 All right. Well, we have six oh six. So we'll call the meeting to order and first just before the meeting kicked off. I just wanted to acknowledge. I think we all have heard by now that we had one town employee as well as one community member that have dedicated a lot of time to the town of Bethel over the years that both unfortunately had passed away here in the last week week and a half so just wanted to acknowledge Tim Mills. You know everybody knows Tim and Tim's been our utility director at the water sewer treatment plant for 33, 34 years. Right. Yes. And know everything that he's done for us over the years as well as taking on the, the water improvement project this past year and a half so as well as Carol Ketchum had passed away as well. And for everybody that knows Carol, you know, Carol's probably, I remember, you know, probably the most thing I remember about him was coming to town meeting day and seeing him as the town moderator. And he was the moderator for 25 years as well as he had other various functions, committees and stuff that he just paid on so. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and anybody else has anything else they would like to add to that feel free to do that now. I just wanted to say that I was happy that the select board had chosen to dedicate the town report to Carol, and he actually wrote the nice note to the select board and it says, I was surprised to open the town report and see that the report was dedicated to me. I had no idea. This was very thoughtful of you. Bethel is my town I've lived here since 1968. I try to be helpful and a good citizen. Thank you for your confidence in me Carol Ketchum. And I just thought it was the nicest note and, and so sweet of him. He was also our representative to Congress. He was also our representative. I forget what years, but he was a representative to Congress too. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's, that's great. He was our representative. Yeah. But I don't remember which years. So that's interesting. Yeah. And that's great. Yes. And, and Tim certainly, you know, as a family and children and, and grandchildren that he left behind and big certainly hole in the, in the community and in the town, you know, in the office and just the town life in general, we're trying to figure it out solely, but surely and have seen his family and they'll Tim was also president of the vast for at least six years and so they'll be a service. What I understand in the spring, or spring or summer for Tim, so we'll certainly let people know when that happens and is full of bits where it will be in the paper and I think the family is going to want us to put on the website and which we've agreed to do so. Well, Tim was one of those guys that was, you know, hard to sometimes get along with and, but he was a good neighbor to me and we always got along real well. You know, his heart was always in the right place as far as the town, you know, the work with the town that he did and, you know, father grandfather and whatnot. And yeah, bad loss for the town Carol, Carol was a character, you know, he was a hot ticket. And, you know, we recently, I saw him just a couple of weeks ago and we talked about trustee of public funds and whatnot, and trying to get together we never unfortunately never did but I guess Kelly said that he was in the town office last week. And he said, looking for a copy of one of the pictures that we had used in the, in the town report because he wanted to have it for his obituary. So that was kind of unusual that he would request something like that it's almost like he knew maybe. Yeah. So they'll both be, I dealt with Carol, years and years ago when we first came to town we needed a little extra bump to get into our first house that we bought. And he was on the committee for the town's loan program. And he, he was very helpful, treated us very well. Yeah, they'll be certainly the select board will have to make an appointment to the public trustees of public funds and we'll deal with that later in March. Revolving loan fund actually I got a call from Bev Washburn and they already had and believe they actually have an application. She said we're going to kick it directly to the select board so I'll get it go through the bylaws and we'll go there so we reached out to someone today to see if they're interested in serving on the RLF committee so hopefully. I hope it's not the same, same person I had mine. Jane straight yeah Kelly called her today to hear about it and but there's plenty of space because we may have another person on the revolving loan fund committee. Retiring. So, yeah, certainly let us know the names pause we'd like to reach out to people because Lord knows we've got rooms on plenty of committees. Jane that was that I was thinking about. Yeah, great minds think alike. I probably have got a story about Carol that might be a little older than any of you. I was 17 I wanted to borrow $1500 by my first car. And I walked in and spoke to Carol and he says well, why don't you get your father around and calm down on such and such a day and we'll talk about it. Well, you don't do that today you because we walked in and he asked me a bunch of questions about what I was doing in school and what I was going to do and so on and so forth and even kept looking at my father and he said would you be willing to cosine for the for your son and he said yes, and I walked out with a check. I'll never happen now. 20 minute visit and I had $1500 check in my hand. Oh, it doesn't happen no way anymore. Okay, a recent historical society meeting also and told about his journey here in the bank and his journey through the bank and community. He is a great was a great storyteller and great benefit to the company to the town. I met Carol through the church. He was attending for a couple years. The Minnesota conference meeting for the United Church Christ and that's related to the Bethel the brick church. And he and so I, you know, came to appreciate his wisdom and his faith and his commitment through that. And yeah, oh, and you mentioned Jane Strait. We were shocked just a week or so ago to discover that my neighbor had passed away in December. We did not know that. And wow, what a what a shock that was to us. But yes, yeah. Yep. No, thanks to COVID and snow and winter and, you know, everybody holding up. Yep, exactly. No, it's true. It's true. Um, Carol Ketchum gave me my mortgage so I could buy this house and he told me to make sure that I did the neighborhood. Well by keeping it up and making my house look nice. And when I said he was my representative, it was a representative to the Montpelier legislature for this area. That's what I meant. Okay. Hi. That's funny. I spoke with him about most recently about the bank in its history had has the bank ever taught taught in the middle school and junior and high school financing to the kids. And he said, Oh, we've tried. But it didn't fly. Yeah. And I think that would be such an important addition to the curriculum. I think, Chris, you have girls that. Are there. Knowing how to handle your funds is extremely important. And he knew it. And trying to get that type of stuff in curriculum for probably 30 years. For some reason the administration doesn't or whomever doesn't feel that's there. I don't get it. I know you. Just don't get it. Well, Chris is running. Well, Chris is running for school board tomorrow. So you can come. He gets elected. You can all send all your wish list to Chris. Chris Jarvis. There you go, Chris. Okay, Chris. What are you going to promise me? Okay. We're in information now, aren't we? Yeah. Yes. We might not have all the tax sales. People. And when there are kids how to finance the money. How to handle it. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll. Anybody has anything further? Let's just, right now, we just got to either approve the agenda or if there's any additions. To the agenda. That would be the time to do it. Most of it is about the informational meeting. And then we have three items after, after which. Yeah. So Dave, do you think you could give us an update on the transfer station? Under other business. Yeah. When we get to that point, I'm wondering if, if we want to have a quick executive session on. The transfer station now that we know who all the players are in the negotiating teams. Yeah. Or can we can wait another, another meeting if you want. Yeah. Yeah. And then we know. That it will be David Barker and I'm hoping that our building issue gets resolved before. Too long, but why don't we just have you update and then. What do you want to do, Chris? Do you guys want to add an executive session? I don't know. I mean, I think we could probably talk about. You know, the, the. Non-formal pieces and open session and. And I know Teresa and I were going to be getting together with their parties here. Shortly, probably in another week or two. Yeah. Cause you and I are going to meet next. Conversations. Cause we're going to meet. Once we get going, then we were going to report back to the board on. Kind of where we're in the negotiations. Yeah. Cause we need to hear from Dave Eddie first to know what. What options are anything on the table there before we. You know, deal with, um, before then, then you and I need to sit down and go through some numbers, which we can do later this week or next week, whatever works for you. Well, that's just, um, uh, you know, at the end there. Other business I wrote down there. We'll just talk about. Those two. Issues. The, um, the current. Current issue with dropping off, um, you know, the negotiation piece. Okay. All right. The agenda is written. Okay. Okay. All in favor. Hi. All right. And now we're open to amended and you want to do it as written or amended. Um, we're not going to technically amend anything Julie. Cause we're going to talk about those pieces under any other. Thank you. Um, And we have public comments. So if there's anything that's not currently on the agenda for this evening that you'd like to bring up now's the time to do it. See at least. Um, yes. Um, I didn't get my town report in time for the February 14th meeting. So is this a good time? I have a couple of questions to ask about the town report. Um, I don't know if it's a couple of questions. Um, in the recreation part. The budget or the write up. Um, not the budget of the recreation, but just some of the figures in the improvement fund and stuff. Is that. Is that, um, an item? Would it go under one of the items on the agenda or. Yeah. If it's. If it's dollar and cents type item. Okay. Let's talk about it under the article eight, which is the budget. Okay. Your name down. So I'll, uh, Make sure that before we move on that. Okay. Thank you very much. Anytime. Anything else, public comments. Well, getting off easy. Can't think of anything. Nothing at all. Nope. Nope. Can't think of anything. All right. Well, other than that, we will move into. The, the, the, the town warning and the budget. Um, let's see. So just like we had talked about on the, um, the last meeting, which was on the 14th. Um, You know, article one is, is, um, To elect. Um, which, um, as three said, stayed before the, Mr. Benson was running for that again. Um, and then article two is, is the town clerk. Which Pam is running again. And article three town treasurer of which Pam. Is running. I don't, and I believe those are all unopposed. And then article four is to elect by ballot. A select board member for the term of three years. So this is the current. Um, Term held by Dave Eddie. Dave is running on opposed. And then article five is to elect select board member of the term of two years, which is currently Linley's. Um, of which, um, she is currently running unopposed. And article six is to elect by a ballot, uh, Lister term of three years. To succeed, uh, mo bring them. And I believe unless I'm wrong there, Teresa that mo is. Is running for that position again. Correct. Yes. Yep. Okay. And article seven is to elect, uh, trustee of public funds. Um, term of three years to succeed Eric Benson. And I believe Eric Benson is running for that. Yes. Correct. Um, if your name is on the ballot, then they had to fill out a consent of candidate form. So. So if anybody has any questions, I'm sorry, flew through those, but they, um, if anybody has any questions in regards to town moderator, town clerk, town treasurer, the two select board positions, town Lister or trustee of public funds, we could just take all those questions at the same time. Right. So here in non. I think we should maybe now is a good time to remind people, or is it the same? I guess Lauren joined sense, but just remind people they can vote tomorrow at the school from eight a.m. to seven p.m. Um, or, and also as, um, Paul pointed out that people can also register to vote tomorrow at the polls and then vote. So we had, right new joint thought maybe we just repeat ourselves. And I think if it's easier last time, wasn't it easiest for people to register right at the voting poll. So I had to school because people went to the town office last time, which then to send them to the, well, it was a fire station that time, but okay. And people just should bring their driver's license. They need to bring driver's license. I don't know if they need another form of ID, but they definitely need their driver's license. So to register to vote. So. Okay. Um, one thing that I, um, didn't, uh, give anybody the opportunity last time, uh, when it comes to Dave or Linley is, um, any time to speak if you wanted to in regards to, um, the select board position, I know it was unopposed. So it kind of slipped my mind that, you know, there was nobody going up against anybody, but, um, you know, if either Linley or Dave want, want a few minutes to talk about anything and more and welcome to, if not, we can move forward. I'm sorry to put you on the spot because I didn't ask you at time, but I was just thinking a lot. We never did that. So. Oh, I, I would just say for myself that, uh, I've really enjoyed this opportunity to get to serve our community in this capacity. And hopefully people vote for me tomorrow and I get to continue. And if not, I might still show up to meetings and harass you all. Yes. I can say basically the same thing. I'm, uh, proud to be able to serve the town as in this position. Um, I think I still have more to give. And I'm hoping that I could be elected to serve that, that post. Yeah. I think I just want to add, you know, and I've been on the board. Well, this will be the seventh year. And, um, You know, I've served with, you know, all types of different people on a political spectrum. Um, and I will say that, you know, one thing that's really nice with the group that we have is, you know, clearly we don't all match up on the political spectrum, which is nice because we get a lot of different, um, perspectives from, you know, different rounds of, you know, But at the same time, we're able to come together, uh, do what's in the best interest of the, the town and the citizens and move forward with, um, policies or procedures or, um, any types of other things. And I, I really appreciate the board. Um, you know, we're, we're definitely pretty efficient. Um, I really like that. Um, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, it's a great. I think the board, um, you know, we're, we're definitely pretty efficient. Um, I really like that. So, um, when I first started on the board, there, there used to be like a, maybe Paul remembers. Remember we had like a two page, um, List of things that just were left to die that they never move forward. Um. Do a list. I have to say, kind of like, let's, I mean, let's be prepared to make a decision and move forward and not keep putting us on this two page paper. So I really do appreciate, it seems like everybody's always looking at their, their select board packets ahead of time, we're prepared for the conversations and, and just like we've had a few there, you know, most of the time we agree pretty well, and other times we're able to come to some sort of middle room. So really do appreciate that with everybody that we have. It's amazing what a little civil discourse will do. That's the way they all should work, right, Gene? Absolutely. They're all the same, right? Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with disagreeing. No. Oh, absolutely. Although it seems to become a problem, but it's nothing wrong with disagreeing, but coming to a median point at some point in time. Just a respectful discussion and sometimes you just agree to disagree, but that's okay, but at least you can bring up all the viewpoints to make an educated decision. That's what it's about. I mean, it could be, it could be like Burlington where they don't seem to be able to agree on the time of day. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think things, I think we do a really good job. And I think as well as Therese and her staff does a good job of preparing us for our meetings and making sure that, you know, we have the right topics. We got the right information out there, very seldom when we missing anything. So appreciate all that. Well, just as somebody who lives here, I just want to say that I appreciate all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Danny. We're glad you came tonight. That's nice. It's nice to see new faces at the, I guess we're going to go back to in person maybe, but which was nice too, but it's nice when extra people join. So absolutely. So we, unless we have any other questions in regards to the article one through seven, which was basically, you know, like we said before, the town moderator, town clerk, town treasurer, two select board positions, Lister and public trustee of funds. We will move forward, which is kind of the meat and potatoes, which is the budget piece of it. As of last time, I just kind of went over it quickly last time, as well as this time, you know, the breakdown of the revenue versus the cost, and then what that net change is and how that impacts, you know, us as citizens. So the local revenues, which is the money that is raised other than taxes, has changed by about $5,000 from last year. And as we were talking last time, a majority of these changes are at the tax collecting end of things. Years ago, we had quite an issue at the town of Bethel with collecting taxes and water and sewer payments to the point, you know, quite a bit of people got behind, which resulted in now collecting back taxes, which had penalties and interest. And so in our revenue section, you can see that we actually budget for some penalties and interest a year. And as we've talked about over the last couple years, as Therese has done a good job of collecting those back payments, we're now going to start seeing last penalties and interest, which is good for everybody. But we have to start taking that revenue piece out of the budget. So we've we've been ratcheting that down a little bit here over the last couple of years. So that's pretty much the biggest swing when it comes to local revenues. And then the cost piece that I will just give a general overview. And then we can go into smaller areas like Ellie's got a question in regards to the recreational, and we can answer any ones any other ones at that point. So the cost right now in our budget is about $37,000 higher than it was last year. A majority of the increase comes with the increased retirement piece to Vermont, which is making up about $25,000 of that increase. So we found out in July of this past year that there was a significant increase of retirement coming. So we had to deal with that with our current budget that we're working in. But also we have to work with that with our future budget, which is this one. So a significant amount of that that cost increases is due to retirement. That's been a challenge at the state of Vermont, you know, for teachers, for town employees, for other state workers. We also because we started about two years ago, we started a ditching program inside our public works department. You know, we found over the years that we just weren't doing the type of maintenance on the road that we should to get water off the road so we can last longer when we do things like gravel it or pave it. So we started off with $20,000, I believe. And we've seen that this is a pretty good bang for our buck that we've been bidding out. So we've increased that $20,000 up to $30,000 to increase the mileage for this coming year. We had a discussion October, November in regards to speed and enforcement in around the community. Of course, at the same time, we're we're struggling a little bit right now on on part time constable. A lot of the police departments right now are our short staffed. And typically, how we get our part time constables is from other identities, like, you know, Oscar does South Royalton as well as Summit Bethel. And in our newest Justin, he's with the Rutland County Sheriff. So he comes over usually on what he would call his overtime to do in our communities. And what's happened is Rutland County Sheriffs are doing mandatory overtime right now. So he hasn't had much time to come over, as well as Oscar has been very busy with with Royalton. So we decided to put some speed signage so that we could finish the last two legs of the village area so that all four legs of the village area will have some speed acknowledgement signs for individuals. So that is in the budget. We also have a part time municipal office position to help Teresa and others in the office in regards to either grant writing or some other part time pieces throughout the season. And then we have some wall repair money in there for the Town Hall parking lot. To at least get that started. I don't know if it'll fix the whole thing, but at least we'll get started there somehow. And then the 2019 spring flood that we had that did over, I don't know, over a million dollars with the road damage and did another, I don't know, we'll estimate it at a million dollars with the bridge damage. And we have paid off, we've paid off all of our the road damage pieces of it. And we finished the last piece of it, which is a bridge replacement that we have. So instead of doing long term borrowing, we've been paying off this what called ERAP, which is our 12 and a half percent portion of the money. So that's in the budget as well. So the net increase, the net increase to us is $42,000 over last year, which is 2.1 cents on the tax rate, assuming that the assuming that the grand list stays the same. Now, last year we had a very similar approach at the board, where our target was again, to two cent increase. But we did have the grand list that increased last year, the increase of the grand list offset the two cent increase last year. So we did not have a change in tax rate with the town last year. So if you take this year's budget and last year's budget, it's really an average of one cent each year. What I can do right now, that's just kind of the overview. I can open it up. So if anybody does have any specific questions in regards to the budget, I definitely have Ellie written here as number one. Let Ellie go first. Thank you very much for you guys time. On page 35, you've done a really good job of listing the grants. And I see that the Vermont Foundation $3,000 grant and the Turrent Foundation 10,000 grant is listed there. And then my question comes from, if you turn to page 52, under the Recreation Facility Improvement Fund, you have the $3,000 grant listed under FY 2022-21. But there's, there doesn't seem to be the Turrent 10,000 grant. And I'm wondering if that is in the 19,359 of donations. Is that where you put the Turrent Foundation? Did it all, did we, it could be, I'm trying to remember now, because I don't have my computer in front of me. Did we get the Turrent money already, Ellie, or is it coming next year? Yeah, it came in June. Okay. Why you listed it on page 35, you listed it. Okay. I wasn't sure, because some of them we had, you know, we're kind of listening to what we had. So then yeah, it must be in the 19,359, because let me just make sure I balance out. Hang on, I got to look at one more page just to make sure I go through things. I'm looking at Theresa and we had budgeted $10,000 for the Recreation Facility Improvement Fund, where on that page it shows 20. So I wonder if the other grant is in that. Well, I'm just looking in the, I want to make sure that page 52 matches page 55, because I do the Capital Reserve Report, which I take right from the trial balance. And so I just want to make sure that when, because this is obviously the Rec Facility, it's a, yeah, it says 72-666. Okay. I just want to make sure they match. And that's the ending numbers. So yes, Ellie, it must be under donations and fundraising. It should be, but you're right. I'll make a note to fix it so that it's under grants where it should be. So thank you. Theresa, is it possible, I think I heard Ellie correctly that the grant came in in July. No, June. June. Oh, okay. Just thinking if you could ended up getting put into this current fiscal year as opposed to the previous fiscal year. Yes. June 3rd, it came in. Okay. So yeah. So it must be just in the, just not, I just didn't So we label it correctly. Sorry. Oh, that's all right. I just did it. And then under FY to 2021-22, it's the 15,004. I thought we had written something that we were waiting for, for some reason. And I think when, and I don't remember what it was, I feel like we had So it was DTRI, but I don't know. You guys are always writing. And again, which is great. And it's just a, and it's just a capital plan so it can change. But I guess assumed that you had something in the works. Yes. It's the land water for 25,000. Okay. Well, there you go. Are you sure you're going to get that or do you know yet? We've been a lot of that. And we're just fundraising to match it. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. I thought about that one. I know because there's just, that's the thing. There's always so many. But yeah, so I can make a note because you can make that 25. And yeah, that's just something we need to talk about it briefly. I think that you're, yeah, I just at the meeting that I attended, just that, you know, it's kind of a, it's like the hundred thousand dollars for the pool. Right. I mean, I don't really know. And we haven't, the other thing we haven't budgeted either is like expenses for, you know, the second phase either. So that's just something we can flush out in more detail. So thank you. Yeah, I made a note. I corrected that to 25. And then, okay. And so under the donation fundraiser, what's the 3425? What page are you on? The same one under the 15. Oh, then let me look at the other page. Let me see. I don't, I don't know. I can't tell from here because I obviously, I don't have my work. I'd have to go through, you could look at it in the spreadsheet that I give you. But you can see the 72666. Yeah. It's probably the, did you guys wrote those letters for skate park money? It could be some of your little fundraisers and it could be a piece of sales. Oh, oh, oh, for this, what we did over the summer. It's through the end of June. So it would have been. No, no, this is for 2021-22. That's what I'm saying is I don't have my spreadsheet in front of me. So I'd have to go sign into the software and look it up. But if you, since I send you that separate spreadsheet, I'm, if you add those numbers up, you'd find it. Okay. But if you can't, just email me at work and I will go online and give you a better detail of it. I appreciate you going over the notes. Oh, sure. No, no, I appreciate the input. That's helpful to me. Yeah. So anyway, thank you very much for answering my questions and I'll let you get on with your meeting and I'll say good night because I know, I know about all the other stuff and I look forward to voting tomorrow. Okay. Thanks. And thanks for all you guys do. Good night. Thanks, Kelly. Thank you, Kelly. Yeah. And just a reminder that the, you know, the 21-22 budget is the one that we're currently in. So that's the one that goes through the end of June. And then, and then what we're proposing. So which is town meeting days 2020, the 22-23 budget. So just so we don't get confused a little bit. It's always confusing because you're multiple-yearing it. It is. And you're 18 months out when we're budgeting, we're budgeting 18 months out. So it's, you know, it's hard to hard to know. And then this year, like you said, we're dealing with the unbudgeted jump from retirement from 13.84 to 19.5. So we're still trying to, you know, I think I've made that up in at least one department, but I've made it up in three water sewer and highway, I think, but the others are, I don't know, I'm trying, but we started the year 30,000 in the hole. So because of that unfunded retirement. So right. All right. Any other questions in regards to the budget itself? I just want to state too, one thing in the constables budget, besides the two flashing signs, was the money for a portable sign that had been something that people had asked for, especially like on Church Street. So it's a portable speed signs. We can, you know, hopefully do some targeted enforcement. So I just wanted to remind people that, that that is also in the constable budget. But again, all this happens after July 1st. Yes. This coming year. Yes. Yeah. And there's a little more detail in regards to the budget on page 41 and and the town report. Most of what I had talked about in there, but there's a few other smaller details in there. If anybody has any questions in regards to that. So unless we have any other questions, we will move on from the budget itself. The next piece of that, Paul, did you want to go over the human services piece again? Yeah, just take a minute. The human services advisory board meets. We solicit information from the various nonprofits that apply for assistance or appropriations from the town. We have a whole schedule of information that we request from them. And that comes into the town office. And we usually meet the first week of December to go over those requests. This year we had the usual group, Sandy Farrell and Stan Capron. And our, I always refer to him as our fearless leader, Carol Ketchum and myself. And we also had a member of the public coming aboard this year, Scott Putney. He had a lot of information about some of these agencies from his dealings with the school and with his own family issues. So he was a valuable part. And I understand he wants to permanently join the committee, which is a great, great thing. So we get together and we look at the requests that are sent to us. We look at the financials. We discuss each request in depth. And then we came up with the appropriation list that then we then pass along to the select board for approval. And then along to the taxpayers, the town of Bethel has always supported these nonprofits. It's always been a big part of the, I'm sorry, hearing the puppy in the background. But anyway, we always supported these nonprofits and help out because we specifically ask how they impact the town of Bethel. And so we have good information about the number of clients and how they really interact with the townspeople in Bethel. So it's money well spent, we feel. And if anybody has any questions or if you know of a group that's interested in getting onto the list at the bottom of the town report, we eliminated the picture, which was terrible. And we put in some instruction as to how you can sign on to the program and get in touch with the town office. And we'll put you on the list and get you involved with some of these appropriations. So thank you. Right. You know, the other thing I would add is, you know, one of the downfalls of Australian ballot is people don't get to individually discuss the various agencies that are being applied for appropriations. So hopefully we'll be able to get back to an in-person town meeting where if there are any questions or presentations from the various groups that we always encourage them to come in and talk about this services, we'll be able to go back to that at some point in time. And if you're looking in your town report, pages 70 through 75 has the human services pieces of it. So it'll talk about the total appropriations as well as it'll break down each appropriation to the identity and kind of a paragraph of two of what services they provide. So those are all in the book as well. Anybody have any questions there as the human services piece of it? And we've always, like Paul was saying, we've always had it as its own article because, and I wouldn't say often, but there has been several times over the years where amendments have been done from the floor. I remember one year that there was, I think there was a human service that didn't make the deadline maybe that we added on the floor one year. And it was another, I think maybe a mistake one year that got caught. Well, there was the old stagecoach, when they were back, when they were stagecoach days, came to the floor and asked for additional appropriations that was approved by the town. Then a couple of years ago, I guess it was one of the agencies missed the deadline, but then it was brought up at the town meeting. I think Carl Russell actually brought it up to put through the appropriation that they had requested. So this system works. Yep. So that's all under article nine when you vote. Article 10 is the White River Valley Ambulance. You know, White River Valley Ambulance provides our medical assistance to our community. It's, you know, the budget is divided up amongst, I'd have to go and look in there, but there's a half dozen communities, I believe that they serve. Bethel is a larger chunk of those communities. And, you know, usually the kind of the services changed by, you know, kind of, you know, how inflation works with budgets. So I believe that one was up a couple of thousand dollars this year. We're talking about a hundred and twenty seven thousand dollar item for the year to service the town of Bethel. Yeah, Bethel and Randolph are the larger, it looks like there's Barnard, Bethel, Brantree, Brookfield, Granville, Hancock, Pittsfield, Randolph, Rochester, Stockbridge. So Randolph is the biggest chunk. And then Bethel, then it looks like Brantree, then down to Barnard, et cetera. But that's the towns that look it up. They're on page 69, the town report. You can see how that gets broken out there. That's always been its own voted in article. I was just kind of looking. I would add a personal thank you for having the the e-square available. We've had occasion to use them and they are nothing but professional and honorable. It's great. This is nice. It's great to have that service here. Yeah, they used to give us some breakdowns of information per town. It doesn't look like they do the per town breakdown, but they just have a total breakdowns. I look right, they do the per town breakdown on page 69 of the cost, page 69. And then 68 is their just their letter in general. We all pay the same per capita. It just depends on obviously how many people in your town. But yeah, so they do a breakdown on page 69. And then the one that usually gets kind of a hot topic some years is article 11, which is when we do pay our taxes. It used to be a little bit more critical on the day. I mean, we stop kind of always use the 15th of the month as the tax day, which the 15th of the month could land on a Saturday or Sunday or or something like that or holiday. But we did make some adjustments in our payment of taxes. Was that this year that made that adjustment? Last year they voted at town meeting to give people about a three-day grace period. It just kind of helps because people who, you know, it's always tough when you have a postmark that you may not get for three or four days, but somebody walking in the door to pay their taxes that day is late. But if I get their check a week later, it was postmark. So it does help. So we've just stuck with the 15th dates this year because we do have the... Yeah, because you have to set a date so that you can count the days after. So and they all fall in weekdays. I triple checked. Well, I remember one year, you know, we, we did actually change some of the dates. One was like a 16th and one to make sure they fell on a weekday. So we should be covered there. So that is everything when it comes to the town warning. Does anybody have any last minute questions in regards to any of the budget pieces or anything that may be on the warning? Nothing on the warning, but certainly in the town, the last page of the town report is the survey. And we have been receiving results. So you can either mail it in hard copy, drop it off, or you can go online. And there's a link to it. So and we have been getting quite a few people filling the survey out. So we're going to leave it out until April 1st. And then it'll be good because then we'll be able to take some of the data from it and help us figure out, you know, some of the goals for the select board and myself for the next year by based on some of the results of the survey. So encourage people to take it. How, how, if at all, is the town putting a survey out digitally? On our website, we released the link on Facebook. It's in, you know, every town report that we issued. And it was on Facebook and front porch forum, Facebook front porch forum and the website. Sorry, I had to think about it. It went out on all of our social media platforms. Owen was kind enough to share it on a list that he has. And I'm not sure where else, you know, but that's it for those are our options. That's what we did with it. Plus, obviously, we printed several hundred copies that got mailed to people's homes. So I'm wondering if it's worth asking a few key community groups like I know there's the Bethel community forum on Facebook that could maybe also share it and then just sort of like the steering committee for the Bethel for all, you know, just kind of see if we can get a broader audience by additional direct asks. Rebecca must have the link. She helped me focus one of the questions. If you want to share the link with somebody, absolutely feel free. And but yeah, I think that she, because Rebecca helped me craft one of the questions. So I can, so I'm not sure if it's I think I thought it was on their website, but I'll have to go look on the better connections website. I'll have to look because I don't know. Okay. Yeah. Just thinking if there's ways to help help the town push it out a little bit further or hit those people who maybe don't follow the town on Facebook, but follow some of the community forums. Yeah. And people are usually pretty good about liking it too. So once, you know, Kelly gets it out there. So certainly, yeah, if you can think of any organization, please, please feel free to share. But I will double check that because I don't know. What was the other one? Bethel, what community? Bethel community forum as a Facebook group. Okay. I'll have I think Rebecca is maybe one of the administrators on that as well. So okay, if it's on a radar, she'd be doing that. All right. Excellent. I'll send her an email tomorrow. And I saw on I'm on Owens, let's serve from my personal email and I saw Owen sent it out for us to the equity inclusion, which was great. So all right. Well, the surveys be available at the polls themselves, the paper copy or anything like that or she's got a box full of town reports. So I don't know, I could ask Kelly to run some over in the morning. Just print off maybe like, wow. Yeah, 50 30 or 40 of them just have in there in case someone wants to fill them out. Sure. Yeah, I can do that. We can run them in the morning. No big deal and have Kelly run them over. Sure. Yeah, because we don't have to rip up all your town reports. Yeah, well, we did ask her to bring town reports in case somebody came to vote that didn't get one despite our best efforts. So I'll make a note to have Kelly do that. That's a good idea. I didn't even think about maybe Pam already did. And I just don't know. So I'll look. Survey copies to the polls. And again, the polls open at eight o'clock and we close at seven tomorrow evening. And like we had talked about at the beginning of the meeting, you can can be registered on the spot. So make sure that you bring your driver's license with you to the school itself and see Pam. So she can do on the spot registrations for voting. And as always for us that count the votes, you know, it's always fun to do a write-in for Superman or Bugs Bunny or wherever else. But it every time that happens, that's something that we have to count. So it takes a lot longer to count the votes when there's write-ins all over the place. So please no fictional characters. Yeah. Oh, there's always a bunch of them. Trust me. Yep. That also is long gone. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So unless we have any other questions in regards to the budget, we will I'll just need a motion. We'll just adjourn the public hearing and we will just rejoin the select board meeting. But I do want to state before we do that we are not adjourning the entire select board meeting. We're only adjourning the portion reviewing the town meeting. Yep. Just a public hearing. Yep. Just a public hearing. I so move. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All righty. So now we are back into the regular scheduled select board meeting, which we had talked about. We have three items on there for this evening, as well as we'll have another discussion under other business. So we have the reappraisal agreement changes we reappraised a little last time. Well, you signed it and you made a motion to award it to Nemerc, which still stands. I just need you to re-sign the contract because we had to they didn't like some of the changes that we put into it, which are fine. One of them I referenced the RFP, which was more for the insurance, but it also brought up this whole three prong inspection thing. I'm not even going to go into it with you. So anyways, basically they just want us to re-sign with a couple of changes. So I actually don't... So no motion then? Well, I think that the motion is to sign the revised contract. Not award, it should be the motion to sign the revised contract. What were the revisions, Therese? So one of them in the first sentence had said that we would, that I referenced the RFP. Like I said, in the first, let me find it. Here, it's right here. I think in the first contract I had said that basically the description of the work and as outlined in the RFP, well, there was some portions of the RFP that talk about two prong versus three prong. It was inspections and they couldn't guarantee that I ended up being fine with the list, so that was one of them. The other one was the payment schedule. Payment schedule, we had worded in there that we would start payment, obviously when they started, and that if there were... And that we wanted the payment schedule to be in conjunction with the work and the timeline. Well, we got some... We didn't want them to ever get ahead of us, frankly, was the concern, but we actually ended up getting some good solid information. I had never dealt with Ed Claude Felter, that Lister who runs the portion for NEMRIC, and he assured that that's not going to happen, that they're going to start in time, and 40 years, he's always been on time. So that made sense, and they weren't willing to take the contract unless... Did that? He also made some good points, but we hammered out a couple details. The only other change I've made, I always still have the mailing address wrong for the town of Bethel, and that was it. We just... And he and I had gone back and forth about Lister assistance, but that wasn't in the contract. So it was the date referencing the RFP and the payment. So it makes sense now that we actually got to deal with the guy who's going to be doing the work, it worked out. So I just need you guys to re-sign it, because I didn't want to make changes, obviously, on the one you'd signed prior. So it would just be a motion to sign the revised contract. So last time, just kind of looking through it. So last time we had 24 payments, so they were getting monthly payments over 24 months. So is that correct? Yeah. And then is it still the same? Going to be 24 payments? Okay. Yep. Yep. The payment amount is still the same, and the schedule is still the same. So it's fine. All right. Now that we have some assurances from them, I think that the Lister isn't, I feel a little better. So we just need a motion to sign the revised contract to NEMREC for $121,080. Okay. All in favor? All right. So basically, Therese, that payment will show up on our next budget discussion. It'll come out of, it comes out of the reappraisal fund. So it'll come out of the capital fund that we have money set aside for. So we won't have to budget for that monthly payment in our general fund budget. No, we'll just continue to budget for the reappraisal. And let me just see, I have a spreadsheet for that. You won't see it on the budget at all then. Like I understand it's coming out of the reappraisal fund, but will it be on there? And then we're offsetting it from the reappraisal fund or will we just not see it? You just won't see it because it'll come, it'll be, you'll see it on the page 60, where I did the capital reappraisal fund, that projection. Now that we have an accurate number, we'll update it. So you'll see the expenses and the, you know, coming out of that. That's on page 60. But no, you won't see it. You'll approve it in your warrants. So you guys will see the invoices when you sign the warrants. But yeah, it's not coming out of the general fund. So no, you won't see it there. Thank you. You're welcome. And we had a class two liquor license for Champlain Farms. So Teresa, I had a couple of blank pages in my packet here. Is it just the two pages for the license? Oh, I don't know. I didn't scan it to you. Kelly did. Must be, because if you didn't get it, yeah, maybe it was. Yeah, I had the same. I think those are just two pages. They are. Yeah. Yeah, I can show you. They just look, you know, so one is the first page that talks about it. And then as a signature page that you guys mean. So the other one's just. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know. I guess I'll have to remind her to double check the scan before she sends it out. It must be. Well, I'll let her know. Maybe she had it in upside down or just scan the blank side. Or if she was scanning double-sided things, it's a single-sided. Yeah, maybe. All right, but that's what it is. It's something you sign every year. I can answer any questions. Let's see. Let me. So yeah, it's their second-class liquor license, obviously for Champlain Farms. It just, you know, it gives you the information lists of Rector Stock Holder. So really nothing more than you've seen every year. I know Champlain Farms is the gas station in town. Yes. Yep. Okay. Because I hadn't associated that name with that gas station. Okay. Oh yeah. Champlain Farms, because they're, they're, let me see if it says. Yeah. You'll now notice the sign on the bill. Oh, it also says the applicant is Wesco, which is their incorporated name. And they DBA is Champlain Farms. So. Got it. Move to approve. Second. Shin, second by Jean. All in favor? Hi. And Trace, I don't know if you're allowed to do this or not, but I was at a select board meeting this year. I won't say where. And they were going through liquor licenses. And one of them that they were going through owed money to the town. So they owed money for, I want to say it was water or sewer or something. And they actually, they actually didn't approve their liquor license because they owed money to the town. Is that something? Wow. Oh, no, can you do that? I have never heard. Like, oh, okay. Well, I guess that's interesting because when you look at liquor licenses, you should be wearing your hat as the local liquor control board. Things that we used to do in another town were they wanted, I used to call the local liquor inspector, and they wanted to know if people had been in violation, had they been following the rules, what were they doing? So it's interesting because for you to do that, you'd have to be wearing your sewer water commissioner hats. I don't know. I guess if we run into that, we could look it up one time, but luckily all of our liquor license people are caught up on their bills. But well, I think maybe not all of them, but getting there. I don't know. It seems like it seems a bit unsavory because wouldn't you want them to, that would be their call to increase their business. But I guess I'd have to ask the liquor inspector before we do that. But I did, I think, and after the fact, I'm like, well, if you're allowed to do that, it's not a bad idea. Like, you know, they, you know what, and be square with the town, but I'll ask our local liquor, because I don't know. I'll ask him, actually, I'll email the guy and find out. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was interesting, but that is pretty hardcore. Yeah, not that I thought that we had anybody that was outstanding on that, but just if you're allowed to do it, it's probably a good opportunity to review. Yeah, I guess. Well, yeah, I'll ask him. I don't know. Patrick, I think, is his name. Or maybe you have to have both your hats on that night and put it on your sewer board to talk about it, to move it back. No, I was just curious. I meant to ask you at one point, and I forgot. So seeing that head brought it up again. All right. Then we had the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank certificate for project completion for the water improvements. I think that's pretty straightforward. I think everybody knows we had the town torn up for two years. So it's done. So when you guys come in this week, I'll put stuff on the clipboard. So that'll give you some stuff to sign, plus any payroll or payables that you didn't sign last week. So if people can swing by, we'll get that done. You have the revised total amount? No, because I'm still have my hand out. Okay. I'm still waiting for more money. And actually had a call from the bond bank today. Ashley Lutz. And she actually was looking at our audit. And I just scanned her everything, and she's going to crunch the numbers on our bond from the town hall, a RISB, they call it. And right now, I do these 8038 CPs twice a year. And the feds actually give us money back on our interest. But so she had seen that it was a variable rate, and we were close to payoff. But she said she, before she knew that it was RISB, she thought maybe she could save us some money on interest. So I scanned her all that stuff. And she asked me about the 2.8 million. I said, ah, I still got my hand out. I'm waiting for them to give us a more to buy it down. So the town hall, not to get off subject, so the town hall one is a variable interest? I agree. Yeah. And sometimes bonds are, you know, a lot of times bonds like that that you do for that 30 year period can change. But it's almost paid off. So she didn't realize that with that bond, build America bond, you actually write two times a year to them. And there's a calculation. And they give us back a percentage of the interest that we pay. So I scanned it to her. So she's going to see if there's any savings there. But but as far as the 2.8 million, no, I don't know the final number yet because I want more money. So from the state, they hosed us, there's a bunch of COVID money they should pay. And so so far, we've had we've eke it out a little bit. But I'm going to wait. When you get a chance, Therese, can you just maybe let the board know if we have any other variable rates that are out there that may should be right here? You know, the feds are supposed to do some rate hikes this year. And, you know, if there's any opportunities for us to pay off loans or move loans or yeah. So we're on page 63. Yeah, page 60. So we have a bond that's coming, that's paying off on 23. I'll have to look at the water. I'm trying to see if it says so these are all bond ones, the people's bank have to look at that one for water. She was looking at the town hall ag, a municipal bond bank. So I'm not sure I don't think so, but I'll double check. Because the USDA is that's the one she was talking about. And then our others with the bond bank, we had one with Mascoma, which of course, Mascoma was, but that was all your debt retirement and the bond bank won't touch that. So we actually need to look at the Mascoma one and see if they will, once we've made a couple of payments, if they'll let us freeze the rate because I think it changes after a few years. But the other, the bond bank ones are set. Okay. So it just might be a good exercise to look through and see if there's any of that. Yeah, let me look at the people's bank ones. We can protect ourselves before any of these interest rates go up. Yeah, any variable rates, yeah. So we'll see what she comes up with. She's going to run our numbers through her calculator and some calculation program and see. And we'll see what we can do. But I'll make a note. All right. Town manager's report. Is there anything left there, Therese? I'm just making myself a note. Hang on. Okay, tax sale. So we sold three out of the five properties. The two of the properties that didn't sell, unfortunately, are the same two that didn't sell in 2019. So we did hear from one of the owners that I hadn't heard from. So we'll see what we can't do with him. And there's now some COVID extra COVID relief money. So I have a note on my desk. And Dietrich and I've been talking about that about reaching out to those two property owners to see if there's aid out there that they can apply for, or we can help them apply for. We've offered that before, but I guess I just need to be a little more insistent this time. So I'm in the process of writing a structures grant to replace that bridge on Peavine that's currently flooded with a larger box culvert. And I'm going to work on a paving grant for Christian Hill. I don't think we'll see the paving grant for Christian Hill this year. Usually you only get grants every two or three years. But because we're not sure of how the COVID money is going to be funneled, my hope is they'll give away a little bit more. I just put out the three-year bid for the cemeteries. Cecil and I looked that over. So that just went out. So and then I have a bid to put out for Christian Hill for that work for another grant. On the 24th, I attended a training with Two Rivers on some of the rules about the American Rescue Plan money. The town is looking at receiving just over 583,000. I already have 116,000 penciled in for hopefully for sewer pumps. Looking at another generator for one that's on lower church street. That's probably going to be about 30. Maybe a new roof for the sewer plant. There's plenty there to do. So what they had suggested is that we don't spend any money prior to March 31st because of the reporting period. But they've also come out with a new process, which the feds finally did because it took them, you know, they had several upgrades of the interim rule. They've come out with a final rule. And it looks like what they're doing is pretty smart. They're basically saying, look, if you're getting less than $10 million, they're going to give us the option to accept it all as lost revenue. And then we'll be able to spend it, you know, within the parameters like brought, you know, for water, sewer infrastructure and all the other things that they're saying. But the bonus of that is if we accept it, even though it's not necessarily lost revenue, but that's the what the feds loophole is, accept it as lost revenue. There's less reporting because they don't want to get reports from every rinky dink town in the country that needs to do go through some big reporting period. So that's so but they'll have more information out now that the final rule and I just got an email today that they finally had another pamphlet on how to, I say pamphlet, they're like 90 pages, but how to get through the rest of it. One of the good things is too is now that they finally changed some of the rules. And if we take it in as revenue replacement, we can interpret that pretty broadly to any service that can be provided by the government. So for us, we may be able to actually put some of that towards maybe even the town garage. So we know we have a list of water sewer stuff, especially sewer of things that we need to do that are going to prevent us from raising sewer rates down the road. Also infrastructure sewer water is helpful for the downtown and bringing businesses here. So, so that will end up there, but there may be some of the money that we'll be able to use, you know, maybe for a town garage, but we'll have a couple of discussions probably both meetings in March. We're going to put on there because you want to have some public input. Obviously, we have to be compliant with all the local laws and all that sort of thing. There's also one of the things that came out at that class is it looks like something called H518 and other piece of legislation where there may be money coming from the state for energy efficiencies of municipal buildings. Well, wouldn't that be lovely? Because you know, I need to put a new roof on the town hall or town office and insulate and insulate like upstairs the attic and replace the roof. So and to the town garage, that's part of what we need to do. So, you know, there may be money and hopefully we can leverage our ARPA money to, you know, not every grant source is going to allow us to leverage with ARPA money, but some will. So they provided a list of other places we can look for money and things, so which is good news. So the YouTube video of that seminar is also available. If anybody's interested in seeing it, you can contact, you know, Teresa or I have it too. We can send it down to you so you can. It's a very complicated process, but there is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It might be the freight train, but yeah, it's there. Yeah, exactly. And you know, it's pretty, we'll see how the reporting is. I have to sign into the portal and we've done everything we had to do. We've done, but our first reports do April 30th, but obviously it was spent anything and you're signed, but money still must be obligated by December 31st, 2024. So we don't, you know, we'll be making choices fairly quickly and then it has to be expended by December 31st, 2026. But, you know, it was interesting. One of the conversations we had, it was Bethel Brookfield ran up, you know, 583,000 is a wonderful gift, but we all know, you know, we need like a couple milk, right? You know, like to really get a handle on some stuff. We all can spend 583,000 pretty quickly, but it comes into two sections. We got the first half and we'll get the second, but. Will that, the dollar amount, will that make us have to do another audit or anything like that, Theresa? It might, depending on what other funds we've expended in the year, you know, it kind of stinks the timing because of Pinello Bridge. So it depends, although we may have just kick out, we may end up having to kick Pinello out another year. But yes, if you hit over 725,000 in expenditures, then yeah, and I'm not sure if the ARPA money can be used for a single audit or not, because obviously we're in the throes of doing a single audit right now. Okay. Other thing is Alan Patton, I've seen here, we have to get a transmission replaced for the John Deere, the backhoe, and they'd originally given us an estimate of $30,000, and we're like, no way. So we, Alan reached out to Nord Tracks, which was bought by, I think, United Ag of Turf, and got somebody on the phone there who called John Deere because our warranty had just expired. So they have, so everybody arguing, you know, on our behalf, so we actually got the amount cut from $30,000 to $14,000. So it's going to have to come out of the Capital Equipment Fund. I've talked to the members of the Capital Equipment Fund, but it's insane. They don't know right now if it was, and they won't really know until they get the thing torn apart, if it was a manufacturing defect, or if it was what one of the filters defected, and it just kind of exploded. So we don't know. Exide, we won't know until, you know, the work is done, but there was no way we were dumping $30,000 into that. So luckily John Deere, you know, stepped up and has made a deal with us. So, but that might just happen. Can't just blame it on Doug somehow. Well, I thought about it. I thought if we could maybe ding his, you know, withdrawal, you know, a couple months in time from his retirement. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So no. Anyways, so the other thing, obviously, with Tim's passing, we're in a situation with the water wastewater. Richard is fully certified to run our water system. And he is currently wastewater one certified, he's reading and taking the classes to become wastewater two certified, which is what our plant, which is a man and a quarter plant requires. And Richard is reading and working with Wayne Graham to get his wastewater two certification, so that he will remain operator. Currently, we have Aaron Perez. Thank you. Huge, thank you to Aaron Perez and Wayne Graham, who have been tremendous, tremendous in this situation. I had got a name from Tim once, what do I call if something happens? Who do I call? Who do I call? And finally, he just said to me one day, call Aaron Perez. So much to my horror, I actually had to call Aaron Perez and they have been wonderful. So what we're kind of doing right now is looking for that quarter person. We have our feelers out. And but then now I have to regroup because obviously Richard is, was a position that Greg Maggard created for Morgan jewelry and mows in the summer, clouds in the winter and wastewater. So I not sure, you know, to me, I'm thinking that maybe we just need to bring in two seasonals and bring somebody in who's probably has to be 16 or 18. I got to read the child labor law, who can run a lot more and bring somebody in for the summer and have Richard chain them to do all the mowing. And they could come in and we could work that for the summer do park maintenance and that probably three, four days a week. And then maybe just then then bring on a seasonal, you know, in the winter. So it may behoove us to try that because obviously if we bring in the seasonal, it's no benefits, this sort of thing. But you know, I need some more time to figure out the best position, you know, the best situation for us. Richard and I are just kind of getting through what we're getting through right now. And God bless him. He's working a bunch of hours. Alan will talk to Alan about, you know, bringing in somebody Dave Bergeron. Maybe he did some time for us before and helped us out recently. So hopefully maybe he'll can come back and do a little bit right now so that Richard gets a break. But so we have our feelers out. So is Wayne. I've been in contact with the state. They have been wonderful. And one of the things that the state said was we are very lucky that Tim ran our system. Obviously he won. It was a wastewater operator of the year. He was a water operator of the year. And she said, I would be really worried about your plant if it had been if it was in another town. She's like, but we all know how Tim was and that your plant is in excellent shape. So we have six months to replace it. But it certainly won't take Richard that long to become the wastewater to operator. But he's still going to need some support and training. So you know, just working out a plan. You think that, you know, you see this on the news, you think it's going to happen other people, you don't ever think it's going to be actually anybody that you know. So we're getting through it slowly, but surely. So as we sugar out a plan, I'll let you know right now I have ideas, but no formal plans. That's all I got for the town managers report, unless you guys have a question about something in particular. Okay, you're none. Select board meeting minutes from the 14th. Unless anybody has any amendments to it, just need a motion to accept. I saw Dave's lips move. He said so moved. I had dog problems here. So I shut my back in a second by Paul on favor. I see the hands. We're all set there. Other communications there were in the packet. I did see a bunch of DRB stuff and some of it was from like October and December. And so I don't know if they just accidentally get put in there or if we're behind some. I have a feeling that maybe they were behind. I'm not really sure. I saw them too. And I got it. I don't know if if Rick had been typing them all up and just hadn't submitted them or what. I don't know where they came from. I saw them in my packet and just kind of laughed. But I didn't know if maybe just accidentally got thrown in there or something. I saw them and I just assumed maybe somebody had a backlog that you hadn't seen. So because I read the first. Yeah, because I read the first one. It was February 8th. And then I flipped the page to read the next one. It was like October or something. I was like, okay. I don't I don't know. I just figure somebody got behind or something. Okay. All right. And any other business we were going to talk about the earth, Bethel, trans Bethel world and transfer station. So Dave was going to kind of bring us up to speed with the current situation there. And then we were going to kind of just talk about how we're going to move forward with the interlocal agreement piece. Okay. So we put out an RFP for an engineering firm of some sort to come take a look at our buildings and give us a report as to any deficiencies there were. We got one engineer to come into the site visit and to actually talk with us at all. That was Carl Childs engineering. You looked at the recycling building and he said that there's pretty much it's good, good to go. We're not really concerned about anything there. Then he went up to the tipping floor, the actual transfer station. He came back and he says, holy crap. This building is not good. We got a report and as soon as I read the report, I went to see degrees and we closed the place. He said that I win heavy snow that building could collapse. So we're not going to take that chance. So dated off. We only take in bagged trash, no construction or debris. I know that's a kind of a pain, but for the safety of our employees and our people in our alliance, we've got to do it. So since then, we've had a look at it. We've got right now, well as of yesterday, there was four options. Option one is to repair the damaged columns, which is actually the four big ones up on the green floor and two more down on the where the trailers come in. We're looking at the rough, these numbers I'm going to throw out are extremely rough off the cuff. We had Martin Green there Friday with Carl looking over and we're thinking there's about $100,000 there to repair what we've got, keep what we got and repair it. We have to do some more work to protect the columns because apparently the operators in the past have been extremely violent with those columns. So we're proposing that we do something. We don't know whether we encase them in concrete, put up ballads or whatever. Option two. Go ahead. What type of timeframe would option one take? Option one would possibly best guess end of summer. Wow. Everybody's busy and nobody's going to bid on it until the drawings are done and Carl left on vacation, reads on the vacation tomorrow morning, so he's not going to have a drawing for them until mid to late March. Then we've got to put it on an RFP to get bids done and then everybody that does steal is crammed up, busy, and Mark said that he would fit us in the summer somehow. And if we go with Donald Beffle's policies, we're able to single source anyway. So I mean, I don't know if you ever met Mark, but he calls a spade a spade and he actually had some things to say about it, but he still needs to draw. Option two, tear the building down and put the new building. That option, again, I have no idea about the timing because I haven't, I was been busy. I haven't had time to try to contact building people, but EF Wall was there a week and a half ago and they wouldn't even touch the repair. And the new building he said is somewhere between 275 and 350. So that option in my opinion is an option, but that's all it is. Option three, Jen has done some talking with, I don't have the gentleman's name, but the guy from Casella, they would come in and put up a new building, but we would have to sign a contract with them to haul our trash for 25 years. And there would be a fee with minimal increases. No numbers were ever out there. And I think Jen is still working on trying to get him some numbers so that we as a board can look at it. Boom. Option four, which as of today went down the toilet. We were hoping we could take the building down and do some wind mitigation and use it uncovered. And state statute says no, we will have a roof. So that's where we are. Money-wise, we owe the engineer $1,800 as of now, the work he's done. We put a halt on doing any more until we get looking at these other options because if we're going to put up a new building or do something with Casella, no sense of paying him $15,000 to design and repair if we weren't going to do it. So when he gets back, I can't say that we're having a meeting tomorrow night, we'll have another meeting a week from then, whatever. We've got two meetings the next two weeks anyway. We're going to talk about these options and see as a board where we want to go. I was kind of thinking outside the box. Is there any possibility of switching so where the recycling currently is? And well, let's say the structure that's damaged. Let's say we remove the roof, right? Make it structurally safe. Could you move the recycling up to the current dump area? And then could you move the construction waste piece to where the recycling currently is and do it that way? I think the modification that would be needed, because you have to move personnel. You have to have a building so that you move personnel because we need the Thai person to be there. We'd have to... I don't know how you have people on and off the scale and be able to see what they're doing. If you're your personnel up on the hill, my first gut feeling without really digging deep is no. Yeah, Jerry called me last week and asked me about cash flow and how much money they had and this and that. And I said, look, I don't do cash flow projections for you guys. I didn't do any work on your budget. So I told him that what... that Royalton has a line of credit of $100,000, so he ought to think of that as his budget to get something done. Yeah, I wasn't sure because I know we used to dump trash down below, but it was really just bag trash. I know Jen told me that when they're pushing it off out back and hauling it, that there's one of the containers that's really hard to lift. But she sent me the information from Casella, but I haven't had a chance to read it. And so I know that we've fielded phone calls already. People are upset about construction debris. We did call East Montpillier and we had all their hours and put them out and the price is cheaper per ton. But of course, people would need to budget and build their clients that they're going to East Montpillier instead of Bethel for C&D. The other trash because I had hoped we could just take... I had hoped we could just tear the building down and use the slab, but then Jen told me today that the two leech tanks are underneath that slab. And she said, we already paid it empty those and it's not cheap. So without a roof and there's obviously water and stuff getting in the leech tanks would be even more money to fill them. But I understood the point and she said it was in the material management plan, but I also wondered if because we were in a critical situation, if there was some sort of time waiver or that sort of thing, but I don't know. Not to say that we want to pull that roof, but you mentioned Dave, option three was Casello coming in and resurrecting a new building or something. Did they say a time frame on that piece? That has not... We have no time frame or numbers on that. And I think, Kim, the guy's got an odd name that... It's Jim Toer. Yes, him. He needs to... He and Jen are still talking about the fine points, which I think... I don't know if we'll talk about tomorrow night, but definitely the week, the next meeting, we'll talk about those because we're not going to make... We need to slow down. I was trying to get this dropped in a moment, but it's not going to happen. We're just too much going on there. State regulations, working with Casello, seriousness of the building. It's just... We need to just calm down and slow down and look at this completely. And Jen is only going to be here another week or actually the end of this week. Hopefully she's going to either get the info or pass it on to John or myself or Jerry so that we can keep talking with Casello. That's the only... It's either option one, we repair it, or option two, we have Casello, deal with Casello. In my opinion, those are only two financially liable. We can't put a new building up, I don't think. I don't think we've spent $210,000 dollars. I think you're right, Dave. If we're going to negotiate the renegotiate the interlocal or whatever we're going to do at the end of June, it's up to Royalton. If we get out of the trash business, then they're going to want to make their own capital plan and make their own decisions about that. So I'm with you. If depending on the deal, I'm not sure they were never... Royalton wasn't thrilled about making a deal with Casello before, but in the meantime, Casello is re-roading trucks, so we're losing money because we're not taking Casello's trash, we're not taking C&D and we're only taking bag trash. So I think you're right. I think the options are they make a deal with Casello or they spend $100,000 and repair what they have, which buys them a little bit of time, and it buys them time to do a capital plan. So I think you're right about that. And Jen, I'm not sure she'll be there all. She's going to work her 40 hours and be done, so she could be done by Thursday. I did ask her to share the information, so I have it. The repair puts us back in operation this year, this summer. And Mark off the cuff was saying that he felt that he looked at it. He felt his repair was a 20-year repair. Nice. That's enough time to... Okay, now let's put some money aside for a new building, for whomever is going to have this site. It's difficult, a little difficult with, I'll say no more, because we're in public session. Well, I think that you liked Mark. Oh gosh, yes. He's good. Yeah, it definitely inspires confidence. I mean, local contract. Mark on a couple of projects. He's very good. He cuts right to the chase, but he does excellent work. I've seen work out of that place at GW that just amazes me. Those guys know what the hell they're doing. Well, hopefully you'll have some more information from your meeting tomorrow night. Well, no, we won't have any tomorrow night. We just got to decide if we're going to pay Carl, how much we want to pay Carl, because we got... I need to get some more information for the next meeting. The building thing, I think, and the Cassella thing are big. We've got to have those numbers before we can make any more decisions. Now, are they big to the point where this needs to go to the owners of the property in the Royalton and Bethel to discuss this, or is this small enough to stay at the local level? I mean, what are your thoughts on that, Dave or Linda? Are you saying is this up to the BRTS or is it up to the select boards? Right, yeah. That's what I'm saying. I don't see any interlocal agreement that has a dollar amount attached that I thought the BRTS was running the show until there was an impasse and then the select boards would step in and take care of it. I don't know. I'm not somebody who can tell me differently. I think, personally, we're going to spend $100,000 or more. It would be wise to present to the select boards those options and with a proposal that this is what we think we should do and why. Hopefully, we would both board and jump on board because, well, they would not have been involved with all of the legwork and wise workforce. Yeah, because I know that was a question that we had when we were looking at some amendments to the interlocal agreement. I know we never ended up, we talked about it quite a bit in regards to, you know, at what point does it become the select boards matter rather than the local board? And we never associated a dollar figure, but I think the joke was at that time, like if we were going to do something big, right, facility, you know, something large at the facility, then it would go back to the board. So I guess that was just kind of where I was. Yeah, because you're right. That amount in the interlocal agreement was blank and both boards, both the town of Royalton and the town of Select Board, about the one they met, talked about that. I think that if they were going to, if the BRTS board wanted to make a deal with Cassella, then that would probably require going to the select boards because it's the property owners and they'd be making a contract deal for a building. So that may end up kicking in both boards. You think Dave, if you were entering into a contract with Cassella? Well, I think so. Probably more so than to repair, but I think even to repair, it should be floated by the boards and so they could at least hear what's going on, have input, and so that if they get tagged is like what the hell's going on, they would have some information. I think the hard part is the select board, you know, the majority or all of the BRTS board members in Royalton are select board members. So they already have a majority of select board members on the BRTS board. So they're in the loop, whereas obviously we have you and Lindley and then Penny. But yeah, so I don't know, I guess we'll figure out as it shakes out. In the meantime, I know we have a lot of itchy contractors who are wanting to hurry up, hurry up and take C&D for roofing, but it's, you know, that is what it is right now. I mean, and I think I'm being very conservative when I say end of the summer. I mean, it's just talking, looking, pointing. I mean, it's going to take a while. Again, it's going to be mid to end of March before we have a document. And then even if we went straight through a DMS, they are straight out. He said that he would find a way to get down for, take him about a month of work there at the building. And probably another month of building the pieces in his shop. So there's a good look at two months of work, you know, and then he's busy. So he's going to make room. And is it hard to find steel? Steel doesn't seem to bother. Oh, good. Maybe he has a stockpile. Well, just, you know, depending on what comes out of your meeting, Dave and only just, you know, let them know if we need to, you know, I don't want to slow the process down if there is a viable option to move forward quickly, but just make sure that, you know, that they were more than willing to meet whenever as a joint board, if we need to push this thing along, if you do come together on a solution for it. So I probably, I mean, I don't know about tomorrow night. We're supposed to be a quick one because everybody that's there has to go back home and do ballot counting. So we're not going to hang around and visit for a while. But yes, we definitely need to talk. We've got three of those, there's two of us, three of them, two of us that will say, okay, does this kick or where do we believe it kicks into full select board approval? Right. It's not written, but I have a global agreement can be adjusted. And I guess that's you and Therese and David and Victoria are going to rewrite that or renegotiate or whatever. Yeah. And on that piece of it, Therese and I had talked and we were going to reach out and see if we could start the communications with Whirlton at some point next week. We wanted to get through town meeting day. So I don't know if we'll actually meet next week or we'll have a plan for the following week. But that's, that's our goal is to, is to start the initial negotiations and then bring it back to the board. We can probably get back to the board by the 28th, right Therese? Yeah. And you and I need to meet this week or next week to hammer out, you know, our points that the power negotiating points. So. So I think that's kind of our, our goal at this point for that. So that's all I got for you down. Like I said, this tomorrow night is just a matter of we know what we owe Carl and we know what it costs if he wants to do the repair drawings. So I think it's got to agree on that. I think we're going to go ahead with having to do the repair drawings. Well, just send us good news only. Well, if you don't hear from me, I'm sorry, but if it's not good news, don't show up to ballot camera. Well, thank you, Dave. I appreciate you spearheading this because otherwise you've gotten so much farther than, than it would have otherwise. So I appreciate all your efforts. I'd like to say it's been fun, but that would be a lot. Right. So Chris, Chris, the only other thing after BRTS under any other business is this was our last meeting that we had discussed doing Zoom. I don't know what you want to do, what you all want to do in March, if you were going back to in person or what. So I just don't want to forget to discuss that because I won't know how to warn you next meeting. I mean, I kind of looking over the, well, for a couple of things, I was looking over the state data as well as CDC's new guidelines in regards to mask wearing and public meetings and things like that. And it appears right now that Vermont is in the low risk category. I guess there's 72% of the territory in the United States that they're classifying low risk. And then there's 28% that they classify high risk. And the new data out is, you know, obviously mask wearing and, and or, you know, mitigate in person meetings in the high risk places. But in the low risk, they've gone as far to say that masking is not mandatory. And obviously, you know, meetings and things like that are, are something that we can get back to. So data wise, I guess if we're following that, and Vermont falls into that category that, you know, I'd be fine with going back to in person and starting the 14th. It's kind of weird because the meetings are the exact same days in February as they are in March. So I know it threw me off too. It's the 14th, I guess would be the next one. So if you guys are all fine with that, I'm fine with that. We can still continue to offer the hybrid option. You know, we seem to have worked the, it's not perfect. But I think we've worked the bugs out so that people can join remotely and we can hear everybody pretty well. We finally figured out the speaker in the hall. And so I think we've cobbed it together pretty well. So it looks like, I had saw Gene look like he had thumbs up, and Linley, Dave, Paul, you guys are good with that. Okay. So we'll plan on back to in person at the town hall for the 14th then. Okay. And I'll let Orca know so that we can go back so they can assist with the hybrid. And we'll go back to doing that. No, plus you'll probably have things in being sworn back in for select board members and things like that as well, right? Yeah, I have Kelly reaching out to people. We probably will do some of the standard stuff on the 14th, newspaper, record, blah, blah, blah. But reappointments will probably happen on the 28th. Some of the basic reappointments can happen on the 14th, but I do have her reaching out to everybody to see about, you know, people being reappointed. We obviously have, still have space on the planning commission. We have now we will a public, trustee of public funds, a select board member, a select board will have to appoint to fill Carroll's seat. We'll have a space on, we'll have possibly two spaces on the revolving loan fund committee. So we'll have a list which will get published of spaces that we're looking for, but we've been looking for volunteers for years. So nothing's new. We just have some more positions open, unfortunately. So when do we do our select board reorganization type stuff? The 14th, because Chris and Dave will have to go to the town clerk's office and Kelly will administer the oath and then the 14th will be an organizational meeting. I'm sorry, who'd I say? You're assuming we're getting elected. Oh, well, the only ones on the ballot. I'm feeling pretty good about your chances. But I'm sorry. We'll have it on the, you know, usually we'll have the first part of the 14th meeting would be the point of the chair and any other changes that may happen. Exactly. And you have a, there's a list of annual appointments that are annual business that you have to take care of every year. So we'll do that too. But yeah, so Lindley and Chris, Lindley and Dave will get there. Sorry, well, well, if you get on the select board, you'll get sworn at too. So possibly in multiple ways. So you'll have others wearing it and do all that. But yeah, we'll restructure on the 14th. So. All righty. Did we have any other business come before the board? Oh, one thing I just wanted to, so I sent out Teresa's self evaluation to all the board members. If you haven't received yet, let me know for some reason and get it. So the goal would be at the next meeting on the 14th that we would have an executive session just for the board members to go over Teresa's evaluation for the year. And then we'll follow up on the 28th meeting with the in-person evaluation with Teresa. If that works with everybody on the board. So. And I'd like to wait and do the goal setting in April once we have the results of the survey because some of the results of the survey I've seen right now, it may, you know, it may, it'll definitely swing a couple of projects that maybe we want to focus on. Yeah, that'll be helpful. Chris, if you could send that to me again, I would appreciate it. I will make sure I'll double check to make sure I had the right email. I thought I sent it to you and I'll send another one. For some reason you don't get a hold of me and I will. Yeah, cyber, the cyber spooks have been playing funny with my email recently. So I've had a number of people in town who've said they have that my mail's bounced. Oh, gotcha. Okay. I'll take a look on that for you. So. All right. Thank you. Anything else? Jean, if you don't get it, I can print you a hard copy when you guys come in to sign stuff tomorrow and Wednesday. So if you don't get it, let me know and I'll, there, if I'm there, I will run you over. I can put one in an envelope if you don't get it, let me know, and I'll make you a hard copy. Okay. Just make sure if you're a BCA member to come on down at seven o'clock tomorrow evening and get your count. So. Yes, because Pam may hurt you if you don't show up. I know. I asked her, I asked her if I could go to the high school basketball game tomorrow night. She said no. So. Yeah, she told me that if you didn't go that she was going to toilet paper your house. I told her we have to bring a steak for Brady. At least I'll know who did it. She's, you know, it's always stressful before you do it the night before an election. So. Yeah. All hands on deck it makes light quicker work. Okay. All right. Unless there's anything else that's need a motion to adjourn. So moved. I've got a second. Ready. Well, have a good evening. Good evening. It's only eight o'clock. You're done. Do you want us to just make stuff up? I can't believe this. So like, well, we didn't book much on the agenda because we didn't know last year when we did this. I think we had maybe 12 people come for the pre-budget meeting. So you never know how much, you know, we have stuff, other stuff we could tackle, but we didn't want to get, want to be able to answer every single person's questions. So. A good game last two hours or less. Yes. We try not to get into these long. And sometimes it's not us. It's public comment or something that ends up going awry. Yeah. We're all, we all like to share our dissertations when we pop on here. So. Yeah. So sometimes it's hard, you know, you, I think I've got this tight schedule and then all of a sudden the wheels come off the bus. Well, I don't want to cheat you, but I just, I just, I'm pleasantly surprised and my wife will be pleasantly surprised too. Yeah. So thank you. So nice to see you all. And thanks for your work. Yeah. Thanks, Christie. All right. Good night. Have a good day.