drive in a backup and the hard drive fails. Does anybody have any idea? The sad, sad day, but there you are. I don't know what you do. I'm just wondering legally what the consequences are as long as there's no ill, like bad faith. Well, I mean, the base lifelong records are still minutes. And minutes are about the only thing that's really important are your motions. And that's what you hold accountable to. So minutes are the Bible, so to speak. And they're kept long term. Recordings have one year life. So that was good. I only found that out more recently. That's a one year life, one year and a day from the time they recorded. And these rules will last for a year, correct? The rules we're adopting right now is what I mean. Like we go back next year and we re-adopt whatever rules we want to adopt, correct? Yes, yes. I mean, for us, and we can change them. But the idea of your organization, you set out a tent, this is what you're going to do this year. And as always, the board has opportunity to change it. But I'm filled back to once you have those recordings, it's like Brent did some recordings and somehow we have to get them from him and save them somewhere. And I know I don't want to be the one. I don't want to put it on my computer. It's definitely an ongoing concern. I think that the, I would do this. I'm happy to do it. I'm not going anywhere. But it is tricky because there is no, the problem that I have with this is the same problem that Donna has, which is that Stephen, I am going to strangle you. Can you mute yourself just for a hot second, man? So the problem, the only problem I have with this is that CVPSA as an entity doesn't have some place. I just can't hear myself, man. You're killing me. PVP, no, I'm good. CVPSA as an entity doesn't have a good place to store these for the long term. This is Montpelier City Council. Montpelier City Council is going to stay forever. But we don't even have a place to physically store these. Again, I'm happy to do this as long as I'm on the committee. It's not hard for me, but it's a legitimate concern. I think it's a legitimate concern is what I'll say. Someone's got to take it from you if you leave. Yes. And that's, I think that's a very real concern. Even though I don't think this is a difficult thing to do, I think the, the, the idea that it could be difficult is a, is legitimate. Right. And okay. Other board discussion around whether to just depend on ORCA or to do ZIM, Jim? As you know, I've been a huge supporter for a long time of access to public records and following the rules, but at the same token, at the same time, if we are creating official requirements that put upon us legally, I think we have to be very cautious. I would suggest that we post them in very identifiable places that we've done in the past that meet the minimum requirements by law. We do not want to create any additional records that are not required that we, that we will have to make publicly available to people that we do not have staff. As Justin just pointed out, we don't need to have a home. So they're going to be doing the search warrant at your house, Justin, when they look for the stuff. So I would just say that I'm all for having the meetings posted any place anyone wants to post them, but from an official requirement from us, we need to be number one cognizant of the fact that the work is being done by volunteers. Someone has to go put that poster up on the Senior Citizens Hall in Barry and in the libraries and that takes time. And as you well know, Donna, you know, you're taking the brunt of it. So I would say from this official annual declaration of how we're going to meet the public records law, we only include the bare minimum that's required by law. Okay, but that goes along with tapes as well. Okay. And yeah, recordings, particularly what we're talking about. Orca, there's a disagreement with Stephen that as far as any advice received that's written or from the league were only required to record it. We're not required to have a contract with the person recording it. We're not controlled to have custody and control. It goes to YouTube and lives forever nearly. So if I understand, if it's my understanding correct that Vermont leads the cities and town recognizes that orca recording our meetings meets the minimum requirements of the law. Yes. Yes. And I suggest we do no more than that. And not only that, but if you go to YouTube, you don't need a link. You just put in CVPSA and then a bunch come up and then you put the date. I mean, it's really accessible, which is what I love. And there's plenty of public computers around libraries and people can find it. Yes. The one thing I don't have, which I'd hope to have by tonight from Orca was the cost of getting copies because it is cost it would be charged to make an actual copy to own it versus to view it. Kim, Cheney, you want to talk before or after Stephen? I don't know when you put your hand up. Kim, you're muted. I don't watch Orca. The discussion has answered a lot of my questions. I didn't know. He just clarified that anybody can sign up and get it. Yes. Yeah, the recording. Literally the initials. I was really impressed. CVPSA, poop, up at Pops. Is there any reason why you as host couldn't just record and if anybody wants to review it? Because we used to, I used to get a notice from Zoom that I could get the recording by with a way. The problem with Zoom is it becomes individualized. It's not open to the masses like your website. You have to modify it and provide a link to each individual to come in and look at that copy. And not only that, but once you have that copy, Kim, which we've been talking about, is then you have to maintain it and keep it available up to a year. Okay. Well, I'm happy with YouTube then. All right. I'm going to let Steven talk now if all the board is done. All right, Steven. Yeah, I'm concerned that the league is not the last word on archiving requirements. I've been in discussions with the state archivist and I've never heard there's a one-year subset on record retention. The legislative bodies are required to file a record retention plan with the Secretary of State and have it approved. And that has different lengths of time for different categories of records. But there's never been a one-year disposal window on videos that I'm aware of. Yes, it came out this year, Steven. I'm looking at the statute and there's nothing saying that one year. Okay. And now I'm also looking at it says the legislative body shall record. It does not say you can rely on Orca. Orca and I have had conversations and they are under no obligation and nor do they want to be to make public records copies. So the way I read the law is that CDPSA is required by law to make a recording. And then you could put that as most legitimate organizations do, put that up on your website so people can download it at their own pleasure. This is not as complicated as you're making it sound. But I am willing and intending to pursue this. And I think it's not appropriate for you to be giving legal advice to a board and maybe guiding them to make decisions that are not consistent with law. All right, Steven, anything else on this topic? All right. I will send the email. I got a direct email from Megan Wheaton from the state administration. And she sent a statement of the one year and link to the big website. And she said it was relatively new. I also have an email which I'll forward you from the Secretary of State, Jenny Poster, P-O-P-R-O-S-S-E-R. And she also talks about whatever format you decide to record it in becomes your standard format. So if we assign Orca as our vendor, then we could even hunt up their technical language of what kind of video format they have. That becomes our standard format. And then whatever copies you make is in the standard format. Even making a copy of a standard format can be costly, but definitely you do not have to change your format to that which the person requesting a copy that's not standard. You don't have to do that. I'll send that to confirm what I'm telling you. So for now, we're going to accept Orca as our vendor. Jim Ward? Madam Chair, I believe this question has been asked and answered. I recall a motion that we were going to seek an opinion from the Mott Leagues of Cities and Town and then abide by their decision in terms of their legal advice on this. So I think you've already done what we agreed to do and we move on. Okay. But I do want to send those two other pieces out. But if indeed what I've said so far answers that question, that's fine with me. Okay. In terms of whether or not Orca is an adequate representation of recording the meetings for the law, Mott Leagues of Cities and Towns has said that it is. So that someone wants to challenge that and have at its very courts on State Street. Okay. I think I've covered it. I do want people to I'll be sending out the model for public records that Leagues puts out and look at it and make sure we're hitting all the check marks. Some of us a little awkward because it's definitely a change in operations. It's getting a little more formal, making sure we say our names when we talk and a few other things like starting the meeting with a format. So we're going to need everybody's help to do that. Now we need to elect officers. We have a chair, vice chair, secretary and treasurer. Nominations are open. Everybody jump at once. I nominate Donner. You want to do a slate, Jim? Do I want to do a slate? I guess I should explain maybe for Mel, that I'm chair and Doug Hoyt is vice chair of the board and Justin has taken on the job of being secretary. We've had a treasurer, Bev Hill, and she has chosen not to continue. At one point we had someone, Brent Householder, who was going to do that even though he wasn't on the board because the treasurer can't be on the board. And I have not found somebody to be on the treasurer. Something I'll keep working on and the rest of you also can reach out to anybody with accounting skills. It would be great. Right now tonight we have chair, vice chair and secretary. I move the current officers to be the slate the next year if they're willing. Okay. Anyone else? All in favor of that slate? Say aye. Hand raise. Aye. Any opposed? Raise your hands. Are you raising your hand up? Did you raise your hand against it? He was slow on the intake. Okay, so that's done. That was a psychological thing. No problem. Now, Stephen was telling me that we're behind on one of our appeals and so maybe we missed some formality. We did talk about some. Stephen, would you help me out because you came back with that indeed we hadn't answered one of the violations, but it was also tied with the request for some email copies. So help me out. Hi, Stephen Whitaker. It's an open meeting law violation related to the recordings and my request for same and it was required to have the board meet within 10 days and make a response within 10 days and I reminded you of that several times and you ignored it and said you'll deal with it on the 14th as if the live law didn't apply to you, but it's clearly a 10-day turnaround and you knew that because city council scheduled two special meetings to address similar issues related to recordings and you're on the city council. So you can't claim you didn't know that the 10-year 10-day deadline requires a special meeting. Okay, so this is about recordings and you're correct that we haven't done a motion but we didn't talk about it at the March 10th. They asked for more information and they got more information so we either can have a special meeting talk about it now or one of the option is failure of the public body to respond to a written notice of alleged violation within 10 calendar days shall be treated as a denial of the violation for purposes of enforcement of the requirement of this sub chapter. So you would if indeed we're over the 10 days you would assume that we're denying it. However you were at the March meeting when we discussed your challenge about our recordings and the board saw advanced advice about it and you didn't have any objections when we left that meeting. So I'm sorry I didn't clarify that you were giving us an extension but we but you were right there we were talking about it. No, I filed the violation after that meeting. No, we talked about it at that meeting. You go back to the application to record I didn't file the notice of violation until after the meeting because you didn't produce a recording that I asked for. Okay, okay, all right. Can I just get some can I just jump in here for the minute purposes? Go for it Justin. I just want to make sure that I'm correctly clarifying this. Stephen one meeting so February 10th meeting was not recorded and you filed an open meeting and to stop me if I'm wrong you filed an open meeting law violation notice or whatever you want to call it and we did not respond to that notice by calling a special meeting within 10 days. Am I correct that that's what you're saying? I don't have the date of the notice I presume the chair has that I believe it was copied to the whole board. I just need to know what meeting was it the February 10th it was the February of the March meeting that you're saying. All of our meetings have been reported Justin. I believe Brent gave me the recording of the February meeting. Okay, so can you just clarify? I would I just clarify your situation. You rely on the papers. Okay, then I'll just reference I'll reference your papers. I don't have those at my fingertips right now. He was protesting that we weren't using Zoom. Okay. Could you? And I answered him that he had attended that meeting and that his request for the MP4 copies were discussed. He also demanded that CVPS and I did copy people on this. Demanded a CPS and make a backup recording using Zoom features. I quote the statute of state statute 315 to 320 does not require us to make backup recordings does not require us to convert public records that exist in one electronic format to a different electronic format. And then I go on. So the next thing I hear and that's one of the other things within this model from the league. It has a structure to help us understand what you're trying to tell us, Steven. Sometimes your requests come very short of information. But this was responded to. And then you want an appeal right to the head of the agency. No, you're you're you're confusing the request and the open meeting. Appeals to the head of the agency only apply the public records request. Notice of open meeting violations are what have the 10 day response time by the body. That's what requires the special meeting. So the fact by the fall denial of it. Do not have to have a meeting. Oh, yes, you could fly in the face of the law. I wouldn't be surprised at all. I'll send you a copy of the statute. I have a copy of the statute. I'll read it. So Justin, if you understand exactly what Steven wants us to do at this point. All I want is just clarification for the record. Can you just see the just state your area grievance once again, concisely, please? I am looking up the notice sent to Donna. Open meeting log. I'm surprised that you don't have it. I'm sure I do. I just I just want you to be I just want to be clear as I just want to be very clear and dated March 10th. You were informed and I'm quoting you were informed tonight that the law requires recording meetings and that Orca media had recommended making the recording regardless of whether Orca makes a recording for broadcast. You were also informed in email that I request and require a copy of the recording and that you to not allow for offline viewing. You repeatedly refused several requests tonight to hit the record button. You had prior to the board that Orca asked that the board not record due to interference with their recording. Despite these events, you failed to make a recording as required by law and in our in violation of open meeting law. Yep, I'm reading that email also right now. So it's an open meeting law violation and you're saying that we needed to call a special meeting within 10 days of that email to discuss and respond to it, correct? Correct. Okay, and you're saying that because we did not do that, that we are again in violation of the open meeting law. Got it. So it's like a one is a one is the open meeting law violation and the one is failure to comply with your with your notice of an open meeting law violation. Got it. So I just like so Stephen, I just want to clarify if every time you put in one of these requests of an open meeting law violation is the is your reading of the law that we then have to meet within 10 days to discuss this your claim of an open meeting law violation. And then I just like to ask Donna and that's her understanding of the law. You can read the law yourself and you it's it's self evident that plain language. Yeah, I'm just I'm just asking for the minutes so that I can get your interpretation and then Donna can tell me her interpretation. Well, I'm surprised that Donna's on the Montpelier City Council, which has had the benefit of council and has complied with the law. So the fact that she thinks she doesn't need to for this organization is baffling to me. All right, I think I got what I need from you Steve. Thank you. Back to you Donna. Okay, I can actually send out this statute because luckily Bill Fraser cut it out for us and the City Council got it and we know we don't have to meet that indeed number two under the statute talks about the written notice of alleged violation and public body meeting within 10 days and it has two parts to number two. But number three says as I read to you failure of the public body to respond to a written notice of an alleged violation within 10 days shall be treated as a denial of the violation for purposes of enforcement of this requirement of the sub chapter. So I'll send this out to you. It's but it's right there and indeed, I think after trying to have two special meetings to appease Stephen, I would doubt that Montpelier City Council will have a third. It could, but it has a choice not to. But I think for now it would be really behoove the board in order to move off this. If indeed by reading the letter from the Vermont League that if you feel satisfied that we're not required to do a zoom additional recording and make a motion as such and deny the appeal, then it's just a clean slate and we're off again for another one. Jim Ward. That's exactly what I was going to do with Madam Chair. I move that we deny the appeal pursuant to the advice that we had from Montpelier City and town and in accordance with the statute that says a failure to respond within 10 days is a sign of denial. So we have met our obligation. I'll second that. Maybe I need to understand your motion, Jim. Are you saying that you feel with from the advice of the league we are not required to have a backup zoom recording? And that was the essence of the complaint. Steve wanted me to start recording that with zoom and I said no, because I didn't want to be responsible for that recording once it was created. So the violation is all around us allowing Orca to be our recording and not using zoom. There seems to be a number of different things that that he was citing, but what I gathered out of it was the failure to record it in accordance with the law, which Vermont Leagues and Cities and Towns has said we are in accordance with the law. They are in fact our legal counsel, they are attorneys that are advising their members. I'm sure it wasn't the secretary that no real reflection on the secretary, but I suspect the president that advised you was probably had been down this road before. And so and the second part of it is whether or not we called an emergency meeting to address his complaint. And the law is very specific that says that if they choose to not call special meeting, that's deemed to be the same as a denial. So what I'm saying is that I move that we deny them third appeal based on the advice from on both of those based on the advice from Vermont Leagues and Cities and Towns legal counsel or just Vermont Leagues and Cities and Towns. And the sighting of the statute that says that failure to hold a meeting in 10 days is the same as a denial. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. I just wasn't clear. Justin. No, that's fine. Okay. Everybody else clear on the motion? Yeah. Essentially what we're doing is affirming our previous denials. Yes. All right. Any further discussion on this motion? Yes. All in favor say aye. Great. Any days? What? Good. All right. It passed. Sure. Right. I got one question on our last topic. I'm not sure we resolved fully the concern regarding the format of the recording, whether it's done by Orca which converts to YouTube or whether we have to somehow do something with Zoom. But I don't think the law requires us to do it in any format. It just requires us to have it recorded. That's right. That's right. In fact, it even lists different ones you can choose in the model policy. So by us making the statement that we're choosing Orca for now, doesn't mean it can't ever change, but for now as our vendor is done. And that becomes our standard format for recordings. And is there any knowledge? Is there any knowledge on anybody's part that says that we have to have a contract with Orca? Nope. Nope. Again, Montpellier went through that. No contract is required. No custody. No control. And a person who was requesting record cannot dictate through the custodian what format the record will be. No. And I did ask Orca. They will make copies, but they will charge. So we would go to them and say we need this copy, but we don't do it until we know what the price is and we get paid for it and then we get the copy. So if they make a request for a copy and it comes from Orca and it costs $25 for the recording, then the person that is requesting the record has to pay the $25. Yes. It doesn't come out of the public fund. And they have to pay it before they get the copy. Sounds good to me. And I am still going to be seeking an estimate. So we have that in our file as an orientation, although it won't be exact. But that's what I've asked Orca to give me. Not only how much it would cost for a copy, but how long to get it. So then we can have that within our records. And so we can set up the correct expectation of anybody requesting records. Okay. Stephen, you wanted to say something short. You haven't already said. Don't repeat yourself. Please. It's not under any, it's not obliged by law to maintain the records, to preserve the records, or even to make copies available. And the Secretary of State's office said only if there was a contract allowable as an alternative, a recording strategy. And that's when I asked if we had a contract and you said no, we don't. Neither does the city. I also want to point out that Berry City keeps a copy in their own files in addition to going to the public access station because they adhere to the law in Berry. And keeping preserving a copy, the legislative body shall record. It doesn't say shall assume Orca's doing it for them and shall assume it takes care of our compliance or absolves us of our compliance. You're really playing fast and loose here. Okay. Stephen, the board has already made a decision. They voted on the issue before them. Anything else that's different than what's been said from anybody? All right. Any other business that wasn't on the agenda that somebody just thought of? All right. Otherwise, we can adjourn. Thank everybody for their patience. I will make sure you get another copy of that model of public records and try to spend some time with it. It's very interesting, very helpful. Thanks to Rick Burke for showing up tonight. Appreciate it. Yeah. And hanging out. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. And thanks again for supporting us, to elevate on our continued support of CBP as they and central Vermont public safety. That's okay, Rick. Don't worry about it. You're going to end up paying. It's going to cost you. All right. All right, folks. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you all for supporting the training problem. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. What do we make that out to? Jim, that's a good point. You got an invoice for me. Can you give me an invoice? Yeah. I'm going to read something. I mentioned it to the chief how they wanted to do it. He wanted to run it by the finance manager at City Hall. Even if it's just on their stationery. Yeah. I'm sure they can do something. We just didn't know which pool of money gets mixed together with who because it's coming from several directions. Well, if they have a vendor, maybe they can get an invoice from the vendor. And we can see their share and our share. That would be the best even, but something that we can put with our signature. We'll get back to it with some specifics on it. I don't know if the chief has left. I'm telling Rick the same thing. Want an invoice? I've sent directions to our finance manager to create it and submit it tomorrow. But before we go, because the deputy chief and Chief Brenner are still on, Dom and I talked today and we're going to be reaching out to you gentlemen to get your input to get this rolling along. So we'll be following up if not tomorrow, not later than Monday. So we'll get an email out to you. And we certainly want to begin the engagement right away. There's no time to lose. We've waited too long. So we're off and running. And the sooner we can have a meeting in the mines, the better. And I see Doug Hoyt is gone, but we'll certainly invite him to the show. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Bye. Rick, Monday's better for both of us. Friday's not good for, yeah. Okay. Monday's good. I'll get with Dom tomorrow and we'll send you some options and times. Thank you. See you to everyone. Thank you, Dom. Thank you.