 It is 6.15 on January 13th, 2020 and we're gathered here today in conformance with the open meeting law which we've posted in three places right and on the website and emailed to interested parties got one so we can move forward with our before we go on is there any additions to the agenda that anyone would like to make that was posted Harlan you have one and Mason you have one yes this is a request for our next select board meeting I would like to have the ability to have a discussion about a potential policy related to the last select board meeting where Bruce and his partner were here and Tom had a lot of concerns about their issues they brought forth and I think it's time that we make we should have a discussion more detailed about it from my opinion okay wait miss you're going to put this on the agenda for next meeting right so before you go on to the discussion here for this year's from the Secretary of State this week and concerned about access to public records and I'd like to submit that to the board okay and for the board to review for official elected officials if they haven't already seen it I do have concerns about cell phone usage of public records and where we need to go forward excuse me I'm not remembering what it was that these people were discussing at the last meeting security okay yes so if I get this right you don't want to talk about this now you just wanted to put that on the agenda for the next meeting correct I was sure Tom if you had a follow-up at all at this meeting for on that or you want to wait meeting we did do some you're talking about this social security issue man privacy security of how we are Paul you know how we are handling our records we have done some research on that actually actually I didn't know if you're going to present that tonight or the next meeting it's in my opinion there is still a little bit of controversy over the interpretation and so I'm not comfortable making a statement right now until we look at this a little further unless you are I never dug into it okay something that Patty was working on and she's not joining us she's not here today she did a little work on it however I'm not I'm not convinced that it's a proper answer and so I don't want to put out any false information or information that I don't completely understand but it is being just definitely being looked at and as far as we understand things to be we are doing things in proper accordance with the VSA we don't not detected any violation of any kind so but there's some opinion as to the interpretation of whether social security numbers when handled at the municipal level the town clerk level whether that's exactly what the I guess rules are to keep that information confidential I'm not totally clear on that so I'd like to do a little more homework first so I think so that's a good suggestion to put that on the agenda for yeah I think it would be a good timing for that thank you yeah anybody else in the add additions to the agenda yes well you add your your topic now and then we can talk about it later this way we just we're adding to the agenda so we I was not here at the last meeting and since Pat was not here we can't improve those minutes since there's only Tom was the only one here so we'll table those until the next meeting we have bats in there and we have as a guest Lizzie you're right there on the top of the list you want to present some information about the petition for the climate emergency declaration yeah those who don't know me and Lizzie Shackleford I'm part of a small volunteer group of residents here who've gotten together to look into what we could do here in Rochester so I wanted to alert people the fact that right now we have some we're collecting signatures for petition it's going to put on the ballot for the town meeting in March a vote on whether or not the town of Rochester should adopt a climate emergency declaration I have it's very short but if you want to check it out if you may or may not be interested in signing an orange just reading I'll leave a copy here but we're going to be submitting it tomorrow we've gathered already more than 70 signatures and I still have quite a few petitions that I haven't gathered yet tomorrow is going to be the deadline for collecting them they're going to be submitting them on Wednesday to the town clerk it's not doing anything prescriptive or required by the town the bottom line is basically that we're recognizing that there is a climate emergency in the world that is affecting us here and what we're asking the town can planning a leadership to do it's just to consider climate impact of decisions that we're making here in town so it's really just an early first step it's not requiring anything that's going to cost the town any money it's just putting it on the agenda of things that we consider so if anybody has questions I'd be happy to answer questions I'll stay a few minutes afterwards if you want to check it out so you know we welcome you to sign it and for those who just have questions about it we're going to be scheduling something public in February when we get a little bit closer to the voting date when we can you know we'll have a meeting somewhere here in town we'll be sharing information about some other towns have done this has been an initiative that's happened all over the world and it's been happening right here in our neighborhood nor which has already passed a similar declaration and I know that heartland has one under right I'll stick around afterwards if anybody has questions thank you so this I should say that part of my activities and going and working with the regional planning commission as there was a presentation about that Vermont this we're not alone this Vermont and itself has adopted a trying to go 90% renewable by 2050 and if you go to the Vermont energy dashboard online it has very detailed information about specific municipalities and what is being done and what's not being done and you can write down to who's got solar panels on their house and so it's it's interesting to see that there's there is movement and it basically transportation is the biggest biggest challenge in terms of the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases and that would be followed by inefficiency and send home and home heating and then it goes on down the line but there is this is a copy I brought to leave at the town clerk's office so if anyone wants to peruse that or like I said you go online to the Vermont energy dashboard commons of wealth of information about what is being done and what could be done to increase awareness about that all right another guest we had Mason have you on here that you had something you wanted to talk about yes I put it on the agenda right discussion for us all in talking outside the regular box and how to create funding for so many of our projects and we do have some big challenges ahead right now just quietly the last week the state has informed us that the education budget on the state level is going to have a 6% increase so as usual taxes are rising and we have to be careful with our local population our taxpayers that we're not overburdening them and when it comes to Wreck and Park it seems like in the last 15 20 years that we've seen a huge increase with nonprofits 501 C3s and it seems to be working well for a lot of these organizations even our historical society is a nonprofit entity and it seems like this is the way to go and the tennis courts might be a good example right now we're looking at $10,000 of repair maybe this is the time to step away from the format we have and look at encouraging those in the community that want to participate in tennis to create a 501 C3 organization the Rochester tennis club and as a town we go ahead and make an arrangement to let the tennis courts go to the organization with certain boundaries which works for everyone and let the organization which most likely would have greater ability to actually do funding through the national tennis organizations and everything else to to take to move forward with that I think this might go a long ways with a lot of our taxpayers in that and I think this is also true with a lot of other organizations too that we should encourage encourage them to go with a nonprofit direction to do that and if they were looking for funding it can be put on our annual town meeting agenda as other nonprofits due to ask the citizenship if they would like to contribute to the effort and this might include the ice skating activity that we have in town as I just recently read that I think Dean was asking well you know we're gonna have to have maintenance we're gonna have to increase increase increase that this increasing process after we create things creates more financial expenses and those expenses should not be buried by the taxpayers who are already struggling so hard I think a lot of taxpayers would rather see money go if we have to raise it is to make sure the exterior of the library is well cared for it's in disrepair and that's where it's fun should be going this toward the library so I just I was hoping this would be a discussion so I'll end and see where it goes from here Bruce I think the discussion in this format might be a little premature I would suggest you go to the recreation committee and start the ball rolling there and have that committee toss around all the ideas and then come up with some solid proposals and then bring that to this like board for further discussion my first responses that it seems a load the town is already a nonprofit and so creating another nonprofit organization to take over an aspect of the town seems a little little redundant look a little like a shell game and I'm not quite seeing the practicality of that unless you just are suggesting shedding the responsibilities of the town is that sounds like what you're so I'm sorry but I find this a little disingenuous when you personally are responsible for almost sixty thousand dollars of expense to the town over the last few years by suing the town to claim that the chair and respect me as property owner instead of doing that type of crap right there what I'm just pointing out you're concerned about spending money but you've been suing the town claiming that town property is not there and so it's like you're worried about ten thousand dollars well I'm sorry but that's my response to the discussion that you brought in there there you go not correct you sit there as a chair and speak like that I'd like to also say that it sounds like you're trying to push the responsibility from one organization essentially to another organization in a sense that it sounded to me like you were saying we don't need to spend all this money on recreation let's put it into this it should be going into this and you're you're shifting funds from one place to another and for what reason I'm not clear whether there's something you favor but I don't think that's that's right to do that I mean these are all everything is important these are all important things recreation is very important and if you're suggesting that we just not fund recreation anymore instead put that money someplace else I mean that that's okay to suggest that but it also tells us that there's an agenda here and I think we need to be careful about that that's all I'm saying the discussion you know I would you know the discussions good you know no question thank you you know no question but I would I would hate to see that that that game being played where we're trying to you know I think it should go here and I think it should go there everybody's got an opinion about that that's all I'm saying I really don't have an opinion on it one way or the other but it seems legitimate to me to say hey when we have something like roster that's promoting trails that's a non-profit why wouldn't something like that be a non-profit why would that be business of a smaller group of people that use it and if we aren't talking about people being concerned about their taxes then I mean again I really don't have a pan along with the other but to me it seems like a legitimate question to say hey if we're looking at our tax you know how much we're paying for taxes and there's a way for our taxes to be reduced by having that move to a non-profit just like roster or other non-profits that have a time I think that's I think that's a little bit of a roster is a multi-town project right well I don't really know I'm just referring to town the town of Rochester right now excuse me the town of Rochester I mean things like the skate park and stuff I'm not the skate park but the skating area and so forth that's that's the town of Rochester right rasta is a is a is a larger event I don't know if there's other non-profits in Rochester that do you think okay okay that I'm just saying sounds like there are I mean so the historical society is a non-profit entity could you explain why it's separate from the town because it was established that way in 1976 okay and it was established as an as a non-profit 501 it doesn't request funds from the town okay so why not have a tennis club that's a non-profit I would like to just address recreation one of the things with recreation it's primarily for the children in this town and we've lost most of the children in the town to other towns the recreation department spends a great deal of time on youth sports we all know that the parents can't afford a great deal in this town that helps have a place for kids to go to learn how to play soccer to have played basketball other other things like that they have the they have the option of using the skate space which was there wasn't a lot of town money that went into skate space it was largely donated money and now it's so many it's 15 or 16 years old and it requires maintenance but it was largely done with funds that were donated and continue to be donated Martha yeah to address that as well skate space was put together by people it was in memory of Kevin Doherty's daughter who was killed in a car accident of funds were raised I donated the land to the town I mean we've done the best we put on a shoestring and Nancy's absolutely right the things that we do I'm on the rec committee things that we do are for the mostly for the young people in town and since we don't have a junior higher high school in town anymore this is a way of getting kids involved in things and if we fund the elementary basketball program that's going on now and you know it's a lot of people enjoy going to skate at skate space I can't speak for the tennis course myself because I don't play tennis but you know it's I think that's an important I think is there an extenuating factor with the tennis courts that that was they were initially some grant by the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation they were taken out by Irene and they were replaced by FEMA so there's very little town money in it but I was just saying that being said that might complicate trying to take and take that and that that was given to the town specifically and then create it as another entity there probably complications in there but Terry yeah I saw that a tennis course when we put the septic system down there we had to go through federal government get permission to do that and they're all full ground it's not something the town could give permission to do because the town theoretically really doesn't have the final say over the tennis courts or that ball field and so the town can just say we could put the septic system there we had to go through that to get it special permission to put them in and we had to go to their specs and I'll just say the tax court out of the skating ring fire department floods that several times a year I'm sorry that zero pay yes I forgot you guys donate your time and as far as I know I've never had one fireman that's got any kids that used it we appreciate them doing it too yes yeah of course we all appreciate that I'm just talking about different new structural ideas potentials to make it work for all the taxpayers if we have a good community that wants to participate with the tennis courts let them be enthusiastic and create the drive to create the funding to maintain the courts they are in a flood plain and we potentially could have another complete wipeout and I don't know if FEMA would repay for the rebuilding of the tennis courts again we may find out does FEMA do the maintenance on the tennis courts no that's that is up to our town so I think Mason has a good point in that it's worthy to examine something like that particularly the in the budget the recreation department of one of the few things that you can move one way or the other you know you can't you can't live with much less salt for instance I mean you can't say what I think is less salt I don't think the nonprofit the thing which is a very complicated procedure and loading one element up doesn't seem very functional to me but it's worth talking about and I don't know I don't think this is probably the place to talk about it I mean the place to talk about either in the budget committee I guess or because it's not a bad idea I mean looking at this stuff again recognizing its value it's not a bad idea I'm you know I'm sorry that Mason is the messenger here because he's a hard messenger to carry but it's not a bad it's not a bad idea but I will go back again to saying we lost all of our children in town the one thing that we have for them of these these programs and they're all participating all those young kids are participating sure I think some of the games I think that's valid all of you the park concerts bring all kinds of people and you know that's a tremendous I know how you lay a value on that but I think that's that's very valuable I just think the point that these things can be examined maybe outside of the closed budget miss you know this is a worthy thing I don't know that now's the time to do it well the budget committee spends countless hours dwelling over these very same questions you know and then presents to the select board their their recommended budget so that's perhaps a better place but these kind of ideas will filter down to the budget committee and the rec committee I think also when Mason first began speaking on this subject he said other towns are doing things like creating a nonprofit in order to do X Y and Z in order to make it work now I don't know what the towns are and what they're doing but if there are things happening that are useful and keeping some of the taxpayers money free because of the nonprofits then that's worth examining you know he was just using recreation as an example but but I think there I think you know we get used to doing what we have been doing for years and then it's hard to think oh maybe we could do it a little bit differently or do something else so I I think it's worth exploring it's definitely worth exploring any kind of grant opportunities that are out there and there's a lot more available to a municipality than of course in a kind of for-profit thing or 501 see I think the municipalities have a pretty good profile and exposure to grant opportunities so perhaps there's research that could be done into money that could be found to support these things most of our grant work goes towards taking care of the roads which is 90% of the activity that we do floodplain control but yes well I appreciate that we had a discussion because that's why I put it on the agenda for tonight right considering that we are coming up to the annual meeting and that we will be in the budget talking about $5,000 in the short term on repairs to the tennis courts a two-phase situation is that the goal I don't know specifically I have to dig in there to look at it I don't have that memorized I don't think there's been a proposal no tennis courts yeah I don't know where you got that number yeah but that wasn't what there's there's no it's not finalized there is no finalized but the un-finalized version is a long way is a long way from the final version yeah well that's why we're talking tonight to the only thing you've seen with the tennis courts over the past few years is a thousand dollars which goes into a reserve fund toward the maintenance of this tennis courts but we are looking at a need for $10,000 to upgrade the tennis court since FEMA rebuilt the tennis courts I think it's safe to say that any tennis court needs to be repaired within the seven to ten year period oh I'm not just but that's we are not looking at $10,000 or are we even looking at $5,000 in your un-finalized version if you were referring to the minutes that I wrote then yes that was a discussion that's as far as that went well yes it's a public document that it is a public document that was what went on in that meeting it that represented that meeting only are you able to give us an idea what you're thinking about for the budget no okay no no you can wait you want to wait and tell Mason I was in that meeting it was just a discussion it was a discussion I think it's a word it's a worthy thing to talk about and actually that they are talking about in but we talk about every spec of that budget ad nauseam yeah thank you yeah Joan speaking of grants and budgets and stuff I don't really have anything to report because I'm doing the same stuff I've been doing for the past eight months FEMA and Federal Highway stuff and filing all the information necessary for both agencies for reimbursement to the town yeah yeah it wasn't for the the paperwork that you take care of we would be looking at a pretty screwy budget thank you thank you two federal agencies yes thank you it is I don't see anyone here to report from the library tonight no no no cooter what's up on you had enough quiet weather to come to a meeting miss the bullet yeah we did miss the bullet yeah I'm going to a road posting seminar on February 4th the DMV is putting on over and off right I know it feels like spring already but just the same old grind so I saw you were beefing up the the back wall of the sand sifter yeah we're gonna have to do something with that yeah come spring the back wall is blown out of the concrete and just got worked in yeah gave up we sort of yeah so Terry yes everything's going good good still got somebody dumping water in on rainy days and so we're like I guess I just have to get up real early next time it rains there's some drain somewhere is every time it rains I take it so Terry what do you mean by that it's like some sort of someone's running a sump sump pump in the basement that's inflating the amount of water running through the system yeah so somebody on the town system is running a song yeah on site for two it's not anywhere any other ones yeah how do you track that to go down 3 34 in the morning turn covers and check the falls but if it's something that's hit and miss is it something going to be running if it's run a long ways way you know you're gonna see it it's tough like looking for needle haystack but the only time you do it is when people aren't using water so you gotta be early in the morning and you can talk about it in public means so maybe people realize that the some if they would just tell me you know I'd be glad to know maybe and help me figure out a way to do it yeah that wouldn't affect us maybe it's just a matter of information and maybe they don't know the people that had water running definitely know if they not pumping water ain't water where they're pumping the water to that's the big thing is where it's going because it's fairly recent within the last couple years we didn't actually put the system in we didn't have this problem so it's not something that's been going on for many years it's been just last three I would say two or three and sometimes it's not doing it so I mean but this last storm it did storm for it then so the inconsistency I look in so that makes you think it's not just a crack in the system that's letting groundwater in it's good yeah I don't believe it right because we check all the manholes every year so I mean you would definitely if it was a crack in the manhole or something we would see you all right thank you along with the new business we have a couple of applications for liquor license renewals for maple soul one for inside and one for out on their porch when it's summertime move to approve these second it non-favorite also have here that the contract that we approved a couple meetings ago with the SE group for the economic impact study and this is just the paper contract so I'd move to execute that second that long-favorite the SE group which is doing economic impact study on behalf of the town of Rochester Grandville in Hancock for the Delamond Trail project we're executing the contract to for the town to be the pass-through for a $15,000 contract which is going to be paid for with grant money that has already been secured then so we're just like we were talking about earlier how municipalities are in the position to get grant money this was another one of those situations yeah who's issuing that grant who is that grant the community development agency yeah thank you yes and the contract is with the three towns you said it's with Rochester but we we applied on behalf of the three towns so it's the town of Rochester and the 15 grant is being issued to what entity the SE group that's the contract for that's the engineers yeah I guess it's an engineering group and they're the ones that are doing the analysis of the economic impact potential economic impact which is one of the pieces of the the and so the SE group is being contracted by Rochester yes sir yes Rochester is the only town I'll say it again Rochester has made the application and we're applying on behalf of Rochester Grandville and Hancock so there's a half of Grandville yeah but Rochester is the one signing the contract but they are we they are involved in the application in terms of the scope of the study but those towns are not putting money toward this none of the towns are putting money towards this the state is putting money towards us yes do you anticipate that if they come back and say that it will be a big economic gain to this region that the town will be giving money because I the only reason I bring that up is I live in Ohio and we had a big we're having a big fight trail put in and they when they did the economics study they said oh this is going to bring in 180,000 bikers a year and we anticipate it's going to make this area as a report for Appalachian region of Ohio and so what the town was going to do was going to be chipping in 90,000 towards that for the foreseeable future because because they said well the economic gain is going to be so good we want you to chip in with you anticipate that in Rochester we've had no indications that that was the in the plan no yeah of course people could donate free bikes no no that'd be a conflict of interest yeah so we got that recreation I think oh yeah Harlan do you wanted did you come up with anything new about the book no I haven't I Nancy you did a little research and microfilm trying to track down an elusive trail and had no nothing on that so not yet no not yet see but the risk there's still hope yes there's always hope yeah yeah in Susan you had some to the questions posed by the lawsuit against the town to possibly be found in that cloud who knows who knows yeah I just wanted to thank John and the road crew it was so wonderful this year and I really appreciate that and particularly the previous year was so horrible really appreciate that and then the other I just had a question I had was using the library the other day and came out and sidewalk along the park there was really pretty bad and there was a member of a community who's deaf and almost blind and was really having a tough time walking I just was wondering who I know that there was a contract for the sidewalks is that correct yes there was a contract and then there was a the equipment breakdown which led to a lapse in the okay so maybe it was during that time but I was concerned about that and hopeful that you're not alone in that yeah yeah that's something that you anticipate will be it's as far as I understand it's the equipment is up and running now now that everything melted okay well now I just as someone who has arthritis and it's hard for me sometimes going short distances like that I believe me I agree with her yeah and I would love to see it you know we've always taken pretty good care of our sidewalks I think so it'd be nice to keep that up yeah try piggybacking on sidewalks when the library the sidewalk ends and then there's the distance from that to what gets plowed is that right away in that distance state or town property because they obviously they don't plow up tight to the side but what they leave there freezes overnight and it could be pretty treacherous for older people coming across to get those steps and I don't know how it could be dealt with it's just we need to acknowledge that's a hazard to spot yeah that is we do when they have a shot at it the town tries to attack it and when Mike goes to deal with the sidewalks see that's on his list it just freezes something yeah yeah yeah trying to yeah maybe we could find a grant for heated sidewalks yeah right if anyone else have anything I think that would be it just sign some bills and go home thank you all for coming out