 So let's get started on the order and just to let folks know Cliff Emmons is on by phone. Katie has figured out how to do Google Docs, so we're up and running. And John, I'm not sure if he's coming or not, he wasn't feeling good, so we'll see. All right, is there a public comment on items not on the agenda? I just want a little bit of clarification. I saw some video of your last likeport meeting when you were talking about ISO and fire departments. So the ISO rating for East Montpelier is not a nine, it's a six. It's much better. There's a report here that I'm sure we have given to you before, but that's the there was also some discussion about what does that mean for insurance for people. The standard is for insurance companies it's five miles from a fire station. So I created a map that shows all the fire stations that can respond in Calis and so essentially everyone in Calis is covered within five miles. Several miles? No, it's just five miles. The other thing is John mentioned that we had bought a new truck and he said it cost five hundred thousand dollars. It only cost three hundred and thirty thousand dollars and its price was only four hundred and eleven, not seven hundred thousand dollars. I just like the record to reflect that. What was the number? It was actually three hundred and thirty. This is just to clarify in case people saw that and didn't know what was going on. That was what you got. It was a two-year-old vehicle. Right. So it's brand new price was about four hundred and eleven and we bought it for three hundred and thirty. The other thing there was some discussion about locating a new fire station in Woodbury closer to Calis because and there was further discussion about well maybe we should park a truck in Calis and that we get more people to join the fire department. So currently there's four people that live in Calis that are members of the fire department. Of those four there's only one person me that's actually responding on a regular basis. We should have something we could do to try to get to the volunteer. I know it's a problem all over the place. We do as much as we can for recruitment to get people. I know you do. So just locating a new station or putting a piece of equipment in town is not going to change that. Yeah. Four on East Montpelier. Four from Calis. Four people from Calis are members of the East Montpelier. But only one is active and that's you. And Toby do you have any idea how many or whether there are folks who live in Calis who are active in Woodbury? Woodbury has no Calis. No Calis residents. And again the real issue about where you locate a fire truck is not where the fire truck is. It's where the people who respond to the fire truck are. So if they're working in Montpelier it doesn't matter if they live in Calis or not. They're not coming in the daytime any sooner if the fire station isn't in Calis. So it's really about locating volunteers that are home during the day that's going to make a difference in response time. And the same thing in Woodbury. If you move it closer to Calis the guys that are further away in Woodbury are still going to have to travel that distance to get the fire truck. That came up because of the five mile piece. Right. Which in Calis is not an issue. It may be an issue in Woodbury but it's not in Calis. Because something was said at, I can't remember which fire department meeting it was. It might have been a Woodbury one. That said somebody said people were getting their homeowners insurance canceled because they weren't within five miles. And I can only tell you that that's the ignorance of either the insurance company or the people because essentially that's a five mile radius of every fire station. So maybe somebody didn't think oh well the Marshall fire department is five miles away from me but Woodbury is not. So just so that four of the five miles everybody in Calis seems to be within a five mile distance. That's it. I'll make copies of this. Okay. Addition or changes to the agenda? All right. So we are late in getting this back to the state but this is the certificate of highway mileage and has not changed since last year or the year before that or the year before that but we need a motion to approve it and sign it. I make a motion that we approve the 2019 what's the name of it certification of highway mileage. 2019 so it would be for the following. So we're just talking about the certificate of highway mileage. Are there any further questions or comments on this? Cliff can you hear? Hello? Cliff? I can hear you. Okay we're going to vote on the certificate of highway mileage. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed hearing none. And I'll send this around to get two other signatures so we have a quorum of signatures and then believe it sounds like Judy has to sign this. There's that. Okay. Treasurer. You're up Sandra. Hi everybody. You have packets in front of you which comprise the treasurer's report. It is in four sections revenue, expenses, balance sheet and the delinquent tax report. This month I included all of the backup reports for the numbers so that the board would best be able to see how this information was generated. In the future you may direct me to simply provide the summary pages which I have stapled to the front of each section. So the first section is revenues. As far as general government is concerned we have collected 80.79% of our budgeted revenues. The revenues that were budgeted were 896,678 dollars and to date we've collected $724,432.23. We are at 75% of three quarters of the fiscal year. We're in good shape with regard to revenues. We expect additional revenues from delinquent taxes, interest and town clerk revenues. Of note the interest revenue is well above budget early in the fiscal year. We created a sweep account which was an account comprised of all the separate and independent town accounts but for the McCulloch shorty and the HRA account. The purpose of this was to allow our bank to give us a premium interest rate and you can see that we've done very well with that particular account. Again it was at the auditor's suggestion. Miscellaneous revenue was a revenue item that I thought you might question. We really don't budget anything in the miscellaneous revenue column but this year Jim Barlow refunded a part of his escrow account. We had the annual school tax collection fees come in. What does that mean? Donna billed the school system $2300 a year and I believe Eva did as well for the privilege of collecting school taxes. You mean for the town collecting the taxes on behalf of the school? That's right. So they paid the town $2300 a year. Maybe we should charge them more. We'll get to that. And then there was a suburban propane refund of $135. When Sullivan and Powers did our audit in FY18 they also started out the year with $416.34 in this account. So that was the account that jumped out at me. Highway we're at 94.68% of budgeted revenues. I do expect an additional revenue in the way of the last state aid to highway payment which will be approximately $39,000 that's paid in April and it is likely that highway revenues will meet or exceed the budget. The next section is the expense section the general government is at 73.65% of budgeted expenditures it would appear that those expenses are on target although we do anticipate some overages principally in the town clerk and assistant town clerk wages that's largely due to the unanticipated number of elections this year general office expenses and has gone over budget again largely due to under budgeting and the health insurance we expect to go over budget by a bit largely due to under budgeting. Overall it's quite possible that our expenditures will come in at budget or perhaps slightly over budget with an offset in revenues I think will be good. Highway is about 6% over budget all close to 7% we're at 89.93% of our budgeted expenditures it would appear that highway expenses will exceed the budget again largely due to weather conditions the overtime and wages forecasting is difficult with regard to the highway budget as grant expenditures and revenues are part of the overall highway financial picture but neither one of them are budgeted so we kind of do a wait and see gain. Historically the town's in kind contributions to the grant programs have often and almost always resulted in a highway surplus so again I think that there's a good chance that we're going to be in good shape on a highway side as well. So when we're doing the grant projections figure out a dollar amount but then we do it in kind I have not participated in writing a grant with highway but the way it looks is that they estimate the cost very carefully estimate the cost of a particular project if the grant is covered by 90% they will request 90% reimbursement the other 10% actually comes out of our budget line items so it's a strategy and the strategy has worked very well in the past where our budget actually has tucked into it all that is necessary to accomplish the grants so often times we're going to get grant payments for 90% but our 10% was never budgeted as a line item it's tucked into the general highway budget just as a post script working with the auditors and NIMRIC we're going to tickle the last bit of tickling to the NIMRIC program to reflect the strategy is to create expense lines right within the highway budget for the grant expenditures and they'll be attached to the grant revenues associated with them so we can more closely forecast what is happening there I think we could be in pretty good shape here so let's go to the balance sheet because there's good news there I think so you haven't really seen a balance sheet from NIMRIC yet and if you just turn your first page over and take a look there is and what it tells you is this the town has roughly 1.2 million dollars in assets most of which is in the checking account of that 1.2 million dollars almost $700,000 is committed to other funds such as the highway Yeah, not worth it Well, no, she just gave Scott a copy so we have 1.2 in the checking essentially 1.2 in the checking roughly $700,000 is committed to other funds such as the highway equipment fund the Town Hall renovation project fund the conservation fund and you can take a look at the last page of that packet hang on put me for is that so I don't get too confused is that that's 685 the almost yes that do to from okay so at the third page is an itemization of that due to from line do to when you look at your balance yeah you see the assets checking account yeah HRA HRA deposit petty cash and then do to from it's really do to right well to do from because some of it we might get back in grant yeah grant money and that kind of thing right so for instance this the highway equipment fund is is a reserve fund that can only be used for highway capital equipment the town hall renovation due to do from our monies specifically segregated only for the town hall renovation project and so on throughout the list so highway equipment on for instance we were going to take money out of there to make the first payment on the lease and that is what is going to happen to that's not reflected in that hasn't happened no that's just your your budget plan for FY 20 for next year so is the net of all this plus minus on the second page the minus 685 so it starts out so that it balances it starts out with the first line is that minus 685 919 right and then it what's the itemizes what's the next line 102 highway fund due to from so the highway funds are separated by law from general government funds so that is what is basically left in their account revenue revenues minus revenues minus expenditures plus whatever is attributable to them from the last year that's like their operating budget yeah that's highway fun that's our operating budget right and then what says highway equipment fund that's the reserve right this is this is the current this is the current fiscal year why 19 so it's not so the next section is the town's current liabilities and you'll see the current liabilities are in excess of a hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars most of this is due to the school district and it is being held back in anticipation of the true up which takes place in April so that's when the final grand list and all of the changes that were made to that grand list in terms of residential tax rates non-residential tax rates current use and so forth it all gets trued up in April we are legally allowed to hold back that amount as it represented the amount of delinquent taxes as of the time the last payment was due so that's how that works so we skip we went to the next one oh I want right on to the liabilities I'm sorry did you have more questions I'm still trying to understand okay so we're on liabilities so even though we're talking about the taxes around looking at that yet and we're not I guess my questions around the third page we flip to that at one point so I'm just asking it one more time yeah I don't know where to ask it so if I were to tally everything below this negative 685 yes does that all comes up to 685 919 85 okay so the the the Cummings and goings under 685 on this third page or where that's 685 correct okay that is correct okay so this okay big question so this is the 685 is it's total of all of these expenses yes the reason that this page is important is because if something is out of balance or there has been a miss posting we're going to be able to see it on this page and it won't zero out at the bottom there will be a negative or a positive number and then I go back in and I find that error it's a check it's a check yes okay so second to the last CLG is eligible to grant 7500 so that's what monies has been expended so far on I'm trying to remember his name Brian night Brian right Brian night so those are his payments thus far and there is going to be a grant reimbursement okay but for right now the town has covered that and any of the grants that are in the negative are actually monies that the town has covered okay so the same holds true with Jack Hill covert Jack Hill covert I think we're we're in the red on that one that the grant reimbursement did not cover the entire amount of the grant expenditures in that particular case that's a rarity actually but you're going to have grant reimbursements that are going to come in that will more than cover the expenses the highway is a wait and see it's it's not easy for me to forecast that it's just the nature of the beast the nature of the beast it's the strategy and it's worked very well for the town so far so you know but what we're going to try and do is as using Nimrick as a tool to help us best be able to forecast what's going on there so your liabilities and I just wanted to make sure you understood that the statutes do provide for a whole back of delinquent taxes as of the oh no we're on liabilities okay so this is liabilities are what we owe so the largest number is what we owe to the school and that was the whole back of the delinquent taxes that remained uncollected as of the date of the last payment was due and we hold that back to see what the true of what we really owe them we may owe them less than this I would rather not I would rather hold this money and pay them what we actually owe them so if we don't we we were not build more than this so if we don't get all the money from the delinquent taxes how do we pay the school that it comes out of the town's coffers so that's why it is so important that we have a fund balance and that we try very hard to maintain a good fund balance from year to year we are once these taxes go delinquent the town has the liability to pay them so that's why the delinquent taxpayers write all their checks to the town of Calis because that money is owed to us we have covered them 100% okay so say can you say a different way what you meant when you said that we're permitted by statute to hold back because I heard what I understood is that we don't have to pay the entire bill to the school but I don't think that's what you meant no what we are built in August an amount that the school projects based on our grand list at that time but there are changes that occur during tax collection that the listers process we have two payments due to the school district after each tax collection you can by law hold back the delinquent tax portion okay and hold it back and in other words still owe it to the school so I took our bill and I calculated what to pay them minus the delinquent taxes do but it's it could be more than this but it's not likely it's based on the actual bill I just held back our delinquent tax portion so the bill minus delinquent taxes went to the school and we made payments to school twice but we can hold back an amount that we haven't yet collected right this year I made one payment just because I just utilizing NEMRIC and trying to get the taxes pulled together with all of the it just took me a minute but yes we made one payment this year typically we made two and then we do a hold back and you've done that here in Calis before okay so this is normal and other towns do it as well Scott has a question just when it's at the end well this is this is beautiful sound oh the first time I've seen it NEMRIC report outside of a classroom situation thank you it's really clean but and I came in not to bother you but to help you walk through it and so that you can understand understand it I find that a nice tidy balance sheet really helps you under cover pages explaining it are really great thank you and thank NEMRIC so I'm more used to seeing in a school budget that there are various funds everything I've seen here talks about general fund are there any other funds that we've set up in NEMRIC for example yes Mary what you don't have Scott is a if you go to the budget pardon me the balance sheet section on page three you're going to see what you're so interested in they're itemized it looks like this and all of those are separate funds and the way they are separated out is by the first two digits so one last question yep so these are able these this list are able to span fiscal years exactly yes awesome and that's the beauty of NEMRIC that was really that was a hard push with QuickBooks it was a lot of work for it really Donna had to do it all by hand it was hard so just one last I'm going to give you one more piece of information each of these numbers is the first two digits everything that has to do with a town hall renovation fund or with the callous village grant it all happens under those first two numbers whether it's an expense or an income so they all tie in together and that's how you get these net numbers so I had one last I think I have another question about the school thing so if we don't okay so if we don't end up collecting all the delinquent taxes that we need it's we still have to pay the school yes their share no matter what that is correct and that's why and you said so it's nice that we get to hold back because it allows us a little bit of lag to figure out we really owe the school instead of the estimate right because in August but when we do figure out what we actually have to pay then we have to pay it and the town pays it and covers the bill for the delinquent payers and that's why they were a check for the entire amount to the town not to school right be they owe us now right yeah I said it my own words I really understand it and that's exactly right and so if we overpay the school they will refund that refund us okay but because we had a I'm being very fiscally conservative at this point because we did have a short history of deficit that I would much rather us hold back then pay too much at this point and get the money back because of the way I see that we cover so many grants I just wanted to be very careful of your cash flow because I don't have a cat a good feel for the cash flow ups and downs yet having only been here for almost a year now right okay so fiscal year 19 open so now we're going to talk about the fund balance and if you remember when the auditor when Fred Giflesi came in we opened the year with a fund balance the prior year's fund balance with $318,000 to the good his comment was this is a great amount of money to have it's about 20% of your budgeted expenses this is what will cover you for your first couple of months into your new fiscal year before you have started to collect taxes and that's why we didn't have to take out a loan in anticipation of taxes this past that is correct it also helps float your grant expenses more instance the highway has over $70,000 and outstanding grant expenses which we were reimbursed for but we covered that out of our budget so we really want to nurture that fund balance as best we can going forward now there is the next line called the current year fund balance I was not going to make it enough that's why we didn't have to take out and that's one of the first times we haven't had to take out I don't know but I think so yeah okay sorry go ahead so the next line is called the current year fund balance and that figure represents the difference between all of our revenues today for this fiscal year and all of our expenditures today so if we were just starting off that that would be our fund balance okay that's that's this year's fund balance right now that's so that's today that's right difference between revenue and expenses today correct the next line is your total fund balance and that figure has arrived at by adding the prior year's fund balance and the current year fund balance and the example I get to make this meaningful to you is in other words that our fiscal year ended on March 31st we would open the next fiscal year with $400,000 to the good even though we know we had expenses that were it's only if we ended the if our fiscal year ended right now we would have $400,000 to the good we started out with over 300 we currently have 81 and we currently have 81 and liabilities aren't liabilities aren't apart that at the moment and then your last line is just a complete combination of your liabilities your reserves and your fund balance I'm sure that has some meaning it seems superfluous to me at the moment but that's a number that I don't think that really applies to the way we to a cash basis system but it's there so overall I think that our fiscal position is pretty darn good I would no appreciable deficit anticipated I think revenues will take care of any expenditure shortfalls we still have highway grant and expenditures to work into that I think we're looking pretty good as we as we head for the end of the year okay that sounds great so delinquent tax report at the conclusion of our 2018 tax effort there was in excess of $171,000 in outstanding delinquent taxes and associated penalties and interest currently there is $90,000 outstanding and delinquent taxes penalties and interest since beginning of this fiscal year that's since July 1 the delinquent tax collector has collected in excess of $101,000 and penalties interest in taxes okay since the beginning of the fiscal year the tax collection that was 7-1-18 and we're almost to the end yeah so the taxes delinquent taxes continue to come in most people have entered into an into agreements and they are maintaining them there are those few who have not contacted the office to describe their situation and who have not made a payment with their next bill the bills go out the first week of the month they will be getting a notice that I am going to bring a list of taxpayers in that category to the select board it is for the select boards information only at this point you might have some insight maybe someone has moved and they're ill and the bills aren't getting to them but the policy the written policy is for the delinquent taxes to be paid in full by June 30th and the way I've seen some of these taxes come in folks are probably waiting on their tax return money could be and and they're paying it all in the lump and they're not calling me but we still have to remind them that everything has to be paid by June 30th right there are there there it there may be you have a rough idea of how many people um 30 oh 30 all together but maybe 10 maybe 10 haven't contacted me and there are folks who haven't made a payment or entered into an agreement who have called and said look this is what's going on I'm gonna have this money by date certain I'm gonna send it to you and I'm gonna take them at their word yeah I mean that's the way you do it yeah so I'll let them work at this point decide whether they really do want all of this backup information or if they are happy with just the summary sheets other than the balance sheet I think that's valuable to actually see the balance sheet that's only I mean personally I would like to see all the all the back up no problem I don't know got anybody else but it's a lot to absorb so I think looking at all of it and having it all available as we ask our questions yeah if you want me to come back in at your to your next meeting to answer any questions or if you have questions that you want to email me about and have me answer in the meantime that would be fine yeah one of us emails you with a question it would be a question maybe that we'd all want to see sure the question and the answer too which would be helpful all right excellent job thank you thank you so much there's one more thing okay yes I wanted to ask the board what what their thoughts are and I don't need to stay for your conversation but I wanted to present to the board that our town report and and expenses for the town meeting were four thousand seventy nine dollars and three sets now that's the cost of the report including including Laura the extra postage production of the report there's also in that number is three hundred dollars for the sound system that the whammy bar billed us for the number how much was do you have a breakdown how much was Laura's bill yes it was six hundred and twenty five dollars for graphic design and the cost of printing was the cost of printing and the first round of postage was two thousand nine hundred three dollars and sixty seven cents that's printing and printing and postage the initial postage this staff opted to get back any books that were undeliverable so we could update our database and there was additional postage close to two hundred and fifty dollars for those returned books but I think in the long run that will save us a lot of money and just simply not printing those books that number of books over forty one fifty sixty books that were returned on the ball is there is there any merit to and then are we even permitted to invite people to opt out of getting a town report because I get my mail at a minute co-op and they had piles of town reports just tossed into the both hours and these font pillars they gave me one of these font pillars like oh you know in the recycling so statutorily you can change your charter by not change your charter pardon me you can put an article on to your town warning that says that town reports can be picked up there are some websites that I was had that but something in between where people are allowed to say please take me off distribution well the distribution list is to all it's to the it's to the households so if the staff could figure out a meaningful way to ask people if they wanted the books or not then it would help us order but our imperative statutory imperative is to mail out by a certain day up to the households right municipality yeah and I don't know it you know something about yeah by date certain let us know if you do not want to get that would have to do a mailing to people who say that they don't want it it could just be from forum to start I mean there's nothing that requires us to do any of it I mean to allow them to opt out so invitation to opt out my biggest concern but that is the administrative hassle for you who wants it right it might be that more time-consuming to figure out but I did see I forget whose website it was there's so many around here that you have town reports are now ready for pickup at the office that would want that that could cause a lot more traffic in the office for one thing well if we're lucky right and some people might not really realize well that's the thing I think that the I do think that for people for people who want the town report having it land in their mailbox is it's nice it's a reminder you're not paying attention those kind of prompt people to show up not mention the waste of paper well it is it certainly bears I think a conversation and the purpose of this conversation this evening is to ask the word if they think it is appropriate to build the school for a percentage of the cost of production of producing the town report and the whammy bar bill their number of pages they had 20% of the pages in the town report so I thinking that the board I you have not billed them before that I can see I know other towns do bill them and they do pay Worcester bills them middle sex billed them the last time I heard I don't know any other way to I'm sure there are many ways to think about how and what would be their fair their portion no who paid for the daycare so we did that's not a clue that's not a clue I think it's $69 so if we just looked at the cost of printing the town report the graphic design the excess postage and the whammy bar system it would look to me that their 20% would be roughly 816 dollars because we haven't built them before and because we are at such a tender juncture with this school and all the conversations around that I didn't want to send a bill without the select board you know talking about it and deciding whether you think it is appropriate at this point in time I think it's okay I think they could pay but trouble is we haven't said anything to them I think it would be nice to get the 800 and something dollars return but I think I would want to let them know ahead of time that we're gonna maybe bill you the next time I wouldn't like just want to send the bill and not have had any kind of communication up front well then maybe the board would consider opening that dialogue right to for the next or next year we are over budget on the town report we just are but that's not the reason right I actually Denise I want let's go back and remind ourselves that you said Worcester bills and then they pay it who else so so we will be sending it to the Supervisory Union you'd be sending it to the Calis school district okay so so it wouldn't be just going into the Supervisory Union's pile of bills and they're used to paying bills like this right and they well I wouldn't have a problem with that at all no but I think just because this is going to the school and we want to have good relationships with our fellow board members and school folks I think from my perspective I would want to let them know that okay this year it cost us this much money to print your portion of the town report here's notice that we can and we may next year or we will next year bill you for this portion of the cost we can ask them this year the thing is where does the money come from because it's still our minds so it's like it's true it was in one pocket and out the other yeah Barry Bernstein I was just to say it all comes out of the same two pockets yeah because we we have the town budget we have a school budget our Texas support both right but this would I mean I paper yeah budget wise it would look like yeah accountability it's like that is one of their expenses right and they should be you know held accountable right and they don't and we pay the generator bill for the school don't forget you know and they let us use the school in the kitchen at no charge so it's so true that's right so it's just was a just wanted to open that conversation we are a tad over budget we could go this route or not it's really up to the board to get that some consideration yeah yeah Cliff are you do you want to weigh in on this I think came to my mind is already been brought up to that one that no the school does incur some expenses as a result of us using the facilities right yeah they have been right I mean they pay Chris Teller to be there to do set up and clean up and all that so that's you know an expense so they could probably argue with the other point we have we resolved the idea of being able to utilize the dumpsters there now not yet that kind of fell by the wayside when everything else was going on so no I like it yeah it's true it goes it goes both ways but good but it's a good framing right they thought they're gonna come and ask for the town to pay right I mean I think we could let them know how much it costs to print their portion of the town report that's a good idea yeah so that they understand I can send the school board members and a note and say you know this is how much it costs to do the town report this is the expenses broken down just so you know and leave it at that yeah we could say we're not looking for reimbursement we appreciate you hosting town meeting thank you for the contribution you make yeah I think that I'm nice working with better way to do it so okay if you want to put that on my to-do list and I'll get you a breakdown of those numbers okay great okay anything else to this treasure madam treasure nice work very nice work thank you thank you thank you so we'll just continue with this format like that until you tell me and are you gonna do it I mean I'll do it back on two sides of the pages next time to save paper but I thought the first time around on the quarterly well do you want to do a quarterly or monthly it's up to you I think let's try monthly is good monthly is good we have a lot of work for monthly I mean right now we're on end of March we have April May June you think we ought to follow it pretty closely yeah and that's what I think just in case something comes up and you have to really decide whether you want to make an expense or not it might be good to we all understand what decision we're making this close to the end so do you want to have it so that you give us these an update like this at the last like four meeting of a month yes this felt this was a yes it would either be this unless the last select board meeting was on a date that it was very hard to generate all the information sometimes that could happen and then I would go to the first week next meeting the first of the month but I like this end of the month piece yeah and I would suggest that we don't necessarily have to spend this amount of time every month right you know we can have the report and review it and especially if you get it to us ahead of time well that's a question if I get it to you by the last meeting of the month you can look at it and I can come in the first meeting of the month and answer your questions on it maybe what think about that then you would have that much time instead of trying to think of questions on the fly which I appreciate is troublesome well it may be while we're getting used to it but at some point I would I think we could get we could arrive at a place where we have the report we've all had a chance to review it and we do just a quick one silver not even we just you know maybe quarterly we spend a lot of time on it but once a month we say yes we got it does anybody have any questions and we accept the report without discussion what well I yeah I mean if you put it eventually yeah eventually but I think for right now I like the idea at least to the end of this fiscal year that I should give us another three months to review the reports and get used to the way they walk through them yeah yeah yeah no and what I'm saying is when we get to a point where we don't have to talk about it I still would like to get it yeah and you're gonna it's gonna be this is a sort of thing I'm imagining it's a lot of work the first time and eventually it's gonna be easier right because worse I'm still as I said we have one I believe there's one more tweak it's already been designed that I need to program that I think will further help us nail down the and ability to better analyze that highway budget and I should have that done by next month and by next month's report but we're all getting used to it yeah we'll do that together very much and we will let you go now thank you thank you everyone thanks Sandra welcome all right John I work I got a whole pile of stuff on there town hall progress progress is good I think Murphy's cell tech is there right now finishing up the air that's that yeah the box the all the drywall is arriving tomorrow morning they want to get it such a heavy load they want to get it for the roads can be squishy for heavy trucks insulation I think either Friday or a week from today and the drywall is on me after that for all the rough and one is done the rough and plumbing is done the fire alarm just another day for the damn telling to finish up the fire alarm the guy's gonna be hanging drywall in the lift on Thursday and so we can call members accessibility solutions to come put the lift in the upstairs circuits are all energized so you can actually turn on all the lights and outlets that we ever used to have upstairs or all there he's finished the carpenters have finished all the exterior trail along the roof pretty much it's going well and we're doing the town hall renovation committee meeting on Thursday whether committing that it's not 30 below over at the town hall to do a site visit so if anybody else wants to join Cliff and I let me know before the end of the meeting tonight because we should continue tonight's meeting to that time so we need this is Thursday morning I can't John Bravan said he might so we'd only be able to stick around for a minute Ernie Ernie saw the notice on the Senate saying that we were gonna gather there so maybe we should do it another time well he just Ernie cautioned us that it's going to be noisy and there's going to be people screwing drywall on the wall so they're working in there but it's still going to do a quick tour real quick through the goal all right good night and we're on timeline we're on sketch we're pretty good right you know it's all whether dependent we suddenly start getting really nice weather so we can get some of the outside stuff done especially that large concrete for the bottom of the front steps and the whole subject continues to snow today it's gonna stop some day we can't know a kid right over the tulips well that's all the time yeah but not always 16 inches but anyway don't cross your fingers everybody crossed your fingers that maybe this board meeting will be in that building in three months we'll see we don't want to rush it we want to do it right yeah anybody have any other questions for John I know DRB when are we gonna file the DRB application because I get sign off I don't think it's been said I'm sorry I was multitasking here we we printed it out too we had the in our materials for tonight the reports from Donna the show that we're slightly over budget yeah not yet okay I just thought it should be set out loud since we have it no I wish it wasn't that way and as the project moves along I can find any place that we can save money jump on it well I think after Thursday night I mean after Thursday's meeting we might have a better idea maybe we can get Donna to come in at some point and talk about budget I think she just put this stuff together so I haven't even really had chance to study it yeah yeah I mean and obviously my question and everyone's question will be what are we you know yeah what options do we have to check that because it's been moving in that direction for a little while and then how are we gonna make that up well we'll have money in the town hall fund after July one July one I think when I was talking to Santa she mentioned something about forty thousand dollars somewhere but I don't have a clear picture of it what she's talking about so I want to get together with her and Donna don't take that yeah don't cancel cancel yeah I think that's something we can handle we're supposed to have people beat in the bushes for donations yeah okay yeah so anyways the money piece we just don't really have a good yeah good option to discuss it tonight no but there's I don't see a whole lot that we can cut well Donna's known included that to take the 4,000 out for the floors that there was another option she was going to bring up on Thursday and also we may find substantial savings in the disposal field the septic system if we can do some combination of using the town at least the larger truck to draw sand that is a big part of the experience just the hauling the sand for the mountain system and and the excavation well that those two things are pretty much it as a mountain system right dirt holes and dirt yeah yeah that might be something that town the crew can help work on when they're not I mean it's sort of like the pain money out of one pocket pretty the other thing we're still paying the road crew to do that work yeah right and and I if it looks like we're in a situation where they work there and then have to charge overtime for other work then we should start looking at see if there are economic always going about it maybe just hiring someone okay thank you very much CV fiber please that's what it is now I saw that yeah Yeah. CB Fiber, when did its name change? Well, it's still Central Vermont Internet in terms of the town vote on it, but in terms of branding, the official trademark is CB Fiber, Central Vermont Fiber, and its following is EC Fiber, which is based in Wellington, all the way down to Hartford. So... What is EC Central Vermont? Eastern Central Vermont. I like that, by the way, because there's been a lot of, like, was it NPR, I heard a lot about broadband, and are we ever really going to get broadband in actual speed in Vermont, blah, blah, blah, detail and all that stuff. And, you know, I'm clueless about what the technology is that's bringing Internet into my house, but when you brand yourselves with Fiber, I'm like, I think, oh... There's Kingdom Fiber as well. We're getting Fiber. Okay. Which is that there are almost 30 towns in the Kingdom, and that actually is going on right now in Craftsbury and Greensboro, getting Fiber to the home right now. Oh, wow. And... But anyway, I'll start with... And you guys can chime in at any time you want. We're actively looking for money right now to do the actual business plan and the feasibility studies, but from our experience talking to both EC Fiber and I think we've had four different presentations from consulting firms that do this kind of planning and engineering, they're all pretty encouraged by it. Now, the work that I've done for the, you know, because I'm a GIS geek, it looks pretty feasible if we end up with 40% of people taking the service. And so we're going to be doing a survey, and I've been trying to think of whether I should send out the survey or maybe have maybe the town send out the survey. I'm trying to figure out how do we get the best return on the survey. The first phase will be doing it over, you know, using Frontpoint Forward or something like that, and then if it's not a good return, actually going door to door and finding volunteers to do that. And in that we're asking for people to make a, you know, a good commitment, yes or no or some level of interest. And then we're also looking for funds to help if you want to make a contribution or would you be willing to pay for a year in advance, or two years in advance? Do you have prices already? It's going to be in the $75 to $100 a month range, something like that. The piece that we haven't, the board has not decided, now it's up to $17 towns, Woodbury finally joined, so now it's all $17 contiguous towns. The board has not decided how the priority is going to get set for who goes first, because we believe it's going to have to be staged. And part of it I think really depends on which town, in my opinion, I'd be advocating for the town with the biggest interest in terms of commitment to doing it. There is some issues about where we can tie into Fiverr to make the thing work. And you know, this is Fiverr up and down Pearty Road. I mean, this is Fiverr all the way to Kent Museum, but it's all, you cannot access it and you never will access it. It's consolidated communications and Adelphia. I mean, I started with Adelphia, so we're going to be looking for that. The other news that you, it affects most of Calis, not all Calis, is that the Washington Electric Co-op is seriously considering running the Fiverr in its electrical space. And what's the advantage of that for us? We will not be paying attachment fees, which are a significant cost to running this. It's $14 per pole per year. That's a lot of holes. You'll mention something about that, but you're normally asking for it. Yeah, so the board is looking at doing their own feasibility study as to whether they ought to offer that and then lease the Fiverr to organizations like ours, because Washington Electric is in 41 communities, I believe. So what if you have a Fiverr electric like me? CP Fiverr will take care of you for this. So it's my intent that we move fast. And I also, you know, if we could come up finding some fundraising, you know, all you hear in this town is fundraising, I know. It's an amazing town because people do give here, but you know, finding, you know, some investment. The good, the other good news is, you know, for some reason, the governor and the legislature on the same page on this, and you've probably heard that on VPR, that bill has cleared most of the House committees, and the Senate has been taking testimony on it all session already. And that bill would allow, would provide up to $60,000 for planning money for any communications union district. And since we're the only one that existed, I mean, EC-5 is a communication union district, but they don't need any planning money. They're already operational. So that is both well for us, for planning, yeah. And then, yep, well, one grant for this year. And we're the only existing body, so it's not a, I think that will be all right. The other part of the bill that's really useful is they're authorizing Vita to bond for $10 million for communication union districts. So we would actually have a source of, provider, we have a, you know, a business plan that says we can pay it back. So there's all good things happening on the legislative side of things. What about federal? Okay. So if you're applying for a USDA World Development Assistance Grant on this week for $25,000, or $30,000, which is the max for planning they have, then there's a Northern Borderlands Commission, which I'm not sure you're familiar with, but it's been around for about 10 years. I don't know how long it's been around, but it was only for the Northeast Kingdom counties in New Hampshire. Now it's for the whole state of Vermont. And that is for economic development purposes. And we're trying to sell fiber as a community development, economic development issue that we need to do. So there's a lot of things happening. I wish I could say it's going to happen, you know, next year where there is a goal of trying to have a pilot project connecting it to, you know, a number of houses this year. But if that does happen, it'll probably be in Roxbury because EC fiber runs a line right up to the Roxbury line. So we might be able to connect 25 houses and say in Roxbury, that was started, which has some positive, you know, spin on it. The other thing is, I mean, the state's fiber, which is available for use at a very reasonable price, ends in hard work. So running it from hard work to woodbury to callus is... We say ends, David, it comes from the other side. It comes from Derby. It comes from Derby. Okay. And then down. Is woodbury part of the CB fiber? It just, they just joined. Okay. Yeah. So there's that potential. Velco is the other fiber provider in Vermont, which they have fibered to many substations except for not the one here in Callus. They haven't decided their business model yet whether they want to lease space or not on their fiber lines. In any event, we'll be using, you know, available and paying for fiber. But my, the data that I've worked with would estimate just to do the ton of Callus, running the fiber through every property would be about $3 million. And if you immunize that over 20 years, it's not, it's about, you know, $3 for a house per month to pay that debt. So I wish we started this 15 years ago, we would be all paid. We were not thinking. But I don't think it's going to take care of it, because I'm always going to take care of it. I think that things just creep up, you know? So that's sort of the update. We're meeting monthly. There's a business committee that I'm on as well as the regular board meetings. All the meetings are on OCA and we've had some really good presentations from consultants. Insultants who have done this around the country will probably be putting out an RFP for their work when we get some money, but now I'm pretty encouraged so far. So it's good. I mean, it's not like you got there, it took a while to kind of get things done. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's classic. And we, oh, the other thing is we will not be running it. This 15, 17-member board is not going to get into the operation of an ISP. We're going to be contracting probably for every piece of it. The construction, the supervision of the construction, the management of the billing and the service providing, you know, you've got a bad connection, so we'll contract almost all of that out. Yeah. I guess I never thought that you'd do that. You didn't think that you'd do that? Sure you would want to. We want to be. Well, actually, and I want to clarify, I didn't hear you saying employees, you're going to contract with independent contractors. The board's not going to have any employees. We're going to try not to. Yeah. You're not an entity, exactly. Yeah, we are a municipal entity. A municipal entity, but you're not an LLC, you're not a business, you're not a town government. We're a government. Yeah, but you're not going to have employees. No, but we voted to create this C9. Correct. So we could. I mean, EC-Fiber has maybe one employee, and they've contracted the entire operation out to a organization called VallyNet, which is a nonprofit based in, I think it's based in Lebanon. But they're the ones who are then running all the wire doing all the phoning and decoloring. So let them have the, let them go at it and find out all the bugs and. And they've done that. Right. I mean, we are learning quite a bit from that. And that's, I was going to say, we can learn from their. The other piece of EC-Fiber, no, the representative on the board, there's some interesting conflicts in the board, Mike Berenbaum from Plainfield is the representative. Right. And he is running Kingdom Fiber as a private entity. And he has given so much of his time to this thing. He's wonderful. He really is. Mike Berenbaum. Yeah. So he knows his, his operation is probably on its last couple of years. In the easy cloud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it's called. All right. Cloud will ask. Easy cloud is the domain. Yeah. And so that's sort of my report. Do you have anything else? Scott? Jared? Do I have to get something? Well, you're not giving yourself enough credit, David. You've been a huge asset to the whole organization. But you are the data guy. I'm the data guy. Yeah. I actually saved a lot of money, I think, for the contracting. But it's focused. I mean, we're working on data and not, we are not. So the crazy thing about this USDA grant, they cannot give out money to places that they've already given out money. And you're going to laugh when you hear this one. They gave out a ton of loan money to VTEL. VTEL. Right. Including Plainfield and Calus. Right. And we never got the towers. No, I know. That was exactly the story. So it turns out we're not that bad off. I mean, Calus is. But in terms of the CB fiber, 60% of the households in CB fiber never got any. Right. I was going to say, and VTEL didn't have a good track record of getting people of what they promised in the first place. And the state is appealing it right now. Good. The USDA and the FCC should remove all that territory. I remember that whole, well, we won't go there, but I remember that. Yeah. That took a lot of money. And where is it? So that and then the northern, but I think I'm encouraged between the state legislative initiatives and then the grant potentials there. Thank you guys. Work. Thank you, David. Well, the other thing I mean, I'm hoping that, you know, for the town, you know, you have the town hall and the town offices. We have decent connections and you can help support it. Right. It would be helpful. Do you have any idea what you're going to be doing the survey? Is it soon? Yes. Okay. Well, let us know if we can help. Yeah, I will. And the survey, I'm sorry. It's going to ask about 25 questions. Okay. Who you currently have if you have anybody. Okay. How satisfied and not satisfied you are. Okay. Do you use it for phone and television and all those other things. And then. Would you be willing to pay? Would you be willing to pay or pay in advance? Pay in advance. That answer is a question I had, which is you said $30 per household per month. But it would be more than that. If we had, if we had the $3 million. Right. Correct. That's a blonde. It would not be. Right. But that made me want, well per household is kind of ambitious. Yeah. 4% it's now. Which you're going to find out. I'll find out. I mean, EC fiber, they have got anything from 35% of households taking in some of their rural towns to 75 to 80% of houses taking it. So you said 75. No. Subscribing and paying. Oh, I see. So you said it would be like $75 to $100 per month. Per month. For the service. Service. So people can pay a year in advance. 1200. Correct. 2400 for two years. It would be much faster to serve. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No. Is this because I'm such a. Is that GSL? Way, way more than that. This is where you could watch. This is where a doctor could be connected to your house and look at your ex. You know, you could do high resolution video between a school and a doctor. You could have three or four teenagers streaming that place on. That would be important. Actually, Jared said I'm an expert on the technology part of it. We haven't met Jared. No. And Scott, thank you for filling in as an alternate. Another really great thing about CB fiber is that they are not going to do evil. This is going to be. Right. They're not going to do that. You heard a hair freshener clicks. Right. Well, and it's all. Hopefully the goal is to keep all the money local. Yeah. So that whatever is spent here is. Right. All the other ISPs except for Michael are doing. Yeah. Yeah. It's really to look forward to. Now they did say Jeremy Hansen did say we could have a second alternate. I don't know if that's something that we could we need. So I was wondering if you would continue on as a second alternate. I know. No. Yes. I mean with Jared. You had Jared finish introducing himself. Well, yeah. Perfect. Well, they were going to point. We sort of did that last meeting so that you could start going to meetings. So this is the official. But you would be the first alternate. And I was going to see if Scott would be second alternate in case both of you can't go for some reason. Thank you. Sure. Yes. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But Scott has a really good handle on this kind of stuff. I appreciate what's going been going on. Yeah. I mean I can at least I know enough at least to know that it's really good. It's really good stuff. It's quite the. It's way over my technology. The board is comprised of an eclectic group of folks who was on it. Well, I was going to say you're the attorneys on there from. Yeah. And then Jeremy Hansen who is. So the slack boy from Berlin teaches at no which. And Alan Gilbert from Worcester. And then Phil Hayek from Middlesex. And so it's a pretty. Not going to have Jared who's with. Yeah. Yeah. What a great group of people. And then we. William Stott who's got it from William Stott. No. Rich Schneider. No. Rich Schneider. No. That's not from. From. Oh. Oh. He's a character. He's a character. TV. Oh yeah. I know he works. Great. That's good stuff. At least have a little bit of fun. You guys have a little bit of fun. No. Two and a half hour three hour meetings sometimes. So there's they go longer once a month. Yeah. The boy in the business committee meets once a month. And do you know, do you publish your, I mean, do you post agendas? Yeah. Where? I put one of these channels. They're electronically sent to the town court. I don't know what happens after that. I saw it on the last week. Yes. We can't put it on the town calendar because it's not taking place here. Right. But we could maybe put a button. We do have a web page that has nothing on it yet. Everything is on our Facebook page as far as I'm concerned. Since I don't use Facebook, I don't know what's there. Is the Facebook page called CV Fiber? Oh no. I don't know. Okay. I'll let you all know. Are you sure there's a Facebook page? I bet I know because we're fundraising through that. We're also fundraising on the website. The website is just called cvfiber.net. And the way to express interest, David, and the way, as you were saying earlier, to help, if that's how the court decides to prioritize, tell us again what's going to be your measure of interest. Is it survey responses? It is survey responses. Pulling from the survey. So it's important that we have a robust response and a good return. And this is going to every community that's part of CV Fiber. And I'm going to make sure we're pretty active. Yes. No, that's good. Good. I didn't want to put in this all this time for no good. Well, no. So Jared. Yes. I read a little spiel about you to the board when we talked about it last meeting. You work with RB Tech. Yep. I'm a senior network engineer with RB Technologies. Before that, I was an independent contractor. So I've done network infrastructure probably 13 years at least. What else would you like to know? You live here in Kalin? Yep. Where do you live? Applehil. You grew up on a dairy farm. In East Montpelier. Graduated from U32 local. Let's see. Can you ask him how old he is? I'm not allowed to do that. I think you can tell us if you'd like to. Okay. We don't care. I mean, do I scheme, snow machine, ice fishing, camping? You started at RB Tech on 2015, and you were the owner of a Couching Lion Digital, which I'd never heard of. It was just me. It was an LL startup. It was an impact contractor. What was that? Say things, IT, sports services. Technology. Yeah. Kind of a large bucket. You know, the job pays nothing. I do. Absolutely. Like most jobs in town. Tell us about why you're, because you work in technology, and I'm assuming, I don't understand the details well enough to conclude, so I will assume that there's no conflict between your employment with RB Tech and the ISP. But tell us more about what's, why this is a place that you want to commit time. Well, I assume you had no con—you would have not of—odd but to do this without checking with Ruben if you had a conflict, right? Absolutely. I make sure that everybody in my employer and on the board at CB Fiverr knows where I work for. I believe Jeremy's had one meeting with Ruben, mostly looking for information. Ruben knows everybody, particularly in the telecom industry. We don't have any financial relationship with her, other than that. Personally, the internet service providers, particularly in central Vermont, I don't think have done a very good job. Companies like Comcast, they are publicly traded companies every quarter. They have to make their numbers, and that's what they care about. Companies like retail have done, in less in my opinion. And I think it's fantastic that there is a community fiber initiative that would allow us to not simply look at it from a financial standpoint, but to be able to actually look at it from a standpoint of trying to actually deliver service and build a community. And I think that an all-volunteer board doing this is a great incentive for that to happen, rather than paid people to do it. Well, and I'm heartened because you have obviously experienced insight into the field, and the fact that you're willing to commit personal time and energy is a great boat of confidence that this project is going to succeed. Right, and that's what I mean by, you know, it's all volunteers. Everybody's doing that. So nobody's getting rich off it. Everybody's doing it to help the communities. That's the idea. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think when you start to look at what is possible when it's not just organized as a for-profit corporation, and start looking more at what we can actually do to benefit the community, then it changes things a lot now. So Mel, I've asked you questions. Do you have any questions for us? Hi. This is my first time serving on a board. So I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm trying to just be quiet and keep my eyes open. But please let me know if there's anything you'd like to do. Yeah, I mean, I think we periodically, maybe every quarter day. Yeah, I mean, I was going to say every quarter. Every quarter to come in and give the board an update because it sounds like it's gaining momentum now. I know it took a while to get things up and running and organized. And so we didn't put any, you know, expectation on it. So as the alternate, how does that, you go to every meeting, David? Do you let... He can come. He has been coming. I mean, I think it's good if you can. I think out of the nine meetings, I've missed two. So, you know, Scott and Jared have gone and it's worked out pretty well. Yeah, because otherwise, if you just kind of pop it in out, you don't have as good of a handle on... You know, I have to put a plug in for Walker because I've watched all the meetings I've missed. And so... Yeah. No, so with that, I mean, there aren't a lot of strife right now because Xfinity doesn't want to pay them anymore. I heard that. Yeah. We keep finding more and more meetings for Jerome to cover. I know. You know, at some point it may end up having to pay for some of this, but still at this point Xfinity get away with murder. Yeah, yeah. I think Jerome had let us know a couple months ago, right? Yeah. Yeah. They've done a good job of legislating too. Oh, thank you. Making the case. Yeah. All right. So I would make a motion to nominate Jared to be the ultimate on the CV Fiber Board. Second. Is there any further discussion or questions? Cliff, do you have anything? No. My question's been answered. Thank you. Okay. All right. You seconded it, Rose. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. And it wasn't on the agenda, but we could appoint Scott at our next meeting to be the third. Second. Second alternate. Second alternate. I'm fine. Thank you so much for everything you guys are doing. It's way above my standard. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. My husband is Greg. We own the whole company behind Arby type. Oh. I'll throw that out there. When should we watch for the survey? In the next month. Okay. And it'll be like no porch forum. I may communicate with you guys before I do it. Yeah. Yeah. If you need to come and talk to the board, just let me know there. Okay. Thank you again so much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. All right. Well done, guys. Thank you. Denise, do you remember the subject line when I emailed you? Yeah. It was, I found a treasure. You did? You did? You did? Yeah. He seems like he's going to be great. I mean, David's great. I mean, it sounds like there's just a wealth of information and knowledge for being serving on that board. It sounds amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Great. All right. Next up. We need to reappoint Jay Copping as our health officer. And something happened with paperwork when we appointed him back in September. Anyway, it's time to reappoint him. So moved. There, second. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Clif was an aye, right? Yes. Okay. Say aye. Okay. Conservation Commission, Stephanie Kaplan and Larry Bush are up. So I would make a motion. Do you want to do them separately or can we do them together? What do we do? Can we do the, can we do all of the ones we have to do as a block? I think we should do each committee or commission together. Okay. But, so I would make a motion that we nominate reappoint Stephanie Kaplan and Larry Bush to the Conservation Commission. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Trails Committee. Tom Blatchley, Randy Allen and Reed Charrington. I would make a motion that we reappoint the three you just named to the Trails Committee. Okay. I'll second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And Elizabeth Perry has agreed to be second animal control officer. She's met with Wilson. She lives in Maple Corner. So we'd have somebody on each side of town. She's aware of a training that she would have to go to at CBHS to be able to put into action. After hours use of the animal drop off facility there. There's some kind of a coded entry thing that you have to know how to get into to drop off a cat or a dog because they don't take cows or horses. And Elizabeth was instrumental in helping with the Elizabeth Shed situation in Maple Corner recently this fall. She is Cliff Eman's wife. Nice. Yeah. Uh-oh. I hear a critter in the background. Yeah. Somebody's voicing their opinion. A member of the public here. Yes. Is that a motion? Mr. Dogg? I don't think he can make the motion. Okay. Dogs do have a motion. Yeah, they do. I should point out that Elizabeth's name is Felton C. Yeah, I corrected it on the other agenda I sent out. Okay. So I will make, Cliff probably doesn't want to. I will make the motion that we appoint Elizabeth Perry as our second animal control officer. Okay, I'll second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you, Elizabeth. She's downstairs. Oh, okay. Um, but yeah, she was supposed to have met with Wilkinson again last Saturday but because we're both ill we decided we didn't want to share that with Wilkinson so we're going to wait until we're both feeling better. Right. And then she's going to meet with him again. It's almost sounding like it's evolving into an assistant type function because there's a lot of paperwork and records that he needs to help him there. Oh, okay. Perfect. So. All right. And she's got some ideas too. Some other information, ways we could disseminate information to the public and whatnot. Good. Glad to have it. Yeah. Great. Good to have some fresh ideas. Yep. Okay. When we met last time, we had some discussion about newspapers for record. And I would suggest that depending on what it is that's being published, it's going to probably depend on which paper it goes in. Hardware. Because that was weekly times. This is daily. So I would recommend that we record that we will use the Times Argus and Harvard Gazette for things that need to be published. I can make that as a motion. Second. Okay. What did we get stuck on last time? I think it was what did we publish? And like I said, it depends on what we publish. If we had to publish the warning for town meeting in the newspaper like we had to do once several years ago, we would have to publish it in the Times Argus because of the timeframe involved in getting the notice out to households prior to town meeting. If it's an announcement that we want to put in, whether it's maybe an employment announcement or something else, we might want to put it in both. The Harvard Gazette and the Times Argus. The Times Argus or the Harvard Gazette. Yes. Her and or. And or. It's and or. It's and or. Yeah, and or. And then as a practical matter, because lots of people read neither, when we really need people to know, we put things on top of it. Right. Like for instance, when a hearing gets warned for a DRB meeting, I believe that puts it that puts it in the Times Argus. But we also do the publishing. Right. We put it and we put it from which form. Right. We have to have a newspaper on record. Right. Right. Unfortunately. Yeah. So that's why that's there. Right. We have to do it. Yeah. And what's important to me is that we recognize that most people don't see that. And so I don't know. I get a lot of people who say I saw an article about Saudi yada yada yada in the Harvard Gazette or Times Argus. Some people are looking. Well, some people do. Yeah. But a lot of people don't. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of other. You know, that's not where I look, obviously. I'm looking. I read other things. Right. But we know that. We know that for this survey where we really want people to, we really want uptake, we need other places too. Right. But that survey to me is different than what we're talking about with newspapers. Right. Because the survey we're going to probably not going to, I don't know if they're going to put it in the newspaper. No, it's not an official. It's not an official thing. Right. We're talking about. We're talking about notices. You know, when they, if they have to publish something in the paper about the foreclosure sales. Foreclosure or something like that. That's what we're talking about. A lot of people who are looking for foreclosures know that they have to read the newspaper. Right. Okay. So did we vote on that again? No. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Um, liquor license for East Calis General Store that came in. Um, if you remember last meeting we did it, we did the Whammy Bar Maple Corner Store and Adamat Co-op and East Calis hadn't gotten their paperwork in yet. It's here now. There's checks. Um, so it's something like to make a motion to approve the liquor license for East Calis Store. I made like three. Oh. Okay. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And I will send this around to be signed and don't forget we have to, um, there's three of us here to sign it tonight. So that's enough. That's enough. It's a quorum. And then we have to leave it for Judy to fill in her little piece. There's that. Is there two things to sign or just one? Just, just one, just one. Okay. Cliff, do you want to talk about the RFP? Yeah, I looked that thing over. It's a piece of crap. It is not. Somebody that's really, really crafty did it. You did a great job. Yes. I don't know if you have a question. Hi. Did you, I did, well, let's, my question was, oh, you forgot you're not driving tonight. I don't think we have this. Yeah. It's in there. So do you want me to just ask my question now, Cliff? Um, yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, I read the question. Basically, we had talked about putting some kind of provision in here. That's damages. Alan, honey. Am I speaking that correctly? Say that again. I didn't understand what you said. Um, basically Sharon's wanting to add something into this regarding, um, vendor, hey, the vendor to be subject to penalties or fines. And if we had to endure an extended downtime of the server crash or something like that. Did I state that correctly, Sharon? Yeah. I mean, a downside penalty, we could consider an upside bonus for no downtime to something to underscore that, you know, lost downtime on our computers is a big deal. Not, I mean, I'm drawing from what we heard from the staff. So I did have some language into it for the people responding to provide some records of, you know, how they handle it, what their protocol is and whatnot. None of the RFPs that I reviewed have any clauses like that built into them. I'm almost thinking this is something that would be subject to negotiation when we go into contract phase. That's fine. Do other, do you know other places that do that, Sharon? In my experience, things like that would be not unusual at all. I mean, I'm probably used to something on a larger scale, but it's not crazy for us to ask for it or at least to, you know, put it out there as something that we would give, you know, extra attention to or we'd like to hear about. Maybe it's not one of the requirements, but it's something we're very interested in. I wouldn't want to find out that people didn't bid because of that, but I certainly would want to... Is that something we could ask during an interview and then put it in the contract later so that it doesn't do as you suggest it might? Well, but the other way to do that is to let them know that something we're interested in and not put it in the must list. That we'd like to discuss... The possibility. Yeah, we'd like to discuss that possibility. And because I guess the flip side of scaring them away up front is, oh, there was something about that in the RFP. Right, right. And so kind of walking that middle line. Makes sense to me. If we were going to do something like that, I would try to construct a bullet point to put under the section called financial proposal, which is on what is right now page five of the document that I'm looking at it in Word. That's where I thought I might see it, Cliff. So it could be described your... Or it could be, since this is a proposal, a detailed breakdown of fee schedule, it could just say a proposal or a... Is it called something? That people understand what that is. You could call it a special... We have like a special wording. Or we... Or you could ask Jim, Cliff. Cliff, you know what I'm talking about. I can come up with a... Or I'm happy to brainstorm with you. I think it's just... You know, it's a risk. The risk management? What we could do is we could say, state your policy with regards to compensating blah, blah, blah for extended down periods. Or state your willingness to put a percentage of your fees at risk for extended down periods. That's what I'm thinking about. I've got to appeal back years in my head, but it's a risk down side. I think if you have some idea of what we're talking about, and then you can run... When you run it by Jim, he'll probably have some thoughts because he's probably... It may not be something municipalities do, but it doesn't mean that... I mean, in 15 years, people will be doing it. Yeah, like I say, all of the different municipal RFPs of this bill that I looked at, none of them had anything like that in there. There's a mean point. We couldn't. Well, let's put something in there. How we word it. So what I can do is cobble something together, and Sharon, would you want to see it before we send it to Jim? I'm happy to if you... If you want a second opinion, I don't have to. I think it's really... What percentage... To me, I'm crystallizing. What percentage... Something around percentage of fees that they would be willing to put at risk for loss of productivity because of downtime. They can say none, but then we can have the conversation, and it will just punctuate. And we have had a problem with downtime. And I think we can say we've had a problem with downtime. When we meet with people, we can say it. And it was a real problem. Right, and if you have a problem and you're one of the contract, when you're re-upping, and you've raised it at the beginning, even if you don't do it, when you come back to re-up, you can say, look, we let this go a year ago, we're not going to now. Right. Good. So is everybody ready? I might even rephrase it to not speak of it in terms of downtime, but more of loss of productivity to make it into IT issues. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. Okay, yeah. I think I've got a clear idea in my mind of what I can put in for that. Okay, so... Are we at a point, Cliff, where you think it's time to send it to Jim for review so we can get that done and then get this out of... Yeah, what I'd like to do is go ahead. We talked last week with the staff of, I think, Barbara to proof it for us. Right, right. Yeah. So we would have her proof it and then we would send it to Jim. Yup. He'd speak back and once questions or issues that come up and have been addressed, we would then finalize it and vote to move forward. Yeah. We're having Barbara, is that what you said? Yeah, she's going to just do just the typos and that kind of stuff. Yup. Yup. And I sent Jim a note, I think you probably saw it, that this was going to be coming his way and you were the point of contact for that. Okay, great. Sounds good. I thought it was really well done, Cliff. Yeah, excellent. Really professionally pulled together. Yeah, it was very well done. I know you spent a significant amount of time on it so we appreciate it. I sent him an email and already thanked him. Good. Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Sure. We're going to put the effort in and for the good of the community. That was the whole idea when I started down this road. Great. Great. Okay. So does anybody think we need to vote on this or just move forward? I think we vote once we agree it's final and we agree to shop this RFP. Okay. Alrighty. One thing to be aware of, I think you saw it, Denise, but I don't know if everyone would CC'd on it. We've got a meeting scheduled with RB Tech, with the office staff. Right, that's not to talk about this. Right, that's not to talk about this specifically. I think Reuben wants to bring it up, but I'm not going to let him go there because it's not ready yet. He needs to wait. He needs to wait and... He's been monitoring the minutes of our meetings and he's sent out the email and said, yeah, I'm going to be there personally. Right. I saw that and I'm thinking, uh-uh. That's not okay. That's not okay. We're just going to shut that down. Yeah. If he thinks he's going to come and start talking about this, no. Well, it's just we're doing due diligence on behalf of the town. That's all we got to say. That's all we're going to say. We're not getting into the specifics or the issues, nothing. No, we really cannot prejudice our process at all. No. No. And this is why I haven't put this into the public section of the folders. Yeah. Good. And there's need to have equal chance to access it at the same time. Right. And I didn't respond to Reuben because I don't want to open up that opportunity for him to start asking questions and things like that. So we'll just shut it right down Thursday. Okay. Good. We're on the same page. Yep. Yep. Okay. Woodbury Volunteer Fire Department Station Committee. I had my second meeting last Thursday. We started at six because it's late now and we could go across the street and look at the building in the garage in the land that was donated. Although you can't see the land because there's 5,000 feet of snow. But it's a house from the 1800s and the garage probably from the 19 fifties. It's a mess. It would cost so much money to renovate that, that the committee is thinking that it would make more sense to just demolish it and see what it would cost to put up. I think it's four bays they're looking at, the house fire equipment over there. The next meeting is April 18th. And we're going to try to have some architectural firms come to give us some idea of what they could provide as far as plans for the amount of money that I understand is set aside. There's $18,000 to start some architectural work. There's been a few drawings done already. Um, where's my notes? The fire department. Um, what else, what else? Um, we looked at the, oh, there would have to be a sewage holding tank on this site that was donated to them. Um, they're going to start doing some more fundraising. There wouldn't have to be added? What? Yeah, apparently right now there's a well that's, somehow it's it's underneath the house because back then there weren't any regulations in the, whenever they put that in, it was convenient if you had to pump it by hand. But, so that's something that has to be checked on. If this was the option that the two towns agreed to they would convert the existing fire station into office and meeting space knowing full well that there's probably not going to be a lot of money to do that. Um, we also took a site visit to the building that's attached to the Cal's Woodbury fire. I mean Cal's Woodbury food shelf. Um, and that space would be used to house maybe like the boat, the rescue boat thing that they have and stuff. Um, the Mason building that we were going to look at that's on the corner there by South Woodbury church is currently under a purchase and sales contract so it's not available to look at. If that falls through then we would check on that again because that's got an existing two bay garage already. Um, they're going to be getting things ready to send out a mailing for their donations which they do once or twice a year I believe. Um, that's, I think we got that. That sounds familiar. That was, it was before town meeting I think. We got something. But, so that's pretty much it. Nobody's committed to anything. They've been very clear that they have lowered their expectation of what they were initially hoping for back when things started back like three years ago when they did that whole thing. Yeah, that's the thing. So, and they're, I'm going to say they're a good group to deal with. Yeah. Yeah, a good group to deal with. Um, joint meetings we're looking at probably May 13 and somewhere during that full second of May. The popular hill cemetery folks are supposed to be having another meeting when all of their the three remaining board members get back from various locations. Um, and then we should have a joint meeting with the cemetery commission. I've talked to cemetery commission. Jim know about it as we talked about last meeting. Um, so it looks like it's probably going to be in May. I thought it was going to be sooner, but May's fine with me because we've got enough other stuff going on. Second week of May? Probably the second, yeah. So probably sometime in there. Um, road meetings. It looks like Monday, April 29th at East Calis Rec Center. And Monday, April 15th in Adamant. April 29th in East Calis. April 15th in Adamant. Are you good with those, Cliff? I'm looking at it right now. I think that's... Those would be at seven. Yeah, the 29th might I think I can make words to 15th. I don't think it's a problem at all. And Sharon? Rose? So, um, I'm available but what about our select board meetings? Because we would have met on the second which, uh, Monday which would be the 8th. But that's a U32 meeting. So we're just not going to have a... And then we'll meet on the 22nd for our other one. Right, I know that presents... I suppose, um, if we had anything significant, I could put it on the agenda for after the roads meeting. If there was something that came up we really needed to discuss for after the 15th because we're at the 29th could we're foregoing that meeting? Well, we're foregoing the April 8th meeting because that's... Oh, it's the 22nd. So we could put something on for the 15th if we need to. We might want to put and Katie, are you available? We might want to do some appointments on the 15th just because we need to. Yeah, if we're going to be there. I don't know about the 15th. I've got something on my calendar and I don't know how long it's been. I don't know. You're going to blossom in two? Yeah. The 29th I think I'm fine. So you're okay on the 29th and should I put you down as a maybe for the 15th? Is that what you're saying? Yes. You're on the 29th. On roads. Right. And I've already reserved it. I just need to confirm it with Scott and Rick Winston. But I couldn't do that until I talked to you guys. But on the 15th I think after the roads meeting we should do appointments and reappointments just so we keep people engaged. Yeah. And then if there's other issues like sign orders, that kind of stuff. And Katie, you said you're okay for both. Thank you so much. You're so wonderful. And then on the 11th we have the joint meeting with MFT. Right. I mentioned that last meeting so everybody put it on their calendar. Look at these. I put it on my calendar. You did! Thank you. And you have an old-fashioned calendar. I love that. It's actually better than this because that falls off on us. Right. And this you can see the whole picture. I can see what I'm up against. Yes. I am a busy April. Yeah. We all have busy. Okay. I don't think there's anything else that I have to update you on unless there's something I was working on that I forgot to tell you about. I have a question about the orders. Okay. That's not the right time. Sure. Somewhere in there, Alfred has two things. Alfred paid for the western star personally registration. And... I didn't know he was going to do that. And I... I wish... I wish he were here. Like to me that's the sort of... the credit cards. He doesn't have one. I know he doesn't. But it was never our thought that everybody who might ever have an expense would have a credit card. Right. I think we should probably let him know that we have credit cards. I think he did it on a Friday. Offices closed. The ball was shot. I wish he hadn't done it using his personal finances. Right. That's what... that's one of the things that people don't have to do for the town anymore. Right. So we should somehow communicate to him that... If you make a note of that, Katie, I can communicate that. And then the other thing, I was expecting to see the thing we talked about last time. Yeah. I didn't see it either. So maybe he hasn't done it yet. I know he was running behind trying to catch up all the orders because he's been doing so much... No, that is fair enough. And maybe he was in town and had to get the thing registered. Right. Well, that was the time when he called me. I told you from motor vehicles. Oh, and you had to... I had to send that email saying, yes, let him register. I didn't know at the time if he was going to use his own personal... Yeah. It's just a bump. It is. But we don't expect employees to get their finances. Well, we don't expect and we don't want. It works it hard. It is incongruent with the arms length that we talked about last time. Right. Anything else on words? No, I just... I wanted to just go back to the Woodbury Fire Station Committee. I talked to Denise last week at the previous meeting. Not the one when I was sick, but the one before that. I was appointed to be with Denise and Barry at the Woodbury Fire Meeting. But I had since called Denise and I kind of backed out of it because my work schedule at the hospital, it takes me a solid 30 minutes to get from the hospital here. And so I'm sure it would take 45 to 50 minutes to get there. And so I just don't really think that I can actively participate. That's one reason. And the second reason is I do have a conflict on the first and third Thursdays. I attend a church prayer group and I thought, oh, I could just do away with it. But on second thought, it really does mean something to me and I really don't want to get that up. So I told Denise that I certainly will do whatever I can at our meetings and actively participate. And I'm going to be able to attend those Woodbury Fire Department meetings. Right, and they're not necessarily always at six and they're not necessarily the same nights. But the schedule is kind of all over the place right now because they wanted to do a meeting on the 11th and I said I couldn't because we have e-smopulia. So I just wanted to put that out because I had talked to Denise about it but I wanted the rest of the board to know how I felt. And if Barry comes, that will help because he asks really good questions and stuff. Yeah, he's really knowledgeable. Well and my hope for you Denise is that if Barry comes and kind of takes the reins on it that it's something you don't have to do. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Because your time and your energy has spread very thin and I think we have great people like the ISP guys. Let them have it. And the other thing that occurs to me sometimes is that when you're there it makes it easier for people not to be there. So if Barry is willing then maybe because I'm hoping I don't have to go to every meeting if Barry is back on board. He was out of town this last meeting. And it's not personal to Barry at all but anytime there's a couple of people that feels like somebody's kind of got it then my instinct is to go put my energy somewhere else. So if Barry's willing to do it maybe that's a place that you don't have to Thank you for the information. Appreciate it. I don't know, I think that's it unless there's some... 20 minutes? Yeah, we are. I just wanted to make sure there was many more stuff that I'm supposed to maybe update you on that I didn't. We talked about the meetings. What else is going on? Enough meetings, right? And last week I had a meeting every single night and every day except for Friday. That's what I'm saying. No, seriously. Find some things that you can say you know I'm just going to let this one let somebody else run with that. Alright, minutes. Let's start out with January 28th I know there are probably three of us or four of us have all looked at them. Yep, my obviously... Yeah, I looked at them all again today to make sure that because I know Sharon and I can make comments, I don't know if you had anything Rose. No, I read them but I don't I haven't been doing the comment thing. Alright, January 28th Is that what's here right now? Yep, join me. Would you mind just scrolling through quickly just so we can say, oh that's right. If you see Denise's comment read there. Let me make this picture. Yep, okay. That brings us to the end. So is there a motion to approve the January 28th minutes? Okay, is that a second? So Cliff seconded, all those in favor please say aye. And I'm assuming that this means we're approving the changes that were made. Oh yeah. Wait, I have a question with Denise because your red comment said it was already discussed. That they couldn't use you 32 capstones project, senior projects for the ash, that was in the context of the ash project. I'm just curious what barriers come up when they're going to check into it. Oh, so it was already discussed as an option. So is that a recent concept? No, it was I made that statement after you suggested it that we had already talked about it at a conservation commission meeting that it was going to be checked out because there's a guy on a conservation commission that's a teacher at E32 Mark Brown. Yes, okay. So it's going to circle. Okay. Are we ready to vote? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay, maybe. February 11th I think it was sanding. Mm-hmm. And you added the E for lightening. Actually, I thought that Alfred talked about salting on pavement. He does on the part of the lightning ridge road that goes to the school and then after that he does it. The accident that took place was on the dirt part of the road. Okay, that's true. All right. Well, it looks like a bunch of It's some type of kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, and you're scrolling through these at home, right? Cliff? Yes, I played along at home. Yeah, I made a motion that we approved those with the edits. Second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay, February 25th. Oh, that one I went into a second time and then I noticed afterwards, oh, I'd already read this one so I didn't have any edits, but then I did. Anybody want to make a motion to approve the February 25th minutes? Well, I wasn't there except by phone for the executive session. Okay, then I'll make a motion to approve the February 25th minutes. Is there a second? Second. Okay, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Ten meeting minutes. Now, Katie did a really great job. She did a really detailed set of minutes, which I find really helpful. But the ones that were publishing on the website or that are going to go in the next year's town report are more edited because otherwise they're really long. So, which ones do you want me to pull up? I actually, I confess I have not read these. Judy and I and Barbara and Sandra have read the detailed minutes in detail and I had made some comments which you incorporated. Yeah, great. So there's, I don't think there's any comments on this guy. No, because I had given them on previously. Yeah, I received them from you all. Right. Yeah, I'm incorporating them. So, are these already, are they out? They're draft. They have to be done in draft within five days. Yeah, so they're out already? Yeah. So I would make a motion that we approve the longer version and the condensed version of the town meeting minutes. Second? Second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Great job, Katie. Yes, she's doing a great job. I don't know how you did it but you did a great job. Are you voting? I haven't even read them yet so you guys, it's done. Okay. March 11th? There. So that one I changed so the draft said that we agreed and I feel like maybe we should say away from agreeing except when we're actually voting so we discussed the preference. And then I think I had made a comment or two. That makes sense, right Katie? Yeah. Yeah, March 18th was we talked about having it here. One of the, who was it, Caroline Morton had suggested that she had talked to Alfred about having a Rhodes meeting in Maple Corner but that never happened so I think we just need to change it to the town office from Maple Corner Community Center. Oh, we didn't do East County store. Okay. I'll make the right changes. I think that was... I'll go back. The Woodbury Fire Department just go up just a tad. It's March 21st, not April 21st. Where? Third lane from the bottom. Right there, it's March 21st. Ah, good catch, Rose. Is that a motion, Rose? Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve these with the edits. Cliff, did you second that? I did second that. That's what I thought. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay, March 18th. Another great job, Katie, capturing what people said. I don't know if we can do these because Sharon and Rose weren't here. Yeah, good call. Yeah, so let's remember to do them next meeting when John's around. What was the feel of the meeting? It was very nice. People were very respectful. We had a good conversation. When you look at the minutes... I did read the minutes. Yeah, there were some good ideas to investigate. Not everything is doable but some things that we can check out. So I was very happy with how it went. Toby came, Alfred did not and that's fine that he did. No, I mean he can't be everywhere at once. Right, I mean he's out plowing roads, you know. Right, I don't think people understand that. Okay. When I look through the orders I always look at their time cards. It's incredible, right? Well, it's a lot, but so many of the days they end at four o'clock and I'm like, could it really be that it didn't snow on any of those days that it ends at four o'clock? I really just I really want to advocate for just different schedules. I really, I agree and did you talk about that night? No, I wasn't there. I had a stomach bug. We talked about it briefly the idea of staggered schedules because that's on the list from when we talked about it previously. Do we know that there are any towns doing that? They don't know whether or there is not. There is not any that anybody knew of right off and Toby had done a bunch of research on you know, winter operations plans for other towns and once we're done with all these meetings and we come up with some ideas although Mack Gardner Morse it's in the minutes, if you look at that he suggested that maybe at UVM and I've got to get back to Mack because he sent me an email they have some kind of a program there with what kind of students, I forget now but it's in the minutes students that will do projects looking at like the best routes maybe for somebody to take for doing driving a UPS truck or something like that so he suggested and he was going to meet with somebody at UVM that he knows that's in charge of this program to be able to have some students that would come out or review the routes and maybe they could come up with some efficiencies in the routes so I thought that was a great tool to utilize even if we find out that it's not any better Stu Johnson from Vermont local roads who came said that Calis is one of the, there's five towns in Calis in Vermont that have a ton of back roads Calis being one of the high five he said a plow route for any driver in any town is usually four around four hours and our guys because of going back and forth to the town garage their trips are like five to six hours I think it makes sense to see about either putting a stockpile of sand in Worcester seeing if there's trade-offs that we can do with other towns to, you know maybe Eastmont Pillar can plow more of the county road because they're closer and they know how to do it and they know how to do it so there was ideas like that that came up I think are worth investigating and we do some of that already we do, but maybe there's more that we can do to trade off with Woodbury for certain parts so I asked Stu who's from out local roads if he would put something like that on an upcoming four minutes meeting for the towns because road crews are known to be very territorial so talking about things kind of outside the box sometimes it's difficult I thought they could put it on a four minutes meeting agenda as, you know, can we talk about how we might help each other maybe we loan each other equipment and things, you know, maybe that discussion could start taking place I mean maybe if the UVM project looks and says that we're largely as efficient as we can be within the confines of Callis, but hey, look what happens if you go to three towns now you've got a road crew of how many you've got much more sensical routes and you can find a lot of efficiencies and then, you know, maybe you work with Worcester to put the sandpile there so that they can use the loader because it does no good to have a sandpile if you don't have anything to load the trucks with so I think that people are thinking, you know, let's look outside the box and I think it's time well I think we need to because the conditions are changing right, they're not going to get better the rain, the snow so I'm sure some of these things will come up at the future meeting so we don't have to rehash everything tonight but I would appreciate it if we could go into executive session to talk about a personnel matter so most and you have the statute to vote there Katie, right? we'll go with 913