 Justin Lawrence, Paul Smith on my left, and my right is Jeremy Hanson, I'm Brad Town. With us also is Dana Hadley, our town administrator, and I am here with Elton Towns Rush. I'd like to take and talk about what we'll do Coos Road first. And I think the thinking of the board was, since nobody was living on Coos Road, that we were wondering if the landowner would be willing to not have us plop. Not so much reclassification. I guess that's the big question. I've talked to Tim a few times, but potentially, you don't have to rush over there, and I'm not going to speak to Steve, he'll be sure to speak on his own. But, I mean that's not that big a deal. But the thought of going to a class four is a huge deal, I think. So, I don't know how, I guess that's the question, how do you get around, you know, are you required? Thank you so much. You know what I mean? I wouldn't think you have to, you know, when it's convenient to plop, but there's still people who have to get down to access the property and have to go down that road. If you did do that, wouldn't the maintenance to bring the road back to travelable condition in the spring outweigh the costs of filing it intermittently, you don't have to. I agree with Chip, you know, you don't have to rush over there on every storm. You just keep it passable, you know, so if you wanted to get in there. I use my property for family events. Kids to hunt, the other kids to camp, people have fires and whatever. It's been in the family 65 years or longer. Without that road, I have no reasonable access to the property. I don't personally need a road accessible 365 days a year, but my concern, I think as far as filing it, not filing it at all in the wintertime, Chip and Henry are well aware of the excavation costs. I used to be in construction for 40 years. It costs money to bring the road back in the spring if you haven't maintained it all winter long. Well, that would be my only thought. My only thing there is that with farm roads, if you stay off in the winter, you don't get the frost. You don't get the repair bills in the spring when the frost starts to come out. You don't get the softening of the dirt some of it. I see that as well. You know, I said I'd stay in the background, but maybe I could be useful. Because there actually is a statutory mechanism for the select board to say, even though it's class three, we're not going to file an order. You can do that. Now maybe there's some happy middle ground. You don't get it the right way and just to prevent what Steve talked about. Maybe sometime, somewhere just in the best interest of the town. But you absolutely have the authority to decide, even though it's class three, we're not going to keep it plowed like you would in class three. Well, the only thing I was thinking as far as trying to do some savings on the budget was, if we didn't plow it, it would, if nobody was actually living down there or using the land during the winter, it wouldn't be a loss. It would be a savings to the town. Yeah, I mean that makes sense to me about Steve. Yeah, Tim? Ralph Hill and the Gun Cub Roll off of group two. We don't plow them in the winter too. And then when we open them in the spring, all I got to do is just scrape them out and then back up the snuff. Well, I mean we've never had any, as long as I've been here seven years now, we've never had any trouble when we open them back up in the spring. Yeah, I mean that, maybe I'm stuck in a line here. But that makes sense to me. I would think if you plow and drive that frost down, that's when you're going to get the problems in the spring. But the other thing is, is that even though if the town were not to plow it and it would still be, the town would still be available if it was absolutely needed for people to be down there to open it. Okay, that brings up a question. Say Chip or Henry or myself decided that we needed to thin out some of the forest way. But I tried to do a forest management on my piece. Lots of times these guys, they want to haul in the wintertime and the road can freeze up rather than tear it up in the spring. So in a situation like that, it would be pretty costly to open that road up in the wintertime for logging, wouldn't it? Well usually, from my experience, the loggers pay for that. I mean they got skitters, they can go down through the air and break it open. You know, it takes a knife for it to freeze down enough to put a log truck in. Any else on coos? If there is development down there, then it would just revert back to daily plowing. The way I was looking at it, once people were, say, living down there or construction was happening down there over the winter, the town would probably take it and open it and start plowing. So not to put it into your mouth, but it's not really a reclassification of a classroom. It's not the coos, really. Just for your record, you'd be operating under title 19, section 310. You'd be authority to not do the plowing. What would be your position if you tried it for a season and found there was excessive erosion on the road, say, from the top of the entry of the coos to the beaver. You know, are you going to be reluctant to go back to maintaining it at the classroom? Not for doing it now. Not while it looks bad like somebody's going to stop lately. Well, I mean, it might be a year trial. It might work out pretty well. Then everybody will see what it is. I think, like Tim said, Rollahill Road I think is probably a worse place in terms of runoff than coos. And it does all right. But there's not going to be anybody living on Gun Club. There's lots of people living on Rollahill. So is your concern that if it wouldn't be, I mean, it would be my concern, I don't think it would be too, especially if it didn't get maintained or it got reclassified to a class 4 bill or whatever, it's going to devalue your property and should you choose to develop it down there. I don't want to have to go back and forth. I don't think that's your intention. No, that's why I think we should have some policy in place for that for the reclassification. We'll probably just see how it goes and if it works great, if it's awful, then we'll figure something else out, I guess. The end of the cruise, or the start of the cruise trail by the airport road, once you stop plowing that, of course, I love Vermont, but it all depends on the winter. Whether you have an icy winter or if you have a snowy winter. But would there be any objections to perhaps putting a barricade there? So you don't have to worry about people driving down in there and down past Surrith House a little bit. Sure, we're open. Well, we always plowed down to the house because somebody else lived there. So there was a mountain of snow there before. When I was here before, when I came back this time, they were going all the way down. We used to just plow down to the first house, leave the snow right in the road so nobody could get down through them and turn around and come out of there. I'm going to plow because of that, too. What's your name? Kelly, who's nice. He's Mrs. Kelly. So, I mean, we're going to have to maintain it down that far because if that house ever caught fire, there's no way of living there now, right? If it caught fire, the fire department's going to have to get in there. I mean, it's not a big deal for us to plow down there. You can double the house. But to collect the taxes is just the same, don't you? Yeah. But the thing that is Henry, it's like... We try to collect less taxes this way. I've heard the name Coons. It's not Coons. It's a koa's trail. Oh, the trail. That's right, Henry. That's the way I say it. Indian Southern New Hampshire. Koa's. Koa's. So anything else on Koa's trail? If not, we'll go on to Black Road. In Black Road, Josh, you want the town to plow from the corner of across down down to the end of Black Road that is now maintained. And as in with the Koa's trail, how does that benefit the town? Well, I've actually developed more property down there. The town has given me a building permit and I've put in another apartment dwelling off on another piece of property that I own down there. So actually, I haven't even had a reappraising in it for that property. And my actual taxes where I live now are paying over 10,000 a year in taxes. So I would think that that would be enough to cover the town's cost to go and plow one tenth of a mile of road and sand just through the winter. And that's the only maintenance I'm really looking for on that road. And it was up to you guys to sort out the thought of changing it to a Class 3 road. So, you know, my reasoning is is because that now, you know, with that end signed out there and also with GPS technology, there's people all the time going down there. Even today, if someone came down there, go right down to my barn right through no trespassing signs and wondering how to get to Black Road. So there's been people, friends in my house that couldn't even get out until we've gone and helped people get unstuck on the road. So they could get out for even this winter. My wife couldn't even get to our house because there were some of them stuck. It was my hopes that with the town maintaining it that it would be good enough so when people do go down there following their GPS that they would be able to get back out. Well, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to change if they're following GPS, whether the town maintains it or whether you maintain it. Well, I... I'm sorry about that. Go ahead. I don't need to maintain it as well for the vehicles I have. We both have all wheel drive vehicles with studded tires, so I don't need to have it sanded at every storm and cloud at every storm. And a lot of people that go down there have all-season tires on their tires. So they're kind of trapped when they get down there. Okay. And was there any numbers you would give us or you say you haven't been re-appraised yet? No. I was thinking that my tax bill right now is calling him out that I told him to go down that he'd be able to take care of that 10-foot-a-mile. Especially also if you're going to not be plowing coals or coals. You know, if you're not going to be doing that, that road was more like five-pence-a-mile. I'm looking for one-pence-a-mile. How much does it cost you a year to have that hired pilot? Oh, I'm having kit-track. I get charged sex amount, 40 bucks a whack to do it. And that's only plowing. That's not even sanding. I've sanded it myself using the town sandpile and I have a sandbarrow that I keep at the bottom that I barely use for myself. That sandbarrow is there mostly for people that go down there and get hung up and can't get out. And part of this came a battle when I couldn't keep the sandbarrow full anymore because the town limited you to two buckets of sand. Well, people are showing up taking more than... And I'm guilty of that myself too, because when I would come, I'd come with my pickup and I'd just shovel half a sandbarrow worth into the back of my truck and then fill that barrel back up. Any questions for Josh? I just have a comment. I wrote around today a bunch, looked at a bunch that several of the roads looked at the mapping that we have for the brown base map. The roads aren't merit some alone. They're mismirked on their base map. I saw this opportunity with both topics. The class three downgrade and the class four upgrade to get it good together and maybe take an inventory of our town roads and hopefully maintain it because it's clear that we don't have what we have our spreadsheets. But, I mean, I don't know what Tim's plowing and maintaining in all the sections completely and I don't know that... I wouldn't pretend to say that I know exactly what Tim's plowing. No, you need to, but I mean, we don't have full inventory. But I will say the base map is probably in there. I believe there are errors in that as well. So I mean, this would be a good exercise to get that resolved. Looking at all of this, especially when we get reimbursement money when we're upgrading a class four roads to a class three and we get some state aid money that starts to kick in as a result of that. So I think since it's a third of our town budget it would make sense to have a good handle on that one. You know, I have one more comment too was that, you know, back a few months ago or a hour or six months ago I went and spoke with Tim to find out what roads they actually do plow in the town that there was the other class four roads that they plow. And I came across a couple of places that they plow. The roads weren't even classified that the town takes care of. And then also I have gone down roads that are class three that only go to one house. You're driving half a mile out this class three road to one house. In this instance there's going to be three properties you know, three houses on this road. And I didn't think that I should be responsible for plowing and sanding for two other properties. Well, if the I'm trying to think if the properties are owned not by you, but by other people I think you can only have in this town only three residences on a road until you have to improve. I have to, but I believe something along this line because we did that down we did that down on uh what was that? Brown's Road it was a private drive that they were improved, they subdivided out there were white family members and there was a discussion in the second word about access and whether or not they could we could give a variance I think they were supposed to improve it to there are several residents at the end of Brown's middle road that is on class four road and the road has not been upgraded. Well this is before you get to the end of the class four road it was some fields or some land that set them back away from the river and have to go back through the minutes to see I know there's quite a lot of residents out in the class four part of the road that's not a class four it's not even a class four it's like a driveway that was Crowbar Road sold that as a railway the end of Brown's middle road so it says class three Brown's middle road extension is a quarter mile total the extension is after you go across the bridge you take the left of the bank there that's the extension there's a steak right after you go by right on that note that is the town road and the state pays us for I have tenths of a mile and I've measured it and that's right where it is is right where that state is and the rest of it is not a class four road it was Crowbar Road bought that right away from the father of the world back in that pit where you were yes until the bridge they couldn't go across the bridge anymore and then they built the bridge across the river there right by Bartos they put a steel bridge across there and they hauled over that until the state put the new concrete bridge in because that used to be wooden because he bought a right away a 50 foot right away from Mr. Willett to the father of all the kids the ones that are living there because when I worked here before in the 80's we used to go right around Willett's house the driveway went right around the house the plow up and then we'd just go right around the house and come out of there because we had no place to turn around and that's what he let us do the only thing I'm wondering is is the is the how many residences before it has to be upgraded to a or even at the town hall because it's a town road down there or a town right down there how many residences would have to be in there before we could we'd have to upgrade it to a maintain it for a fire access basically I'm not sure that's just one requirement I think we just decided that it made sense at 3 or 4 or whatever it would say it's a state statue it doesn't show up in orange photos I think when those properties were developed there was there wasn't zoning and forceful zoning now I don't think that the DRB would permit homes going down without a right-of-way a public right-of-way well there is a public right-of-way it's just a matter of who maintains it it's not a public right-of-way actually it's a right-of-way that belongs to the property owners down there it does not belong to the town how many houses? no I'm down on Brownsville I'll be quiet it'd be confusing how many residents are on the other end of that road that comes out on Rall Hill you're on Brownsville road too yeah I'm still talking about trying to get that out of the top okay we were talking about residents down there before you had to reclassify that you got road coming off Rall Hill just above the cemetery it goes down in there I don't know how many houses are down in there that road we used to go right straight through and now on Brownsville that's how it is that's not even on our map we're in a pudder on Brownsville Cemetery there are three it's not our primary access it's off across the town road but if they bank that corner anymore we might have to work for other access yeah but we go for about 400 feet yeah they go all the way down to my to my mirengrove yeah we do occasionally use it yeah I've seen cars over the bank trying to get back up over out of George's driveway just spinning away like snow just spinning away if there was an emergency or anything that kind of stuck there on that hill I don't know how they got out I didn't pull one of them so I have no problem I'd like to see the Bucksham Cemetery open right up completely with a new bridge I have no problem with that it's a great recreational place there's a lot of places there's a lot of places that people mountain bikes and hikers they go down that trail and I don't know where that parking is parking yeah Tim to answer your question there's three or four mailboxes on Paradise Mountain Road there yeah I don't know how many people live there I was just thinking I was using that as an example I remember we had a debate back in 2006 or 7 the family on Browns Mill had subdivided and they were talking about putting houses on those and the discussion was how many houses should we allow before they have to take and have a public access or at least access is good enough for fire and amulets well wouldn't it have to be a class 3 if the towns wouldn't do anything with it no Ralph Hill we do stuff with that but that's at our choice yeah but I mean that's a class 4 yeah the whole thing is class 4 on Ralph or just the section of houses is 3 and then from Butler's drink is 3 or it's just a section they don't do just just we're talking about an existing town I think we're talking about the private development but even so I mean from the town's perspective to be fair if we're asking people to improve a road but to develop it we should be held on the same standard that's good and then a little bit of curb cuts I'm surprised it would allow it there wasn't proper egress and regress to get a fire truck down there and once you start to accumulate more and more houses a fire truck can get down in there alright one of the troubles with zoning in general is I see it's like a creek one house comes in and then 5 years later another house comes in and the road is still the same it just seems more effective yeah Dave yeah so 3 tax payers are the one that's fetch a road I can say we're strongly against it we pay a lot of taxes as well and we have for a long time that road was opened up originally the town allowed the walkers to have a driveway down there and for under 20 years now I guess they've been maintaining it on the road and seems like recently wanted to not bear the cost for that and trying to push them under the tax payers we don't think that's particularly fair a big concern we have personally is if the only plows that the town has I don't know what the town's lead is for plowing but if the only plows that the town has for plowing are the large trucks is there some picker trucks? super cool in that case if it was just the large trucks we would be really bothered by truck going down in 4 in the morning plowing and then backing up and kind of jiggling around with the backup beepers and the lights for a little while and then trying to get out of there so that would be really disruptive if it's a pickup truck type truck that can direct the plow that's not as bad if it's a class 3 road we don't know the obligation of the town is to upgrade that road to a class 3 standard I suspect if it's upgraded to a class 3 standard our our front yard would be really torn apart we'd be cutting down trees that have been there for for decades many decades and we certainly don't want that so we're against we're against definitely changing the classification we really don't want that and I think the the discussion about the trade off between okay we're doing Coloss Road as a 3 to a 4 so we got extra money now we can go from 40 to 3 on this one they're completely unrelated I mean they don't that discussion of trading one for the other is a completely unrelated subject well I don't think it's much trading I wasn't even thinking about upgrading it to a class 4 I mean a class 3 but it's a question of public safety if Josh is putting in a bunch of tenant houses or anything else down there if he's having people who are not related living there then there is a certain public interest in keeping it safe and so what are you just talking then again about plowing in that capacity Brad I'm not sure that's what this is hearing well I yeah we're sort of confused because you know we got something that said that the conversation was about upgrading it to a class 3 and so far all we've heard about is a request for plowing and they're two very different things and Josh never requested to upgrade to a class 3 he was just interested in us plowing the town maintained the road in winter did the notice not say the change again? it did and I think that's one of the options that we're considering so given that how would you feel about if the town smaller truck and plow truck came in and just plowed that in the winter if the driveway permit that's been over and over contested for some reason if that remained as is and plowing was done with a pickup size or one ton truck with a directional blade on it all of our trucks get directional blades oh really even the big trucks and the big ones go in a lot worse roads in New York so if the travel lane stayed the same with the the driveway stayed the same and there was plowing and that was the issue I think we would be perfectly fine but if creep starts to happen and it starts to wiggle and waggle all over the place that would just not be good we would think that was good what do you think about that, Josh? if we came in and used the smaller trucks and we managed to plow that the only thing is if the plow or the pickup can't come we have a plow can't come with a pickup so in the case of the winter there's no sand on it so the truck that I drive is a 6 wheeler but I have salt on most of the time but I can sand so I mean so it's not going to get done first thing in the morning and get sand so plowing but not sanding at the same time right away does that seem reasonable so Josh, any thoughts about that? I mean reasonable to me maybe if he's down there first thing a little bit of salt on the I don't want to go okay and there and done that does the salt work on rock? yeah that's all in the air it's not dirt there so it seems to me and maybe I hope I'm not speaking in a turn that you seem to have a reasonable compromise that everybody seems to be happy with so the only thing I would like to see is I'd like to see what the list is set to say as far as the value of the property how much it builds up and how much the other thing is how many residents do you plan on trying to maintain Josh? just the two just the two two in addition to yours or three total no just the two my house and then my and then even in the future you know that is for the time being now the house that we live in now is kind of for outgrown us it's a couple of houses and we're even taking in the future of selling that house and moving into that apartment that I'm putting in so then it would be three or four different properties on that road well time to start the select board meeting that's all it's going to happen until 7.15 I'll entertain the motion to start do you have a continuance on this? can I just ask questions is this discussion then at all continuance of the select board meeting? no because it's on the agenda this was a half hour public hearing for the roads so has anything resolved? have we resolved anything? well what I'm looking for is for some numbers from the elicitors and some numbers and I guess some stuff I want to be in compliance with the reason we call it hearing was a requirement of law that if we were going to reclassify this we had to hold a public hearing so we were doing this interest of hearing from everybody so that we could collect this information and so there's not a decision being made tonight so there's a continuance of the hearing so we will so we would I think we have to have two and then we could conceivably after the next one then immediately make a decision after the second one so you're going to have a second meeting on the that's pretty old so that one's done not reclassifying it we're just going to restrict the winners and it's still remaining to class 3 and we'll see how that works for a year fair enough so you can make a ruling on that without continuing a public hearing but this so we're still looking for information on this one whereas with them and with the COOS trail strictly a matter of the community but so my next question is is it the next select board meeting when this is going to continue so because I might be out of town in two weeks so I'll just find out, I'll come to talk with Dane and find out what before we send out the next agenda how many days do we have to wait we have to postpone for a hearing for a public hearing this is 30 days so it will be next meeting meeting after so it's another 30 days 30 days it's October so we're going to find out what the snow flies I mean I have a motion on COOS what you'd like because we never completed that motion I move that we cease considering your classification second discussion your favourites and you also have a decision on not doing winter mason we should put that aside then we'll take in we'll put it on the next agenda and then we can take in put it down as a trial so the agenda of the 18th for the next meeting thank you thank you okay thank you thank you thank you you go over to your so I moved it the main meeting do you have your one more so I move it Second second discussion Yes, I would like to add a few items to the agenda. I would like to add consideration to be avoid the fire warden, in regards to basic, the fire warden. I would like to add having the board sign a resolution for promoting smart growth, which I'll explain when we get there. And I would also like the liquid board to be considered catering lights. It didn't get that in there. I don't know, it's out of screen now, so it's helping me out. I thought you were going to use the catering lights. I thought you were going to use the catering lights. Gee, they finally thought we were ready. I don't know what you're doing. I'm in the wrong room. What was that person named? I didn't think I would check that part of the fire warden. Oh, I was going to the fire warden. Yeah, I knew it was going to be the fire warden. Okay, public comment. You're here. You're in none. Treasure report, ma'am. Okay, I had the preliminary audit on August 23rd. There was no issue. I'm assuming that Linda called one of you. Did she call you through, Brad? I heard. Flo, did Linda call you? No, she didn't. I'll be calling her. I'm sure at some point then, but like, because there's no issues, I went very well when she was here for the actual call. You should be back in a couple of seconds. Okay. Should we call her? No, I'll just remind her. I'm sure that she'll recall that. I haven't seen her either. That's all I got. Cool. Okay, thank you very much. Approve license and permits, vouchers and applications. We'll defer general fund accounts payable warrants number 20G04 with checks 19506 and 19565 and the amount of 102,272.91 Also, payroll warrant number 20-04 for payroll from August 4th, 2019 through August 17th, 2019 and the amount of 43,687.65 Also, payroll warrant number 20-05 for payroll from August 18th, 2019 through August 31st, 2019 and the amount of 41,366.58. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Will's opposed? Will can carries. Conservation Commission of Mr. Tintelli. Good evening. The Berlin Conservation Commission has been approached by the Vermont Cross, let me get the name right. Cross Vermont Trail. Cross Vermont Trail System which eventually is a bike trail that's going to go from the west all the way east kind of like the Memorial Valley Trail this is the southern one and they've been working really hard on this project for years so they came to the conservation commission got very excited about the progress they've made and the status of the bike trail path that we've all seen in Montpelier extending up past U32 and eventually let Greg explain this is Greg Weston and Kim McKee from the Trail Association so they approached us and we got very excited about the possibility and looked into our bike path fund the Berlin town of Berlin's bike path fund which has been on hold for over 10 years because of the right-of-ways with the railroad and their idea that they were going to have to use more sightings because they thought they had a big contract I guess it was Rock of Ages and other industries there so that has been put on hold that's been on hold for a lot as I understand it Rock of Ages is moving stone now they are again but originally 10 years ago when they posted all those signs at the crossings they were anticipating so much stone at that point that the bed next to the bed they're using they were going to possibly build sightings on and they didn't want to grant us any right-of-way for a bike path next to the tracks to get the price chopper from let's say Agway or around there the back way the price chopper to eventually tie into Barry City and Barry town so we're thinking of a whole network which was put on hold so we have funds in this bike path account and we thought after they made and they'll make a brief presentation to you we would like as the commission has agreed to the five members all agreed to we would like to take $15,000 from the bike path fund and put it towards Vermont Cross Trail Association and completion of helping complete the bridge over the Winouste River so I think to give you more information about what this encompasses and the scope of the whole project I think Greg could probably make a small little presentation if you'd like to hear about the association I think they did they did in 2015 they allocated $3,000 now that was for that $3,000 was for design no it was for the same it's in the bank it's for the same bridge at that time the City of Montpelier made a contribution to the bridge over the Winouste River which they have contributed money to the portion of bike path that's in the side of the city partly most of the building but also including the part that we're working on but then this bridge over the Winouste River is physically in half in East Montpelier and half in Berlin so in a few years ago the City of Montpelier said they would contribute a dollar for residents of the bridge even though it's not in Montpelier all the towns of the U32 school district also donated a dollar for residents and that happened so Berlin gave it at a slide board meeting most of the towns had to vote for a town meeting and at the slide board meeting that I was at folks on the slide board said well we know we have a bike path fund so if you need more if there's a question that could be asked and so we are done with the design we've received all our permits except for Act 250 but it's in process and we've done with all the right of way and all the federal highway stuff so we really are ready we're just in the end game and we have these giant federal grants for this bridge over the Winouste River we're in a couple miles of trail and we're in the final stages of raising the last amount of the local match and because we're a non-profit organization the local match I think we have to ask for it and how much is the local match? we need to raise 250,000 and we're at 214 right now for these large federal grants and full disclosure probably we need to raise more in the future but let's not worry about that right now because the price of steel we're building a 200 foot steel bridge and the price of steel is the biggest single cost in the bridge and with all the tariffs and stuff but that's for another day right now we're trying to close in on the match of the big grants that we have now that makes sense so you're roughly 36,000 short and you want Berlin to donate for 250? and we went to the they came to us and we talked about it and we went everywhere from 10 to 25 but Tom and JC we decided that 15 would be large enough to make some news give Berlin some kudos on contributing but we'd still have close to 40,000 left if the other bike path were to ever come to fruition so given that we don't know where the railroad is with the right of ways that's still on the back burner not on the front burner but we thought as a commission we said 15 would be kind of something substantial maybe they could leverage it to other towns saying look what Berlin gave let's close that 36,000 dollar gap and get this thing done so they can get their federal funding yet we would still have something in our back pocket that would be substantial to still pursue our bike path the dream of that is 10 years ago that's been put on the back burner so I think it's kind of like we all agree that it's significant but we're not just shooting the whole ball wax out so to speak and I could quickly add that we would definitely leverage it or use it as a challenge to maybe not necessarily other towns because not every town has a bike path fund available but certainly to other donors and we're now sort of as a charity sort of in that last phase of a fundraising campaign so we're going to some larger donors and they always want to be matched themselves and so this would be a way for us to go to them and say you know your donation would be matched by the towns and so on what I found significant about the trail and where it is along the kind of northwestern side of the Winooski towards the power plant after it goes by capital city back through there is that it ties in with the U32 bike trips the switchbacks that go up to campus and with that new bike path coming from the high school to U32 I'm still envisioning someday not that I want to get into politics of schools but kids would bike back and forth and safely between U32 and Montpelier because this path is going to go right at the base of the woods where U32 bike trails are and then it will continue past that and jump the river and then connect to the old you know going out of this Montpelier the old railroad bed that goes the Wells River at the Wells River this project the bridge is most of the money and the location of this bridge is the Boater dealership so if you're heading out U32 just past Shempantai equipment there's the Winooski hydro dam and if you look over there you see stone bridge abutments that's where the old railroad used to cross the river and so we would build the new bridge on those old abutments that's most of the money but the project itself is miles of new trail as well as a bridge and the miles of new trail include a bike path official suspect a bike path that would connect up to U32 and then back down and also up to Route 14 by the Humane Society or by what the old railroad is and so that's our, that's this project and not this project or this $15,000 but for the future we also found the conservation commission our mission is to work within the watershed so that's kind of our area of interest so obviously Berlin is in that so we would love to work together with the conservation commission or if you have in the future another bike path for me or something you know with the talent groups to to build out to spend your bike path money on an actual bike path you know as a vision to connect into the more subtle parts of obviously our current focus is this project by U32 any prognosis on the other bike path, Phil? I mean I'm just going on Tom Willards you know archived archival history of what's transpired but no not not really the other thing that this isn't for this meeting but we're as a conservation commission we have I have started searching and made some contacts through the school and I would like to have a recreation commission that sunset it years ago and I really think the town needs a recreation because we're in conflict at times between conservation and recreation we're serving both needs right now but I don't think that's wise if we can get citizen participation to form a recreation committee this eventually might land in their lap the bike path in this as opposed to conservation which has other issues to address does the railroad still own the right way all the way through there? no the the portion of the old railroad that is in Berlin which is adjacent to Route 2 is owned by the state and the state bought it just for cash they just bought it from the railroad in the 50s and they kept the other places they sold it off or they gave it away but where it's in Berlin they kept it because now the part that is obviously Route 2 is administered by VTrans and then along the river it's administered by Department of Fish and Wildlife so it's all state land where the old railroad that is in Berlin is all state so you're coming up in front of Harris Equipment where they've been doing the work getting in front of blogits going up Galson Hill taking the the road basically off to the right to the power dam the power plant railroad and the railroad to the power dam is the old railroad and there the state doesn't own it it's own complicated history but it's owned by the city of Montpelier and then it's owned by Green Mountain Power and then it's owned by the Luniski Hydro Electric Company and all of those have given us permanent easements to either use the railroad or to build a new railroad next to the railroad so then you go above the power dam across the river then you're on the old U.S. Route 2 roadbed by the pullout and where does it go from there? it continues between the river and the road parallel to the old route 2 which is down there along the bank we're not on old route 2 because it's collapsing into the river so we're up the hill a little bit we'll build a new trail just before Vermont Country Campers the first RD dealership as you go out on route 2 and then there we have miraculously we have a permit from B-Trans to put a crossing there so there'd be a trail crossing there and then the town of East Montpelier actually owns land right across the road and then goes up to a land on the Fairmont farm and I was just meeting the Fairmont farm this morning so we're purchasing from them a trail easement to get on out to where the railroad picks up again and then so but by the very how he means exactly yeah so that's the route that goes east-west and then also there's a squiggles at the hill to connect to the school and back down so the the pitch to the conservation commission was the obviously U32 is a direct Berlin connection and it so happens that most of the cross the whole project is this bridge half of the bridge is actually in Berlin and our sort of our pitch was the town's been sort of sitting on the bike path money for a while and I thought hey this was a way to actually turn some of that money into an actual bike path there's a leverage into a big help a gigantic help for making a real project happen how long before you think the act 250 permit will be approved for the bridge there's not any hurdles or anything yeah we're we've been working for a while so we've done we're in the end game so sometimes it's small and it's during our Fairmont farm your last trail easement that you need to acquire it's it goes on from there the the the old railroad that beyond Fairmont is now a driveway for multiple houses so it's a longer so that it's not a trail building question but it's a a longer conversation with it gets more complicated just because the railroad has been used to someone's driveway or many someone's driveway is it privately owned by the residents? yeah we used to ride horses out there we had permission from the landowners to ride on there so it's just a very short distance but there's six different landowners in a very short distance so it's a longer conversation but between either working together with them or working together with neighboring landowners maybe to go around that we feel like we can get across through 14 one way or the other we're also talking to the Washington Electric co-op who owns the land just south of Fairmont there's options once you get up there and it looks like according to your map your current trail has it going up from 14 to 2 so it's going to go wildly out of the way to come back down this project was identified as the top priority for the Crossway Trail in 1994 because the idea was to celebrate and promote and extend local trails with the vision of the be a connected statewide network of local trails but because there isn't currently a summertime or four season statewide network of local trails we identified the best local roads to connect together existing trails and and then Bo Brutu going through these volunteers not a good bike route because people drive like crazy and they use the shoulder as a passing lane and stuff so if you're walking or biking in the shoulder it's a little sketchy so that's why I was identified as a priority to get off it and it's taken this long to get this far I'd like to move to allocate $15,000 from the bike path fund to the Crossway Trail Association and I second the motion do we want to take and have that money go to the conservation commission with the expressed interest of it going to a trail or to the bike trail and do we want to take a look from the select board do we need to pass it to you I don't think that's necessary ok, just a question if you were to pass it to them they would have to come back to you I want to say it's admirable all the work that you've put into getting this far any further discussion on this? did Rob say that when we took and gave the $3,000 Rob had no problems with it you have the authority to withdraw the funds as long as it's for biking or trail use all those in favor? those opposed, motion carries thank you hope you get your other $21,000 right thank you very much great, we should email me and tell me who always mailed a check write it out too thank you thank you very much thank you I'll probably be back with more about the commission and once I get a group of key, I have to identify two people already that want to be on a recreation commission and I think we're looking for five so I'll have to work with Dana and get the logistics on how we go about recreating a commission like that but and we also have one member I'm not sure the board knows about Matthew Polk he's on the board we should probably officially delegate him to be a member of the Berlin conservation we probably should if you could just give me his information because the board should be the one to appoint so we can come back and do that at the next meeting give you all the information if you have interest exactly thank you thank you thanks Tim you're welcome signature of the resolution for granting a lot of housing in community development back in July 1st you had voted to apply for the grant for from the Department of Housing and Community Development for the grant to assist with a professional assistance on the new town center and this document here is they needed someone to be appointed by you to be the grant administrator often times it's the chair and I can tell the chair you need to go on to their grant computer system and be registered on that and for someone who is registered which is myself is quite cumbersome and so I suggested that I be appointed as the grant administrator so I like you move to appoint Dana Hadley as the grant administrator for the Department of Housing and Community Development grant application I second that motion any further discussion all those in favor thank you Dana any time okay so declaration of official intent for sewer extension project this is on the sewer project this is the paying turn and it was approved on in July 2nd of 2018 by the select board to go for a bond for 2,200,000 and it was voted on by the voters of the town of Berlin on August 2018 to go for this bond and we received a note from the bond council it's called all our bond work and he does everyone's bond work so that's why we have him and he tells me we need a declaration of official intent and so I guess I'm asking the board to approve the declaration of official intent and this is signed by the clerk moved to approve the declaration of official intent for the sewer project as presented second motion any further discussion all those in favor motion carried I have a lot of housekeeping things to do the next item is the option agreement for the purchase option for the Berlin elementary school property this is we have discussed this option agreement was voted on by the Berlin school board on June 24th just before they disbanded and it gives the town the option to purchase the school property in the event it's no longer used for school part of the agreement with the Washington unified long name school district also has similar wording in it in addition to it's a purchase by the town the town chose to do it for one dollar in here it also notes that if that were to occur and there were encumbrances i.e. the bond the town would be responsible to satisfy that bond the whole bond or just our share the balance due at the time of the transaction so it would be to answer your question as best I can I would say the whole what would it do I'm not paying for it anyway and this is already gone to Rob previously it has so move to accept the option agreement with the Berlin school Berlin elementary school board and I second the motion any further discussion hearing none those in favor motion carries and approval of select board minutes and approval of select board minutes and approval of select board minutes I make the motion of the approval of select board minutes for both the August 1st, 2019 and August 15th, 2019 I'll second the motion any further discussion any further discussion all those in favor I motion carries and now look here aren't you yes the fire warden is appointed to a five year term next term expired on June 30th of this year he has indicated he would like to be reappointed he has been vetted by the state of Vermont who has suggested that you reappoint him and move to appoint Nick as a fire warden any further discussion all those in favor I I need the chair where it says chair motion carries and thank Nick for absolutely actually there's places for all select board minutes pointing out one says chair and one says member not that there's any other for each other thank you oh would you read the slide thank you I came here really early this morning to turn in bills so I could get you know I'm not up there no I'm not up there okay the swipe rule I can sneak up thank you what's that Tom brought this to my attention we had informally said to entities such as the hospital if they were to do any improvements and need more water we would expect that if our water system felt we don't really have a normal document that says that other than a rent but we did do a resolution saying that whereas the town of Vernon operates municipal water and wastewater systems to ensure the health and safety of the constituents whereas the town of Berlin has construction systems and whereas the fees of the systems pay for the indebtedness and whereas the town of Berlin recognizes that continual financial and operational health of the systems require expansion of the user base and now be a result of all of Berlin select boards to ensure site and review as the mind of Berlin and use and development regulations as amended to be connected to the existing systems when feasible the feasibility to connect will be termed by the town of Berlin Public Works Board and we're asking if you would approve that and sign that makes sense I make a motion to approve resolution from the podium any further discussion all those in favor motion carries actually minister is reporting yes I have a few things Saturday September 21st between 10 and 2 the planning commission will be traveling over to South Burlington to talk with South Burlington officials about the their new designated town center I don't know if you've been over to South Burlington but there is a lot of stuff going on if you go down Dorset street with all the construction which is part of this there will be a band leaving the town office at 9am and Tom wants to be sure that you were invited if you'd like to go they expect between 10 and 2 also there has been renewed interest in the sewer mainline extension for route 12 this is the line that would potentially service the Green Mountain Transit maintenance garage and Weston's mobile home park and as well as a few other businesses and residents that are in that area much of this project is through funding from through VTrans federal funds that VTrans has secured the remaining project cost of about $400,000 was going to be financed by the former park owner of Weston since that person no longer owns the park and that is not feasible I just bring this to your attention that this project is about $400,000 short if the board wanted to consider financing it or feeling it was um what's the interest in the sewer line that other owners need well I think there is a lot obviously the state has a lot of interest because of the funding and get that one place I think that the mobile home park is very interested I mean many of those I think it's a good thing for the mobile home park because many of those their current system is tired for lack of a better way to put it and I think it's also a good sanitary thing for that area the mobile home park is a co-op now and they're a brand new co-op and they like any new entity that has limited resources that they can do this with this is not happening tomorrow but I think that it would be a good time for the board to consider what if and I don't know what the public works board is considering on that well the question I would have is it would be covered eventually because there are fees instead of not tax money I'm just wondering if I'll say this if they're going to take and run sewer from Montpelier down through would it be better for Montpelier to own the line or for us to own the line or maintain the line in my opinion and it's just my opinion I don't think you should allow another community to own a line in your town Montpelier does have on the very Montpelier road they don't own the sewer but they have the water system that goes up to is it Dunkin Donuts somewhere in that area is that as far as it goes which which they own in this and they certainly have been responsible and taken care of that and I'm not saying that for that reason but I'm just saying that I think that when you have a line a sewer line obviously we're very closely connected to Montpelier because that's where the sewer goes our allocation the only other thinking needed is that it's sort of disjoining from the rest of the sewer system I understand and I only bring this up because it's probably going to be discussed with the public for export so they probably will be also talking to you about it at some point I certainly have no objections either way I guess how long before you start recouping the $400,000 do you think for the user fees well I think it obviously will take a while I mean I would say you're probably looking at something like a 20-year note and again when I say user fees we're talking the entire system I mean it would be a debt for the entire sewer system can I ask you a question if they don't do that why don't they go out dog river roll um one of the main you mean as far as connecting to Montpelier through dog river roll yeah I don't have an answer to that question the engineering has been done down through Northfield street I don't know if it's better if it went the other way the state has been highly involved in this planning process I think it will require a lift station at the bottom of the hill I think either way you go down there and if you require a pumping station yeah sure it would you'd have to have a force bank more fees a vote yeah but there's a lot of ledge on the dog river road you're thinking of going directly to the plant shorter distance I mean but that's not how the plans have where they stand apparently where is it I'm going Northfield street probably just past what's that street, Colonial Drive or just before the Grand House yeah on the left there I believe that's where it is that's a small idea to talk about yeah so that's just an FYI next we have received an application from Ducevich Development for a tax stabilization program for the taxes they have provided everything in our requirements that we need for a letter from the Regional Planning Commission supporting the project which is a piece and here's the piece that I'm in a little bit of trouble is that according to the criteria we have to have our Economic Development Committee review this and approve it and bring it to you for your approval and right now we have one member on that committee who is Jeremy and so we need to appoint more members what's the full call from them well last we had on that committee seven people we had seven on that committee at one point and I don't think anyone on this list other than Jeremy can you and I think a few might not even live in Berlin any longer I was I was thinking we would want to have Jamie Stewart from the Central Vermont Economic Development Corps involved I was thinking someone from the fire department, someone from police someone from public work someone from planning, someone from zoning and I just wanted your idea what you thought the members can spare the toilet and that's the issue I mean those people who are busy but I thought I would just give everyone what might have a different viewpoint and this just came in after I had hosted the agenda so I will be sending you to remind you what the criteria is and what the program is if you're not familiar I have to re-read it every time I think about it so I was going to ask people if they'd be willing to serve on this committee and then bring the names to you so that you can appoint them and probably most of these people you know so we won't have to next Justin is going to be your representative at the town fair for the annual meeting and cast the vote on behalf of Berlin I was going to sign you up for the I don't know if you're going to the rest of the town fair Justin but I think I'll sign you up in the event you wanted to and if you don't you don't but I think that's a good way to do it and if you do the annual that what happens also that day is the annual meeting of the property casually inter-miniscible fund or passive and also right after that is a meeting of the unemployment fund which I would tell you what it was if I remembered it's the employment resource and benefits trust they call it VERB they're looking for representation from each town so that they have a quorum and it sounds ribbony let me give you this in the event you would consider going and anyone else would like to go to the town fair I'd be glad to sign you up let me know anytime day or night and also let me just give you that for your information they're asking for anyone that you think should be nominated to the passive board of directors that's the property something rather that's the liability I didn't have anyone in mind and if you did let me know and I'll send them in it's a three year commitment and no I don't know I was going to say no because you're not going to be here for three it doesn't matter Mr. Stanzen but anyway that's my report tonight thank you and now I will entertain a motion to adjourn the slide board and convene the liquor I second the motion all in favor aye okay what do we got next? we have a liquor license and it would be unveiling I'm sorry it is September 26 we've had no troubles before and we have no issues they have no issues I did speak with the liquor commission just because I didn't know them I think the motion to approve was presented I second the motion any further discussion? all those in favor? aye okay and now I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the liquor commission and we convene the slide board I think a motion to adjourn and reconvene the slide board all those in favor? aye okay any executive session? no are you able to adjust them? nothing tonight well actually they're new they're real quick not the road stuff so I thought the meeting was good for Mr. Kent to get stuff out and do an inventory of our town roads I don't know how we can do it I went over and talked to you that day about what you had don't remember so check this out remember I asked you I found some stuff I just want to get to the bottom remember we talked about the road across from Brown's middle and then we looked it up on the map this is the one I wouldn't do it right but that's the one when you're leaving Montpelier you go past MZRB's under the railroad bridge are we plowing that road? that's what we have listed on the maps is Gladden Road and then the one across from Brown's middle is Town Highway 74 and then when I look at our spreadsheet that we have Town Highway 74 is listed as Gladden Road kind of just that sort of thing now we're so if you go past MZRB's and go in or the head towards Montpelier we approve the past MZRB's here and say the bridge was right here with the berries are right here on the right-hand side but this is that a couple of times so this will be right down here this is Brown's middle and then that's listed as Gladden Road I think that was before I came but if there's a change we do report the change we have the maps we had in the last few years but then when I look at what we have over here is that inventory so stupid? the inventory that we get from the state does this to Gladden Road it just has the highway number that's the house number there's no there's no road I'm not plowing it whether that or am I signed to the wrong road I mean I think that we could go over and look at it and measure it and see if indeed but I've never heard of a road that doesn't have a name and I don't know I think that's a private road I think that's a private drive off so you don't maintain no the bad man is wrong that's what I think as I was driving around looking at all these roses and that's a third of our town budget to me it seems like inferred newer select board members like myself coming on it's helpful to me because I'm the one that struggled with trying to put roads to numbers because we didn't have that I would like to somehow figure out a good handle on our inventory so that maybe we're missing out on some state aid money I don't know if we are I don't think we're missing out on the law but however why don't we have it right and if we're missing out get what we deserve I think Tim and I could figure out how to inventory our roads I mean we have the lens we can put all new numbers to them yeah we'll start over with one we'll just write around and remember them all I think I'm pretty satisfied that the class 2 roads are correct so I'm not concerned about those like I said the one across from Brownsville we never clouded that one out but then it's listed wrong on that baseman that is right it's not listed the only thing I want to say Tim is is that if we're not going to cloud that somebody is going to give those people a call and give them the heads up well I mean Gordon and Gary they've been clouding it since I was born that says town highway 74 I don't know but house burnt and that's the new house I remember the only thing I was thinking is is that I wouldn't want to take it because I think we expected at least in the tracks because they don't even cloud after we know it's snow on because we don't know what the road is like that the whole situation is dangerous and they just drive through the snow all the way along I've never seen a road like that do we have a road name on it? I think it's a road I mean we need a road and go on though it shows the address of Gladden Road and you go on here and you click on the car oh my gosh you know at 8.30 at night I'm not getting this that's never been a town road anyway we can drive but I think that's a lot of shit look at his name I can't think of his name he's lived there for a long time it's not flood oh it's up north it hangs around at Martin's it gets scared of handicapped kids is it a Floyd not a Floyd anyway we can work on that I mean don't you think that that would be something you could do with me? on Sundays afternoon you can come to my house with Sunday afternoon the only thing is you know I can better not town roads those people need a heads up that we're not going to be maintaining it for them absolutely I don't know where it's going it's not a town road we had one question about across the street here I think that is the town road that's why yeah it's Gladden Road I think maybe just got it mislabeled on there so it's just we're going to fix that we do have if it kills us we do have this road over here that's not a town road where? going down to across the street here when the road gets down I mean that's one of those things you've always done it but we don't really have that we never did it until David built this house down here and Wayne came in here and said they were going to set power poles down there in the towns right away and the select board told them no you weren't and he said well then you're going to start clowning it so evidently it was a town road but there's no name to it that's not on the maps or anything unless that was Shed Road well that's what I wondered Shed Road went right down there because Shed Road used to go up next time I see David I see him quite often and I'm not asking what his address is I feel like it must be a part of Shed Road because his mailbox is out here on the blacktop but I think that's probably what it was because the road didn't come into here probably so really the road and it went down went down there I almost think that before they built Route 62 in the interstate went right through and came out over on Birch Road off of Richardson Road I gotcha went right straight across and then when the state put the interstate in in Route 62 they cut it off right there where David tells me and I think that was Shed Road all the way down and then they just changed the name on the other end down there where check the length of Shed Road to make sure we're not being changed how long is Shed Road here that's what I'm looking up for here 67 is the number I was looking at the alphabetical list do we have one too? 0.13 miles Shed Road is 1.3 miles so that's only really just this driveway coming in I would say 0.13 is that even a tenth of a mile so the town told Wayne that he wasn't putting poles in near and right away and he said well then if that's the case then you're going to start taking care of the road and he said we're not here to ask because I was at the Slutton's meeting that night did they take acceptable when was this your father was on the board Harold Louis Parleau nobody you can ask now so I had to be back in the late 70s and early 80s it was the early 80s after I started here but they never did anything further than that until David and Tila built their house down there well I would say then you're going to be spending some time in the vault in the line of records we'll see what we have and I have to say we have some good information and then we have some very shady I don't know what the shady I want to say incomplete when I was here you weren't plowing it then because David hadn't built the house yet I got you so when I came back here before I came back I knew well and we inherited a lot of these places for roads that I don't know why but just the select board was generous the through way in the 32's a lot of roads anything else because this road right across from Chevrolet that went out to Berlin Hall that was Berlin Hall road or Brookfield road well okay entertain a motion to adjourn make the motion to adjourn all those in favor argh