 Seven o'clock. We'll go ahead and start the May 17th select board meeting 7pm. First order of business is to approve the agenda. Or are there any changes? I make a motion to approve the agenda as written. Is there a second? Sorry, Katie. It's been moved in. Any further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. All right. Consent agenda items minutes of the May 3rd meeting and the outside consumption permit for smugglers notch distillery. Make a motion. Move to approve the content agenda as written. I think somebody seconded. Danny second. All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any further discussion? I think we have a couple minutes early, but this is an opportunity. And not your only opportunity to speak as the public on anything that's not on the agenda. You are allowed to speak on items. While we're going through the agenda as well. So don't feel like this is the only opportunity to speak, but if anyone from the public would like to speak. On a topic that's not on the items below. I don't know. I don't know if I know we're talking about the chat feature. I'm not sure if they can still post in the chat, but feel free to go ahead. I think we can go ahead and then start select board business or do we need to wait till seven or eight? I think you can. I think you can go ahead if you like. All right. I know somebody, some, I think we can go ahead and move on to the public portion. Feel free to just jump in now, or we're going to move ahead towards the select board business. Okay. We're going to move on to select board business item. A consider a quest for entertainment permit. Yeah. That's, that's me. And we don't actually have a request right now. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a hold of. Let me just show something to you. So there was a little bond front porch form. Last week. Tom Murphy is a. Acrobatic comic. A lot of circus training. He lives in Warrie center. He's a very well-known author. I'm not a big fan of it. I'm a big fan of it. It's Bruce saving, I think, but he's going to, it's going to buy on. Maple street, right. We're that. Hope baby field. And I happen to be going through front porch form the other day. And I noticed that he has this. Events, which is. Limited. Limited number of people. I think he's limiting it to 80 people. on his property is clearly something that the entertainment permit contemplates issuing the permit for. And as I said, I've not been able to get in touch with Tom yet. So he hasn't not filled out an application. But I guess from my perspective, if the board is inclined to do so, you can look at this. He's got five to eight o'clock. And this is what he has for schedule with him. You can't see any of this, can you? I didn't share my screen. Let me, I'm sorry, let me share the screen here. Somebody should have interrupted me. Let's see here. Sorry about that. Okay, share screen. No, this is what I want to do. It says host disabled participant screen sharing. Can you enable it? You're on mute, Colin. I think you should be all set. Okay. Okay. So, Tom Murphy, that's this guy here in the red shirt. Odd Bill, he tours in Europe. He's got, this is a very professional show that they put on five to eight o'clock on Saturday, June 5th at 76 Maple Street, which is two doors to the right of the parking lot on Maple Street at Waterloo Center, Hopegate Park. This is what the schedule of events are. So five to eight, it does not go late into the night. Outdoor show at six o'clock, you know, it's going to go until about 7.15 and then we're going to have some evidently a small friendly dance band for about 40 minutes. The town has authorized this event for Tom in the past. It's never been a problem. So I guess if the board would consider it just to be kind to him, I mean, I'm sure he just has forgotten that he's supposed to have a permit, but if the board would consider issuing a permit for those hours and for that event and then letting me track him down, I'll be willing to do that. Any comments from the board? I guess my question is, is the barn permitted for events in any kind of zoning permit? I don't know. I just didn't know if there was a scenario that if it was like every time events happen at the Grange, they don't need to apply for a permit, right? But that's because of what their zone has. I'm not sure. I don't know that for certain. I think he's doing it outside. Yes, he is doing it outside. I just said that. Not in the barn. It's at the barn though. I don't see why. I would don't have a problem with it. I guess the question is, is in a typical scenario, if you were to apply for this permit, it would go to the board and give the public comment and give up, but he wouldn't have to alert neighbors or anything. So I mean, it seems like it would be just your standard permit. Right. And you the board doesn't meet next until June 7th. So this is one of those odd months. There's five Mondays in May. If it was any other month, there'd be one more meeting, but you don't meet until the 7th of June, and that's two days after this event. So I'm just trying to be consistent that we allow the I didn't put on the agenda where we were considering the entertainment permit for. I suppose I should have done that. But anyway, that's all I have to say about it. So you're concerned about whether or not it's the type of event that he's holding is allowed in that area. Is that what your consideration is? Concern is? Who are you asking? You, Mark Fryer. No, I was just trying to understand if his barn was already zoned for events and then why you would have to do an individual permit. But I understand that maybe it's not in the barn, it's in the yard, and then I think it's just the standard event permit. So I guess the just unique thing here is that we're basically potentially approving it without it having the permit. But I understand the timing problem and I don't have a problem with them. Well, I mean, I would still make him apply and I would still make him pay the fee. It's just that we're doing it a little bit in reverse. Again, if people are interested in what he's talking about doing, it's really this outdoor live show, which is these people doing vaudeville slapstick acrobatic routines and then a little bit of music and dancing on the lawn until eight o'clock. So it won't even be dark by the time they're done. And you said he's on this before and there haven't been any issues or complaints or anything correct? Yeah, he's done it at the barn at least once before Danny and a number of years ago he actually rented the Hope Davey Field and he had a big tent and he did a huge show there that the town allowed. We rented him the facility and he did a much bigger event than this and I think he did it over later than I know is at least two shows. It may have been three and there's never been any issue. And I think he's limiting the seating in this event to 80 people. It doesn't say that here, I don't believe, but I think I read that on court form. So yeah, I saw that on the event page at 80 is a cap. I can make a motion if you'd like. Sure. Okay, if I move to approve the event permit for Tom Murphy and Company on June 5th in the hours between 5 and 8. Bill, do you need anything else in the motion? No, I think that's good enough. Just think, Carla, when you in Chris's motion just put the event as described on his advertisement page. I did leave that out. Is there a second? Again. Can you further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Blush Hill Boat Access, Mike Bard, and there was an email today with a map if everyone has that. Yeah, I'll put that up. So sorry, Mike, I know you emailed me last week, but I'll let you take it away and then I'll comment. I don't know what you were planning to say. I know you just asked for this to be on the agenda. Well, your email did clarify things and what I was going to say is probably changed a little bit because the way the ordinance is written, it kind of doesn't because what the problem is is we had a non-no parking ordinance from one side of Blush Hill Road down toward the Boat Access. That is in place, but in addition to the Boat Access, there's, you know, the road down by the actual parking area and whatnot. There is no parking area that's very designated between the signs. There's no parking, you know, because of boats with trailers. I have frequently seen cars without trailers parked in that space. And it wasn't because I was not even there with the boat. I got so frustrated because I know one time the state police said, well, you should call. So I did call the state police and about 45 minutes after I called, the state trooper did come and said he would take a look because I had to go up toward Michigan Avenue to get some cell service. When I got there, I walked down and spoke to him and he said basically he has no jurisdiction, you know, there. And I guess one of the big problems is on the sign, it just says no parking. It doesn't say like a subsection, violators will be kicked in or towed. But after seeing what Bill sent out, it really doesn't cover that parking area, what we had as an ordinance. And maybe it could. Well, here's the deal. So this is the road here. Right. This is the road. And the yellow lines are the edge of the town's highway right of way. The green on this side and the green on this side is the state, is the state land. And our ordinance, I don't have the language up, but I sent it to you all indicates from Michigan Avenue down the left side of the road down to right the way you are now. It's to the entrance to the turnaround. So basically on the left side of the road here, this is where we are regulating no parking. And the no parking ordinance that the town has can be enforced by the state police. It can be enforced by the county sheriff or whomever. It has worked pretty well. This yellow line here, that's a horizontal line basically. Excuse me. That's the end of the town highway right of way. This area is the cul-de-sac, the turnaround. And you can see some cars and trailers up there in that picture. That land is owned by the state. We don't have the right to have an ordinance that says people can't park here. The signs that Mike is talking about that says no parking, you know, boat trailers or whatever are on the right hand side of this cul-de-sac. And those signs were put up by the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation. We put up the signs along the road. We can enforce that. But when, you know, this road before the mid-1930s, when the dam was built, this road went right across and it went over to Great Hill. And when the dam was built, the town discontinued the road from this point on. And the land reverted to the former landowners. And by that time, the state had basically bought all the land around the park. So we cannot regulate what happens in that cul-de-sac. And that's why I kind of said, and I did see Gad was on the Zoom. I would like to hear his perspective because I know there are a lot of boaters that really are not very happy because we see all the time in that no parking area, just a total disdain for parking there because they don't want to, you know, fall their kayak or their canoe or whatever, you know, another 100, 200 feet. You know, they see a close parking space and they totally ignore that, you know, space. Right. And the other thing too, Mike, and you probably know this maybe better than I do even, but this is not a designated fishing access by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. And if it were a Fish and Wildlife place, then, you know, the right-of-way basically goes to those who are fishermen and you're not supposed to go in there just to launch pleasure boats or kayaks. People do, but you have to give preference to fishermen. But this is not a Fish and Wildlife designated access area for the reservoir. The official access for that is over at the dam, I think, and maybe at Waterbury Center as well. But I don't know if Chad's on or not, but Chad's here, but I saw on the chat he says no audio or video capability. Sorry. So you can't, you know, again, I agree with everything you said, Bill. I know inside out all the Fish and Wildlife, but that whole area was improved by, I believe, Fish and Wildlife. It was improved by Green Mountain Power. Green Mountain Power. Green Mountain Power, when they got their new FERC license to operate the power dam over there, one of the things that they had to do was to improve the boat accesses in order to help improve water quality. And they improved the one at the dam and at Wash Hill, both dramatically. They put in new concrete pads, new pavement, and their goal for what they were doing was, I think, to make it easier for voters to get in and out, but also to turn up the water far less than they used to when it was, especially at Wash Hill, when it was just basically a gravel access down to the water. And it just got all silted up all the time. So it was not a Fish and Wildlife project. I'm sure that they were happy that it was done because of clean water. It's the Fish. But your issue though, Mike, it brings up the secondary point. And this is what I talked about last year when we adopted this ordinance. Having an ordinance that restricts where people park is a good thing. And most, I mean it improved dramatically up there after we put those signs up. People were parking all over the place early in the year last year. It was the first spring of COVID. People didn't have anything else to do. They couldn't go anywhere. So a lot of people were using the reservoir. And a lot of people were using that access, especially at this time of year, because the Watery Center State Park isn't open. So you can't get on the water from the State Park there. I haven't been up much this year to see how much it mirrors last year. But once we put the signs up, most people did refrain from parking on the left side. And they were able to, you know, the folks that lived there were much, much happier about it. But we still don't really do anything to enforce these regulations at all. It's just signage. And the State Park folks, I think, were out there last year. I went a couple times and left notes on people's windshields, telling them that this was important. And please pay attention to the rules. But I don't have the authority to write a ticket. I have two. I have said little nasty Graham saying, you know, you're in a no parking zone, but it doesn't seem to go very far. And you gave me the answer when you said, I didn't know if we were in control of that cul-de-sac. And definitely it appears it's not. So I don't know if it's an issue. You know, maybe it's something, you know, we could appeal to, you know, either Green Mountain Power or, you know, Fish and Wildlife to see if there can be some enforcement activity. I think it's Forest Parks and Recreation. Green Mountain Power just did the improvements or paid for the improvements there. But it's Parks and Recreation land, I believe. And the improvements are great. You know, it's great. And again, since COVID, there's a lot more use. But that's also that's what's created the problems. There's a lot more people using it. And people are parked way up the Michigan Avenue versus some parking. You know, it'd be nice to see if there was some additional parking that might have been put up there by, you know, either Green Mountain Power or Forest Parks and Recreation. Well, I like that. Chad's listening. After seeing your detail from, you know, it just, you know, any enforcement is really not in our valley way. Okay. Anything else on that? Or we'll move on. All right. Consider zoning enforcement settlement agreement potential executive session. I would recommend that you go into executive session for this and send out the motions that need to be made. And for those who are listening, Carla thinks she has the ability to put you into a private waiting room. This shouldn't take too, too long. If the board does go into executive session and Carla can't get that to happen, she'll just boot you off and then you can sign back in and she'll keep you in a waiting room until the executive session is over. So many want to read the motions. We start with that first one, Bill, that you email. I moved to find that premature general public knowledge of the town's litigation strategy in the town of Waterbury versus Darren Toboe case. Currently pending in the Vermont Superior Court Environmental Division would clearly place a select board, which has control over such litigation for the town at a substantial disadvantage. In light of this finding, I moved. Sorry, we got to find it first. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. For this finding, I moved to enter executive session to include the municipal manager and zoning administrator to consider pending litigation to which the town is a part. Can you include B2 so I can let people back in at the appropriate time? And town clerk. Thank you. Is there a second? Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, we are going to enter executive session for those. Looks like everyone is back in. Chris, would you like to make the motion? I'll move to approve a settlement agreement as proposed to satisfy a notice of violation for a zoning issue between the town of Waterbury and Aaron Tebu. Waterbury. Second. All right, it's been made and seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? I'll authorize the man. And yeah, I'm sorry about that. Also like to add that. We need to add that bill will execute. Thanks, Mike. Who seconded that? Katie. Katie, are you okay with the change? Okay. All right, it's been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. On behalf of the town, we want to thank Dina for all the work that she's done for us. She'll be leaving us in June. And if she's not going to be in the next meeting, this is our opportunity to say thank you. So thank you and good luck with retirement. Congratulations. I'm envious, Dina. I hope you enjoy your retirement to the fullest extent. Thank you. All right. Moving on the agenda. To managers items. Consider contract with Potter's tree. Healthcare for removal of roadside ash and trees. Well, you're muted. We have a grant from the state that Steve presented and talked to us about during the budget time. It's a $13,000 project on a $6,500 grant from the state of Vermont and a $6,500 match from the town. The project includes basically a tree and shrub planting in Hope Cemetery over here between Main Street and Manuski Street. That will be about $6,500 worth of the project will happen in the tree planting phase, which will be at the cemetery. And then the other $6,500 is to implement the first phase of the of the ash roadside ash removal project. If you remember a year ago, we funded an inventory to be done of street trees that the Regional Planning Commission helped us with to identify ash trees in the municipal right of way to determine what their health is and to determine what what plan should be put in place to help manage the emerald ash for a beetle. So I'm going to share my screen here. We sent out requests for proposals to four arborists and we received a bid from two of them. So this is the scope of work that we asked for and we sent out to the four arborists. There were 15 trees in all, mostly on Great Hill and Maggie's way and some on Shaw Mansion Road. And these 15 trees are all going to be removed. And the wood from these trees, any below whatever four inch limb wood, I guess, that gets cut off and shipped, the remaining portion of this wood will be moved down to the storage material area at the ice center. And then we'll be fucked up by the Rotary Club as a public service event to use for firewood for people who need firewood. So we got two proposals. You can see this one from Eric Potter. He proposed $4,570 to take down those 15 trees. Michael Roche with Vermont Arborists, he proposed $7,087. So our recommendation is to take the price from Eric. Now understand, this is a, it's a matching project. So in order to get the $6,500 grant, we have to spend $6,500. So when Steve Lott's speech put together this list, he had had conversations with Dan Sweet and other people who know about, you know, free removal and the like. So we started with this list of 15 trees and thought that that would come up close to the $6,500. Eric has given us a very good price. So we've already talked to Eric and we'll be probably adding four to six additional trees to this to get his price up to $6,500 because we've got to spend $6,500 in order to get the $6,500 tree planting grant. So there'll be a few more trees that are added to this, to this list. So with that explanation, I'll answer questions if you have them. But staff's recommendation is to award the contract to Eric Potter. He's got all the necessary insurance and we'll just negotiate with him to get enough trees to get it up to $6,500. Any questions? Bill, I mean, I don't know if you can answer this question, but are these already disease trees or are they just taking them out? Yeah, these are trees that are already showing some signs of weakness. They're not necessarily diseased. I don't think we have confirmation yet, Chris, that there's ash borer beetle that's been found in watery. I mean, it's likely here. I know there's been a case in Moretown and Montpelier has had several. So I wouldn't be surprised, but so far in our inventory, to the best of my knowledge, we have not found any trees yet that have the beetles in it. But as is with all life forms, the weaker specimens are more susceptible. So there's ash trees have, they're susceptible to a lot of different blights, if you will, both insecticidal and more, I don't know, I'm not a biologist, but from insects and from fungus and other things like that molds, they're susceptible and some of these trees, when they shouts start to show some stress in the crown, those are the places the beetle problem will go first. So the idea is to remove the weak trees from this, from our road sides, hoping to keep the beetles at bay longer. Do we need to make a motion of spending up to $6,500 or how do you want to do that? Yeah, you need to make a motion to, to authorize the, to approve the selection of potter for this, for this job and to, to authorize up to the $6,500 to be spent. All right, anyone want to make a motion? Unless there are more questions. I have a, I have a question. When the homeowners have the first right, if they wanted the firewood, or because again, they're probably going to have, I don't know, it could be good or bad, whether it's property improvement or, you know, some detrimental thing, you know, some people are going to say, well, that tree might be good for so long, you know, it's part of my view, you know, but I, I think that the homeowners should be given first rights to the potential firewood at whatever sale price they're going to charge. Yeah, I, I don't know that for certain, Mike, but I believe that's the case and there won't be any charge for them, but I don't know that for certain, but my recollection is, yes, the homeowners would first be offered to, you know, have the, have the word if they wanted it. Okay, thanks. Great. Any other questions? Take a motion? For the tree removal project, spending up to $6,500. Okay, is there a second? Katie. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Hi. Post. Motion passes. Danny, there's some going on with your microphone. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm having a little trouble hearing you. I'm not sure if anyone else is on the agenda. All right, next on the agenda, VSP resident trooper reports that were sent out, I think, by Carla with the agenda. They're also located on our website on Republic Safety, if anyone else is interested. I don't really have any report to make on it. It was fairly self-explanatory. If you have questions, you know, I don't have it right here in front of me. I thought I'd put it up, but I guess I closed it out. So I don't have anything specific to add. It's a fairly self-explanatory report. They're still working under kind of COVID protocols through March. That was the March report. Mark Mater, former select board member, former state trooper, still helps compile those reports that we get from Lieutenant White and puts it into this form. And this is Mark kind of running the show right now. And so they had 73 calls in March, which is kind of about normal, but things that they respond to. So I think this is important to show that, you know, we're not just covered by the trooper contract. We're also covered by Vermont State Police when those troopers aren't on or if there are multiple calls. Yeah, Danny, I'm not sure that you know, maybe we talked about this earlier when you first came on, but waterways contract is for 80 hours a week. We have two specific schedules, day shift and one night shift, but, you know, the it does not cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when the troopers are not working, or if they're sick or whatever, the other troops in the area obviously respond. But we get much quicker response time, of course, when the troopers are right here in town. Mark was the, is there still, they still talk about the COVID protocol as far as traffic tickets? I don't remember saying that, but that could be wrong. That was going to be one of my questions because I saw that there was a decline in, I think, stops. And I think it was somewhere in there and writing that they were trying to go back on those because of COVID. So I was wondering if they were going to start with going back and doing the traffic stops. Yeah. So it's been a long time since anybody has come here to actually visit with us. And it's difficult to get the troopers to be able to attend a select board meeting by Zoom. You know, one of them is usually on duty. And it's difficult to do that. I'm hopeful, as I talked to you last time, when we have our meetings in June, your next meeting is on June 7th, we will be back in person at that time. And I'm sure it's not going to be June 7th, but I'll work with Lieutenant White to try to get schedule a time where he and maybe one of the troopers can come in and just kind of reacquaint the board and the troopers with each other. Here we go. So they still, through March anyway, were limiting their responses. So that means that they're really not actively running a lot of radar and, you know, they're doing, they're doing patrols, but they're not, they're not using their standard operating procedures and their interactions with the motoring public is far lower now that they're on, you know, with these COVID protocols. So since the governor is suggesting that we're moving away from those protocols, I'm hopeful that they will begin to move back toward their more normal operating procedure, but I'll try to work with Lieutenant White to get them to a meeting, maybe sometime this summer, July, probably. That would be really helpful, Bill. I think, I think all the questions that I have are pretty nuanced that likely, you know, they would have the answers to. So that would be great to be able to talk with them in person. Yep. Okay. And then, Mark, I don't know if you see Dana's hand is up. Dana, go ahead. Yeah, actually, just a quick question about location data. I know they can't share location data for like certain types of infractions and things like that, but are they able to or do they share location data for things like traffic violations and things like that, just out of curiosity? Well, the answer thing is, I don't know. They don't typically do that. I'm not suggesting that they can't, and that's something that we can ask about. But, you know, typically what we get is aggregate information. They don't tell us that they stop five people on Lewinsky Street and four people on Stowe Street or anything like that. As a matter of routine, I certainly reach out to Lieutenant White when I get calls or emails from people, you know, I know that you've emailed me in the past. And a couple of months ago, I think I sent back to you this information about the fact that their COVID protocols are limiting their in-person interactions. But that's something that we can certainly talk about, but as a routine, we just, we don't get it. We can ask for it and see what they say. Yeah, then I think that could be interesting and great if they're able to provide it. So thanks. I appreciate that. All right. Any other questions on the VSP resident trooper reports? Okay. We'll move on to item C, Discuss Equity Training. Okay. So after our last meeting, I met with Alexia Venefra, who's here on the Zoom meeting tonight and Maureen McCracken. And we had a, I think, a fruitful conversation about what has happened in the past, some of the concerns that have been expressed, both at recent board meetings and past board meetings, and the whole idea about getting some training for the select board and, you know, maybe the management staff. We met for about an hour or so, a week and a half ago. And as I said, I thought it was a fruitful discussion. I told him at that time that on Vanny's recommendation, I had reached out to a woman by the name of Mary Gannon to see if Mary might be able to do something for us. I'm going to share something on my screen here. So I unveiled myself last Thursday with the Vermont Town and City Management Association. I went to their conference, which unfortunately was held by Zoom. We haven't had the ability to have an in-person meeting either. But we did have this very, very good session for leading equitable communities. And this, Alia Wilson is, as you can see there, she works for the City of Norfolk, Virginia. And she had a very good presentation that was made to myself and my colleagues, other managers from Cities and Pounds in Vermont. And, you know, had some very interesting things to say. I do have, I don't have the ability to send it out right now. I'll see if I can. But there was a slide presentation that went along with her verbal presentation that was pretty interesting. And there was some interesting informational materials that she shared. So I did have that training last Thursday myself. And I spoke with Mary Gannon about a week plus ago. Now I think it was Friday a week ago that I spoke with Mary the first time. And then I talked with her on Tuesday last week. We talked for about 45 minutes to an hour possibly and just, you know, kind of getting to know each other a little bit what the concerns were from the community and what I thought the board was looking for. Now Mary, just as an aside, she's an independent consultant and an educator. So I thought she worked with a remote partnership for fairness and diversity, which is in Brattleboro from what I understand. She's very familiar with that organization and has worked with them, but she does not, she's not an employee of theirs and is not directly affiliated with her. She shared with me some work that she has done with the town of Brattleboro and the town of Putney. She's also done a lot of work in New Hampshire communities. And it was a good conversation that we had. So I asked her to call me back. We ran out of time that first day and I asked her for some references. So we spoke on Friday morning just the other day, I mean on Thursday morning last week. And we kind of have been narrowing things down here, narrowing the focus. And I was hoping that she was going to be able to have a proposal that I could share with you for tonight. But when I talked with her on Thursday last week, she said that she was quite busy. She had commitments both on Friday and early this week. So she asked me if she could make a written proposal to share with me that she would get to me at the end of this week. Excuse me. So I told her, of course, that would be fine. I took some time today and called Peter Elwell, who's the town manager in Brattleboro. I've known Peter for a long time. And in fact, I knew his father a long before him. His father was the town manager of Brattleboro when I first started working here in Vermont 40 years ago. So I talked with Peter and he gave me some insight as to what Mary was doing for them. They put together a program where they are having ongoing training, and it includes both the board and almost all of the staff. And at some point, we may get to that point. But I told Mary I thought for right now, given what my sense was from the community, that the select board and myself and potentially Carla, maybe other folks at management level here might be involved. So anyway, Mary told me that she would get me a proposal late this week. What I told her was that I would share the proposal with the board at your June 7th meeting. We've already penciled in training to happen at your June 21st meeting. And I don't have an agenda yet. I don't have a reading list. I don't have anything. I'm waiting for the proposal that Mary's going to send, which will come this week. But I asked her if we could try to pick a date now. She threw out a couple of different times, and one of them happened to be June 21st. And I said, well, that's a select board meeting night. If we can have that training on that night, we can keep the agenda very very sparse for other business that night. Try to get through that very quickly and then have a couple of hours for her. We kicked it around a little bit. She thinks that probably at least for this initial training, she's thinking about four hours of time. We kicked around. Well, should we do it? Try to start in the late afternoon. Break for something to eat, and then come back and do the last two hours a little bit later. And in the end, she said, it's a little bit. Sometimes it can be a little bit heavy material. There's questions. And she said, I think it's better not to overwhelm them all at once. It's probably easier to do in a couple of sessions. So that's what I have to share for now. I can't give you specifics as to what she's going to do because I don't have that proposal yet. It will be the board's choice at the June 7th meeting to decide to move forward with this or not. Obviously, there'll be a cost component. I haven't even talked to her about that yet because I think that is far from the top of the issues of importance. I think we'll be able to find whatever money it is. I don't think it's going to cost us $50,000 to have a couple of hours of training. So I'm not too concerned at this point about finding the money for it. But I think that's what I can tell you for now. And I will likely share that information before the meeting on the 7th. Now, I know there's people here from the media, and I see Alexis still here. One of the things that I asked Mary and that I followed up with Peter, and I'm going to end up having to call our own legal counsel on this, the town of Brattleboro has conducted this training privately. It's something that the board does with the facilitator. Mary, sometimes she works with another woman. I didn't write her last name down. Her first name is Dottie. I know that. But anyway, this training, even though it will happen at a select board meeting, my expectation is that the select board will be able to go into whether it's called executive session or private section. When I talked to Peter, he told me that they have a clear opinion from their town attorney that for the purposes of training, the select board can meet with these people and do it in private. Mary's preference is to do it in private session. She said it's not helpful. This is not something that's meant to put people on the spot or making samples of people. We're trying to move people from where they are and who they are and get them to understand how they're upbringing, how their history, how society around them into place with their own personalities. Basically, we are who we and society have made us to be. She said it's not helpful to have this done in a fashion that people could be humiliated. The expectation is that on the 21st of June, if we go ahead with this, then it will be a short select board meeting where you'll do a little bit of business and then you'll move into this training session privately. I just want to be up front with the public right now. That's my goal. The select board, if they choose and you say, well, we want to do this in public, that's your choice. I think based on my conversation with Mary and with Peter from Brattleboro, it would be better to do it privately. With that, I'll stop talking. All right. I'm going to go to the board first, then Alexia, I see your hands up. I'll go to you after. Board, any comments or questions before I go to the public? I like the idea of two separate sessions of two hours. I like that you reached out to Brattleboro and got what they were doing. Sorry, my insignificant error is being around in the background. I'm in favor of this, and she knows what she's doing. Thank you, Bill Philippe, for this and getting us this information. I really appreciate the time you put into it, and I don't need to elaborate, because I agree with what Kate just said. I think two sessions would be really helpful for digestion and learning and intensity. I do think it's great that this is finally happening. The other thing is I agree with Katie that two two-hour sessions seem to be much better, because again, some people's attention spans, you know, waiver after, you know, if you go four hours straight through, that might be a tougher intake. Yeah. And I agree with that. And I also think that and this may be stating the obvious, but, you know, this is not this training is not intended to be like flipping a light switch that everybody is going to, you know, starts here and then after this they're going to be here. This is a process. It's like any real learning. It's kind of a lifelong thing. And, you know, people will find that we're all on various points of the spectrum and not always in the same place at the same time. There's some things that probably, you know, we're all very much in the right place on. And then there's other things that some people are on one end and other people are on the other. And it's meant to be informative and it's meant to be transformational that, you know, this is something that will be practiced on an ongoing basis. And, you know, I'm not here to say we're going to have to have a session every single week, but the woman that talked to the Vermont Policy Management Association on Thursday talked about the fact that at every meeting she tries to have some tidbits, some thing on each agenda that can get people thinking about this kind of issue. And I, you know, I don't have any examples that come to mind right now that she talked about, but it was something that they were intentional about that, you know, they had something every meeting, even if it was just a 10-minute discussion about something to help kind of continue to move people through on the continuum. So anyway, I'll get more information to you by the 7th. On the 7th, you'll have to talk about it and decide for certain that you're going to do it and authorize the money to be spent, but it is tentatively scheduled for the 21st right now. Let's see. Yeah, Alexia. First of all, I actually, I just, I want to say I appreciate everything that you just said when you first were talking and then again, I completely agree that this is a process. And I'm speaking as an individual, as an individual constituent currently. And I agree that it should be private and out of the public eye. I think that for any kind of work, deep work, it requires vulnerability. And that is really difficult to do when you feel like you're under scrutiny. So I just wanted to voice support for that. And I think I agree. I think it's a huge necessity. And I just want to thank you all so much for being willing to do the work. All right. Any other comments from the board or the public on this? Bill, we don't need to make a motion. I'm assuming because we haven't don't have the plan yet, but we'll vote on the June meeting on the training once we get the basically the proposal. Yeah, there's nothing to vote on now, Mark. You're right. All right. Yeah, I also agree. I think it's a great step forward. And I'm glad to hear that things are in motion. So thanks, Bill. And thanks everyone for being patient on this. Moving on to manager item E staffing update. Oh, I'm sorry. E board orientation issues. Well, you could have skipped right over that, Mark, because I really don't have anything right now. Carla and I put this agenda together last week, and I thought I was going to be able to do something. So my hope going forward, and it's much easier to do this kind of orientation stuff for me anyway, in person. And I know we have a little bit of a glitch when Danny first started in terms of voting and what saying something means, what not saying something means and the like. So my intent is to over the next several meetings to just every once in a while bring something to the board, maybe that some of you longtime folks on the board will think, oh, this is boring. Why do we have to talk about this again? But, you know, Danny is brand new. Katie is still pretty new. And Katie didn't really have any opportunity to think you had, what, two meetings in person, maybe three. And, you know, then COVID started. So if there's anything in particular that any board member would like to know a little bit more about, you can certainly let me know a number of years ago before the flood. So it's a long time ago now I had three new board members all at the same time, and we did a pretty extensive orientation. And I'd like to do that again. Unfortunately, all of my, I'm a paper person, not as much anymore, I'm using the computer to file a lot more electronically now, but all of the orientation materials that I had, I stored in the drawer of my desk, right, where I store all my stuff now and they got flooded. So I don't have that material available right now, but I'll be bringing some of these things to the board. And maybe every other meeting or so, we'll just take 20 minutes or so to review something. And if you have questions, we can go from there. So that's it to the announced thing. Mike, go ahead. Just if anyone is not on Vermont League of Cities and Towns, if you're not on their email list, they have a lot of good free meetings that are excellent for Blackboard people. Some are free, some are paid, but even the paid ones, if there's something that interests you, I'm sure, you know, Bill will be supportive of any of us attending any of those training meetings. Carla, was your hand up or was that a way? Yeah, I was just going to say you all should be on the VLCT distribution list because I provided them your information so you should be getting any emails from them. If you're not, let me know. Any other questions or comments on that item? All right, moving on. Staffing update item E. Yeah, I mentioned this to you because Dina was still here when you were executive session not to, you know, do what you didn't take any action. But I did want to just let you all know officially that Dina Bookmire Baker is retiring, her last day will be July 9th. I can't remember exactly, I think around 2017 she came to work for us as the zoning administrator and Dina is not resigning, not going away mad or in a huff, she's just going to retire and enjoy her grandchildren and her husband who retired from the kind of story years ago. So we're going to start up the process of, you know, beginning to find a replacement for Dina. And we'll talk about that a little bit more at the next meeting, but Dina's last day I believe is going to be July 9th. So she's got another month and a half or so to go, she'll be around. And I think the DRB will end up having a couple of in-person meetings before she's gone, so they'll be able to see her in person, but that's the staffing update right now. Okay. Speaking of staffing, have we got any bites on the dog position? No. And have we heard any more about library, any new hires or interviews for those positions? So Jill Chase retired, she was the circulation assistant I think was her title. All the moved Michelle, Michelle, Willie to that position and is in the process of recruiting a new children's librarian. We have just extended an offer to her. Her name is Lyle. I can't remember her first name. She comes from, she's working in, I think it's Dover right now. And she'll be starting here sometime before June 14th. It'll be in June. So those positions are built or in the process of having somebody move here and get ready to start. I think you all know that Almy, the library director Almy Landauer has also resigned her position from the library. She has some personal concerns that have caused her to decide to resolve and the library commissioners are in the process of recruiting for a new director. I think that they've got some interviews scheduled for maybe like this week or early next week. So they're in the process. Almy's last day is going to be June 2nd, I believe. And the new director, I'm not sure, you know, they're going to get through the hiring process. So all the processes are ongoing, Katie. And that's the update. And just to remind all of you, the library is a unique department in the town. The library commissioners are directly elected by the public and the state statutes spell out the fact that in towns that have elected library directors, the library directors are responsible for hiring, I mean library commissioners, the library commissioners are responsible for hiring the director of the library. So Almy's position of library director is one of the few positions that I don't have a role in hiring. And, you know, in other departments like the highway department, the department head, I'm ultimately the hiring authority in all the departments except for the library. So I don't have a role in this process. All right. Any questions on staffing update? All right. Moving on to budget report item F. Yeah, I sent out the budget report the other day to all of you. I won't take a whole lot of time. Again, I find these things a lot easier to do in person. As I said in my memo to you, we're what about 33% through the year. This is all through April. We're still in May, so I don't have the main numbers here. And, you know, the revenues are largest revenue, of course, is taxes. We don't collect any of that until August. So our revenue collection is way behind the curve when you compare it to the calendar. We've received about 8% of our total revenues in the general fund through April. It's a little bit higher in the highway fund. I'll drop down there for a second. So with the highway fund, well, it's actually lower. It's only 5% in the highway fund. And again, taxes is the is the big it's far and away. Our largest revenue almost probably 88% of all our revenues are property taxes and we don't get them until late in the year. Since I'm right here on the highway, I'll just reiterate what I put in the memo to you or put in the email. We were very conservative with all of our revenue estimates from the state because we just did not have any clue where the state was going to be with regard to its budget and how it would be able to handle its general appropriations. So we only budgeted $85,000 for general aid to highways. Typically, we would budget about $114,000. And as you can see that $57,000 that we that we've taken into date, if that continues through the second two quarters of the year would be right at that 114 level. So on at least this one state revenue, it looks like we're going to easily hit budget and go beyond it. Excuse me, this $57,000 the state is on a July 1st calendar year. I mean that July 1st fiscal year. So these are payments for the states quarter three and four, which were appropriated in the budget that they put to vote and approved in May of 2020. The first payment we got was in July. The second payment we got was in October. Those are 2020 revenues for us. These two payments are based on the budget from a year ago from the state. My expectation is that this will go up a little bit. As I said, the House, when they were going through their budget process, they significantly increased aid to highways in their budget. The Senate chose not to do that. The Senate put more money into grant programs on a personal level. When I testify at the State House, I advocate for more general aid to highways because all towns get that general aid to highways and all towns don't necessarily have projects that are ready and able for those grant funds. The grant funds are competitive and you don't always get them when you really need to do your project. So more general aid is preferable to me, but this is a tug of war that always goes on in the State House. And last I heard it looks like the Senate's probably going to win and more money will go into those grants. So I'll go back to the general fund and go down. So moving into the anybody, if you have a question or a comment, you can just drop me. But we're really right on pace in most of the budgets like general government have employees in it. So all of the staff that works here in the municipal building office are either in the general government budget or they're in the planning zoning budget. And because personnel is such a high percentage of any budget, you can see $349,000 is the payroll budget for the general government and the general government's total budget. It's over a third of the budget is just in payroll. In the payroll line alone, and then if you add health insurance and work as part of unemployment and those kind of things, it gets up to be, you know, 40% or so of a budget. So these budgets that have employees in it are all tracking close to our calendar. The budget like the fire department is going to be way behind because, you know, this I am sending money to the capital fund on a quarterly basis just to it's just moving money on paper, but it helps the budget look better in terms of where we are. So we send the money at the last week of each quarter, the money goes to the capital funds. But the fire budget as you can see is lagging behind the calendar. And most of the budgets that don't have personnel or that have personnel that are seasonal like recreation, they're going to be way behind the calendar. So this is pretty typical of this time of year. There's nothing unusual right now that has happened. The highway budget, as I said, this is the planning budget and you can see there that tracks right with the calendar because most of its budget in the planning and going department is personnel. But in the highway fund, the fact that the personnel line is just basically right at or just a little bit above where the calendar is is actually a good sign. Typically through in the winter months because we're having overtime, certainly through the first three months of the year generally for going in March, which would be 25% of the year, we're usually always in the low 30s by that time. And the fact that we're at 34% right now through 33% of the year is a good sign. It means that they work less overtime than I budgeted at the highway department. I think, you know, the library is even more right on pace with the regular pay, basically. The reason they're lagging a little bit is they did have some retirements and there were some other part-time people who left the employment of the library. So they're going to be a little bit behind the pace and frankly they may not spend their whole budget because, you know, when all the retirees, it may be several weeks before we get somebody new in. What could happen in the library though is this health insurance line. The health insurance is chosen by the employees that are on staff in October when they have to sign up for the health insurance for the following year. And I pretty typically budget whatever it is that people choose. So if there are people that choose not to take it, that gets factored into the budget. And if they end up residing their position during the year and the new person that we hired, if they're eligible and they decide to take it, we're going to be off on the budget. Years ago I used to pad that line a little bit and then found out that for the most part we have little turnover. And if we do have a, you know, somebody who goes from zero and then the next person gets a family plan, it's a big hit but it's usually only for a partial year and it doesn't make sense. So I typically budget what was signed up for in the fall. But those are the three operating budgets. That's where the bulk of the panel spending is and all of the revenues come in, all of the tax revenues come into those three departments, those three funds. And then all the rest of what I showed you, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on them, all these are basically reserve funds. This is the library trust fund and, you know, there's the tax stabilization fund. As I said, if you have questions about that, we really haven't spent much in the CIP budgets yet. Those are funds, down here funds 70 through 75 are CIP. So, you know, we have, we haven't done any painting yet. We've paid interest on one of the bonds for painting. We haven't done much on the infrastructure. This is a credit from last year that the accountants will take care of for the Main Street project. Building improvements. This is at the highway garage. We did the roof work already. I think it went a little bit over budget. There's probably going to be some more spending in here that I'll talk to you later about. I don't know what this unclassified is. I'll have, oh, that's a stormwater project that we received some revenue in the highway department for. So, I'll have to move that to the highway fund. But anyway, if you have questions about especially these funds 14 through 86 or whatever, you can, if you have them now, I'll try to address them. But if you have questions, you can ask them now. If you don't have questions tonight and want to ask a question, you can call me or email me. So, that's all I'll say right now and let you ask any questions that you might have. And otherwise, I'm done. Good. Bill, just curious. We're seeing several different high level staffing positions change. How do you think that's going to affect the budget? I know it can go either two ways. Sometimes, you know, with a more experienced person, you might actually pay less. Someone going into the job at a little lower pay grade. But sometimes, maybe more because the demand for those positions and just what they're paying in the competitive market, where do you think we are with that bill? Yeah, it's hard to say. The hirings that we've done in the library to, you know, the part-time positions where people resign, the position where, you know, Michelle moved up to the circulation assistant and we're hiring a new children's librarian. The wage rates that we're offering in those jobs are not significantly higher than they were formally, Mike. There's a little bit of creep up. I kind of joked with you all in the past that sometimes the only way for public employees to really get a raise is to resign and then the next person gets more money. That's the way it seems to go. We're not far enough down the road yet in the search for new library director. That's a position where there's a high level of qualifications expected. I'm not sure where that one's going to go, Mike, and I'm not really clued in on that. As I told you, I don't have a real goal in hiring the library folks. Dina's retirement was a surprise to me, as was all these resignation from the library. All of me, as I said, there were personal reasons for her that I can't go into. I think Dina's been thinking about it for a while, but she didn't share with me until she made her decision. We'll see how that goes. The place, as I said, Mike, where we're the most vulnerable is just on that health insurance line. We offer health insurance to anybody who works 30 hours a week or more. We have some employees who choose not to take the insurance because their spouse or partner has a better insurance plan. They take that plan, and then when they leave, the new person might want our health insurance. There's some exposure there. We've been hit hard there in the past from time to time. It's not a huge spike, but it's a pretty big spike, and then it has impacts going forward year after year. We'll see. There's certainly, there's a lot of demand out there for jobs. I know on your parking lot on the agenda, there's an item that we're going to talk about on the pike a little bit about employee wages, and I've been working on that. I know we had a conversation about wage increases in the life a couple of weeks ago when I asked about the 2 percent increase. What I didn't say then, and I'll be able to show you, is we have a pretty diverse workforce here. We have people with advanced professional degrees, and there's high demand for employment, for some of the employees who have the credentials that we have here. There's others, of course, at the other end of the spectrum who have very labor-intensive jobs, not necessarily meeting high levels of technical education or the like, but are important jobs for us. So we'll talk about that more, but I know that was a long answer to your short question, Mike, but I hope I answered it. Thanks, Bill. That's really helpful. Any other questions from the board on this? One just preview of the next meeting. I've been working hard. I talked about this during the budget, but last year in December, we issued a five-year note for $1,366,000 in change, and I talked with you during budget time about the possibility of refinancing that. It's called Refunding the Note, and I had sent you a memo and I kind of separated out in that memo some of the things that we bought with that $1.3 million that were relatively short-term expenses, something that we should be willing to pay for in a five-year term, and then other expenses like the fire trucks and roadside mowers and things like that that have much longer, useful lives, and you directed me to go ahead and try to refund a portion of that note for and turn it into a 15-year bond. I've been working with the Community National Bank, the bank that authorized the $1.3 million note last December, and I've been working with Paul Giuliani. Your next meeting on the 7th, I will be bringing a refunded resolution to you, and I'll be asking you to refund $1.1 million and turning that into a 15-year bond. I think we've got an excellent rate. I can't share the rate right now, but I will at the next meeting, but suffice it to say our annual payments over the next five years were supposed to be in the range of $290,000 in here, and with this refunding we'll drop that about $140,000 in here. Now of course that $140,000, some of it will go out beyond that five-year period, but I think it's good news. The bank was willing to do it, which meant that we didn't have to go through the laborious process of filling out an application to the bond bank and having to spend a lot of money for closing costs through the bond bank processing. We will have lawyer fees for this, but we won't have all of the fees that generally revolve around going through the bond bank. Typically, the commercial banks have not been willing to go out more than five years with a municipal paper, but we're in a whole different environment right now, and I'm happy to say that the Community National Bank was willing to do it, so I'll share that good news more in person at the next meeting, but I'll be getting your information out well before the meeting. If you have questions about it, please call me or contact me before the meeting. It's something that, you know, is pretty time sensitive. Well, when you do the refunding note, you'll approve it on Monday the 7th, and the bank is going to have to be able to, you know, do kind of push the buttons and do the necessary closing, if not the next day, certainly within a few days of that meeting. So if you have any questions about what I send you before that meeting, please call me and get them answered before the meeting, because it's kind of time sensitive. Thanks, Bill. Any questions or comments before we adjourn? No, just thanks, Bill, for all you do. Well, thank you. You too. One quick comment. On the 21st, I won't be able to make the select board meeting. I work at LCI Way station, so there'll be still, you know, we won't get back in time for the meeting. That's the training night, Mike. I know. I feel bad about that. I'm kind of committed. I'm on a contract with them. You know, I wasn't expecting that to be the 21st. What time is it going to be? I might be able to do something via Zoom. Well, the meeting's at seven o'clock, so it'll be shortly after. Yeah, if we can set it up to allow you to Zoom in, we'll try to do that. I'll see if I can do it via Zoom. Be helpful if you could be there. Okay. Thanks for letting us know, Mike. All right. Any other comments before we adjourn? Looks like we're one minute before nine. I will take a motion. We're second. Yeah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Good night, everybody.