 I wasn't sure if that was pot that seconded the approval consent calendar. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Bob. Next up is new business discussion about the Treasurer clerk positions. Included in your package is an action item sheet on the the topic that the board which to discuss today. It's just information that was collected from the State statutes that dictate the process inform select board members or municipal governments of the process should they wish to continue with Reclassifying positions one way or another, including ways that the decision may be appealed by residents of the town. It's not I'd introduce the topic and open it for discussion if you wish. So this isn't a new topic. Completely right. We held three public hearings on actually it was only one two of them got canceled. One of them got at least one of them got canceled. One of them we held all three Joyce the the public the community meetings. We held off three I know you and I and Pat I think Pat attended to and I think you may have not attended the third. Now the third was supposed to be at the the schoolhouse and I thought it was canceled due to weather. That's why we were told The second one was scheduled at the Red Schoolhouse. Right and it was canceled due to weather. That's right. Okay. So we had two of the three. Yes, that's right. Joyce is correct. We had a major snowstorm. That day and that's why we canceled the third the second of the three meetings where we had the third in early January. So can you walk us through What took place at the public hearings? Sure. We had only one member of the public attend not counting Joyce and Pat both I took both of them as or Pat I think at that point were you were not were you on the select board at that point pat. Yes. So at that point unless Pat or Joyce were attending as members of the community then only Dave Crosby from the Herald was in attendance and we held the public hearings. We advertise them online. We advertise them Herald. We posted notices to answer as many questions as we could about the process and Joyce was in attendance to so that she could share her perspective as a current clerk-treasurer. But we didn't have any any members of the community attend. Any members of the community attend. So it would be helpful to understand from the first day you took the position or elected into the position Joyce how the job has changed in those years because my understanding is it's a fair amount more complexity and demanding. Well. I began as an appointed town clerk because Doris Bowman retired as of December 31 of 1998. The select board had put out ads in I believe October of 1998 advertising the position as two separate positions because it is two separate offices. There were multiple applicants and I was elected and I actually began work around January 15 of 19 excuse me 1997 October and November was one of the select board held interviews and then made the selection. I actually took office and took the oath January 15 of 1998. Over the course of the last 22 years the job has become much more complex when I first came on board. Many a lot of the stuff was still being done manually or done with paper as opposed to being done on computer. It is now more computer work than it was 22 years ago. When I began the land records were just being photocopied into the land records we've now moved to the point where we are digitizing the records and there is an index that is available online. The complexity of elections has grown over the years partly due to various changes on the federal level as well as an estate level. So it puts more pressure and more work in order to run elections and more responsibility to be sure that it's run correctly according to statute and that we're all complying and doing what we should be doing. The treasure piece of the job is probably less complex than what it was when I first came on board when I first came on board because we were still doing parts of things manually. I used to run a lot of different spreadsheets which were used to compare with the accounting office so that we could see whether or not we matched. We no longer do that. All that is run by finance now. But there is a lot of coordination between the two offices regarding managing funds, transferring funds so that it's done in a timely manner and to maximize the town's investments so that we're at least earning money on idle money whenever possible. So, you know, there are a lot of different little things that have changed and make it challenging. But that's the nice part about the job is that there is variety. There is always something new every day which is part of what attracted me to the job is that there was a lot of different things to it. So, one thing that has definitely taken place, especially within the last five years, is the fact that for the elections, we now have an accessibility tablet that is available for voters who want to vote that way. So, it means that whoever takes my position needs to have some comfort level with dealing with hardware, assembling hardware, and ability to and comfort level with loading programs into the computer. So, there is a lot more computer work. And so, there needs to be some comfort level with dealing with more than just turning on the machine and running your program and typing in data. There is a little bit more to it. My question to the select board though is why are we bringing this up again? I thought the consensus from the hearings that we had earlier, granted, we didn't have a lot of public input. I get the sense that, how shall I say this, is the motivation of bringing this question back up again an effort to encourage me to resign early as opposed to fulfilling the remaining part of my term? Or is it just to relook at the position because you're afraid that we won't find somebody? I mean, over the course of, you know, the history of Randolph, we've had elected clerks and elected treasures, and they've been in the positions generally for long terms. I personally believe that we'll be able to find somebody again. We worked into the budget this year money so that we could hire somebody as a full-time assistant to train with me for a couple months before I actually retire. And so, you know, if the select board wants to participate in the process of interviewing whomever it is that I'm looking to hire as the assistant, you're more than welcome to participate in the process. But statute clearly states that the town clerk appoints her assistant. So I welcome the input from other people. I'm just kind of confused as to why we're bringing this up again. There is no effort underway at all to try to get you to retire early or push you out or anything like that. So the hearings were held and then COVID hit so the board never discussed the results of the hearings. And some of the conversation is because we were looking at if the decision is to try to get it out to vote to the public on whether they want to move to the public. On whether they want to move to an employee versus an elected official. We were thinking we needed to be able to get that together for the November election. But it has to be I believe town meeting day when that's decided. You can call us special meeting but it's going to be a vote from the floor because town that Randolph has voted to vote all public questions from the floor of the meeting. So it would not be an Australian ballot vote. It would be a vote from a floor of a meeting and the select board could certainly call a special town meeting to do that if they so choose to do it. But again it would be a vote from the floor of the meeting as opposed to an Australian ballot vote. So some of the concern is some of the concern I have is has this position gotten to be so technical and change so much that the skill sets needed have become something that you need to ensure you have those skill sets and you can't do that through an election process. You know Mr. popular that just likes to sit on the street corner and talk to everybody could get the vote to go into that position versus the person who you hire as an assistant and train for those two months. And then hope that they get elected. You know it's a there's a gamble there. And the question I have is. Are we comfortable taking that gamble. Or is it such an important position now in the function of town government that we need to ensure that we have the right person in there. Well in looking back through some old town reports. I have never seen the position of town clerk or town treasurer ever being a contested race. You know I'd never say never right. We've had a few things that have happened that we never thought would happen. I never thought we'd be doing select board meetings this way. You know so it's I don't know that we can necessarily make the decision based on past elections and what's happened. I think the question I have is is this such a critical position. And are the skills so honed in now that we need to make sure we have the right candidate in that job versus opening it up to the person that can get the right number of signatures. That's just the balance I'm trying to sort out. Yeah I believe I believe you can find somebody even if they don't have exactly the same skill set that I have. I believe that you know they would have the ability to learn what needs to be done. It really isn't that complicated dealing with the hardware is just re knowing what the different parts are and where they need to go. So Joyce if I can ask a question then to Trini's point which I largely concur with. What do you think are the relative merits of having an elected position versus an appointed position or do you have any feelings about that one way or the other. I believe it's important to keep the especially the position of town clerk as an elected position. I believe that you need to have the checks and balances against having total control by the select board. I mean right now we have a good select board that seems to work well that you know tries to be sure that they adhere to statute. But I have heard stories from other towns where if the select board believes they have authority for something and they sometimes will overstep their authority. I believe that having that independent voice is very important on the treasure piece because the treasure piece is a little bit different. I can see having that as an appointed position only because you're looking for someone who has some sort of understanding about accounting so that that's a little bit more specialized as opposed to the clerk position. The clerk position main thing is you need to be comfortable working on computer have to be comfortable using word using Excel. You know email and most people nowadays use all those programs so they have some comfort level with it and they certainly can learn to become more proficient in them if they need to. On the treasure piece however it is a little bit more technical in that you have to have a better understanding about some financial things. You have to have some understanding about the banking system how it works and some understanding of the types of products that are being offered by banks and their benefits to the town. So while I would prefer to see both positions remain as an elected position I could see that the treasure piece could become an appointed one but I feel very strongly that the clerk position needs to remain an elected position. Just to better understand the duties under each does the clerk does all the land record activities also so it's not just the elections right. Clerk does all land record recording all vital records recording we issued dog licenses we should marriage licenses we should certified copies of vital records. The treasure piece you know on that piece you're talking about doing the tax billing and collection. And of course with the clerk it is the voter registration and elections and voter registration right now is almost a full time job for one individual. Because of this particular election year there is an extreme interest and there has been significantly higher numbers of people who are registering to vote and requesting absentees and because of covid you know we are doing basically absentees. The secretary state's office has already downloaded the file for Randolph and they will be mass mailing absentee ballots to all active voters so anybody who is flagged as an active voter will receive a ballot in the mail whether or not they requested it. And then it's up to the voter to return it to the town clerk's office they'll be up to the voter to contact the town clerk's office if they have not received it. If they did not receive it then they'll have to fill out an affidavit so there's there's a lot to the process. And like I said over the course of probably the last five or six years. Elections have become much more complicated. Do in part to changes in the law that allow for same day voter registration and the fact that we have an online voter. Data base that we have to input all the information on and the tracking system that they have for all the absentee ballots that we have to input all that data. So it's it's become more complex. Questions. You mentioned how you feel like the independence of the office is is important and how it's a check on the select board and I and I appreciate that. How does that actually manifest like can you think of a like a situation where. Like you've had that experience where you're like oh it's a good thing that I'm independent because I can I can push back on this particular thing that the board's trying to do that is not OK. Or if you have. Would be example. In the past we there was one select board which tried to not have me hire a particular person as my assistant because they didn't like her but statute clearly says that it is my prerogative to appoint the individual that I want for the office. Are there any other situations that would be more sort of germane to the running of the town as a whole that would that would come up. You can think of. Well as far as you know. The hours that my office is open my office does not need to be open the same hours as the town. Offices are open. You know I get to choose what my hours are. And I think that that's that it that is an important part. I mean you know since I've been on board. I'm not required to provide additional hours for people to pay their taxes. But that's a treasure piece of it. But I have been open additional hours because to me. That benefits the public because it provides them with additional time to be able to come in and time where when they are likely to not be working. Because our normal hours would be the same hours that they would be working as far as other other instances from the clerk side. In terms of checks and balances you know like how does well I know I think again like for posting of certain warnings especially for bond warnings and this has happened in the past where the town of Randolph neglected to properly post warnings in advance of a bond warning and all that. And although the bond vote passed when they went to do the paperwork for going to the bond bank. It was rejected because they didn't properly warn it didn't properly publish and and that's something that I have in the past had to remind the manager and the select know you've got to have five posting places for this morning you've got to publish this 3 weeks in advance. And you know so it's a way to to remind the select board of some things that they need to do because it doesn't necessarily always have to look at the other end of it while what you need to do in order to comply for getting a bond. And what not. And there are other instances when we had to at the very last minute change the location of town meeting. And again because I'm familiar with statute and I also had consulted with the secretary state's office. Yeah, we follow the process so that it would be a legal meeting way that they were going to do it would have been an illegal meeting and could have caused problems down the road. So it's little things like that. It's just as as reminders that you know there are there are certain things in statute that you need to comply with in order for it to to be a legal meeting and for whatever business is transacted to be legitimate. But town clerk could do all those things and be appointed right like like it doesn't it's not really they could are independent. They could I mean, you know the I guess the other instance that I would bring up which I didn't really want to bring up was when we had one particular town manager who pretty much threatened me telling me that I needed to do something a certain way and he really had no authority to tell me that and it was an issue that I brought to that particular select board chair and and he dealt with it. But I also had an attorney in the office at the time that he made that threat and that attorney still told me that you know if I needed to pursue this that she would be my witness to the fact that he threatened me. The record that was not me. Yeah, so if you're an appointed person, you're less likely to to stand up to something if you're in fear of you're losing your job, especially if you really need the job. Being independent of that gives you a little bit more support to to be able to say this is what I think this is what you know I I feel and and not feel you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you feel basically threatened by it, you know, that you can speak up and and not have any consequences to you about your job. It doesn't the law protect that currently harassment in the workplace and when not what I want to hear is like if the if the person was an employee and they were doing X, Y and Z tasks, then there's a conflict with them reporting to the select board. Like a troop, like I'm hearing what you're saying and it's nice to be able to set your own hours and to do all that I get all that, but I don't hear where there's like what's the real the real benefit to having that person be independently elected and able to control things without reporting to the town manager or to the board. That's the the piece I'm missing. Well, again, if the clerk were appointed, I don't know that the clerk retains the ability to appoint their own assistant. I think that that particular piece can be very important. Just just being sure to be able to to hire the right personality that will be able to work with you. Okay. Are there any other questions that the board has? I have one other question. If if we do have an elected town clerk and you know, it's the thing that we fear happens and someone gets in the position who really doesn't have the skills or the abilities to do that job. Well, what's the what's the town's recourse? Is there any way to remove a town clerk before her term is up if she's not doing a good job? No. So we Joy said, I'm sorry to interrupt. I had and I reason I interrupt is that this this came up at a BLCT meeting over a year ago about the recourse for inappropriate acts by an elected official. And I don't have my notes about that meeting on hand. But if I remember correctly enjoys if you could maybe fill in if I get it wrong. Vermont does not have a recall process. And so if a position if a person elected to a position does not perform the job, but does doesn't doesn't do anything illegal, but also does not perform the job. There is no recall process. So there really is no real way for the job to get done unless someone else does it. Does that sound accurate choice? That's correct. I was just going to say the the only one instance that I'm aware of where somebody was elected to town clerk in the town of Randolph and did not complete serving their term was Dwight Townsend back in the 1970s. I believe he was elected to town clerk and treasure. He served a month and he resigned because he realized he couldn't do the job. And at that point Doris Bowman was appointed and she ended up serving almost 25 years. Would the town be able to switch the position to an appointed position before the term is up? Yeah. If the if the town were to hold a meeting, whether it be special meeting or the town meeting and the voters at that meeting voted to change the position from elected to appointed, then the town would have 45 days to appoint the replacement. And whoever was currently in the position would serve until that appointment is made. So if we did have a really bad situation, we would at the very least have that recourse where the select board could say this is a very bad scene. This person's causing a lot of problems. We can go to the town and say this is what's going on and we'd like you to vote to make it an appointed position so that we can change the person in that role. Yes. Can I just ask Cliff a question? Cliff, I know you went to Williamstown after they had some of the activities, shall we call them there? And a big piece of their challenge was their clerk-treasurer, if I remember correctly, and they had the experience of them not performing their duties. Is that, you went in there after that? Yes, I was the first appointed treasurer. The clerk and the treasurer positions were independent of each other in Williamstown, still are. And to my knowledge, the person who took over my role when I left is still there. The clerk's position is very separate from that role. And I don't know that it was a case of so much of the treasurer not performing as much as it was him being kind in describing it. He was being uncooperative and not providing information to the select board when they requested it. He had control over all of the records and the money. And that was not a very good feeling for the select board because he, like I said, he had control of the money and the records of the money and they weren't sure that everything was on the up and up. I saw no evidence when I got there of any malfeasance. So that's a good thing. You know, I'd like to think that I brought stability to that office in Williamstown. On the clerk's side, again, there was a very independent clerk there and she, on a number of occasions, had to stand up to outside influence to run things as she thought was correct. And so, you know, to Larry's point about what could happen, you know, it's not so much as direct threatening like Joyce described earlier as much as it is an implied pressure to do something that might not otherwise be correct. And I'm thinking not in terms so much, you know, I heard some stories today that about certain things being signed off on that shouldn't have been signed off on out of out of my office prior back some years and and then being passed along. And those or, you know, how do you count absentee ballots ballots and evaluate those as to what's a good ballot and that could be key in terms of a lead up to an election with select board members up to re-election and have an appointed clerk that can't necessarily stand up to the influence so that those are instances where do I think they're going to happen? Boy, I really hope not, not in our town, but they could. Trini, did I answer your question? Yeah, it was that challenge of the working relationship and what happens, you know, the dynamic and how quickly it changes sometimes I think is another, just another piece of the puzzle. I don't know that I've got the magic answer. It's just another thing for us to consider. And for them it was a really big deal because they had actually had a charter that had to be changed. And so the townspeople had to vote to change the charter and then I had to go to Montpelier for them to approve the charter change. So it was a two year process. Seems in our case that it would be a little bit simpler than that and it would be just just a request for a town meeting or a special meeting to vote to change how the position is. Great. Thank you. Any other comments from board members or questions? Okay. I have one comment or two. So to answer Joyce's question. No, this isn't about, you know, finding a fast way to have you leave your term. It's more about what we do after you do leave your term. In addition to that, I'm just doing a little research here on the VLCT website and regarding the point about municipal and can you ask the court could a Can you make your own, could the appointed clerk choose her own or his own assistance and according to the statute, it says that they can. So it's number eight in the frequency and the answer questions. It says here the laws governing a point of municipal courage or treasurers do not notify any of the laws previously applicable to electing municipal courage and treasurers consequently an appointed municipal clerk must still appoint one or more assistance that's 24 vsa 1170. So, I think to answer that question, yes, if we were to appoint versus elected, the person we appoint could still choose their own assistance. Thank you. Any other comments from board members? Anybody from the public? Looks like Marty's muted. I have a question. I'm trying to unmute myself. Is that a select board member wants to talk? I'll stand by. Go ahead, Marty. First of all, I apologize for not participating in December. I was asleep at the switch. No excuse. But I do notice that there wasn't much participation by the public and it's obvious that there's no clamoring among the public to change the arrangement the way it is. If there was clamoring because of dissatisfaction, I think that would be make this question right. But I don't think it is right because I don't think there's any concern among the public about this issue. And I think it's fundamentally a separation of powers questions for the reasons that have been brought up by some others. The clerk runs the elections. The clerk determines the veracity of signatures on petitions for getting on the ballot as a candidate and for getting questions put on the ballot for decision by the town meeting. And very importantly, the clerk is the final arbiter of what constitutes a public record available to the public under the public records law. And that's a very important division. It's a very important separation of powers question because when the public wants to see records, it should have a right to and should have an independent person in the position of deciding what's a public record and whether it fits any of the exemptions for disclosure under the public records act. You know, the this this question of complexity of the job. It's been an argument from the beginning of against democracy is the argument Hamilton made for not having an elected president is too complicated. Well, you can hire expertise but you can't hire public accountability that comes in the ballot box. And it's very important to have a clerk who's accountable to the public at the ballot box. And I find it just curious, I guess, is the best where I can put on it, maybe ironic that there's discussion here among five members of the board who were elected by the public and who obviously think the public was smart enough to elect good people to the select board. It doesn't think they might not be smart enough to hire a good town clerk. And I just think that's beyond the pale. This is a situation where we don't, it's not broke, you don't need to fix it. If something gets broke, as Larry Sackiewicz's question line of questions showed, you can fix it. But there's no need to broke to fix what's not broken now. Marty, if I may treaty if I may, Marty, I think the challenge is that if we, the town government and the select board get to a point where something breaks. You know, just to the points that we have discussed, there's no recall in Vermont. You can't just say sorry to the person that's there and remove them. If the situation gets to a point in using your words where it's broken. It is broken, and then everyone has to struggle to try to work around it. You can call a special meeting as we just discovered and of course, there's no recall for select board members either. And then the other, the other to your point, at town meeting, every year there's an informational meeting where the public is invited to specifically speak about the budget. And those meetings are every year at least, well, I can't speak for every year, I could speak to the three years that I've been here and anecdotally about what I've been told about previous meetings is that I've only seen a member of the community attend these meetings to learn about the budget that they will vote on at town meeting. And the conversation at town meeting is you've seen is very vocal about the budget. So just to the point that because the public does not attend a publicly warned meeting, I don't think that's indicative of the public not thinking there's a problem. I think it's just like you said, people may be busy, they may be asleep at the wheel, maybe they'll talk about it later on. Well, people don't attend budget meetings but budgets pass. And I've been around long enough to know that there are budget meetings hearings that I've attended and others have attended because there were, there was discomfort with the way town was being run. That's not the case now. But there have been periods in our history where there's a lot of discomfort. Thank you. And in those times, people come out. I've been at select board meetings where there's 30 or 40 people there. And at public hearings where there have been 30 or 40 people there discussing major issues. I was the president of the RACDC board for longer than anybody should have been. And I can tell you that I went, I've been in dozens of hearings where there was animated discussion about the merits of issues. And there were good discussions, not always kind, but, but they were good. And they serve the purpose. And just because you don't have a discussion. It doesn't mean that everything that people are dissatisfied. I mean, if people are dissatisfied, they'll show up. Nobody showed up for the hearings on this question because nobody's dissatisfied. Marty, I really appreciate your comments about why the independence of the office is important. I think that's really good for us to hear. I think this meeting, this, this topic is coming up now because, you know, Joyce has been there for so long and things have gone so well. We haven't had an experience of having to hire a new town clerk in a very long time and we're thinking seriously. And, you know, I think just I think doing, you know, you know, our responsibility by thinking ahead about what might happen when when Joyce leaves and turns around over the last few years is that hiring people to work in town government is can be really tricky. And sometimes we, we get lucky and we find people who are who are really great and and and sometimes we find it really difficult to find those people and so, you know, out of given the fact that the town clerk needs to be a resident of the town, we're really looking at a pretty small group of people and so there's concern that that we might not find somebody who really is up to the job, not that the town isn't wise enough to vote for someone who's good, but just that that person might not exist is I think really the issue. I can't buy that Larry. It's not that complicated a job and you can hire expertise. You can hire public accountability. No, I hear what you're saying and I learn and I really agree I just want to give you a sense of where the conversation is coming from that we are, you know, want to make sure that that job is continues to be filled with somebody who, you know, really can do a good job. Well, from what I'm hearing tonight, you know, I'm, I'm feeling much more comfortable with the idea of keeping it as an elected position, knowing that we do have sort of a failsafe mechanism in place that if our sort of nightmare scenario came true that there really was nobody who really had the ability to do the job out there wanting to do it and we end up with somebody who's, you know, who's really not appropriate to the position that there that at least there's something that we can do in a relatively timely manner. I'm sure this board will be up to that challenge if it occurs. Yeah, that's what I'm saying and so I'm feeling comfortable that that that that that is, you know, sort of the best of both worlds, you know that we can continue with the independence of the office which I completely agree is very important, yet knowing that if something really bad happened, we would have, we do have recourse it wasn't clear to me that we were going to be able to have that. And now I know. Well, thank you for the opportunity to participate. Thank you, Marty. Any other comments from the public. Any on the board. Go ahead, Joyce. I just want to say again, you know, Doris Bowman was appointed after Dwight Townsend resigned. She was appointed and then she was elected for 24 almost 25 years. When she decided to retire the town, the select board put out an ad in the paper, laying out the, the skills and background that they were looking for for the positions. They held interviews for multiple candidates. And they, you know, I fortunately was selected. I believe we can do that again. You know, we've worked into the budget already money to hire somebody as a full time assistant for two months to train with me before I actually retire. And that individual would then need to run for for the office in March. And then we'd be running for two separate positions because it is two separate positions. In here and ran it off to the two positions. To me have been very much entwined. So that I find it very difficult to be able to look at the job and say, well, this is clerk. This is treasure. And then say, well, for the treasure piece. It would should have a salary of so much and then clerk should have a salary of so much. I have a difficult time trying to to envision that and the way that it is budgeted now it's budgeted as if it is one position. Even though technically it is two separate positions. So, when we look at appointing somebody it may potentially be two separate people. I would prefer not to have two separate people. Preferably one individual would be to me in my mind the best way to go. But I think that given that nowadays the background that most people have with electronics and computer programs. There'll be somebody who will be able to learn the job and learn the other pieces that require a little bit more technical skill. Like I said, it's it's it's not difficult. It's just a matter of knowing what you need to do. And I think that, you know, anybody can learn it. They just need to be shown how to do it and and go from there. So, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. So I got a question. Okay, Joyce. What would happen if it was actually two positions? And we had a treasurer and we had a town clerk and those duties were split. Would we need an assistant? Or would there be enough work for both say positions to be fulfilled by two individuals? The town clerk piece in and of itself as a full time job. And like I said right now, the election piece of it is a full time job for one individual. The treasure piece would not necessarily be a full time job by itself. That's why I say that it would be preferable to find one individual as opposed to two. So technically it is two separate positions. You know, one way that you can get around having an assistant is if the individual who is the treasure piece could be appointed as an assistant town clerk. And the town clerk could be appointed as assistant treasurer. That way you have each individual would have the assistant that they need. Okay. Just looking for options here just trying to figure out if there's more work for one side than there is the other. And so I think you've answered the question. Thank you. What are the salaries for these positions set? Who sets the pay? That's set up into the budget. That's set by finance and town manager when they present the budget to the select board. The salary itself may be based on information that they get from the VLCT survey that they do of positions, municipal positions and salaries from across the state. And based the salary on whatever ranges there are for length of service and position. Because, you know, there are many towns where clerk and treasurer are two separate positions. There are also a number of towns where it is the same individual who holds both positions. Okay. Add more detail to that choices. Correct. But add more detail when the town manager and finance director do hold meetings with department directors. We ask staff or department directors to present their their proposals for budget for the next fiscal year. We go through it line by line. We discuss the specific points when it comes specifically to the two offices within the town government, the treasurer's office and the list of office. Cliff and I don't really have any, all we do is essentially receive the information from those two offices. So there could be a scenario where someone presents a budget with increased salary amounts. We would not be able to say, no, that's not based on this. That's not, you know, it's not based on the state's information as collected by VLCT that would be the budget that is set by that elected official. So if someone presents a salary of $150,000, it would be, it would be a problem. The town government would not be able to say no, it would have to go through the budget process and then essentially be voted on because town government would not be able to make changes to a budget presented by the treasurer clerk's office or the list of office. Wow, really. So, so if in that sort of situation, if the, if the town clerk decided to increase the salary to some ridiculous amount, the only recourse would be to have the town budget voted down it on on Election Day. That's usually when you have your budget hearings, you meet with the particular departments and if you feel that there's something to lie, you work to compromise and come up with a budget that will work within the framework. I mean, since I've been on board, I have never made a request for an increase in my salary. The salary has always been increased based on whatever was provided from VLCT, or the manager's office made the recommendation, or the budget committee made the recommendation. I myself have never put in a request for an increase in my salary. I don't think that this has been a problem in the past. I'm sure that it hasn't. I'm just, I just, I can tell you that, and I'm just interested in how it can work and it just seems, that's just, I don't know, for lack of a better word an interesting situation that that the town clerk's office sets their own budget and that Well, we, we give you a proposed budget. Okay, I can tell you that in years past we give a, we provide a budget. And during the process, either we were asked questions of why you need something, what it is, and in a couple of particular years that I can remember where the economic situation was kind of tight. There was requests made across the board for but you know all departments to try and keep their budgets down. You know, I believe that the budgets themselves. The department head will submit what they they believe they need for their budget. But, you know, the, the budget committee, the finance director the town manager will review those requests, and they may adjust things. And I can tell you that in the past they have been adjustments made without department heads being informed that they were changed. So it isn't always directed by the department heads. Department heads in most cases are employees of the town manager has he so, and it's good to hear that you've worked with them and and come to an agreed budget, but the possibility is there that the next person elected could come in with a much larger budget that they want. And, as you said, it's their job to point out the rules and the laws they could be very clear with a. This is what we want. And this is how it's going to be. And it's the same as we could get somebody in there that doesn't communicate it's just trying to understand what all the pitfalls are for either scenario. And so the budget is the select board's budget. The select board controls the money. So the select board can say. Yes, you want to request this amount but you know, we're looking at the situation here and we need to keep this under a certain amount. And I know I think that usually it if the question is reasonable, people will work with you to negotiate it. I think you'll find that the select board does set the budget that they're the only ones that have the authority to do that and to warn that to warn the articles, not anybody else. I think that if the town clerk would come up with an absurd budget for whatever reason we're talking hypothetically here that the select board could look at it during the budget, you know, the time of the year we're doing the budget and could say, No, we're not going to do that we're going to work. That's not going to be we're going to change that item to a different amount and we're going to present and that we're going to approve to send to the voters. The select board controls the budget, not the town clerk, not the listeners select board controls it until it's warned and then the voters control point of clarification parent had is is not inaccurate he is correct and that the select board controls the budget however I think the question at hand is the independence of the office of the clerk treasure. And, although that is correct and that the select board sets the budget votes to agree to present that budget to the town voters. The select board and you know the town manager cannot make changes to the treasure clerks proposed budget. They're correct. I mean they could, they could, they could make the request but I think to the point choice that you've made is the offices are independent. And tech, you know, could they have, you know, for whatever reason maybe they did I wasn't around for those situations, but I think the position because it's independent could have held firm and said, No, I'm an elected official, I have my own budget. And it is, it is what it is. And even though in the end, the town, you know, it's a town manager's budget until he or she presents it to the select board, at which point it becomes a select board budget presented to the taxpayers. However, within that budget, the town manager and the select board cannot, I'm going to say legally make changes to budgets presented by the listeners office and the treasure. I don't know if there could be no negotiations or discussions or, you know, whatever it was that happened in the past, but if the treasure clerk held firm and the listeners held firm. That would be what would be included in the budget presented to the tax. I don't know if that's the purpose of the conversation here is that the treasure clerk is independent. And if there is no independence, then the select board would set the budget for the clerk treasure. It's an independent office at the moment. The town clerk and the listeners office are independent and so the financial aspect. It's it's the duties of the office are independent, but the finances are controlled by the select board. Correct. Right. And so in so much as that the select board accepts the budget presented by the town manager, the town manager accepts the budget presented by the treasure clerk and the listeners. I as a town manager could not take Joyce's budget and say I'm slashing your salary. I'm slashing your budget. I would not have that authority. Joyce is an elected official and I would not have the authority to make changes to her budget. She would have to make her own budget changes. The only thing I can do is accept those except the budget and present it. Now there could be there could be some ways to disagree and say, you know, I don't agree with this I don't agree with that but it's not the town manager's position to change the budget of the the clerk's treasure. But it is a select board that controls the budget. Sounds sounds like we're not going to have an agreement here but here I just maybe we're getting too far field here and if we are I apologize for taking up your time but is it possible if that were if let's say for the moment that Adolfo is right. Would it be possible to split off the the the clerk treasurer's office from the rest of the budget and presented to the voters as separate budget. I would have to check with with VLCT I don't see why that would be different or problem. I think as a matter of convenience and expediency we've done it where it's all a part of one. But, you know, I'd have to check with with VLCT on whether that would be possible like I could see because of the independence that it could be possible. But I would have to I would have to speak with VLCT about that. Okay, thanks. Oh, just out of curiosity, the Budget Committee come in on this. Are they redoing this particular part of the budget or do they have no jurisdiction over this. The Budget Committee reviews the entire budget but the challenge I think the nuance that we're we're focusing on is that the argument is being made that the budget is the Select Board's budget. The argument I'm making is that that is not incorrect. However, there is the specific nuance in that the Select Board would not be able to make a change to that specific budget. So even if even if the Budget Committee were reviewing the budget as a whole before it became the Select Board's budget that was presented to the voters, even if they had questions about the budget presented by the Treasurer Clerk or the Lister's Office, it's it's it's only a matter of discussion unless the Treasurer Clerk and the Lister's chose to engage in that conversation. If there is no choice to engage to Joyce's point, we haven't really had a problem with her engagement. It's worked out great with the Lister's that we have now. I haven't had a problem with with the way things have worked. However, there could be the, you know, with an elected position. There is the issue where there could be no communication as the board pointed out earlier and someone could present a budget that says, no, this is my budget. I'm done talking. It is what it is. This is it. It is a very extreme example that I'm using, but it's not out of the realm of reality. It can happen. And then the Select Board, you know, it's a part of the budget because it's as Larry pointed out. And as I pointed out is that it's all been a part of one until the BLCT or attorney says yes, you can split them out into three different votes. Town vote, Treasurer Clerk vote, budget, and then the Lister's budget. Okay. So just out of curiosity, Cliff, are you still there? Could you like weigh in on that little situation given past experiences? Is this something that we should consider? Or what do you think? Well, I know, you know, and I don't know the how it fits in with the statutes, but I know up in Williamstown going back to that nice little love nest up there on the Select Board and the clerk had a had a disagreement about how many hours she was being open and what she was getting paid. And the Select Board says, well, we set the salary. You might set the hours, but we set the salary based on how many hours you're open. And so, you know, you're not going to get a free ride. And there was, I don't know, I don't remember what the final resolution on that was. But I do know that there was that discussion about who really sets that budget. And I think the Select Board went out on that one. And I can tell you that in a number of small towns, town clerks are unable to pay their assistant because the Select Board will not give them the salary to pay for an assistant, even though by statute, they're required to have an assistant. So, you know, the Select Board controls that budget. So they said they required to have an assistant or if they have one, they can choose who it is. By statute, the clerk and the treasurer are required to have an assistant. If you don't appoint an assistant within a certain number of days, then the Select Board gets to appoint an assistant. But the salary for those positions is set by the Select Board. And I know of a number of small towns where they have somebody who is quote unquote appointed as an assistant, but they don't have a salary to pay them. Okay, I think we beat this one about as much as we can tonight. And since it has to be a discussion that takes place on the floor. We have plenty of time to research some of this stuff and bring it back up again for discussion. If we decide we want to put it out to the voters. So, with that, I would like to move on to the other items in the agenda. If we could, anybody oppose that. Thanks again, Joyce. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Joyce. I'm fine with that. Thank you, Joyce. Thank you. Next up is grants. We have a CDBG hearing requirement. Thank you to the board again for its previous support of the town management request to apply for CDBG, CV grant. We had previously informed the Select Board that the state was changing requirements and it wasn't because they wanted to it. It was a matter of federal government also making changes and we just needed to catch up on the state level and down on down the municipal level so certainly after the last meeting of the Select Board additional guidance had been released by the state. And thanks to Julie for having found that information. The timelines became less severe, more favorable to long term planning. The new hearing deadline or the new application deadline is September 25 when we initially had believed that the application deadline will be September 10. That the change in the deadline allows for more time to discuss the issue, allow for more time for Julie and her team to pull together the project. And so Julie's on the line now if the board would like to hear from her. Hi. Thanks. Thanks Adolfo. So typically the hearing, the time allowed for hearing notice is 15 days. This may have actually been changed more than once but the current guidance says that the notice in the paper of general circulation must be at least two days prior to the date the hearing is held. And must be at least five days before the application is submitted to the agency. So that means sort of giving a little leeway in the budget in the time budget here, say we submit on the 24th, just in case. So that would mean that it could be the hearing could be no later than the 18th of September. And to allow for some time to continue to prepare the application, you figured it would be nice if it were no earlier than the 16th of September, because that gives you time to notice either the very end of the week prior, which is the 11th or the beginning of that week, the 14th, assuming that you're noticing in a daily paper like the Valley News and not the Herald. If you're noticing in the Herald, then I think the last notice date is the 10th, but you would have to get it in by the eighth or nine at that point. And when the notice goes in, it has to you have to be done with your draft application. So, so the window from what we configure looks something like notice by sometime between the 10th and the 12th is is in the paper. And that leaves sort of a window of hearing dates, which is sort of mid to late week, the week of the sort of Wednesday would be the 16th Thursday the 17th Friday the 18th. Does that make sense to folks. That's presuming a Herald notification in next Thursday's edition. Correct. So you have to get the notice in a day or two prior to get it in the Herald by the 10th. Right. It gives you a little more leeway because say that say that the hearings on the 16th. Theoretically they could do it the day before, as long as you get it in by 10 o'clock I've actually had recent experience where a daily paper missed the deadline and it required me to redo an RFP. I've learned my lesson and I try to give an extra day, just in case even with the dailies. So, I would say, you know, give yourself three days, just in case. Are we required or do we have the option of choosing the Herald over the Valley News or the Valley News over the Herald or do we have to be in both. Well, it says it says the hearing notice must appear in a newspaper of general circulation in the area. That's all it says it also has to be hosted in the municipal website near the municipal office and two other designated public places. A specific question, you know, sometimes we we read too much into something but conversations that Julie Josh and I have had where we are remaining true to the literal word in that the daily circulation of the Valley News is actually it's remaining true to what is very specific to the law so other we would like to help the Herald. I think, because of how quickly things have been moving. Yeah, advertising within the Herald which we can do also, but I think it would hinder us only specifically focus on the Herald because of its limited printing. I wasn't asking the question kind of on advocating for any one paper or the other I was asking the question for what works best with the timeline that we want to. I certainly wasn't advocating for going with the Herald. I'm advocating for going with whichever is the most convenient with the timeline that we are proposing here if that makes sense. And it sounds like going with the daily is probably more apropos. So, Adolfo how does this work when the, when we do our annual appointments and all that don't we select in there the, the where we'll publish different things. I don't believe that the board specifically sets it, there are requirements for where to post. They at town hall at places where people normally congregate in town, and it does specify that the, the item has to be in print, but we don't specifically mentioned as a town that it would be in the local paper, at least not that I can recall. It does have to be posted in a local paper but I'd have to double check if I don't think it specifically mentions the Herald because it would be a generic process for moving forward. Yeah, but we used to in the, when we agreed to all the every year we had appointments to committees and different roles with dog catcher all that. And in that document it used to say where are our official newspaper notice sites that type of thing, because we were not very happy with the Herald at one point and we looked at changing the name of the newspaper we would use for posting. That's the only reason I'm thinking of that. I just don't want to see you get caught on publishing it somewhere and everybody comes back and says wait a minute you've identified this would be your location. Yeah I could I could I can research that topic. Specifically where we where we mentioned postings and, and I think that if, if the board took action today to set a hearing date, we can meet the deadline for both the Herald and the Valley news. But I could still specifically look for that that point in our records. So what action do you need us to take on this. At this point. The board had previously been open to scheduling a hearing and the day was one of the initial dates to meet to set the hearing. So we would, what we would like to do is to ask the board to set a date to hold a hearing within the timeframe that Julie had mentioned and once that hearing data set. Julie and Josh can work on the details such as where to post local circulation to post a circulation and continue with the application process. Any other comments or questions on this. Not anybody have a motion. Julie, can you repeat the date, the time window that would work for the dates of the actual hearing. Yeah, the sweet spot, the sweet spot is sort of the 16th or the 17th. And one of those would give you more than five days before the submission is due. And more than two to three days for notice to be in a paper, whichever paper you choose and and to to our selfish interests would give us more time to prepare the application. So only this hearing will be held via zoom or maybe via RAC DC's portal. Right, we would have to publish a location being a URL, I think, although people can submit comments and writing. And we would also have to figure out usually people can come to the town office to look at the draft application. We would have to make special accommodation, you know, to email it to people to be able to meet them somewhere to show it to them or whatever, which we would work out some way to do that. And with that in mind, then I would like to move that we set the hearing date for via whatever URL portal that winds up being for Thursday evening, September 17 and notice it as such in both the Herald and Valley News. Second that. In a second all those in favor. I, I, I, I, I have a second question. Hang on a second, please. Opposed. Same motion carries. Go ahead, Pat. Select board members don't have to be there, right? We don't need a quorum. Am I correct about that? Well, I believe the quorum is, I believe a quorum is needed of the select board, because it's, it's the board that's authorizing the grant process. Um, just to, I think amplify a little with a double saying I think that that for the hearing. I'm not sure that it's necessary. But usually what happens is there is a meeting scheduled directly after it to allow to authorize the vote down that they have. We voted last time to do something to move ahead with the application, but there's kind of a specific resolution that the grant requires. And usually that happens right after the hearing, enabling the town to move forward or, you know, to actually apply for the grants. So we'd want to have that both the same night. And that's the one I think that adults referring to you need a vote of the select board. It doesn't have to be the same evening as the hearing. It doesn't have to be it just typically is a time saver if you can adjourn one and and do the other. I don't treat me you may know better than I do how this works, but that everyone I've been to that's how it's worked for convenience. That's been the general practice for when the select board, at least through my tenure, when the select board has had to hold a hearing and then make a decision. The hearings are typically commenced at 530 the day of select board meetings, then immediately following the hearing. The select board has its meeting and then if a decision is to be made makes it at that at that meeting. Well, once we know the date we can decide. How that's going to work. Okay. The next grant we have is the unit foundation arts and cultures committee. Yeah, and I'm actually going to. Go further into that grant after just learning about it through an article in the free press last week. And upon further exploration, I don't think that particular grant meets the that we meet the criteria for that particular grant for the purpose for which we were going to apply. So, I would say would would pull that one from your consideration tonight. That was quick. Yeah. Lampson howl foundation. Lampson howl foundation as as I believe all of you know is a Randolph based foundation. The arts and culture committee would like to apply to the Lampson howl howl foundation for some grant support towards matching the burn foundation grant we've gotten for the college mural project and simply I'm asking on behalf of the arts and culture committee this evening to have the select board's permission to go ahead and pursue a potential grant from Lampson howl for that purpose. What's the budget you're looking for there. The grant that we got from the burn foundation is a $6,000 challenge grant that we need to match with local fundraising from a variety of sources and the total budget for the initial mural project is estimated at $12,000. I think raising and my thinking based on past experience of working with Lampson howl when I was at Chandler is to ask Lampson howl for half of the remaining money we need to raise which would be a $3,000 grant and then see what we then what we got. So I think that's going to be funding from just go fund me or something like that. Yeah, or, or, well, to give you an example, two members of the arts and culture committee. Vincent Freeman and Andy Mueller are putting together a benefit concert that's going to be live streamed from huggable mugg later this month, and they're using that as a fundraiser. So I think that's going to be a great project. Talking with Cliff and Joyce and Adolfo, what we've determined to do with any community based fundraising is we're going to set up a dedicated fund in the general fund that will be earmarked for for this mural project and for ongoing projects related to it. And then we're going to put the donations directly to the town of Randolph earmarked specifically for that funds. That's what we're going to do for individual fundraising. It's very similar to what we've done just in recent days working with Adolfo for the installation of the sculpture at Rosalind Burgess's gardens up on Elm Street. Does that just curious does that give everybody that does that give everybody the opportunity to use that as a tax deductible donation. Cliff and Adolfo might be better. I don't think Cliff is here anymore is I can speak to that Tom. Yeah, we have previously made inquiries with our attorney specifically about donations directly to the town. So the town is not a 501c3 and we do not issue donation receipts donations made directly to the town are eligible for taxes purposes. Correct. Yeah, just checking just want to make sure that we're yeah, yeah, going in the right direction so nobody comes back and says oh you know I donated but I didn't get my tax deduction. We I did look into setting up go fund me type fundraiser for both for Rosas Park project and for this mural and it just it proved to be a really daunting process because we don't want to expose the town's general fund banking account to possible hacking through go fund me so it just it was too much of a hassle so under Adolfo's direction. We just decided to go with this route of having people write checks directly to the town with the memo line saying it's your mark for a specific fund. Okay. Don't want been down this path as you will know. Oh yeah. It's a to where it's a tax deductible contribution so absolutely wouldn't even bring it up if I hadn't gone through it myself. I think that the select board approved the arts and culture committee applying for a grant the lamps and howl foundation. I'll second that. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Stain motion carries. This is a grant that's made available through VTrans yearly. I would like to ask a select board to authorize the town to apply for these funds as we have projects that are that could benefit from funds through this grant. Some of the projects that are funded are stormwater mitigation. Engineering. What we would seek to have is funding for bank stabilization. And some of our roads are in need of some some bank and stabilization with this fund some of the items that two rivers brought before us. It can. The stormwater projects that have been brought to us by two rivers over the years some of them we have addressed through other grants. For example, one of our existing grant and aid projects that we are grant and aid grant programs that we we've been making use of. But this specifically we have two roads that are in major need of repairs. One is North Randolph Road and one that will soon become more in peril is the lower stock farm road. The rivers there are meandering and they're doing what nature does and they're causing issues where where our roads are located. The North Randolph Road one should become a priority because half the road is missing right now. And there's some concern about getting fire trucks up through there. So understanding the ANR is going to make us jump through these extra hoops before we can do any work there. I think that's one that we ought to be putting as our first priority. I agree. Are you anticipating these will happen before winter. Well, unfortunately the the project on North Randolph Road. We've been notified that we would not receive any permits to do any work until only until we had an engineering study performed. So the first step would be to perform the engineering study and that would take. That would take time. I don't I don't know if it was an emergency. I think ANR would be less restrictive but and we are bordering on that point that where the road is now. But I don't think they would give us a pass until we had the engineering study. Harry one of the items they want the engineer to look at is closing the road. Oh, okay. Yeah, we were specifically told that one of the one of the one of the options that needed to be in the engineer study is abandoning North Randolph Road, at least. A large section of it because the river there is going to keep making its inroads and potentially keep eating into the embankment so that needs to be one of the options according to ANR. The road it many times over the years. And it's been but it's still a little you know, I'm still a viable link from North Randolph to Randolph Center. I'm not totally sure that abandoning that stretch of road is a good idea but I can think of other pieces I'd love to abandon. You may not be able to argue with mother nature, Harry. There's a lot of different projects and I can tell you right now there's there are solutions. It's just a matter of who who squeaks the least the most. Yeah, yeah. Cheap piling works magic on those. That's right. There this, you know, I'm not quite sure that we get to you know that we go down the road of abandoning a stretch of road that I think is a viable link to the community. A lot of, in my opinion, okay, that's a traffic study and a lot of other things that go with it. Mm hmm. Yeah. Do we want to authorize the application for this grant. Yeah, I'll make a motion to authorize the application. All second. All those in favor. All right. Stained motion carries. Any old business. No. Any other business. None. Managers report. Just a few items. I'll be brief. One of them is that the sunrise Rotary Club. Commenced its work on Harmony Park. They started digging in and some of the instruments will be brought soon but earlier this week we did have members of the Rotary out there performing work on their time and it's just interesting to see how their activities really rallied around the project and a lot of people are expressing interest in seeing it done. So I wanted to share that with the board. RAC DC applied for a grant. Julie had partnered with Josh and they worked together on an application. I believe it was Northern borders grant. And we received $450,000 to go toward the infrastructure at Salisbury Square. So that will be a huge jolt to the project and Julie was very excited about that. We are very excited about that. So it was a decent amount of money that was received for that project. The third is about two years ago. The state had approached the town to potentially install EV chargers at town hall or somewhere on town property. There was a match and then the cost of the electricity had to fall onto the town. For a number of reasons, you know, we did not go through with the process. We were specifically because the chargers themselves were not the class three. It was a class one. And those would require eight hours of charging time for a full full charge of vehicles. So there were some restrictions there. Josh received notice that the state has changed its process and they are now fully funding EV charging units being installed with no local match. So in the process, we presented different options that the board had previously discussed, including here at town hall up by the interchange. And then also next to the Trillium building in the municipal lot. I believe the state liked several of the options but chose the location next to the Trillium building, which is on private property. So the town, I believe will receive class up to class three chargers at no cost on private property. So the town will benefit from having them, but will not have to have any any match or any kind of financial liability involved in the process. So I believe that is still in the works but at some point in the near future that the town will have class three EV chargers on private property and it will be available to everyone. I think the level one chargers the fastest charger. Is it level one. Okay. Sorry I had those mixed up but but yes it would be there are no restrictions on the chargers. So they, the fastest charger is is available for for installations. Thank you Larry. How many how many chargers in the proposal. I believe it will be one it's a dual charge. So it would be one unit with two plugs. And the reason why the reason why we presented the options to the state that we had initially presented to the select board are because they require each one of these units require three phase power. And so that's why we we represented the same options to the state. Great. I'm going to buy myself a big electric truck. And that's that's all I have for a manager's report. I'm going to buy a record Perry so I can come pull you to your location. An electric record. I didn't say it was going to be electric Tom. I'm going to buy a record. Of course power. We run five miles away from the job. You can come pull me the rest of the way. There you go. Generator. Very neat. Tony would you entertain a question on their other business? Larry I know I'd been interested in meeting in person again. Oh. Meeting in person. Sure. I'm good with that. I would be okay with it. Considering that I've been with one in person meeting with you since I was elected and the week after that we went to zoom. So it'd be nice to see you all again. Do we get to pick our own. The only issue Adolfo is that the town hall fully reopens what are any concerns you might have about public access to a meeting when we're all meeting in person given the lack of computer microphones and cameras at town hall. Well if the meeting is to be held in person, I would have to re recheck the meeting requirements or the guidance. In fact it was for a one of our committee meetings. And if a meeting is to be held indoors there is a there is a cap to the number of people that could be indoors. I'd have to check what the cap is. I believe there are also face covering mandatory face covering requirements. So social distancing has to be also a part of of an indoor meeting. I don't think we will we will come across this challenge but let's say everybody wants to get out of their house because they're bored and we have a 10 person maximum. Well that 10 person maximum is 50% is met by the board and by me attending the meeting so we cannot. Not close the meeting to anyone who wants to attend so we would have to cancel the meeting if we have more people attend then is allowed. If I may add something this Rotary Sunrise Club has gone to what's called a hybrid meeting. We meet in person and we also have zoom capability and it worked out pretty well when we met last. I think we can get the hybrid solution I can give you some information on that. I appreciate that Tony thank you. I know that if we were to go through that model. We would have to invest in video infrastructure we don't have cameras but we are in the process of purchasing cameras. There are little things that we would have to see if it could work and I think we can make it work it's just a matter of sharing that information with the board ahead of time. Yeah. What Sunny is describing is a planning commission in mind. Well the planning commission has been meeting outdoors at Grand Camp and at the rec center so you know I can rent you a big tent. The solution is just get rid of all the PCs and get max at Town Hall and they have built in cameras. The planning commission had a meeting outside at the recreation center in the pavilion and that worked out pretty well. Perry you were at that meeting so. Yeah. It was not a problem and you know it's getting a little cooler so if you're going to do this. Yeah. Better get it out of your belt in a couple of weeks. Gonna get a little chilly come November. Yeah I got heaters. But for the hybrid meeting what we did we bought this one microphone that sits in the middle of the room and it's an amazing microphone. It captures the voices of everyone around the room loud and clear even though they're masked. And we have a large TV screen where people on coming in on Zoom are shown on the TV screen. So they can see the people on Zoom can see everybody in the room and everybody in the room can see everybody that's on Zoom. So it works both ways. And of course all your Zoom meetings are recorded. So you could use the recording of the Zoom meeting. For your. You know what a Shannon does use that. I think it'll work. And we'd still have Orika on hand too so. Correct. Yeah. I can I can work out the specific details. You know I will revisit the guidance issued by VLCT in the state. It is possible. You know and I will see when I know Cliff and I discussed ordering cameras I can see when they arrive. If they don't arrive in time I'm pretty sure you know staff would be willing to if they're willing to share one of their personal cameras. Or I could bring in a cat one of my lap or a laptop that has a camera built into it and use that so. Yeah. Might be a little dicey to get it done for next week but. Yeah. But I could I could I could certainly look into it for next week I think worst case scenario for the hearing would be probably the. 17th yeah. Yeah. Well appreciate the suggestion Larry it would be nice to. Yeah actually see all of you again instead of. And I know Larry missed it he's missing all of us I can see. Yeah yeah well he's out there in you know Colorado and. No. Okay. Any other topics. Managers report. Got it. Yeah that was that was it for the manager's report. Yeah. Next we have executive session. All right I'll make a motion to go into executive session. Second. All those in favor. Opposed. Steined motion carries. So I will share with the board that. I will log on. Tom is currently set as a co-host. So unless there are other internet issues that Tom would will remain on the meeting and can. Limit anyone from entering there is a waiting room set so no one should just be able to enter the executive session. Okay. So I may ask the board if there are any actions taken after the meeting if someone could please take note of that. And then also just the times of when the board exited executive session and then. Concluded the meeting. That would be helpful when I pulled the meeting minutes together. Just a question about the item on the agenda that says post executive session decision at that point we're back in public. That is correct. That is correct. Yes. After voting to exit executive session that's when post decision is to happen. If if there is a decision to be made. Right. And at that point anybody that's in the waiting room would then be. I would read met. Correct. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. May I may I jump in here. This is Dave. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead Dave. I'm just wondering if this waiting room. Feature is the way for me to tune back in for the post executive session decision. And how that works. So I could chair an answer. Everyone's okay with so the answer would be Dave at this point. What I would do is. I would essentially be kicking everybody out who is not a member of the select board and not going into executive session. And then the option would be. Is anyone who logs back in is automatically put into the waiting room. And they sit in the waiting room until the host admits them into the meeting. So if you were to be removed from the meeting and then you immediately called back in. You would just remain in the waiting room until the host allowed you back into the meeting. Okay. And just to be clear. Adolfo, I am now taking over as host. The waiting room pops up as as something on my screen so that I know to admit Dave or whoever else may be trying to get back in. Yes, if you were to click the participants tab at the bottom of your screen. Right. And then on your right hand side you see if you see a current list that says participants. If there's someone in the waiting room at the very top it'll say waiting room and then give the name of the person of the waiting room. Excellent. Okay. I just wanted to be sure that so that if indeed we do have a post session decision. I just wanted to be sure I knew how to let anyone Dave or anyone else back in so good we're good. Yeah, in case this system has a caller ID feature. My phone number will show up as my wife's name rather than my own. Okay. Right now you're showing up as you Dave so. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. So I will sign off and sign back in. Perfect. Just like that. There you go. And I will. Okay. Thank you Dave and I will just to let the board know. I will now sign off or remove Orca media and then I will log off as well. Okay. Very good.