 or can you paste it into the chat? Yeah, so I couldn't find exactly what it was I wrote in the last chat in the executive committee. So I did kind of put something together a few moments ago that I hope we'll meet with everyone's approval here. Let me get this here. Controls, control the. I can pull that chat log, right? That's not that big of a deal. You don't have it. So I kind of put it into a format which lends itself to this. If you take a quick read of that, Jeremy, if you feel like it doesn't capture what we had talked about, then happy to substitute that for whatever else you have. And in fact, you have. In fact, that is exactly what I wrote last time. Okay. And actually it looks like, although it looks like Chuck, like we reworded it somewhat, hold on. So here was the, oh no, that was about something else, nevermind. Yeah, no, that is it. Okay. So would you like to massage that into emotion? Yeah, so if you see what I put in there brief as before there, whereas contracts have been executed for conducting poll inventory services with the Apex group, useless cable enterprises and Tilson technology management, whereas the board has approved phase one for the initial pre-construction work and whereas the executive committee recommends the board approve the issuance of a request for bids for the phase one poll inventory. The recommendation from the executive committee to the board is that the board authorized the issuance of a request for bids for poll inventory services phase one and that upon a review of the sub submitted proposals, the executive committee is authorized to enter into a contract or contracts that are in the best interest of CD5 work. That's the motion. I will hear your motion. Do we have a second? I second it. Okay, seconded by David Healy. Any further discussion? So I will discuss this. This is our taking the next step. So we have entered into, we have signed, not contracts. What's the word that we just signed? Master service agreement. Thank you. We just signed master service agreements with these three vendors. So they are ready and willing to submit bids to us when we are ready to solicit them. So we will put out in our request for bid a request for proposal from them and they will bid using the information that we present them. That's not, that's all gonna, us awarding the bid is obviously going to be contingent on another step, which is the funding. Once we have the funding, then we can essentially tell them go and we're ready to proceed with the first step of phase one. Siobhan. Yeah, I was confused by the word contracts because I thought, well, if we have contracts, why do we need bids? Confused me a little bit there, but that was clear. Thank you. Maybe I should have added this as a agenda item, but my conversation, I emailed you and David about my conversation with the select board yesterday. And so if we want to ask for money, we have to ask for, I need specific information to give them so that we can do that in relation to this poll inventory. Specifically, that's why I bring it up right now. Right, I will, so I haven't answered that yet. That's on my list of things to do, but yes, there is a specific ask for select boards to come in and essentially be involved in one part of one of the phases depending on where you are. So there's some timing sensitivity. We don't, we essentially don't necessarily want everybody writing us checks right this second because we're not really ready to build in absolutely every town. I mean, if the Berlin Select Board came to me and said, you know, here we've got some money for you, like, well, just not, we're not quite ready to say what we're doing with it yet, but we'll get there. But yeah, I will follow up with you, Siobhan, and we'll talk about specifically what that looks like. Okay, anything else on this? This is our, again, this is our one baby step foot in front of the next in order to eventually see, you know, construction maybe by the end of the year, if everything moves smoothly and funding flies. Yeah, Alan? I had a question pop into my mind when I was actually bicycling the other day, looking at poles as I go along. That's my new thing to do when I bike. I look at poles. What's going to be the relationship between pole surveys we do and pole surveys that Washington Electric might do? Is that to be coordinated? Yeah, so they have no reason to duplicate efforts with us. So we will, I mean, I expect it, David, you could probably talk more intelligently about this. This will be in the MOU about sharing of data and kind of project planning. Yeah. So Alan, if we're doing this now just to keep things moving, basically when Washington Electric starts moving on its dark fiber build, they will be responsible for the pole inventory and pole make ready. So this is just so we can get going this year because they will not be able to do anything until they have the money sometime October, November. And so this way it's, we will be submitting from this pole inventory and make ready requests for 3000 poles in the phase one route. So we want to give them advanced notice on that. And then in the future, I mean, it basically is going to take them a while to do the make readies. And so the quicker they have the information, the better we can move forward too. So that's sort of the plan. So it's sort of, we take the first step of having the pole inventories done and then they take the second step of handling the make ready. Correct. Well, and then you, yeah. And then the third step is whoever hangs the fiber is hanging the fiber. Correct. Okay. Now in the phase one route, there are also 300 green mountain power poles, which is pretty small, but there are that many and they will be the make ready requests for those because green mountain powers database has all the information needed to do a make ready request. We will do deal with them separately. I mean, they don't mean to be inventoryed. That's good. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks. Appreciate that. So David, it's just a matter of essentially telling them which poles we're talking about on the map and that they just pull it and they're ready to go. No, we have to actually file applications, 200 poles at a time. So green mountain power will get two applications. Okay. And they will review that and get back to us when they need, and then after you do that, there's a write out to all the poles. And so it's a series of steps to get to the, to get to go. Cool. All right. Any other questions about the pole auditing step? Yeah, Phil? Yes. Since there was a question on what contracts meant, and that apparently it means master service agreements, should we just use that phrase just to be a little more precise in the motion? So the master service agreements have already been, we're already approved by the executive committee. We was already, that was authority that was previously delegated. I think these contracts are, once we're ready to go out to bid, we are gonna send out the request for bid, they will bid, and then we will enter into the contracts when we have money to do so. We're essentially delegating that authority to the executive committee. All right. But this motion in the first sentence says whereas contracts have been executed, and what that means, what's meant, I believe is master service agreements have been executed. Right, yeah. So if you change those contracts, if you say whereas master service agreements have been executed, yes, that would be. A little more precise since there's already been a question about it. Yep, that's perfectly good. I'll accept that as a family amendment. Yeah, me too. Okay. Okay, any other comments about this, any thoughts? Okay. So if you're ready to vote, I will ask if there are any objections. Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. Thanks for that. Let's go on to the bills. So we have a bill for the bookkeeper for $304. Chuck, could you remind me the amount for the PM search? 500. So straight 500. And the CVRPC bill was, I don't know, $906 and 20, $906 and 25 cents. And one of the reasons that that was higher, I think, then it was higher because Christian really got tossed into the deep end with our meeting a month ago. So but my expectation is that, you know, as Christian and Zach get more comfortable with doing the minutes that they'll be able to produce quicker and hopefully that time will come down. Okay, so yeah, Artie. I did not notice that the invoice was itemized. Actually, the services CVRPC performed for us. If you scroll down, it's only two line items. It's, I think, eight and a quarter hours for Christian. And I don't remember exactly, it's like four and a half or something like that for Zach, but it is itemized. Right. Was that all minutes? Correct, yes. It was like 11 hours for those minutes for two meetings. Was that the, for how many meetings? Two meetings. So I'm not sure if it's, if it's my connection, do we have a sense, Jeremy, of what we have? Well, so Zach's were kind of on par with how long it usually takes me about, you know, I think the meeting was a couple hours and it took him another two hours beyond that to clean up the minutes and get them sent out. That's on par with what, you know, with how long it usually takes me to produce these minutes. Christian, I think, was eight and a half hours. That meeting though was, I think, like three or three and a half hours long. It was a long one, it was complex. There was a lot of discussion. And my sense is that Christian is maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Christian, but that maybe isn't entirely up to snuff on exactly what is important and what is not and what can be ignored and what is not. So his minutes were very, very detailed, which is good. But I think that going forward, he'll get a better sense of, oh, okay, this is how I can kind of condense this multiple, you know, these multiple, you know, multiple people speaking into a, you know, into a few sentences of, you know, discussion ensued about this because the details of the discussion aren't really that important. And I've talked to him a little bit about that, so. Yeah, I'd just like to jump in and say, I'm gonna also review that because that does seem excessive even from the billing side of it. I don't recall being that high. I think there might have been another item in there that didn't show up in the invoice explaining that time. So one, it definitely should speed up. I agree with that, Jeremy. Second, I'm gonna double check that. I know, yeah. Okay, so it doesn't itemize what you spent your time on Christian. It just says that you spent eight and a half hours. I was not aware of you spending time on other things. Maybe going forward, if we have a list of tasks that you worked on, that would be helpful. So let's look at this, let's look at the next invoice that we get. And then, if we can get a sense of, is this something that we wanna continue doing? If it ends up continuing to be expensive, then we may just choose to figure something else out. Yeah, it looks like the hourly rate is $82 an hour. If it's 11 hours and $906.25, I know that includes overhead. I see, I see 13 hours. 13 hours, so that'll, thank you. Yeah, and they actually have the hourly rate for each of them. Anyways, all right. So I will move that we approve the bills and the amount totaling 1,000. Yeah? Just one more note. I have a document that's titled, CD-Fiber Governing Board Draft Meeting Minutes, March 25th, but it's clearly the executive committee. I may have those minutes out, which were three-page long were misidentified. Okay, I will have to fix that for the, yeah. So what you're saying is the document name was Governing Board Minutes, but the content was executive committee? Yes, it was the minutes of the executive committee meeting, not the Governing Board. Okay, just that sounds good. I do copy the files to use them as templates. So I will go correct that in the executive committee minutes. Thanks, Artie. Appreciate the attention to detail. I'm gonna move that we approve the three bills in the total amount of $1,710.25. Second. Okay, seconded by Siobhan. Any further discussion? Yes, please, this is Jerry. I just wanna make sure that we get into the minutes that this bookkeeper invoices for MBM Associates and it's invoice number 2183. Number 2183, okay. Anything else? I can provide just quick clarification on the ad spend if people want. Yeah, that'd be good. So the Governing Board had pre-approved the idea of spending up to $2,500 for the purpose of advertising the open PM position and or RFP and we did a fair amount of experimentation on advertising. It ran into some firewalls that didn't let us do it via Facebook, but we did do some advertising via LinkedIn and that is where that $500 went. However, the LinkedIn advertisement, I don't know that it was particularly successful in driving any actual proposals for us. So we went ahead and turned it off so that we wouldn't end up spending the full 2,500. All right. Any questions for Chuck about that? So any objections to approving these bills? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Let's go on to the clerk update. Jeremy? Yeah, so one of the items was that we did receive the CVRPC invoice. The other is just a reminder to people that I believe we need letters of reappointment from your towns. So if you're gonna continue being the delegate, alternate, et cetera, towns need to send us letters saying who is appointed to what position. And I'll send out an email to the board reminding them of that. And thanks, Chuck, for the reminder. The next item is that I've gone through the back minutes, the ones that were missing. Oh, Tom has a question. Go ahead. Just cause we don't have her view into seeing what necessarily a select board sent in. Can you provide some sort of checklist of who's okay and who needs to get that sent in? According to the statutes, it needs to be done annually. And I will send the language in the chat so that you can review it yourself cause it describes exactly what needs to happen. It wasn't a question of whether it needs to happen. It was what, whether it already has happened and I just don't know about it or not. The only one that I've got, I believe is, sorry, go ahead, Jeremy. The only one that I've seen is more town. So if I'm missing any, I'll double check that. But at this point, it's all the rest of us, all the rest except for Chuck. So we've also gotten one from, for Washington. So yeah, we're good for Washington. Let's see, who else? I want to say, Berry City, we're good for as well. I'm sorry, not Berry City, Berry Town. Berry Town is good. I don't think we've seen any. I thought they had to be re-upped every year. They do and the statute has a little item in there that if there's no explicit re-upping that whoever was last appointed remains, which is why we have some people still officially on the books that probably shouldn't be because they have select boards and people not being terribly active or proactive about it. Yeah, Artie? Are you suggesting then Jeremy that all of us, and asked for letters of return to our municipal board for reappointment? Yeah, that would be helpful. Is that the default procedure? I have in the past sent out an email in After Town Meeting Day. Somebody else sent it out one year. I'm not really sure who sent it out in the past. It was maybe a former clerk. But yeah, we have sent those out from either me or a clerk has done that. And then sometimes I just get them from the select boards or city councils by default. And I guess there's enough turnover in select boards that they're not all being proactive about it. Yeah, Ray? Don't we have a mailing list of all the town managers? And if we don't, perhaps we should. And why don't we send an email to them referencing the statute and asking for the appointments, letters? I would be happy to have somebody do that. I do not have a list of town managers. And as a matter of fact, probably half of our towns don't have town managers. I've been sending these notices in the past to town clerks and having the town clerks essentially escalated from there. I'm happy to pass that along that way as well. But I hear remarkably little from town clerks, frankly, even though they see all of our announcements. I mean, the chair of the select boards usually, I mean, I got an email from my chair of the select board saying, David, do you want to get reappointed last month? So I think it's the chair of the select board that pays more attention than this than the clerks for some reason. And what she does, she sent it out to every organization that has appointed members. I mean, the CV5 wasn't the only one. So maybe this is a good opportunity, Christian and CVRPC if we can, because I know Bonnie has a list of all of the town managers or the select board chairs. And I think maybe she hasn't herself, but folks at CVRPC have sent out blasts like this. Maybe we could just send a message out to the 20 towns or at least the towns that are within CVRPC's umbrella. And then we can pick up the remainder. That would be helpful. Thank you. All right, anything else? Anything else? So I was still talking about the... Oh, I'm sorry, go on. No, I was just gonna... I was still talking about the minutes, so before we move on. Yeah, go for it. Okay, so in terms of the minutes, I've gone through all the ones that I can find. The ones that I've found approvals for, I went through, cleaned them up, put them on letterhead. If there were any notes saying that, approved with spelling corrections, I went in and did spell check and corrected spellings where I could. And those approved minutes are all posted to the website. There are a number of minutes that were never approved. That looks like the July 9th, December 17th and February 2nd minutes were never approved. I have attached those, and if someone wants to make a motion to approve those, that could be something that could be done. There is the minutes of the August... Let's see. Sorry, I should have organized this a little bit better here. So in terms of the minutes that we didn't have draft minutes for, that's August 13th, September 10th, October 8th and October 22nd. Of those, I've listened to the recordings for three of the minutes and generated minutes from those recordings as best I could. See, there's one that is completely missing entirely. And I don't have that right in front of me. I think it's the September 10th meeting. And I guess that's sort of an open question of what do we do with that meeting? Do we leave a blank hole on the website with no minutes? Do we post a document saying, due to technical difficulties, the September 10th minutes were lost and we have no record of this meeting? I guess that's kind of the approach that I would go because one, there's not an obvious hole on the website and it explains upfront what happened to those minutes. So that's where we are with the governing board minutes. Yeah, well, why don't you just put a placeholder in there to that effect? And I think that if it was recent minutes, within the last couple of months, yeah, maybe we can approve them. If you send those back out, we can put them on the next agenda. So I will put back minutes on the next agenda. So I sent those out on March 25th with all of the draft minutes attached. Okay, so I have not reviewed those for this meeting. I would like to sit on those a bit and come back at the next meeting and do that if we could. I should point out though that there's absolutely nothing obliging us to approve minutes. I mean, that's a formality. It's a good thing to do so that everybody knows that the official record was correct. And we do find things every now and then, but at least our statutory obligation to keep minutes does not require us to approve them technically. Sure, so I can either put them up by this draft. We can say, well, we're gonna accept these as the official record. Just post them as a draft. And either of the more recent ones that then we'll actually approve at the next meeting then. Okay, I think none of them are particularly recent. Okay, yeah, honestly, this is fairly pro forma. I'm not sure that we need to really spend any more time on it. I really appreciate you having gone back and produced them. I'm not sure that we necessarily need to go to that next step. Alan, I see you have your hand up. Yeah, Jeremy, when you've been referencing minutes in the last five minutes of discussion, you meant minutes of the governing board, is that correct? Correct, yes. Because if I were calling for a lot of committee meeting minutes that are also not there, I've gone ahead and I've created minutes for the missing policy committee meetings. But I think I've hesitated to bring this up because I don't know if anybody knows the answer to this, but I think I've got to run those minutes by the former chair, Phil, to just have a general sense of whether I'm on, I'm going in the right direction with what I have. I was at almost all the meetings, so I have some notes myself and I can tell from other actions that were taken what happened. And then once I have Phil say, yeah, these look okay, I was going to try and get as many of the people who were present for the meetings to join the policy committee at its next meeting when we can have one and look at those minutes and make sure that there's nothing in error. Does that sound like that's what you want us to do? You want us to try and clean up the committee meeting minutes as well, is that correct? When you say you, do you mean me or Jeremy Hansen? No, me, I'm trying to clean up the minute. What should we be doing generally? I mean, technically you're the clerk, so you could, I guess you could tell us to forget it. It's a pain in the neck, nobody reads a many now. I don't think we ought to be doing that. I think we should be trying to reconstruct as many of them as we possibly can. And at least make a good intent to be doing what the law requires us to do. My gut feeling is that we're not going to be able to do that for the governing board. We're not going to be able to go back and say, like, hey, all you people who are here at this meeting show up and discuss these for you know, and frankly I don't remember month to month necessarily what happened at all these meetings. Expecting people to remember back two years. What I think might make sense is to just, for any of these notes that you've created, and correct me if someone has a better idea, but say that these are based on produced on and put the date that you produced them or the approximate date, reconstructed based on notes from Alan Gilbert in consultation with Phil Hayek, if Phil's willing to sit down with you and go over those. Okay, well, let me just- That would be my recommendation, but if someone has a better suggestion. So why don't we just chew on this? And meanwhile, I'll try and round things up and get people to look at them. So I'm pretty sure I've got most of the stuff correct, but it would help to have a few more eyes to look at them. Okay, sounds good. Anything else on this, Jeremy? Nope, that's all. So it sounds like we're gonna wait and chew on them, and or I'm just gonna, or okay, so I guess that's a question. Are we gonna wait and chew on them, or am I gonna post in this draft and we're just gonna move on from here? So how old is the most recent one that you're talking about? Is it last year? The most recent ones, there's just flipping through real quick. The most recent one is February 11th, 2020. No, just mark him as draft, put him on the website and let's get past this. I think that it's not, the juice isn't worth the squeeze on this one. There's not gonna be enough substantial changes to justify the extra work and the extra board time to go after this if we need to, because there's some pressing issue that refers back to one of these, then yeah, then let's go back. I think what we'll do is we'll just say, we're doing much better now, we have a much better process. We have folks diligently taking notes and things are working better now, so. Okay, sounds good, thanks. And thank you for all of the work going back and doing the research and watching those meetings. That's a lot of work. That's not work that I envy at all. One of them was well over three hours long. Oh my, yeah, that's a hard pass for me. Okay, so let's go on to funding for the ongoing legal work. So we had approved, how much did we approve? $2,000 for the MOU with Washington Electric? Is that? We approved a $2,000 retainer with the idea that that was going to go towards the MOU with WEC. Okay, so. Which has been paid, by the way. Great, so who would like to give us some context of where we are now and where we're likely to go because that $2,000, poof, that was fast and we're well beyond it now, so. Well, I'll take a whack at it with Ray to support. So we've been working with Washington Electric's lawyer. We've been working with any K broadband who's using the same lawyer we are. So we're sharing costs with them. And we're working with EC Fiber's lawyer and Washington Electric's lawyer. So there's a lot of lawyers who are eating up hours to develop this MOU. This MOU is very comprehensive and in my opinion, it's as close to whatever we would end up with a contractual agreement in the next few months. But meantime, the MOU spells out all the relationships and all the, how things will work and who leases what to whom, how we deal with Ardolf Terriers. It covers, I think the committee is, which is Ken, Ray, Jerry and myself. And we've been meeting, well, we've slowed down meetings, thank God. But it was getting quite intense and we think we've come to a pretty good agreement with Washington Electric. We have a separate agreement that we're working with on any, with Kingdom Fiber, who is part of the partnership with WEC and has Ardolf areas in CV Fiber territory. So that one's still underway. We're waiting to hear back from Michaels on that probably in the next day or two, which will probably require a little bit more work. So in the meantime, we've racked up a bill. We have an outstanding invoice for the month of March of $3,650. And I've forgotten, she's estimated what it would take, what her expenses might be in April, but I have forgotten those and Ray may remember what her estimate was. No. Anyway, we're still employing her at a rate of $200 an hour. She is incredibly competent, knowledgeable and has really looked out for our butt. So that's all I can say about it. It's not cheap. So, Jerry, did you have a chance to review the grant materials? And does this look like we have some wiggle room within that to cover these costs? We do have some wiggle room in that. Certainly the grant from the public service department itemizes $6,000 for legal fees. And that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be other monies from other awards that we've gotten previously that may not have been fully allocated and can be used to cover whatever remainder of the legal fees there are. This is critically important stuff. We have to figure out how to pay this. So the $6,000 that's specifically itemized in the grant, there may also be opportunities. I don't know if there are or not, but there may be opportunities to rob from Peter to pay Paul so that we can move some money around within that grant within those same categories. I would expect that that would probably be okay. So yeah, I think we can move forward with her and I can't overemphasize the importance of the assistance that we've been getting here. This is critical help for us. And something I wanna point out too is because this is part of a concrete project. This is part of our phase one project that I think that this will be packaged in as we're kind of building the budget, as we're building in kind of the flow for how we're spending funds. This is part of phase one. So it's not poll make ready. It's not poll auditing. It's not construction, but it is, folks have, Jeremy posted in the chat, this is just as important as that, probably more important. I think it sets the expectations. So- This is a part of pre-construction engineering. This is a standard part of the effort that needs to be done pre-construction. So that this falls well within that area. Ray, would you talk about what you just posted in the chat? Cause I think that's worthwhile. Muted. I'm rarely muted, but okay. I have a motion, move the board, approve the March legal invoice for WECMOU for $3,650. And the board approved the continued engagement with Krista Schuets to complete the work. I'm understanding that the costs will be shared with NEC and EC-Fiber CUDs. And I think David has given a great deal of background and Jerry has as well. She's just critical to the successful negotiation of an agreement. She's so knowledgeable as well as being a lawyer, but knowledgeable about the business and that we will wind up with a good document at the end, protecting us. Okay, so I saw RD with a second. Any further discussion about that? So the other thing that you mentioned about the cost sharing formula, do you wanna just mention that briefly? Yeah, so the CUDs are meeting independently amongst themselves because we have to organize, et cetera. And we have agreed amongst ourselves and it'll be reduced to writing that we'll do a cost sharing formula. And the formula is based upon the amount of WEC miles that'll be developed into our CUDs. And we have something like, I think David's estimate, something like 60%. So we're not getting out of it cheaply. On the other hand, we're the ones that mean beneficiaries of all this. Any other thoughts or questions about this? So just to be clear, our net obligation is 60% of the 3650. No, that is our obligation for March. Right, and on top of which we are getting, we're now getting regular time sheets or documentation as we go so that there's no surprise along the way. So we're more or less more on top of the situation than let's say we were for March. So Jeremy, you wanna verbalize your comment in the chat? I think that's a valuable question. Yeah, sure. So I just wanted to clarify that the cost sharing is not for the legal work. We're paying the legal work to produce the MOUs. The cost sharing, is that for the engineering and make ready across the entire WEC network? Here, we're just talking about the cost sharing for the legal burden. Oh, it is, okay. I didn't catch that part. The legal part. Well, we will have other cost sharing as we move forward, but right now we're just dealing with the legal bit. Okay, how's everybody feeling about that? Do we have an outside estimate on what the total legal costs might be related to previous MOU, 10,000, 15,000? My recollection is that she gave us an idea of what they'd say the total hours that might be involved, but it's all a swag, right? Right. So I wouldn't, sorry, Ray, go ahead. No, Jerry, please. Well, I've got an administrative budget for the calendar year. And I've got 18,000 for the calendar year for legal fees as something to take us through December. Based on what we've spent so far, of course it'll, you know, May is gonna be a busy, is going to be a busy month, April and May are gonna be busy as we finalize agreement. And then there's bound to be additional later on in the year. So that's what I'm using as a working number, 18,000. But do you have a sense of the order of magnitude for getting past the MOU process? I mean, is it another 5K? Do you have a sense of it, at least? So there's the MOU, which is pretty much close to being done with WEC, then there are MOUs with the other CUDs, and then there's also the, you know, an MOU with the RDOF winners, and then we have the actual agreement with WEC that needs to get nailed down. So there's a number of parts, but they're all foundational parts. And that's why I came up with the 18,000 throughout the course of the year, just to make sure that we have that money set aside for this effort. Okay. I don't see cutting corners here. No, of course not. The thing I wanted to mention that David said earlier, though, is that the MOU, as it stands right now, is not far away from where we're gonna see the final contract. So when we're ready to actually move forward and sign a formal contractual relationship with WEC, then we probably won't have to do too much more beyond the MOU. That's the hope and the intention, but that is not written in stone nor guaranteed, and we need to have contingency for that not to happen. Sure, yeah, there's that what's saying about paving roads with good intentions, et cetera. How about the saying, the devils of the details? And so I think what the MOU is, we have a lot of detail, we have a lot of contract headings, okay, which leave, and the parties will work together in deciding what this means. Okay, so we have a good outline and understanding the positions of the parties, but putting that in the contract language and getting the details ironed out is still a bit of work to do, but it's a good MOU. And Tom, to answer your question, partially answer your question, I do have $2,000 I specifically identified for contract reviews for contractors and the PM, specifically set aside in that $18,000 that I mentioned. Okay, any other discussion about the $3,650 to get Krista up to date and then essentially engaging her to finish? Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands or any further discussion. If you're ready to vote, are there any objections to approving this? Seeing none, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. All right, let's move on. So funding for ongoing legal work, we're done with that. Let's do the committee appointments should be pretty quick. This was really here for one purpose. And I would like to appoint Allen Gilbert as the chair of the policy committee to fill in for Phil Hayek who stepped down. Second. Okay, seconded by Chuck. Allen, I'm assuming that this is still good for you. Yeah, I'm happy to do this. Okay, thank you very much. Any further discussion? Yeah, Ray. So my question is this. There seem to have been some confusion in the past in my view about whether the committees themselves elected their chair or the board appointed the chairs. This is the discussion that's actually next on the agenda. No, but having now taken the step of the board approving someone appointed as chair, yeah, you've kind of cleared the field for that as being the modus operandi. But the, we have a full reorg happening in a month. So whatever we decide right now is going to start over in a month anyways. So, but Allen wants to try to get this policy committee moving forward in the short term. And I want Allen to do it. Okay, so let's all vote yes on this and continue this conversation in a second. Okay, anything else on appointing Allen to chair the policy committee? Wonderful. Any objections? Hearing none, it passes unanimously. Thank you very much, everybody. And thanks Allen for soldering that burden. Welcome to the Executive Committee, Allen. Congratulations. Yes, yes, I realized that that was part of the deal. Can you add them to the group, Chuck? Thank you. All right, next thing up is a board reorgan May and committee chairs. So at our next regularly scheduled meeting in May, so we have May 11th is when we will be appointing or we'll be electing chairs, vice chairs, clerks, treasurers and such. The other thing that we should do and should be doing is making sure that the committees are appointed and updated as necessary. And Ray brought up the question of, does the governing board appoint the chairs of committees or do the committees themselves elect their chairs? We've historically had this board appoint the chairs with the exception of most recently the finance committee and the finance committee elected its own chair. Does anybody have any feeling one way or the other about how we should do this? I guess I would ask is David and Chuck, were you appointed or were you elected? Or do you remember? I do not remember. I can tell you that for communications, I was elected in the first communications committee meeting. And so we did deviate from that pattern. I'm sure the board probably assumed it was gonna go that way, given that I sort of pushed for the communications committee. And when you raise your hand, you're signing up. This is Jerry. I was appointed as the chair of the planning committee way, way back when. And with my schedule of not being able to maintain attendance at meetings, David took over and has been doing a much far better job than I ever could. The point I'm making is that I frankly don't care whether the committee's elected chair or the board appoints it, but we just need to make sure we have a policy about how that goes down. Yeah, Chuck. I, for one of the opinion of let it be to the committees to self-organize, we have a lot to do and these meetings already run long. I don't necessarily think we need to be worried about that at the broader board level unless some issue arise at which point, maybe we reserve the right to remove somebody if they're not doing a good job and the committee is not stepping in to take action. Okay, Siobhan. That's kind of what I was gonna say. So yeah, I want Chuck on that. Okay. So, Alan? Ray and I have had some back and forth on this. We sort of been arguing it. I'm of the opinion not that it should be the chair or I'm sorry, not that it should be the governing board chair who appoints the chairs, nor should it be the committee, but I think it ought to be some hybrid in between. And I think actually that's what we were doing originally without really thinking about it. Something would come up at a meeting in the first year and before you knew it, somebody said, you know, we really need to have a business committee and we talk about that for a little bit and usually there'd be one person who was especially, who especially was endorsing the idea and had obviously thought about why it was important and was making the case for it. And I think at that point, Jeremy Hansen, you would often say, it sounds like we ought to have a planning committee and David Healy, it looks like you think this is important, you've thought about it, would you mind serving as chair? And I think that's how you got to be chair. I mean, it just became obvious and I don't think anybody felt a need to vote on it. It was more an endorsement of the board chair as well as the members of the governing board generally. I think in some other committees, the committees have started meeting before there's been that kind of a discussion and a chair has emerged from that. But it seems to me in all cases, however the person becomes chair, should at some point be recognized by the chair of the governing board. And if appropriate, maybe we can say we would want to make it necessary, there'd be endorsement by the entire board of the chair who has been chosen either by the committee itself or by the governing board. I don't think we, I think it's a bad practice to have a committee that's whose governance itself is not evident to everybody else in the board. I guess that's what I'm getting at. Okay, right. I would just note two things. One is that you may recall that the executive committee is made up of the committee chairs. Okay, number one. Secondly, there's a CV fiber governing board rules of procedure. And I'm sure Alan could put his hands right on that and I'd have it up on my screen here. And it makes no mention at all about the committees. None, I mean, who it mentions the chair, the vice chair and other kinds of things and forums and kind of the bylaws of our group, but doesn't mention the committees at all or how the chairs are appointed for the committees. Just to note. Well, it sounds like that's one thing that we should work on. I think Jeremy Hansen, was it you who drafted those rules of procedure? I can't remember how they, if they came down in a chariot from heaven or you wrote them or did we get them from another, did we get them from EC fiber maybe? They came from an esteemed municipal attorney we used to have on our board in cooperation with the rest of the board. So John, John wrote those and took a lot of the stuff from the League of Cities and Towns and some of the other things that we had discussed. So, yeah, these are, yeah, we agreed to them and then kind of re-agreed to them in subsequent years and we'll agree, probably I'll bring them back at the next meeting and we'll hopefully all agree to them again, yeah. Well, it sounds like we should do something about addressing the chair issue. So maybe we can think about that before we re-approved them again. You've been having us do that. If I remember in June or something, has it been in a summer meeting or? Yeah, so we can do it at the next meeting after we do the chair, vice chair, treasurer, clerk elections, we can do it right after that just so that we are approving it again. I mean, if we're gonna, if we wanna change it, I mean, there's nothing that stops us from changing at any given moment, so. So you think though, Jim Barlow was a guy who? Jim, right, yeah. Jim Barlow was the guy who wrote those. Yeah, that's ringing a bell with me too. Yeah, so Tom and then Ray. I think they're actually fairly good and they are consistent with the statutes that we operate under, but there are some things that we probably should be adding, Ray's pointed one out and we just haven't done it. Okay, Tom, then Ray. So the question of whether or not there needs to be some level of oversight over committee chairs, are they taking on rules or actions that require some level of oversight? And if that were to go to, I assume like to the governing board, somebody would raise an alarm and say, hey, you need to pay attention to this and have this person removed from the chair, would there be then some sort of duration to that or term, how would it be executed? It seems like at that point, then it sits with the governing board to say, okay, now we're gonna make the new chair this and for some point in the future. I guess I'm of the opinion, a little bit more of an anarchist perspective, like you can delegate this, we can be a bit decentralized and I'm gonna trust the folks that are on this board that they're gonna do the right thing. And if something really, really awful happens, somebody's gonna hear about it and we'll be able to move. I don't know that we need to have like a formal duration or a specific oversight or anything like this. I'm not trying to cast shadows on anyone here, I fully agree. I'm thinking more headlines three or four years ago of people misappropriating funds or that kind of thing that we would wanna set up a precedent so that we're not, because we didn't think about it early, leaving ourselves in a bad place later on. Yeah, I hear you. Ray, you wanna have the last word and then we can hopefully move on? Yeah, so my recommendation is, why don't we refer to this to the policy committee? Sounds great, Alan? I got it. You have it, thank you. Moving along. I neglected to do this earlier, but I wanted to welcome Roger Nishi. Welcome, Roger. I see you down there. Roger's from Waitfield, Champlain Valley Telecom and happy to have you chime in on any of this stuff or if you have any specific stuff that you'd like to talk about, I'm happy to let you weigh in whenever you like if you choose to. Okay, let's go on to the PM search. Can we get an update on the PM search and what that looks like? I wanted to make a comment about that. I didn't have an update, but go ahead, Ray, make your update first. So I have another David's left. So here's a group of David, myself, Tom and Jerry, who are on the PM review committee of the applications that are coming in. And thank you, Chuck, I think for all of the indeed applications that we've been getting, we have 25, 30 of these things. And I understand that the date is April 26th is the last date. Can we make it today? We have all of these things to review. With the view that this group, the review group would make a recommendation, both SIFT through all of this stuff, just like we did for the polls companies, for example. SIFT through all the stuff, make a recommendation to the PDC and the PDC then make a recommendation to the board with regard to a hire. So the process is, I think that if the 26th is the last date, we're gonna need a couple of weeks to go through all of that process. So I'm thinking that the main meeting might be an appropriate meeting. So there'll be a couple of bits to that. One is I expect there'll be a recommendation, I hope there will. And secondly, we'll have to come up with the money. Obviously we can't hire anyone. We didn't indicate in the RFP that I recall that expectation was that the initial term would be six months and then depending on funding and also whether or not we'd like the guy or gal in the job that we're doing. And whether we actually had a project to manage, assuming we had money to move everything along. So I think that we're looking at the main meeting for possible board action. Okay. Jerry, did you have something else then? Yeah, so I wanna add something to that. So I've decided to make a proposal myself. So I'm going to be submitting a proposal. So I need, I cannot be on the selection committee. I don't think Alan will let me do that. So- It would not be a good idea. It would not be a good idea. So- Anything to get out of doing the work. Yeah, right. So I realize that there are quite a few, at least from indeed anyway, and I don't know if any of those are valid for a serious review, but that leaves only three. So somebody really does need to take my place being that I'm going to submit a proposal. Is there anybody on the meeting now that'd be willing to step into that review process? So- Does that mean for the C committee? I see both Jeremy and Tim raising their hands. Jeremy, I saw your hand first. So if you wanna weigh in and then Tim. I guess, yeah, I mean, I'm willing to do it if no one else wants to. It's important that it gets done. I'm also pretty darn busy. So, you know, if Tim wants to take it and four is enough, I'm fine with that too. All right, what do you think, Tim? That's up to you, Jeremy. If you've got enough to do, I'm sure. I'll be glad to help out and review. I've had a lot of experience hiring people over the years. So I know what to look for in resumes and I do some pretty good detective work too. Okay, well, I don't have any experience hiring people. So it sounds like you're more qualified than I am. All right. One more thing. No, he's gotta graduate, right? I do need to graduate. My wife keeps telling me this. Yeah, Chuck. Ray, do you wanna keep the Indeed job post open for a little bit longer and see who trickles in or do you want me to go ahead and take that down? I've only seen a few recently here. So I think it's kind of, I think, thank God, it's got, you know, it's almost run its course, I think. So I don't think you need to take it down. And is it really up until the 26th? Is that what the notices said? I don't recall if it's on my head. My recollection was the 15th. But if it's the 26th, it's the 26th. The 26th comes right out of the request for proposal. Okay. All right. So review folks from the PDC if you wanna loop Tim in and get him up to speed, if you can. That would be terrific. Chuck, add him to the list and take Jerry off. Trader. Trader. All right. Anything else about the project manager search? I mean, so it sounds like we're gonna have this on the agenda again for May as well, Siobhan. Just being annoying, can I just please make sure that you're giving a real good review to the female presenting ones because they tend to be worded differently than the male presenting ones if they're individuals. But really give a careful consideration of what they're saying, their experiences and what they've done and all of that because it's something we all do when we're reviewing these things. We tend to lean towards these certain ways of expressing things. So just really encouraging you to be open at what you're reading. I know it's a lot that you're having to get through, but please do that. So, Siobhan, I'm gonna go on a limb here. Would you be willing to help in reviewing those as well so that we can make sure that that extra check happens? I mean, not that you need anything else to do, but aren't you like arguably retired and such? I'm retired. I'm volunteering at the food bank and I'm working two days a week for my old office. I am willing to do so, but I have concerns. It's all, I feel like I might be a drag on things. Okay, so tell you what, let's just chat tomorrow because we have some other stuff to chat about regarding the select board and whatever. And if you feel comfortable, maybe just follow up with... So who's actually spearheading? So, Chuck, you're spearheading that, right? The search, who's spearheading the search? Well, it's the team of David, myself, and Tim and Tom. Okay, so, well, Shrivan will just reach out to you if she's still interested in doing that. I didn't mean to put you on the spot there. I just thought that having your perspective would be valuable there as well. Thanks. Sure. All right, anything else on the PM search? Okay, moving along, board and committee calendar. Ray put out a proposed committee calendar for what we would count are regularly scheduled meetings. So we know the governing board has a regularly scheduled meeting the second Tuesday of every month. And often we have a special meeting two weeks after that. Ray's proposal was that essentially each committee would have a specific time, a specific day and week of the month. And if you didn't need it, that's fine. You could just declare that there was no meeting, but so that we can set the expectation and the timing so that folks who are serving on those committees can more easily get a grip on their schedules. So I think the email was sent out on March 29th, 2021. I can walk through the proposal if that's helpful. So Ray's got it in the chat already, that will work. So the calendar would kind of set a rhythm for the work of the organization with providing days set aside for special meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays being the first week. The board and the exec committee meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays of the second week. The exec committee should follow the board meeting immediately because of the board actions that the exec committee may have to then implement. PDC drives a lot of the work that we're all involved with whether you're the comms committee, the finance committee or anything else. And so it would meet the following week followed by comms and then the finance committee and policy as needed and that was the recommendation from the policy committee and their charter, if you recall. Times would be set by the committees. So the Tuesday and Thursday of the week one is set aside for special meetings but every Wednesday is also available. If anybody, if any committee felt like they needed a special meeting they could also meet on a Wednesday. So this would help us I think get organized and get the rhythm of the organization and the workflow better. Yeah, Alan. Ray, I don't quite understand how you're, what the Tuesday and Thursday you just mentioned relate to are you setting specific days of the week when specific committees meet or do they choose to do that within the week that you've assigned them? No, actually the specific days of the week when you take a look at the email and also the sample calendar as I sent out for May and June. Tuesday is the board, Thursday is the exec committee, the following Tuesday is the PDC, the following Thursday is comms, the following Tuesday is finance, following Thursday is policy. So the committee dates are set for those weeks of the month. As far as the times go, six, six, 30, five, 30 whenever the committees decide they wanna meet. And what is the reason for having to set the day of the week of the committee? Couldn't the committee do that themselves based on their own availability? I think it's, if you're looking ahead, the fact that you kinda set something aside, in addition to that, if you look at EC Fiber and any of the other committees, for example, CUDs, you will see that they will have the days of the month that they're meeting. You have a regularly set scheduled date. And so this makes it easier for public notice, for example, for when things are gonna happen. It's interesting to have a grid like that. What I've always worried about with committees is sometimes it's difficult to find a time that works for everybody who's already serving on the board to devote another night to something else. And I just worry about the lack of flexibility of being able to determine an alternative day. You know what? That'll always be the way forever and ever amen. But at least knowing that the third Tuesday of the month is a PVC meeting, you can either have that schedule on your thing and you're protected or you can't. Tom? I tend to deal with Alan on this. As all volunteer board, calendars are gonna be set by what other people can make it happen and what they can't make happen. And if they are really good for one particular committee, but they just can't make that night work ever because they have a lock-solid commitment, then I think we lose a valuable resource by setting it up to be that inflexible. R.D. and then Chuck? I wanna move that we adopt, raise a proposed schedule as a default template. Okay, there is a motion for meetings. Is there a second? Second. Second. Okay, Siobhan got that second. Chuck, you wanna add your feedback here? Yep. Yeah, I think a couple of things here. First of all, I really like the flow of information of this schedule. The second thing I'd like to point out is most of these committees already have a set day of the month, generally speaking on Tuesday of the fourth week of the month or something like that schedule that they're following with special meetings in between on a more ad hoc basis. I do think by adopting the schedule, we don't have to say this is this way or the highway to R.D.'s point. I really like the way you've worded this R.D.'s. So thank you to R.D.'s point. I think we can consider this the template and if a particular committee finds that they are gonna lose out on an important member of that committee every time that happens, then I think it should still be up to that committee to say, okay, well, for our committee, the third Thursday of every month actually doesn't work out. We're gonna make it the third Wednesday of every month and just populate that information back up to the board as the new regular meeting date. But I think it's a great schedule and I do think we should move towards this anyway. Any other thoughts about this? I'm, yeah, Siobhan. I need to rethink my committee appointments. This has me in meetings three weeks a month. And I don't like it to me. Yeah. Well, yeah, but the board, the PDC and the finance committee are gonna meet every month. So that's every Tuesday, three Tuesdays out of the month. So I don't know. I may have to think about that. So I'm going to slightly reframe what R.D. said. And so if we set what we call the regular meeting days, these are, there is a statutory impact of this for when the default is, when the default meeting day is. These meetings don't have to be set. These can be reset whenever it just has, I mean, the committee can do this itself. They can set a different meeting day. It just has to announce it, it has to vote on it and it can change it. But this is, this essentially incorporates what Ray, what Ray was saying in a more specific, with more specific language. I'm in meetings every week all the time anyways. So it's all a blur to me. So I have no, I don't really feel anything about this one or the other. I'm just happy to, happy to get on with it. So there's a motion. So R.D. is that an okay reframing of the motion that you made to set those specific days? I may have missed some of the nuance, but I accept whatever you said, Jeremy, as a friendly amendment. Let's move. Same. Move. Fall. All right, thanks R.D. Okay. So can we approve this? Are you all ready to vote? Are there any objections? We can do a roll call if this is not unanimous. You can also change this right at the next meeting too when we have a, you know, when we're reorganized and reconstituted and whatever. Okay. So are there any objections? Okay. Motion passes, unit. Oh, hold on. Michael has an objection. Abstaining. You're muted, Michael. I'm just voting no. If you want to hear my reason, I can give it, so if we go to a vote, you don't get to give your reason, give your reason first and then Michael, I'm staying. I thought we were voting. No, no, I, rather than actually asking for votes, I was just seeing if we had it unanimous. Otherwise I will, if it's not unanimous, I have to do a roll call. It's not unanimous. Okay, not unanimous. Great. So whoever is taking notes on this, if you want to, I'm just going to follow along on the people tab and I will vote if I need to break a tie, but we'll start with Alan Gilbert. Well, I think I'm going to vote no because I want to hear what Michael has to say before I vote. So we can hear from Michael before we start voting. I mean, that's what I was hoping for. Let's hear from Michael before we start voting. Michael, Michael. All right. I just, I like the impetus behind this, but I think it's too regimented for us as volunteers. I like what Tom had to say earlier. I think each committee, we could suggest that certain committees meet before others because the work sort of flows from them, PDC in particular, but other than that, I think each committee membership should pick the time that works best for that group as opposed to the time that's been assigned in a calendar. Okay. Any other? Yeah, R.D. And then Tom. Regiment, a little regimentation is what we need. That's my comment. Okay. Tom. I just wonder if we could hear some explanation for why having certain days is advantageous as opposed to leaving it open. Sure, Ray, you want to take that? So, let's see, I'm not on mute. So we could have done Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and just had them back to back. Or we could have in a few, we're a member of all of those committees. You can imagine the pain that you would feel when you did that. Or we could- I get the suffering it out by weeks, but for having it on Tuesday and Thursday specifically for specific committees. It gives, so something comes out of the PDC that's going to go to the communications committee. It has to be communicated to the communications committee. And it gives a little breather and little opportunity for that to happen before then stuff trickles down to and through other committees. It's a break. And it also provides that opportunity for a special meeting if there need to be a special meeting in between. At least if it's regimented like that, you know when those opportunities for special meetings kind of present themselves, right? And as Jeremy was saying, it's often that the board might have to meet the third week or fourth week of the month, for example. My expectation is frankly that the executive committee is going to meet probably twice a month, but there are slots available for that to happen. So that's my explanation. Anybody else have any thoughts or retorts, Alan? So Ray, just I wanna make sure that I'm not missing something. The important point is the weekly structure. I mean, more than anything, it's that certain actions take place within certain weeks in a certain order. Is that correct? There's a benefit to that. Yeah, I agree. So that the PDC kind of feeds other things, right? And the board feeds the executive committee. And so yeah, there is a structure of that on the same, by the same token, we are not wondering who is scheduled for when and whether there's gonna be a conflict by having this kind of a grid. I think what people are saying, we would know if once the committee is constituted, the committee members can decide on a day of the week that they're assigned to do their work, which particular day of that particular week they would want to meet. And then that would be announced as their meeting date. I just, I get the idea of regimentation, but I think when we get down to the platoon and unit level here, it's the people within those smaller units that have to decide what's gonna work for them to have their meetings on which days of that particular week. It just seems very, very hard to arrange something other than that. I think they just need to have the flexibility. Tom. Just to review the motion, or paraphrase the motion at this point is that this is the proposed default calendar and that the committees could change things upon a vote within the committee. Is that correct? Yes. That would work. Yeah. Okay. Any other. Does that need a motion or is that a recommendation that gets handed to the committee chairs to bring to the committees? Well, so setting the regular meeting date has an impact about, has an impact on how far in advance you need to put your agenda out. So if people, if we're saying that the regularly scheduled meeting of the Planning and Development Committee is this date, it's 48 hours, they have to have the agenda out before. If it's a special meeting, which is whenever you sort of declare an ad hoc meeting, that's 24 hours. So you can set those kind of expectations for the public so that they know they want to come to the communications committee or what have you, they can look in their calendar and expect that it's there. I mean, again, so I'm starting to tip towards Michael on this one and just leave it to the committees to sort this out because we may have different committees just depending on what reorg looks like and who gets appointed. I mean, I don't really think that many people are gonna change between now and next month, but yeah, let's just vote this out one way or the other. So the motion is to set the schedule is to set the schedule as posted with the second Tuesday of the governing board and so on as listed there in the chat, I'll go over it again. So we'll set the regular meeting days to the following days. The second Tuesday is the governing board. The following Thursday is the executive committee. The third Tuesday is the planning and development committee. The following Thursday is the communications committee. The fourth Tuesday is the finance committee and the following Thursday after that is the policy committee. Okay, so I'm going to do a, we will do the roll call. So if you're in favor of that, you can say yes. If you're not in favor, say no. If you're abstaining, you can say that. We'll start with Allen. I think I'm gonna vote no because I think this still needs a bit more work. I think it's a good idea, but I think we're not quite there yet. Okay, Chuck. Hi. Okay. John Morris, you're unmuted John, but I'm not here. Okay, I hear a yes. Thank you. Josh. Hi for me. Okay. Lucy. Hi. Okay. Michael. Nope. Hi. Siobhan. Abstain. I'm not a board member. I'm an alternate. Oh, right. Okay. David. Hi. Okay. I will abstain and the ayes have it. Motion passes. Those are the... I'm so sorry to interrupt. I'm also an alternate. I did not realize. I don't know if that changes anything. You can vote because your delegate isn't here tonight. Thank you. Right. Yeah. But Jeremy's primary is here. Jeremy, Matt's, the primary delegate from Plainfield is here. So you are standing in for Catarina right now and you are definitely entitled to vote. Wonderful. So real quick, what was RD's vote? I missed that. RD's, what was yes? Yes, okay. Moving along. So that was the board and committee calendar, the budget policy process. Ray, you wanted an item for this? Yeah, I had my own mutes. No, I'm not a mute. Okay. This thing's a little complicated for this evening to go through. And so I would like to pass and taper this till the main meeting. Thank you. All those in favor say aye. Yeah, yeah. Carrier of last resort discussion. Michael, you wanted to talk about this at our last meeting. You wanted to talk about some of the pitfalls or things that we should be thinking about as we get into art off stuff and otherwise actually serving people. I remember the discussion. I didn't remember that we carried it forward. Can you refresh my memory as to what we need to discuss still? Well, you specifically asked for time at the next meeting in your round table at the end of the last meeting to discuss some of the pros and cons implications of why it might be a good idea or a bad idea. I think you were mainly looking at why it would be bad. Why what would be bad? Being the carrier of last resort. Oh, I understand. Okay. So, but none of us have a choice. So, so if you're an eligible telecommunication, sorry, eligible telecommunications carrier and ETC, that comes with the obligation of providing voice service to anyone in your designated service area designated by the PUC. So Roger's company, Waysfield Champlain, Waysfield and Champlain Telecom well, Champlain Valley Telecom, I got it right. Sorry. They are an ETC and they have an obligation to serve anyone in their service area with voice. There is no obligation to serve with broadband, but you do have to serve with voice. And that may come, that may change in the next few years, but that's how it is now. It's a burden. It's, they, an ETC is able to receive funding from the federal government through the, I'm drawing a blank on the fee that we all pay on our phone bills. The USF, the Universal Service Fund. So, that fee, we all pay on our funds for such as Lifeline. And ETCs have access to the funding from Lifeline and the obligation to provide Lifeline service and some other services like connections for the heart of hearing and so forth. So those are obligations that most phone companies are happy to provide as a service to the community, but it is a burden. And they tend to wish they didn't have that burden. Certainly a company like Consolidated would like to be alleviated of that burden. And the reason this topic has come up is twofold. One, the RDOF auction, as did the CAF two auction prior 10 years ago, comes with the obligation to become an ETC and to be the carrier of last resort and to provide those services. So, in CB Fibers District, EC Fiber, Kingdom Fiber, I think charter communications won a couple little blocks and SpaceX won a few. Each of the RDOF winners now must be an ETC in Vermont for those locations that they won. And they will pick up that obligation and they will share that obligation with the existing ETC, which in most of our cases is Consolidated. And Consolidated will have the right to go to the PUC and request to be alleviated of that obligation in those census block groups that were won by those RDOF winners. And that's the whole thing. In my opinion, it's more a burden than a benefit and others might see it a different way. And it does not refer to broadband service. So there's no such thing as broadband carrier of last resort. That's just something someone might have made up. And CUDs, I think I saw it in some Vecuda discussion that CUDs like to think of themselves as the broadband carrier of last resort, but that's just marketing, I guess. I guess that's all I have to say. And I thought I mostly said it in the round table, but I'm glad to sum it up again. Okay, thank you, thanks for that, Michael. Any, if anybody has any questions about that? Okay, so let's move along. Next one is other towns potentially joining. So there was some discussion at the Waterbury Select Board, whenever they met last at the beginning of the month. I've not heard any updates from that, but they're at least considering applying to join CV Fiber. There are also folks in Bolton and Jericho potentially, that they're talking about potentially joining CV Fiber. The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission has also put a note out to their towns and cities that it could be possible for them to join a CUD, whether that's us or the ones to the North or South, just depending on the geography. So I just wanted to put that out there, but I've not heard anything concrete from any town that they're definitely moving forward with it or that they even have it warned at this point yet. So anybody have any questions or thoughts on this? I mean, I think we had basically said before, if a town is interested, let them apply and we'll talk about it then. I think that's kind of where we left it the last time. So moving along to state and federal funding, legislative action and affordability, the bill that spends a lot of federal money on broadband in Vermont is in Senate Finance. It passed the House. Senate Finance is the next hurdle to get over. There was a bunch of testimony last week. There was more testimony this week. Thank you to all of you who sent in your credentials last week. I kind of did like the quick like two hour turnaround or whatever and I stitched together an email that I sent to all of the members of the Senate Finance Committee because there were some implications that CUDs were generally novices, didn't know anything that was going on, couldn't possibly do the work and would not be good public stewards of public funding. And that it's likely if the CUDs were awarded money that it would be like another EB-5 fiasco like up in Newport. That was the explicit thing that there was a witness that said. So I took all of your awesome backgrounds, very impressive and I sent a note out to the committee and I got a response pretty quickly back and she says, oh, we know CV fiber is fine. You're much more mature than all the rest of them. And which honestly felt kind of disrespectful of all of the other folks throughout the state that even though they haven't been around quite as long as we have or as EC fiber has, that felt like a bit of like throwing the other folks under the bus. So I am writing a response there but I did want to thank all of you from the fast response so that I could put that together and get that and get that back to them. So they are aware that we're awesome and they're aware that you're awesome. We'll see if that makes any difference. Anything else? I think there's a big discussion of affordability and how the legislature is going to take responsibility for some or part of that. EC fiber has spun off a nonprofit to subsidize folks who can't afford their baseline service and they essentially wrote a nonprofit a check for $100,000 to essentially subsidize those folks. There is another effort to our North in Stowe. There's another nonprofit that was created to do something similar but they wanna go buy Starlink dishes for everybody which is interesting. I'm not sure that that's really really solving any problems very cost effectively but it's out there anyways. So happy to hear if anybody has any thoughts about that one way or the other or if anybody has anything else they wanna add about the state or federal funding that's coming down the pike. We do have a few minutes to talk about that anyways. Michael, I saw you had your hand up and then David. Yeah, I think both of those initiatives are excellent. Too often lower income people get left behind and whether it's to give them the best internet that's available in their area now or the very best internet that's available in the world later is irrelevant at the moment. What's important is that they get online and have the ability to participate in society. So I support both of those ventures and I would like to just modify what Jeremy said about the second one. Yes, the excellence and their organization are talking about funding Starlink but it's not exclusively Starlink. It's the best service that's available in the area that the person lives in. So I know for example, they want to stand up a kingdom fiber customer of their choice at some point with fiber to bring to the attention of the legislature. So I know that they're not only talking about Starlink but other than that the two programs are pretty similar. One of them is just for the EC fiber area and one of them is the statewide one. Both of them most likely will coalesce in the future. So that's all. Okay, I've got David, then Siobhan, then Jerry. Okay, to give you a little more context the EC five is nonprofit that they created is a nonprofit going to live off grants and it's forever. And they have set up the nonprofit so that any other CUD could become a partner organization to that nonprofit. The Epsilons family's proposal for subsidy is using the three year money that's available in the ARP funding coming from the federal government. So it's a three year program to do subsidies. And so it's not a long-term solution but it certainly does, it's an idea for short-term solution. So from that perspective, both programs are great. And when we get ready, I think we're gonna wanna participate the money runs out after three years for the federal money. So that's sort of the context between the two programs. All right, thanks, David, Siobhan and then Jerry. I'm glad to hear that about the EC five or nonprofit. I was hoping that once we got rolling we would start something like that. But if we can just join in the EC five or nonprofit I'm all for it because we need just for everybody to be on because that makes such a huge difference. It's going to make such a huge difference. Yep, all right, so Jerry. Thanks, Jeremy. I think we all agree on a lot of different levels about this and it's a little early for us to decide how to do it. We're not there yet. It's not ripe for decision. There are other folks that are trying different things out. Our financial structure may be totally different from anybody that's in the game right now because we could go so much farther on grants than EC five or anybody else has. So I know it won't fall by the wayside. Maybe there's some way of identifying this as a priority. And when I say this maybe we even need to identify what this is. But I think the lowest fees possible and supporting the farthest extent of the community as possible but I would just suggest we cool our jets. Let's get off the ground and let's see what's going on out there before we decide which program is the one that we need to jump into. It's good to know that they're out there and I think we all agree we wanna do it. Let's see how it unfolds. We have time. Okay, I just posted something before I get to Alan. I posted something. It's the agenda for Senate finance for this week. If you want to watch any of this there was some testimony today. There's more tomorrow afternoon from VTEL. So you might find that interesting. And then on Thursday afternoon we're gonna be talking about I'll be there FX from EC fiber will be there. We'll be talking about poll auditing, make ready and next steps for that. Alan? I've been watching, listening to most of the testimony in the Senate finance and one thing that has really struck me and maybe isn't apparent otherwise unless you watch this day after day and listen to people's comments the people in the Senate are making no assumption that the house bill is the starting point and they have to work with that. The Senate as it often traditionally does even though it's done very little study on the issues behind the bill and even though it only meets for an afternoon as opposed to a house committee meeting both morning and afternoon when they're not on the floor. So they're spending a lot less time on it. One of the things that happens is the whole bill in a situation like this gets opened up and people start throwing out all sorts of other ideas that are in some regards in this bill very much at odds with what is in the house bill. The bill that's in the Senate they've been looking at is a bill that actually was submitted late. It wasn't even submitted before the crossover deadline as they call it. So technically unless you get permission from the rules committee in your chamber the Senate should not be considering that Senate bill but it is it's sort of looking at that as the counterpoint to the house bill. And a lot of issues are just all of a sudden popping up which I thought had been decided a long time ago and we shouldn't even have to be thinking about. One of them actually is how soon the state might be divvying out some of the ARPA money the federal American Rescue Plan money. We've all sort of been assuming that very very at least I have it very very quickly there's gonna be a lot of money that gets shoveled out to all sorts of entities and hopefully a lot will come to CUDs. And that's not necessarily what might happen. The Senate's been talking about establishing other schedules looking at the formation of the new authority that they would like to create in a different way. I mean, at times I think things could spin out of control unless somebody starts getting behind a concrete conception that both the house and the Senate are gonna be able to live by. So I'm fascinated by the process. Each time this happens with the bill in the legislature it comes out in a different form from any other series of bills that go through. And this one has so much money behind it. It's got so much interest behind it. And I think actually the state has hit on this very big issue the Senate actually has hit on this very big issue of equity of access. And I actually think that's a state responsibility at this point. I don't think that we should have to feel the CUDs or a specific company be it consolidated or be it, or be it Weitzfield Telecom or the Evanslands operation. I think the state has got to recognize this is a statewide responsibility to all citizens. And because of the vast amount of public money that's now being put into this project I think the argument could be made that people who are not getting served actually have a legal case in demanding that they be given equity along with other people. So I think this could get the equity angle especially could get very, very interesting. I totally support what the other CUDs who have been thinking about and the foundations are setting up and so forth. But I think this is going to get much more complicated and I hope much more comprehensive than it looks like it is right now. David. And for anybody who wants to know more about equity read Alan's book. Hey, thank you. Yes. Hey, I can read a chapter and brought it pretty soon. Lucy. I just want to say, Alan, thank you so much. Very well said. I'm on the front lines of higher education and this year, if anything has shown us how clearly reliable internet access separates the haves from the have not. And if you think about the concrete examples of education, finding housing, finding a job. Can you even apply for a job without an internet connection now? I don't think so unless you're walking into Dollar General. So I absolutely support the idea that this is a state issue and equity needs to be addressed on the state level. However, as Alan said, I also fully support any efforts from any grassroots organization to help move that along or create that equity in the absence of the state. All right. And so I would encourage all of you, if you haven't already reached out to Ann Cummings, if you're a Washington County resident or if you're an Orange County resident, reach out to Mark McDonald. They're both on this committee and they are both, I'm sure that they would both be receptive and would want to hear from you. So they've heard from me and they've heard from me representing this body, but the individual messages, they really do matter. So Lucy, if you wanna send Mark an email, I think just what you said there, I think that would be great. Alan, if you sent Ann a message, I mean, this is the sort of thing that onesie twosie messages to a committee member who's maybe on the fence. I think it's valuable. And if you have any relationship with any of the other members of Senate Finance, so let's see, Senator Pearson, Brock, Suratkin, Bray or Hardy, if you know any of them and feel comfortable reaching out to them, they would be good people to talk to too. And it doesn't have to be like we're all expressing a party line, but in terms of, I think H360 coming that came out of the house was pretty darn good. And then as Alan's talking about them kind of tinkering around with it, it'd be good for them to hear from you as well. Alan? One of the things, Jeremy, I'm not sure if all the Senate districts are doing this, but in Washington County, the senators, the three senators have office hours on Monday afternoons at five o'clock, where they are on Zoom for an hour to take questions from people. The questions get submitted via chat, but there was one on yesterday for the Washington County senators and I got in a question about what was going on on the bill. The other thing that's interesting and Jeremy Henson and I know about this because we've exchanged some emails, the League of Women Voters has come out in favor of broadband build out and the League of Women Voters is more associated with 1920 than I think it is with 2021. But in the last couple of years, they've really become interested in a lot more issues, a number of them being equity issues. And I think it's just fantastic. So if you know anybody who's a member of the League, you could talk with them about this or you could encourage people to say, you know, the League is a great organization, you might want to look into what they're doing. I think there's more and more interest around this stuff. Very good. Any other thoughts or anything else that folks want to weigh in on for this? Okay, looks like we're naturally progressing towards the end here. Thanks to everybody for your thoughts on that. So let's do the round table and I'll go from the list of people backwards to the list. Tom? You're good, thanks. Thanks, Tom. Siobhan? I'm good, thanks. All right, Roger, you feel like adding anything? There you go. Thank you for allowing me to listen in today. I would just like to add to what Michael said about some of the pitfalls of wanting to become an eligible telecommunications carrier or be recognized as a quasi-carrier of last resort because anytime you put those names upon or those thoughts upon an organization, there's always something that individuals want to attach to those obligations. So be careful when people discuss those various items. And in addition, I will add that at this point, the Senator, it's Senator Brock's bill that they're discussing there. And while they're discussing it within the committee, it has not been adopted by the whole Senate. So more than likely, at least in my viewpoint, I think they'll take pieces that they may like from that and add it to what the House has done so that when it comes back over to the House, so at least dealing with what they did pass over to the Senate. So continue to work from 360 as you monitor their sessions. I would make that suggestion. So thank you for allowing me to speak and everyone have a good meeting. Okay, thanks, Roger. Ray? And nothing more, thank you. Okay, Phil? Anything you wanna add before we close? I'm sorry, is that to me? I got booted out, I'm just back. No, that's all right. So yeah, so we're on round table. If there's anything you wanna add, any closing remarks or anything? Nothing at this point. Okay, thanks, Phil. Michael? I was gonna pass, but I changed my mind again. There's a lot of bashing going on about the private sector. There's no reason that municipalities, CUDs and the private sector can't get along really well. What has happened is the national providers have left the state and the country down, but the small providers have done everything they could. And the idea that private enterprise had its chance and didn't deliver and therefore that solution is now no good and only the municipal solution is good is silly. It's really good that we have a municipal solution and it's really good that we have experienced private providers, especially smaller Vermont-based ones, willing to help. That's all. Thanks, Michael. Lucy? Nothing further. Thanks, Lucy. Josh? Thank you. Thanks, Josh. Jerry? I just want to, I can't help but follow up on Michael. I don't think anyone would ever compare you to consolidated Michael. I think the folks that are thinking about this and that are deep into the weeds on it, know the difference and understand that. And thank you for all you've done all this time. Now I'm done. All right. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Jeremy. Let me just say, I was speaking on behalf of other organizations in the state, not mine. All right, Jeremy? Just wanted to say thanks for all the work that everyone's doing. It's a ton and I for want to appreciate it. And also thanks, Christian, for being here and taking the minutes because I had my COVID shot not too long ago and I am not feeling up to it right now. So anyway, thank you. All right, well, congrats on your shot. David? I don't have much other than saying I see lights at end of the tunnel coming. Yes, indeed. Thanks, David. Chuck? I think more to add. Thank you, everyone. All right, thanks, Chuck. Christian, would you like to add anything? No, I'm good. Thank you. Sure. Alan? No, I've taken enough time tonight already. Thank you. That's what we're here for to talk about this. And we technically still have two more minutes on the agenda. So I should just continue talking, right? So I'm just going to say thank you. Have a wonderful night, everybody, and we will see you soon. Good night. Good night.