 I'm going to call the meeting to order. John should be along anytime. I'm sorry, we're a couple minutes late. All right, let's get started. John gets here while we're discussing the tax, right? All right. Any public comment on items not on the agenda? That's a thing. No. So I have the contract for the lift. I think I sent to you a cliff maybe. Yes. So we can talk about that under the town hall or? Yeah, probably under the town hall update. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, additions or changes to the agenda? I guess that's an addition. Let's talk about the audit, Sandra. How are we doing? The audit continues to be ongoing. The auditors were last here on the 13th. That was two Fridays ago. They were focusing primarily on FY 18 at that time. They thought they would have a draft management letter to us within two to three weeks of that date. For FY 17? For FY 17 as well. They anticipate returning for one additional day. They want to finish up with FY 18. They don't think they'll need another day beyond that. And that management letter I would think would be out within four to five weeks after that. So most of their work now is being done in their office. They bring reports with them. I generate reports for them that they ask for. And they do their work after the death. Yeah, that's great. How's the NEMRIC working? You had some, I know you had some glitches. So NEMRIC is very efficient and I'm happy to be on it. However, Windows 10 and NEMRIC are not interfacing very well. Fortunately, if there's any critical information that has to be done that I can't afford to lose for whatever reason, I'll hop on one of the other computers that has the Windows 7 operating system. Are they gonna be able to fix that? I do not know. It may be that they cannot really fix that. So what we're seeing is a shutdown of the program. I don't have two NEMRIC programs up at the same time. That seems to help. And at random times, Windows shuts down NEMRIC. And it has not been with any disastrous effects. I had one instance which you are aware of where the effects were disastrous. A lot of sensitive data was lost several hours' work. We recovered that, we moved on from that. And so I'm just very careful. I don't know if there's a fix. I've talked to other financial people or one other financial person and it seems to be an international situation with Windows 10 not really being happy about it. Other towns are having the same problem. Other companies are having the same problem. Oh, mine. So I don't think Windows 7 is, I don't even know that you can purchase that anymore. I don't know. No, so it just seems to be the, we'll just work around it. Because it is so efficient, even with that it is much more efficient as an operating system to use. Things are going pretty good. Hi, John. Yeah, I mean it seems like, gosh there seems to be a way to have a fix to that, but. Sometimes it's just programs don't talk to programs. Yeah, they need to, yeah, it's just weird. Well, I don't want to burn up a lot of tech time. They do bill us for anything extra. And I have not received, he runs test after test. He's been on my computer for hours at a time. And there is no apparent problem anywhere to be found. And as I said, I don't really want to burn up too much more time. If it's a problem with Windows 10, which I am now beginning to hear about Windows 10 problems across the board, it just might be something we'll have to live with for the moment. Gonna work around it. So I see you have the grand list. So this morning the grand list, the final grand list was lodged. And that has several results in several things. You have a 2018 grand list, it's a final grand list. We have an as build entity in Nimrod grand list, which means we can program the town tax into it. We can accept the state information that comes to us. That would be homestead declarations and the non-residential and homestead tax rates. And that's grand list total is on this spreadsheet. This is a new spreadsheet that you had today, right? So initially they had run a grand list and then they updated it there. They really wanted to wait until the last possible minute. The 25th is their last possible minute by law. And they were satisfied that they got it as close as they could and the date and number. Yeah, I mean it's a little bit higher. A little bit higher than the grand, than the... Can you state what the number is? It is $2,013,117.46. So the higher... It's right there. It's right there, Nana. The higher your grand list, the lower your taxes. That's there's an inverse proportion to that. These are heart copies with all of your backup. So your town tax rate is composed of three elements. The actual town tax rate, which is your... Which results from dividing the amount to be raised in taxes as was voted at town meeting by the grand list. And that rate is 0.68373. So you kind of tweak and jiggle with that. We only go out four decimal points, not five. Okay, so six tax rates. Six, eight, three, seven, 30, yeah. Right, could you, would you do me a favor and kind of highlight, go down with me? Oh, this clip is dry. Oh, this clip, could you just go to, yeah. So if we then go down a couple more clicks, actually if we go down to the very bottom after the last highlight. Oops, you were there. Okay, that first grand list item. Okay, now we're not non-residential, so do we want to go back up? So you want to go down to spaces. Okay. There you are. Where are we? Here, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to take you back up. Okay. Go on back up. Six, eight, three, seven, all right. So we want to raise this by taxes. We're going to raise this by taxes. This is our grand list. This is one proposed rounded rate. Notice, of course, we're not going out five digits. We can only go out of four, right? Correct. So what you do is you're going to play with the last digit. That's really all that it boils down to. And this raises $6,800 less than what you agreed to at the town meeting. Okay. So it raises this amount. If could someone advance further into that? And so here we are with our grand list again, and we gg'd with the last decimal point. And that raises $13,400 more than the expenses or the amount of money to be raised on the grand list. So that is your first component. Those are your two options. Because you just, those are your two options. To raise a little less, or to raise a little more. So the next piece of this is, there should be one more sheet. What is it called? Yes, I said over, there's a recommendations, but is there another sheet over here that is the local agreement rate? Here, try that. Yeah, so let's hop over there. I didn't see all of them. So you have, we have another component of our town taxes. It's called the local agreement rate. And in this town, the local agreement rate is composed of two types of taxes. One is for the veterans exemption. And the other local agreement rate is for the non-contract values of properties. So I think, so those would be things like the, Admin, veterans, community or, yeah, okay. Exactly. Non-contract, I've never heard that, Sean. So it's, they're called non-approved, non-residential contract exemptions. So what it means is by law, the state recognizes certain entities that are not taxed. For instance, school buildings and churches are those examples that we know best. But you, as a town, your voters have the right to exempt other properties that are not recognized by the state. And so you do have a list of those properties. And in your handout, they are listed, they're in the grant list. Yeah, you know them, John. Yeah, I know that. I just never heard that term used. Yeah. So the value of those properties, of those contracted, let's see, what the state, we use the word contracted because the state considers the town having a contract with those parcels. And I see, I see. It's a weird word, right? Yeah. So that is the value of those parcels. It was the same as last year, by the way. Different than the school buildings, which are exempted by statute. State by statute. We have to make up the difference in the education tax amount for those buildings, right? Right. We're assessing, not assessing them. Right. The state assessment for the education tax still applies to those, correct? And that's right. And it's the non-residential tax rate that is applied. Is that correct? Yeah. Yes, correct. And because they're not residential properties, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, that makes, okay, that makes sense now. All right, question. So we reduce that by 0.01. And all the numbers that you basically are looking at are reduced by 0.01. If you want to see the full number, you would multiply by 100. So we use, we reduce by 0.01 to make the numbers more meaningful and easier to deal with. So when you see that happen, that is why, and the grand list itself that's printed, that's printed all the memory that comes from the state with the calculations that the listers put in also reduces the grand list by 0.01 to make it easier to use. So the non-residential educational tax rate this year is 1.6039. And so the amount of money these parcels would have contributed to the non-residential tax collection. It says, right, what they really mean is this is what they would have paid, is this 94, 34, 14. So we need to go and make sure we collect that from our townspeople so we can pay that to the state. So this is the same idea as our town taxes. We divide what we need to collect by the grand list. And again, we have a five digit proposed tax rate. So we're gonna play with that number, the next few calculations, we'll look at that number and round it up and down. So here's this 0.0047 and we wanna hop down just a titch. Up, nope, up, up, up, up. Yes, it's being cantanker stuff. Oh, it must be Windows today. It is. So we're gonna use 0.0047. And this is what 0.007 would raise, that 94, 61, 65. I expanded that number so you know in thousands what we're talking about because it's not $27.51. It's really $2,759 more than we need, right? We need that amount. But we would be raising 2751 more. So I rounded it down to see what would happen and to 0.0046 and then we collect 17,380 dollars less. So between the two, you'll decide which rate you want. I have a recommendation for you, but let's go on and take a look at the veterans' exception because that's the second piece of your local tax rate and it's just the second sheet you could scroll right down. Good, good, let me, there you are. Get him back, you'd be right there, you know. I do have a mark, it's a nice truck. Just a minute. So the number of Calis veterans are seven and the state, pardon me, and the voters of Calis voted the full exemption allowed by law, which is $40,000. However, the state only recognizes $10,000 per veteran. So once again, this is similar to the contract in that we are allowing for more than the state allows so we must go to our taxpayers and generate the amount of money that would have been collected from our veterans. The difference. If we did not, if we only allowed 10,000 and not 40 per veteran. So that amount of money, simple arithmetic, is $210,000. So again, we reduce that by one and what we need to collect is $2,100. And once again, we divide that $2,100 by our grand list value and our five digit tax rate is 0.00104. So then I played with that a little bit. Now we can go down and so I, there we are. So at 0.0011, it raises that particular tax rate raises $11,400, $43 more than we need. I rounded it down and that 0.0010 rounded raises $86,88 less than what is needed. So that one little decimal point makes a big difference and the reason it does is again, because we have collapsed these numbers by multiplying the number by 0.01. So let's go to recommended please. So it's tricky, right? So what I'm recommending is this that, and this is for your decision naturally, is that if your town tax rate is 0.6838, you're raising $13,400 more than needed. Your non-residential contract rate raises $27,51 more than needed. Your veteran's exemption rate, that one raises $86,88 less than needed. So your overall tax effort is over by roughly $7,400. We know what you're collecting. Yes, out of $1,300 in some amount of dollars. So we're collecting more, a little bit more. This recommendation would, and this is a real number, this is not an expanded number. And that's Sandra, I'm assuming you do various permutations and that is, if you combine the overs and unders in various ways, this combination produces the lowest over. There is one other combination that produces literally $59, or is it $39 less over. But your numbers, you would be selecting a number, you would be selecting a proposed rounded rate that raises $17,300 less than what you need. And I think that's less defensible. Right, so this is the one that produces the lowest over. The low, well, there could be another, there's the other combination that produces $39 over. This amount less $39. Yeah, okay, okay. But, and it's, you would just add them all up, but it's the rate that raises $17,380 less than you need. And that just feels, that's, I have a hard time picking a rate that raises so much less. The difference is ribbon and buy is not two. So the tax rate that is less than what we need. Don, I had a question. Yeah, I just want to, well, Jim Barlow told us we can't raise more than what we need. So that the non-res and the vets is what it is. So it's really what you're putting them around with is the actual town tax rate. Well, we're actually fiddling around with all three because we had six rates that we looked at. Well, when you set like the vet one, you know, you get as close as you can. You reduce all those decimals at the end. But it's really the town tax rate that then you're trying to get as close as possible to what you need to raise. That's right. And this is as close as we can possibly get getting the variable permutation of the last digits. I mean, Jim Barlow said we should never not raise enough taxes and not supposed to raise more than. Well, you don't want to raise more than. And that's absolutely right. If you can't, you can't go out five digits. You can only go out four. And that's a state requirement? Yes, that's the way the program works. And that is the way your tax rates work in the state of Vermont. So you do have choices. Save that aside and refund it. Or, or, or. No, I just kind of thought you were saying. You're already, you have income that is not going to come in. Your state aid to highway is down by a titch. Parent use is going to change a little bit. You have eight unknown age current use properties that Jen tells me that may change a little bit. Your budget, you may go over budget. It's really your call. So I don't know what you mean by those dollars aren't in. I mean, they're not going to be counted. They're not going to be the same amount that we thought you would be. But they are always projecting. Right. They're projecting 18 months ahead. So you make your very best. Right. Yes. And the state aid to highway is not off by much. Maybe a thousand dollars. But if you have three or four things projected income off by three or $4,000 to have the eight properties that you're talking about. They, Jen feels that they are going to affect the, but why rate their minimum? But why are they not? Because the state is behind. Okay. I know they were like 50,000 or something. I've never seen the email about how far behind they were. So they're still, they haven't gotten it. What, did we go? Apparently properties are not entirely through the state yet either. So this number actually, when all is said and done, is actually, so we still may be short. I mean, that is one possible outcome. So this is a projection as well. So it's a best guess. It's a best guess. So you can also figure this another way and only be $100 over. Right. So you can do this. If you would put on hand, if Sandra had another, I had another question. So we budgeted for current use 95,000 because that's what we had last year. But now the state's told us that we have 101,864, even that's a guess. So it's what, $6,000 more. But why wouldn't that be changed in the budget? You're, I already, I have a legal opinion on that. You have set your proposed income in your article and I may not change that. And what about the... That is your attorney, he saw that email. The town hall payment, is that gonna be the same, do you know? It is very close. I think it's a little more. I think it's closer to 49. You mean that's the long? Okay, so if we pop into this, if you go onto the first sheet, it's called expenses, it is what it's called. We can, would you do me a favor, Cliff, and copy that grand list number here to that cell? And to this cell? This cell? Your work at your, yes, please. Okay, then like that, let's try. Or to this type then. Yeah, I think that's gonna be the best one. Down below more. Below 69. Below, below. No, right there, right there. Yeah, I'll read it to you. 201, three, one, seven, four, six. All right, and then in this cell, let's scroll, oh here, I have it, let's scroll up, stay right there. And then in this cell, let's put 0.6895. 0.6895. We need to get that one. And that is from your second page of your package. It's a combination of the proposed, again, this is all, these are just exercises for you to consider. These are a combination of the three recommended grades, so you can see how that works. So we wanna multiply, this cell here should be the, whoops, this should be the sum of the grand list so the grand list multiplied by the total tax rate. That's 0.6838 plus 0.0010 plus 0.0047, the recommended rates, that are just, that's what we're working for, working with rate at the moment. So this is what we, this is what this combined rate will raise, 1,388, 44. And what we need to raise is pop over here. One, three. We need to raise one, three, seven, six. Four, three, six. Four, three, six. And then put this one in there. Ah, put this one above it. Sorry. Whoops. Right on, cause we're gonna do a, we're gonna subtract. One, three, eight, one, three. One, three, eight, eight, zero, four, four. No, subtract. And now this is going, we're gonna subtract this from that. Just show us how much extra we would be raising. 53. Yeah. 11,608. Now, go back to our local agreement rates and what we need to raise, it just use this cell here, and a cell to do $2,100. And underneath, $9,434.14. $9,434.14. We're gonna add them together down here. H61. It must be hard. It's on his screen, or just you have to look up here to see what he's doing. Oh, okay. Whoops. So, these two together give it, what we actually need to raise is $11,534.14. And we're gonna raise $11,680. That's the overage. So some tweaks happen, and this is your double check. You really, it is just simply my recommendation that these numbers work. Again, you can pop over to that first sheet where you can see what did that combined tax rate times the grand list produces minus what we're supposed to raise. And that is the overage, but it's not so overage according to that sheet we're just on. No, but we have to raise that in addition. So the local agreement rate, if you think about your tax bills, has two tax rates. It has your town tax rate, and it has your local agreement rate. And your local agreement rate is reflected by one number. It's the combination of those two. So a combination of those two rates is supposed to raise $11,500 some odd dollars, right? So we know that's based for those other amounts that were on the sheet. Exactly. So we know we need to raise that, but we're stuck in this four digit world when really a five digit world gets it. Exactly. What hit it on the head, we can't live there because that's how it is. So double check is to take that entire tax rate, town and local, modify it by your grand list, you get the total amount raised by those rates. The difference between what we have to raise by virtue of what was voted on at town meeting and what we actually do raise is this extra $11,608. So as you are reflecting, that's the extra local agreement rate, that's what we have to get, which is really $116,080 is what it amounts to. $116, what? $116, we move it over two decimal places. Oh, maybe it's not the only one. It's $116, so this is what I have found when I ran the numbers. You'd have a lot spreadsheet. And- So let's look at your recommended page. So the recommended page recommends those three which, and that is a combined rate. It's on page two of your packet. And that is the combined rate of 0.6895. But here's- Tell me, show me how far this is. Well, that's from your first page. And there's your combined rate, 6838.0010, 0.0047, so there it is. Okay, gotcha. So when I went about doing this, I proved it in a few ways. I looked at what we're actually gonna raise, but then the numbers kind of act in strange ways, which is, so you wanna do it a couple of ways. And what I found is that we're really very close to on target. And that's what gets us this $39.00 or $54.00? Well- Total overage. Well, I proved it in a couple of different ways. I looked at this, at this set of numbers, and you can select your other tax rates, but you just wanna be sure in the end that you move it. So what is collected in the end is very close as close as you can possibly be in a four-digit world, four-digit after the- So decimal point in the world. If we look at what we- If we look at the rate from last year, I don't have a calculator with me. What's the difference? Well, that is also on your sheet. So this is last year's rate. Oh, I see that, but what's the- This one is- Well, those, we can do it or arithmetically, I can do it. I did something earlier, and I think you've been in the spreadsheet since then, but I came up with $8.80 per 100,000 difference. $8.80. It's really quite small from a town- Yeah, does that sound about right to you? Yeah. Yeah. So you would just subtract here. Yeah. Oh, God, this is one of those things that goes by light, so. What is it? 6.895 minus 0.6844, yeah. And it's 0.0051, 0.005, okay. And this is the tax, the school tax, right? We don't have any. No. It's over. So, all right. So what you don't have to say so over is what the voters voted in article four, and that is your expenses and your total income, both reflected in article four. So we are combined by those parameters, and also by four digits beyond the decimal point while we're putting this tax rate together. So this is what I found, and you can work these spreadsheets as you like. And... So this is your recommendation, this 6.895? Correct. Oh, jeez, I didn't add them up. But that is the recommendation. You would recommend these separately. You mean the veteran's tax? The town tax veterans and the non-residential contract exemptions. And that would be on your page, too. And then... Right. And we would do it for both non-residential and residential. Oh, no, the town tax is only one rate, and a period of tax. Yes. Let's go board members. Questions, thoughts? I appreciate the walkthrough. Last year we had only one member, unless I'm just not remembering. Actually, last year you were probably given all of this, but you just didn't read it. I always send it to the smart board. Okay, so we certainly... I don't remember spending this time on the breakdown, which is good. I just went straight... When I got the packet today, I went straight to the... The bottom line? That's what I went down. Yeah, and now... Well, sure. So it was .6895 compared to what was the bottom line last year at point... 6844. And that's when I just asked Sandra how much of a difference is it from last year to this year, and it's .0151, and you figured that out to be $8.00 and two cents. Yeah, I can't find that. So, her 100,000? One way of looking at this, if you wanted to figure out what the difference is per 100,000 of assessed value. This year, per 100,000 of assessed value, you'd pay $689.50, and last year you paid $684.40. So per 100,000, that's the increase. We'll say it again. Sure. $689. $689.50 minus $684.40. That is your... So it's tax rate... So it's 55.01. So I was looking at some part right when I came up with $80. That's even less. Yeah, so it's even less. $5.00. $5.00 for 10 cents for $100. Right. Which... I think that's a really good... That's an important... Right. Important thing to know. Important bottom line. So I think we did a really good job budgeting, trying not to have much of an increase in taxes. I think we did it. Yeah, and I think it's important in light of... We've had some deficits in recent years. Right. I mean, I'm totally comfortable with this. I think you did a fine job. Yeah, thank you. I apologize for the lateness of this information. I believe I expected this. But fortunately, I had the basics last week and was able to... Well, and it was a glitch on the state and let's say it like, call it like it is. So, you know, our listeners work really hard to get as much information to you as possible. Because what happens then, any changes after this, as they go through an errors and omissions process, which you're familiar with, that does change the grand list, but that does not change the tax rate. Once we set it, it's immutable and we just live with what we've got. So, select board members, are you comfortable with the rate as recommended? All right. I'd like to thank some of the crew that walked through as well and the time that you put into it. This being my first go-around with it all in this venue, I really appreciate that extra explanation. I guess the question I would have would actually be for Donna. Looking at this and how it's put together, how does it compare to what we've done in the past? She's using my spreadsheet. Okay. Yeah, she's using the Donna Creator spreadsheet. If somebody wants to compare apples to apples, same thing. Line by line they can do that. Right, they can do that. Excellent. And this is the spreadsheet that I always liked. I have the old grand list, but I actually figured out how my taxes would be. Right. This spreadsheet that Donna originally created is really, really helpful. It really helps you to be able to lay it out. If somebody asks you a question, you can go back and refer to this. So, all right. So, I guess I will make a motion to set the 2018 town tax rate at the town tax rounded to 0.638. No. 0.638. I'm sorry, you're right. 0.638. The veteran's exemption voted by the town. The rate would be 0.0010. The non-tax properties are the contracted properties at 0.0047 for a total town tax rate of 0.6895. Second. Is there any further discussion or comments? All right, nice job, Sandra. Thank you. Discussion is all I have to talk to you about. I got it, all right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, motion carries. Thank you. I have one more piece of business. I have been, wrote this year aware of this. We have been opposing on our volunteers to make expenditures on behalf of the town and then wait to be reimbursed. The town has not had a credit card and then the past towns seemed to not be able to get credit cards. So, I didn't, there were a couple of recent reimbursements that required credit cards and our volunteers were gracious enough to use theirs. I did inquire of the bank today. If it was possible that the town could have a credit card so that we do not have to impose upon our volunteers. I must say, Katie had to put 100 bucks out. Denise has put out many hundreds of dollars in my short tenure year, many hundreds on her own credit card. Get the receipts. So, they say we can have a credit card and they will issue it on behalf of the town and our volunteers. If the select board is interested in going further with it, I don't have all the information so we're not asking for a motion tonight but I will talk to our bank in the next couple of days to figure it out. And that would help us when we need to do something, we wanna order something online so people don't have to use their own credit card, all that stuff. I think it makes perfect sense. And then there's also when we have a credit card we have the statements saying what it was and then there are the preliminary conversation with Shelley Quinn, our bankers that there are no fees involved and there certainly wouldn't be any interest involved because we would pay it. Just the same way we pay staples as soon as we get the bill, we would pay that bill or they would arrange to sweep it right out of our account. I don't have a question to you about that. So this credit card would be able to be utilized by anyone who we delegate? That would make my question. Responsibility to so I would hope that that the master major, the treasurer to charge that credit card and anyone who wants to use it would sign it out so we know they have it. I don't think we'd sign it out, I think that you would tell me who to call and I'd give them that credit card. Oh, you would hand, you'd maintain control of it. I think it would go to the cluster. Okay, you wouldn't pass it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, okay. I mean, first of all, that is your decision, how you want to manage that. We don't know all, I don't have all of the information. I bet our bank has some ideas. Her initial response was you could, because I asked about a debit card and her initial responses, yes, but debit cards come right out of your account. There's no warm process. That does not seem to be the best way to go. The credit card makes for spending special, we don't have any fees. And that was sort of my question, the same one as John's, is who gets these credit cards? And we just have one that basically, we call Sandra and say we need to order blah, blah, blah, and she, you do it kind of thing. Yeah, I'll give you a case in point which really kind of triggered this further inquiry. Katie came in, her computer, her windows had expired and it's not forever anymore. You have to pay a renewal fee and she offered to put it on her credit card. It was $100. So, that just ripples me. I appreciate it, thank you very much. And I know the select board appreciates it too, but so that and Denise's willingness and as I said the short time that I've been here, it's been hundreds of dollars. It turns out that we can have one if you like the conditions under which it would be granted and you can agree to how you would use it, I'll get back to you on that. Right, and there's probably some kind of a, something we can put in the purchasing policy or credit card policy or something like that, you know, to follow up that I think makes sense. And I think it makes sense, everybody agree? I agree, I do think though that we will want to have a clear policy that I like the idea that Sandra's the one who uses it doesn't just get handed it right. And then of course, the avoidance. We had that Port-a-Potty thing that came by that was just another $10. Did Donna have to like do 400 years on our credit cards all the time for the town? Right, but didn't you order to get the tax to the sales tax up there? If you're using your own personal credit card, they don't want to charge you the sales tax. So, there's a few extra steps involved. I think it's just kinder. We have great volunteers in this town. I am always overwhelmed with their service. And I think that going into their own credit cards is if we can have one and if it makes sense that that would be a good thing. So, I'll let you know. Yeah, no, that's good. I think it makes sense. I mean, I haven't minded using mine, but you know. Yeah, I know. If I didn't have to, that'd be fine too. That would be fine, it would be better, really. Yeah, okay. Anything else, Madam Treasurer or Delinquent Tax Collector Lady? I think we're down like $1,000 or $12,000 in Delinquent Taxes. That's great, that's great. So, we're rolling into a point 19 and really great shape. And you know, I can't take all the credit for that. Nadine left it in good shape and I must say I followed in her good stead. I did change a couple of things. But, nevertheless, we have enjoyed some, we enjoy a very low delinquency at this point in time. So, it's very good for us. So, when will the tax bills, we've just set the tax rate, when will the tax bills go out? The good question, the state has asked all towns or has recommended to all towns who have not already printed their tax bills to delay until July 27th. And that is a Friday, this Friday. I will program our grand list with our tax information tomorrow with Nimrick on a different computer on one of the other Windows 7 computers. But I will not print the tax bills until after the H.S. 122 declarations have been downloaded. So, you might not kind of print them until Monday, say. I might not print them until Monday. Because you might want to have a little breather just in case there's a glitch at the state level again. Well, you know what? That's exactly right. I don't know when on the 27th they will download. So, they go out on Monday. What's Monday is the 30th? They would be due on or about August 1st, as long as that is on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Well, they would be due on August 1st. No, September 1st, pardon me. September 1st is a Saturday Labor Day weekend. So, they would be due 1st, 2nd, 3rd, September 4th, which is your date last year, just so happens. Oh, okay. We will not need to take a note in anticipation of taxes. We're lucky in that way. This year we'll be fine. We'll be able to get to that point without any problem. And for those of you who heard about a memo and don't know about that, Denise and I are talking about a memo that I received from the state that said they were behind by 14,000 homestead declarations that should have been downloaded into the towns on July 1, but they were behind. And they anticipate was the word they used to be able to download them to the towns on July 27. Sounds like it says I'm glad I don't work with the tax. So, what they said is, I mean, in view of the Hawkins situation that there were 55,000 tax returns this year that required individual handling that there were, they weren't completed entirely. The income information was missing. There was the names were wrong, the span numbers were wrong, whatever. So, they want us to know they're working really hard and they hope to have that information. We should advise. Yeah. So, that's where we are. And that's an honor about when the tax bills will be due. Okay. All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Anything else before we move on? I don't have anything else. Oh, and I've got to tell you, Sandra has been working a lot of Fridays, so I've encouraged her to at some point take an extra day off, like a Monday or Tuesday together. And I think that's, I think that's earned. Well earned. Thanks for your agreement. Thank you. I'm going to take my kid to get her braces off tomorrow morning. How about that? Oh, that is a better day, three years. That's not what I meant. I know. Those are good days, congratulations. It is a great day. The town hall loan proceeds, by the way, were in. I gave you misinformation. My computer wasn't refreshing the day or the days that I was looking at our statement. They were in July 3rd. So our $200,000 for the town hall loan proceeds are sitting in our account. So that loop has been tied. Okay, so the money's there. Yes, it is. I believe I told you erroneously that it was not. Well, it's been, yeah, you said you were going to look. But it was, yes. Good, great, thank you so much. That was helpful. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome this day, but you don't have to. I have to go for dinner. Oh, no, let somebody else go. I have a heavy case. No, my husband knows. Just like we're meeting nights. I'm sure you bring beer home for Buzz. I think he needs one today. Oh, John, you've got no idea what you do, haven't you? I do. Alfred. So what's going on with the truck, the motor, all that stuff that we've been talking about for how many meetings, like, last three months? So I talked to them today. Did you finally get a hold of that person that wouldn't get back to you? Yeah, well, no, I've stepped down the ladder a little bit, and it seems like getting a lot further. Oh, OK. I've talked to the parts manager and the service manager. So we've found a motor, a new motor, which is not the option that we chose, I realize. But it seems like a better option over the whole scheme of things. A new motor to go in to replace the motor that... The bad motor, right? Right, OK. So who has that? J&B. And they, and I thought they told you they didn't. They told me it was going to be difficult to get the motor. You persisted. But through talking to the parts manager, they've found that if I order it tomorrow, it'll be here Wednesday. So is this a factory rebuild or brand-new motor? Brand-new motor, Crate Motor. They call it Crate Motor. Brand-new. So $30,000, let's see it. There we are. So the original quote that he gave us was 29... Well, the way back was $32,000. And then I beat him down to $29,297. Now he's given us a $5,000 discount. So it's $24? So it's $24,297. And that's complete. I'm making him give me... That's new stall? That's a truck going down the road with a brand-new motor in it. OK. But it's the same motor that flew just the same. It is. It's a brand-new motor. It's the only motor you can put in that truck. Right, right. I remember having that. I tried to put a different type of motor, a different brand, but I just know I can't do it. Right. So we're looking at $24,297 with a brand-new motor in that truck. And they're telling me that they can... I would have it back by the end of next week. Do it if I order it tomorrow. And then do it. And then we would trade that, though. Well, the jury's still out on that a little bit. They told me today that that truck with a brand-new motor in it would be worth $45,000. So trade-in would be $45,000 with the new motor in it, which is a good deal more than what we was hearing before, which also I will use as leverage against Charlie Boys. Because we've already called this the slot for the new truck. Right. And that would be trade-in value towards the lease zone. If we go that route, that route, we're also exploring the possibilities of selling it outright. We still have that, because it's still our truck. Right. We're paying to put in the motor in it. We can do whatever we want to with it. We can sell it to a wholesale, or we can sell it privately, or we can trade it in towards the new truck. So I think putting this motor in there does a lot for us. First of all, it gives us our trade value back. Right. Second of all, it gives us a truck that we can run from now until the new one comes, which is looking like January, maybe even February at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think we do it. I think we don't have other choices. I mean, it's a hit. We're taking a hit here. There's no getting around it. Right. But I think it's the best that we can do. No, I mean, I think you really. I mean, I've got a price from. Done a good job getting this. From Clark's Truck Center. And they were almost $40,000 for the same repair. Right. It's a brand new lower. Right. And we're looking at $20,000, $297,000, and installed. And the truck is ready to go. In a week. Two weeks. Let's call it two weeks, because it's, I mean, by the time I'm going to order it tomorrow, it should be there Wednesday. And he said he would jump right on to it. This service manager seems to be lots more willing to help. Yeah, good. So I say we get this thing done, and then we get it. We get it back in service. First of all, in second of all, we can still have a trade. Right. No, I think everybody's in agreement. Go forward. OK. As far as putting it back in service, would you use it in regular rotation, or would it be your not? I would set it in the back burner as much as I could. Just because of our greatest experience. But also, with that said, our spare truck is getting tired also. Does this come with any warranty? I believe the motor would have a one year warranty. Because that would be important to make sure. So in case this motor blows like the other one did, obviously we want to try to get rid of it within before a year goes by. But it would be good to know if it has a warranty in case this one blows. So we're not back to doing this again. One, is there a market? You said that the issues of the motor are well known. So you still think we're going to be able to? Well, I think we're going to get. Worst case, we just trade it. We're going to get $40,000 or $50,000 out of it. $45,000 to trade. Might be almost better to trade it, and then you've done with it. Right, right. Because if you sell it to somebody and then they have problems. Right, and you're going to feel bad. And it just turns into a sticky situation. And then who knows how much we might get if we try to sell it out right? I would go with the trade, it was me. Right, or even how long it takes to sell. I mean, we've had that problem before with trying to sell trucks or used equipment. And it just takes a long time to get the word out. Yeah, nice. All right, nice, yay. That's done. I've got a quote, just a robe today, for the equipment on the new truck. So there's no surprise, it's the same outfit that we did on the last truck. I mean, the one that they're putting the motor in already has the gear, right? Yeah, that's all. The new one. It's the new truck. The new truck that's gonna be. The one from Charlie Boys, maybe. Yes, and that's like 70, almost 72,000. That's for like the plow and all that stuff. The plow, the body, all the hydraulics, all the whole outfit. So I am very much relieved to be done with that one. Yeah, I mean, I give you a huge amount of credit out for sticking with it. Of course, of doing it. Negotiating, I think you did a really good job. Thank you very much. Yes, yeah. Yeah, great. Okay. Anything else? I had a couple things. Well, I can just say we can talk about the Jack Hill culvert a little bit. The culvert didn't get ordered. It did on my part, but the person that we sent it to, no longer works for the company. So in their words, it's set in a dark hole somewhere. The contract that we had signed. So it didn't get ordered right away. What happens is that we wait until August 13th before the culvert gets ordered. So we're only three weeks. Is Toby gonna post something else on From Porch Forum about that? He posted something. He posted the delay that it's gonna be delayed because the culvert didn't come. Okay, so we're all set. That is out there. The contractor was fine. He'd already mobilized. He had an excavator on site and was all ready to go. And that morning, I got word that the culvert's not coming. So I had to go and tell him, hey guys, take the rest of the day off because there's no culvert to put together. Right, so they weren't too unhappy about it. They were a little disappointed, but they did say that we're not gonna charge you. They could have charged us for mobilization. Yeah, that's not our call. No, but they still could have. Because now they got them mobilized to another job. But they were nice enough not to charge us for that. Who's the contractor? Corfinn and Corfinn. No, Gravel Constructor. Gravel. Yeah. Oh, that's good. That makes the relationship a good one. Yes, yeah. So I still think that we can get in under the wire as far as the school buses start up again. It's gonna be close. Yeah, it is gonna be close. Do they, yeah, because I don't remember this, they start before Labor Day or after Labor Day. I don't remember. They used before, right? Yeah, it's usually like they go to school for two days and then they have four days off or some sort of thing. But even if it's a couple of days, they'll have to just go around for a couple of days or something. Well, I mean, it's something beyond our control, so we wanna make sure if we, people understand that, that it's not anything on our end. Yeah, and I'll communicate with the bus company about what's the question on the problem. All right, I had just wanted to put on the agenda the Sandy Loose from the East Calus Church called me and their volunteers are tired. So they've got somebody lined up to finish painting the backside of the church. And I looked at the ROW that we had issued and we didn't, I think we stated in there, it was gonna be from this date to this date that they were gonna have the road closed. This time they don't even need to close the road. So I just wanted to let you guys know, don't think there's really a whole lot with you do as far as permit-wise, except for extend the date. And I think if we can put it in the minutes and I'll have to get Katie the permit number, but it doesn't amount to any closing of the road. You've agreed, you said you would provide, again, the barricade things. And it's only gonna be like a couple of days that this guy's gonna take and it'll be done. I think he's on schedule to do it like a couple of weeks from now. So does anybody have any issue? What's that? That's perfectly fine. I mean, I was just gonna do it, but I thought, well, we have time. Now, initially they were gonna do it like over the last weekend. And I had said, well, just go ahead and I'll talk to the board about it. But here's the permit number ROW01-2018. So we'll just extend the deadline. And I can attach a copy of the minutes to it. My biggest thing is safety traffic going through while there's a guy on the ladder and I'll be driving by there often enough so I can check out the scene and make sure that it's safe. Okay, perfect. Okay, last thing on my list. Re-appointing the road commission. Oh, here I am in the hospital. Do you think we should have? Hi, you know, I don't know. I mean, how about this guy? Is he a good negotiator? Is he reliable? Does he come up with ideas? Is he coming up with innovations? Yeah. Ideas outside the box, speaking of boxes. That flower box I did. That was really good. That was hard. That was a hard one. We were down at North Calus Bridge and you know, the whole thing with the wooden guard rail thing. Versus the rest of it. And we were kind of trying to like, what can we do? We can't really afford to put in at the cost of $15,000. Wooden guard rails. We could put a fascia on the front of it. And then Alfred came up with, well, how about if the town builds you some wooden flower boxes and attaches them to the guard rails. And Alfred's even gonna help them plant. No, no. He's gonna tell. We, you are what you mean, right? Right, right. The other bridge has boxes, right? Don't they have flower boxes in there? I don't know. I think they do. But it was a really good suggestion. It satisfied everybody there. It seemed like the meeting turned right around. Oh yeah. No, I mean, so it was a really great idea. So I mean, I have to say, you're... And most people were struggling with $15,000, not everybody, but the $15,000 price tag is really, it's a game changer. Well, and so anyways. Just for aesthetics. Right. And I thought they'd look fine. I thought those guys would find myself, but I don't live right there. And we did sort of say we would do those. We're never doing that again. Yeah. Right. Right. It was well intentioned. But anyway, so back to that. So I would like to make a motion to reappoint Alfred as the road commissioner. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And you oppose hearing none. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Can you show them through once again? We try. Yeah. So who's going to build the window boxes? You or? We'll do it as a team. We'll do it at the shop. Yeah. We'll do it at the shop. We'll do it as a team building. Yeah. Now what about the issue of them being made out of pressure treated? Yeah, I know we'll have to use hemlock. Hemlock is probably a better word for that. And you're going to have rain days this week, I think. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Yes. I have one question before you go on the town hall. Okay. So have you stopped over and talked with us guys at all? I almost did today, but I was. Oh, okay. I was. Is the deconstruction work's people are there? Yeah, this was their first day. Okay. You know, and they're going to loosen up the back for all of them to tear down. Yeah. Well, I'm sure they haven't done yet, but. But they know they're going to do that. Mm-hmm. The MP3 are about to finish, so, okay. You mean the container? Yeah. So I told them to start cutting things off at any time. And what do you mean? I thought, is Alfred going to take stuff to the dump? No, on Wednesday, they're going to. So it's going to come and switch out those two that are there. We're missing a 30-yard one. Okay. Because I know Alfred talked about taking some stuff and just having to dump it in the back. Yeah. That's an emergency situation. Okay, so we're not doing that at all. Okay. That's good to know. We're not right now. I mean, if we're there and the box gets full. Yeah. And we've got one load of stuff that's going on one of our trucks. Right, exactly. So we can clean it up and get it done. Right. Okay. Good enough. So that'll work. Yeah. I might steal my excavator before then, just because right now. I get a couple of jobs waiting for me and tomorrow's weather doesn't look too bad. So, but as soon as they get that cut, I can, somebody should be there taking pictures of that or videos of that. Well, Steve Mills is calling us. Oh, and? I don't know if we have the time to register. I guess one of us has to call him back. But that might be good. That comes down. It's not going to be dramatic. That might be. Yeah. I don't want to. Well, it doesn't land on top of the yesterday. Yeah. So will that, coming down from all, Steve, happened this week? Pulling it off? I really doubt it because the dumpster's not going to be there until Wednesday afternoon. And then I've only got one more day of the week. So, I'm guessing it'll probably be the first and next week. Okay. Yeah, I didn't think, I think deep instruction works. Tell Scott it would take him two days. Do you remember? To deconstruct the interior? Yeah, so I don't know. It might take him longer than they think. Yeah. Well, I will stop by and check it out. Just be on standby. Stand by. Okay. So, while we're transitioning, in case we're still on this top, I have to leave at 8.30. Right, I'm after 8. Yeah, so I may leave in the middle. I'm picking a friend who's sending her 11-year-old to spend a month in Vermont. I have to pick him up at the airport. Oh, wow. Yeah. That must be hard for the mom to do. It's, they live in Japan. She's from New England. Oh, wow. So, he's born and raised. So, if she's... So, this is good for him? It'll be really good. It'll be really fun and really, really good. But I'm the one he knows. So, I definitely have to be there and be there. Right. So, that'll be my, that's the reason for my exit whenever I'm making. All right. And... Thank you, Alfred. Anything else? I'm all set. Yeah, you're all set. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you again. Great time. All right. I just want to remind, I didn't, Judy didn't need to come tonight. I just wanted to remind you folks that the primary election is August 14th, which is the day after the select board meeting. Judy will put out her normal email looking for volunteers. I don't know what people's time is like. I'm usually always available to do it. So, it's a Tuesday? Whatever she needs. Yeah, it's Tuesday. So, if you look for Judy's email and you're able to do it, we're trying to keep the number of people here limited because we're gonna have to have stuff set up all around. I was in here on Sunday, reviewing the warrants and all that. And Donna and Judy and Barbara were in here testing the tabulator. So, I just want you guys to know that there's a lot of work in the background that goes into getting ready for these elections and a lot of time and effort. Donna, volunteer, her time. Actually, I'm actually charged for this time, please. Okay, good. Because I know you've met with Sandra several times on different things. So, just keep that in the back of your mind that it is a lot. I went to, Judy and Barbara went to two different trainings. I went to one that was at the Montpelier City Hall. I don't know, maybe it was last week, I can't remember. It was Will's sending from Secretary of State's office and his crew and going over the primary election stuff and all that. So, I did attend that as well. And that was an evening thing, so that was their time as well. So, just when we're remembering to say thank you, a lot goes into this behind the scenes before we even get to election day. And I told Judy and Barbara that I would be here for after the school was done. Counting and all that. Well, the whole tabulator thing. Right. It was a checklist, so we pulled that out. Oh, you found the checklist? Yeah. Okay, good. So, anyways, that was just a heads up to be looking for that. And if you can volunteer some time to help, that would be greatly appreciated. Town hall renovation. See if John Bright can do this. Is he keeping Sandra from making dinner? Yep. Oh, well, I'm waiting for John. Here are, I'll send these around for signing. The whole bunch of places to sign now and now that we have all this number of stuff. There's the road commissioner orders that every page needs to be signed. There are, there is this here that needs to be signed. I hope you didn't approve that motor. You snooze, do who, right? Ha, ha, ha. This is the, which one is this? This is cemetery stuff, I guess, that we need to sign. And I'm gonna ask Sandra about these. Remind me when we do staff meeting on Wednesday about these. And then there's the payroll stuff to be signed. Denise hasn't seen this check yet. Okay. This is another stuff to be signed. Just if there's a whole bunch more places now to sign than there ever was before. So I'm gonna start this around. So we're just getting ready to do the town hall update, John. We guys wanna start. Are you all aware of the gifts that we received? No, no. Heard a rumor. So we received a gift for the town hall for $200,000. Wow. That's pretty amazing. So the donor's anonymous right now, but will not be forever. And we actually have the check. It was made. So we just deposited the check. So it means we can do some things that we didn't, that we thought we were gonna move off to phase three. We can paint the outside of the building and sand the floors. And we have to replace the floors. Yeah. I mean, there's tons of details. We don't have to go into all the details of that building over there, but I wasn't sure whether it was ready for public. Yeah, it's a, and so we're going to be doing less fundraising. I talked to Christina and Shawna in the fundraisers we were working with. Apparently, historic preservation wants to continue the demo in some fashion. I don't know how. We're gonna continue to pursue foundations. And maybe in the end, have some kind of a fund that we can invest that helps maintain the building. Let's see where we are at the end of the project. Isn't that great? That's great. I was speechless for you, or not. You were speechless. I was. That is truly amazing. Wow. And I'm not speechless, but I am. Don't you laugh. So really some of the real stuff started today. Deconstruction works is the company that is deconstructing the inside. The wreck in the place inside. Yeah, yeah. I think it looks pretty good. Yeah. How was there? Really open and big. Yeah. The wall with the line from the 84 flood, that's, they saved the wall aside. They did. Oh, that is so cool. I'm glad they saved that. We can't put it back. We're raising the building to the feet. We have to put the line lower. So I was like, oh my God. Yeah. You can mark it lower. Yeah. Well, John said he saw evidence of other floods when they started tearing through. Really? It's interesting. There's part of the old stairways exposed that will be getting covered up a little bit. But right now, you're going there and you see this. That's really cool. That's very interesting. So you're taking the pictures. Yeah. Yeah, we're documenting it, because I think at some point it'd be nice to hang up some pictures in the town hall when it's done. And just so you know that that addition is being torn off is not part of the historic structure. That was actually built in 1984. So it is not part of the historic piece of that building. So I just want to make sure you guys are all aware of that in case you hear rumors otherwise. So you're going to have the excavator crew to rip that one down, they said? Yeah, I hope it's going to last. It's easier, quicker. I want to watch that. So what else do I want to show you? Let's see. We want to sign the list of contract. We'll always go through a quick list first. So Gettys, the building lifter movers coming August 1st. They say we'll only take two days. Do you want to say anything about the foundation? August 1st, you said? August 1st. That's like a week from Wednesday, isn't it? Yeah, it's soon. You don't have a hard concrete guy yet. Scott's working on an RFP. We're going to send it to Singleton, Gendron. And I think it's Sears. Yeah, I think it's Sears. Yeah, I've got it on my notes. So who did the concrete? I know I talked to John a while ago, the concrete up at the Chamberlain Place on Apple Hill, where they did the faux granite. Well, that was broke out. That was broke. Is he being solicited? He's such a wonderful job. He's doing the chimney. What do you have him do to finish work on there? I've been on the A-ditches foundation for a long time. John, he's here. John, he's doing the chimney. You ever come through the chimney? He's already been working on it. So we're having the internet and the phone move to the telephone pole. Thank you so much. I got completely bogged down. That was just ridiculous. That took like four phone calls. And the WEC's coming to do that, right? And John and John, we were trying to get Andy Feliz to build the pedestal. Timing didn't work out. So John, yet again, got something he shouldn't have had to do. But still, it's time consuming. We're using Dan Cowell as the electrician for this piece of it. I'll expect that. And John has totally specced out the electrical schedule and what lights go where. And we reviewed that with Cliff and Denise at the really pretty meeting. And now he's working with Alan Gould, which is for emergency. For emergency. And he's a, is he a mechanical engineer? No, he's a medical, but he's going to design, tell us what the fire alarm consists of, where the little stations go, where the exit lights should be, exit signs should be, et cetera, et cetera. And we're looking at a generator, like we have here, that will come on automatically, not when you got to go over and crank it and fill it with gas and all that. John met with J.O. Reardon's. We finally have. Oh, you did. Yeah, that was good. Jim O'Rear. Jim O'Rear. Yeah, we've got a real good handle on that. And didn't you meet with Labor and Industry today? We came home happy. I came home happy. OK. Really? Wow. The reason is? I should explain it. There, if I was just going by the book, it would be a completely different design. But Kevin's in a historic building. They cut a lot of slack, which is great. As you're trying to design, and you have no idea what's the slack and what's not, what's not. Oh, I see. So there was a component to an accessible egress route, which might have added another three feet in length through the rear addition. Fortunately, we don't just not require because it's an old building, so we're good. Everything was good. Good. Yeah. And that being said, there's still good access in egress and handicap access will be still. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, they wouldn't have let us slide if they were doing anything of it, but use our address. Good. And I'm trying to encourage John to submit an invoice. This man has worked nonstop day and night, late nights, weekends, and he deserves to get paid a portion of what he's doing. That's going to be undone to get him to do that. Right. Because it's not right. One thing Jim O'Rourke did say is he wanted us to have Clearwater come. Clearwater filtration. Good idea. It does the system here. Yeah, it does the same water. So Clearwater can just come and deal with this place. So they're coming on the 30th, which is, I guess, is that next Tuesday? July 30th. Yeah, so they'll be John over there. It's a Monday. So I have, do you want to talk about the lift at all? Why? There's nothing new here. We all knew the amount of this. You have to pick a color. But this lift, though, the money to pay for the lift, though, is coming out of that. That's a major accessibility expense. And if we want to do the embrace of that, we can't actually spend that money to go after someone. Right. When I talked to Bob Weber tonight, he's the, he died at Accessibility Solutions. Yeah. And, you know, you can sign that. But then we have to choose a color. John has to verify the dimensions. And he's worked with other historic buildings that are funded by cultural facilities grant. So I will know on Wednesday. So I said, can I just call you on Wednesday and let you know if we got the grant or not. Because if we didn't get the grant, we could, this isn't the money. This Wednesday? I'm supposed to know. This Wednesday. Oh. I thought it was like August 1st. No, August 1st. Okay. Next Wednesday. So if we don't get the grant, then, you know, we'll have to pay the total price. Right. He's looking for deposit, you know, to go with the contract. And I said, well, you take less. If you do get the grant, can we just give you a little bit of money? And then we just decide, what just wait and see if we get the grant. Well, it says on this that he wants 87. 87. Right. But I think he'll take front. Okay. So I'm just thinking that. And this is not signed to deconstruction, they say no. The 2400. Is there a check there for them or? I, there's just the stuff. So I would imagine you could probably get it tomorrow. I'm not supposed to be working on that. Okay. But she was able to issue a check on that. Yeah. Yeah. We just signed off on the check. Okay. So you're looking for the board to approve us signing the accessibility systems paperwork for the lift, which we hope to cover it with the grant. The grant was 35,000? Yes, 30,000. It's for the lift and for, what's the other thing? Well, anything. It has to do with the bathrooms, right? Oh, the bathrooms. Yeah. I'm just going to start with the underslab. And that's Vermont Arts. That's a Vermont Council on Arts grant. Right. Yeah. Really? For a lift. Yeah. I know. And it has to be all kinds of code requirements from the labor industry. And that's another reason to get a generator that's going to come on automatically if there's something going on. If there's something stuck in the elevator. And this guy is the guy. He's probably the only guy, right? Yeah, he is. Well, there's some other people. Well, Lisa Ryan, who works for Preservation Trust of Vermont, she said if you can find any other vendor out there, please let me know, because for the grant, we were supposed to present three different bids, but they just don't have three different people out there. But the Arts Council understands that. Okay. So would the select form like to authorize me to sign this contract with accessibility systems? Yeah. Basically what he said was send him the contract. He can't order it until John checks the dimensions and we choose a color anyway. So we'll just wait till August first and see if we get the grant. So it's comes with its own wall or something or surroundings. That's a real cap. It's a real, like a micro elevator. Really? Doors. The whole thing. Like this guy's got doors on two sides. Really? So the third stop directs out a side door on the same level as the stage. And then you go right from there to the stage. Arts Council love that. This is cool. This is standard stock type equipment. It is actually. So I make a motion to approve Denise signing that contract with them for the lift. Okay. One second. One second. We just call this part of the grant too. Any further discussion? I'd just like to ask a question. What state was the elevator invented? I don't know. Alex is not here answering. What state? What state? Was the elevator invented? You know, Alexa, right? Oh, August and August invented in Illinois? Wisconsin. No, Vermont. Windsor Vermont. Really? Yeah. Just like those stone stones. Well, yeah, I don't know about that. Donna, do you want this or do you want me to keep this? I want two copies. Can you make like five copies? Because when I start a file for this, I'll need a copy. He wants me to send him two side copies. Okay. All right. Now the last thing about the town hall. Oh, yeah. I'll go up for it. All those in favor, please say hi. Hi. Hi. All right. I'm going to bring up the other issue once you have something more. So we had our DRB hearing last Thursday to talk about the application, the permit applications that we filed on behalf of the town, which you know about. And there was some quite a lot of discussion and we decided that really this is a two-phase kind of thing. There's the, and this is why I wrote off the fact that the one with demolition on the back is not a historic piece of the building. It's really just about the raising and the moving of the current building. That's the first piece. The second piece and we'll have to file a new application for this would be the change of use when we get ready for that. And if you go back really in the historical documents, uses technically really aren't changing all that much. We've been very clear that the main use of that building is municipal. We've been very clear about that. The building committee has been very clear about that. And if you look back to Lady's Home Mission, they used to do dinners, sewing bees, quilting bees, poetry reading, you know, shindigs, whatever. That was really the historical use of that building. In between town meetings and other towns. Right, right. The upstairs piece basically. The downstairs is really reserved for municipal space other than the kitchen piece of it. So anyway, so we kind of had this discussion with the DRB the other night. And I have a letter here that I'd like to sign on behalf of the Select Board to officially ask the DRB to break this into two separate pieces. You got the piece that we have right now, which is the raising and the moving. And then later on, because we don't really have a good time frame for when we might start using the building for different things other than, I don't know what else. So I'd like permission to sign this, the letters right up there. And who would appear on our behalf to present this into the record. So we're authorizing you to present this and speak to this as well. Right, and there's a continued hearing of the one from last Thursday night to tomorrow night that I'll plan to attend. But I'd like to get this letter to them as soon as possible. Even before the medium, I'd like to scan it and send it. So if this is acceptable, it's good. So it's pretty just straight forward, straight to the point. All those in favor, please say aye. Okay, so that's done. Anything else you want to say about the DRB here in John or Donna? No. Quite uneventful is my understanding. Nothing. Usually you expect flak from the people attending, you know. This is all coming from the DRB. It was kind of the other way around. It was very disappointing because we've had so much cooperation from labor industry. Everybody else. I'm saying it right to the camera. You know, Division of Historic Preservation. The select board. The select board. The town. The town voted $20,000. Right. And there were too many alternates and too many. There are too many people that didn't know. Well, and I'll say we have a legal opinion. And I knew this, and I've said this before. The DRB has no authority to appoint alternate members on its own. They have to be appointed by the select board. Let me hear it. Right. So going forward, they'll probably behave a little differently. Right. Because we constituted differently than they were at the last meeting. They really don't have much on their plate. Apparently not. Right. The DAB is playing with any historic change. Right. And that's really what the focus is right now. So we've got to remember, and in fairness, I don't think any of us even thought about, oh, we have to file an application. Yeah. You know, we've been so busy doing everything else that it's like, duh. And then we tried to make it so that it was everything, and then we got stung. Right. So it's like, you know, we tried. So you're going to buy for Katie. Right. And I think that makes the most sense. It makes it cleaner all the way around. And then we can do the change of use thing and do a really good job. I've got to say John did a fabulous presentation. I mean, he answered every single question. And then some that they asked that weren't even within their purview. So I think, you know, there was a real good faith effort made to give them a thorough picture of everything. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. Right. So if I might ask a question, it's related to the historic district and historic building, but not the town hall. And Dom is here. So I thought you might have a little bit of intel. What, how's the progress going on the rebuild of the OS Church steeple? I saw, did they put a roof that I see on that structure? They put it on the remnants of the old roof framing system. It had the bell curve. I really appreciate it. Wow. And back the entire spire hasn't been put on yet. So right now it just has a piece of wood that you want. But right, it looks like a bell. Looks like the giant giant is going to pick it up and ram it. It's so cute. Right. Sharon, did you, I know you're going to have to leave. Did you sign the orders? I haven't yet. But you guys have, we have enough. You have enough people without them? Yeah. Without me. Okay. Yeah, it joins on the building community of that. Okay. On the trailer. Of course you guys are. Some people just don't think we're too powerful. Yeah, you carry power. Why don't you volunteer to do it? That's a real high level job. No, I know. Well, usually the people that complain and stuff the most, it's like, you know my motto, if you complain, you shall serve. Then they vanish. And then they vanish into thin air. I am interested in the next item. At this point, we didn't get to it. Do you expect to make a decision tonight? I would like to make a decision on that. Yeah, I would like to. Would you like to weigh in quickly before you leave? I, I, yeah, sure. Are we, wait a minute. Are we done? Yeah, sorry. We're done with Town Hall stuff. Good night and thank you. See you tomorrow night. I just close everything out. I think we're really just at this point talking about what do we think about even thinking about? So you're not going to make it. No, no, there will be a decision. There will be a decision, but we're not going to. That's possible now. Right. Okay. I think, so I made, I made a sort of, I'll just, I'll just step back and give you my sentiment. With, you know, kind of, it was an interesting juxtaposition to see this coming up at the same time that we've been talking about consolidation of schools and what it needs to be a community. And I thought that I could understand why Berlin, Berlin, Berlin would want a, They're way bigger than us. Way bigger and a different, very different kind of community with all of the industry and businesses that they have. We don't have any of that. We don't have any of that, but we do have, when I sat down and thought about, we have a lot of activity in our town that would be affected by a permit. And I mean, I thought about it the same way I did, but I just, I think that this is not, that an ordinance like this is not how we solve the problems that so far have come up. And I would rather see us solve them as a community in the exact spirit that we talked about in the context of the school. We're a small community. We know each other in Berlin. There, you don't maybe know your neighbors. You do call the authorities and there's some ordinance to kind of back you up. But here, I feel like the way that we solve the problems at least that so far have presented themselves are just by talking to our neighbors. Well, and that's exactly what happened at the bridge. Exactly. So, so I would, I would really want us to see, I would want to see us continue to talk about our community in that way. As a community where we know our neighbors and we talk to our neighbors and we don't, we don't, we're a small town. We don't need, and really, if we wanted to call it, so we'd probably, managing this kind of apparatus is, we've got to control it very quickly. It's not who we are. No, and also the piece that I thought about too in addition to that is just catching up on that. I forgot to get you guys to sign that last meeting. This is for the admin co-operative way that we have. Great. But there's also the piece of who's going to enforce that. Right. And once you have it, people will expect it to be enforced. And there will be kids running by bicycles or whatever. And people, it'll be, it'll look like, you know, yeah. So anyways, thank you and go pick up your kid. Yeah. That'll be fun. Have a wonderful vacation with him or time. Oh, you guys will see. I mean, he's going to be here for a month. And taking in, you know, what it means to be a, you know, he's American. Well, he's half American, but he hasn't been here. Well, he's visited, but you know, this will be his first trip. Kind of like the first year Japan trip. Yeah. From Tokyo to Calis. Oh, that's pretty cool. So like, yeah, I'll bring him to on the 12th or the day or whatever it is. And yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really, it really is fresh air, right? Yeah. It really, it really is. Okay. So thank you for letting me speak my, share my thoughts. All right. So Pat, then he goes, I sent him an email with the agenda. Told him it was going to be on. Invited him to come. Pat, from the year. I haven't seen him. And he's the one that has was originally the one that put out the request that we have a special events ordinance because they are periodically bicycle tours, you know, runs. And people have set up water stations near his driveway. He felt like people were looking in his windows, things like that. So I thought we should talk about it and see where we are as a town on this issue. And he's not here the way in. So I'd like to go around the table. Rose, we'll start with you. Sure. I agree with what Sharon said. And I did have one call from another towns per member of our town and expressed the same sentiment that Sharon expressed. And what I had been feeling is that, you know, that the culture in town, our community in town, the size of our town, there's so many different reasons that, you know, I really don't feel that we need to have a special permit or an ordinance of this effect. And I agree. If something comes up, we deal with it and we touch our community and move forward from there. But I don't think we need to add another level of government and who's going to enforce it and so on and so forth. So, and I think that's one of the nice things about Calis is that, you know, Adamate has the Black Flag Festival and Maple Corner has their little things. And there's different little things that go on in addition to all the happenings at the school. And we want to promote that because that's what makes Calis special. So I agree that I think that we gave it some discussion and deliberation, but it's not a right fit for our town at this point. Claire? Yeah, I would certainly second everything that's been expressed for a small town. We can always communicate that's the key to success. It's conceivable that something could come up, some event, larger in scale than what we're used to. And I think we would deal with it then with that in mind. The only thing we might want to consider, and I'm not saying we should, but just to throw it out there, if we wanted to have something going after saying that we have a policy in place that there's going to be event that's larger than X number of people. I wonder, is there some kind of labor and industry regulation that if an event is so many people, you have to have board of parties and you have to hire sheriffs, isn't there some kind of, we shouldn't make a note. If you can make a note in a minute, Katie, I'll check it out. Because there might already be something statewide. Public safety. Public safety that if there's an event of a certain number of people, someone's concerts. I think usually where there's food dispensed, you can't wash facilities. But I can check that piece out just to see if we're covered in that respect for really large events. But I'm sorry, were you done? That's exactly what I wanted to bring up. John? So I know that I read Mr. Finney's Patrick Finney, my neighbor, he's my closest neighbor to the south of me. I consider him a friend. And I saw his concerns and there was some e-mail conversation that didn't make it into the formal record here. I'm willing to provide it if anybody wants to see it. It's not much. But the clerk was included on that. I think these was very least I don't know. I think he initially contacted the clerk, didn't he? Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know that. So, you know, he was concerned about a water stop related to a race that was headed out of Adamant. It's an annual event or something like that. It's like a pre-marathon kind of warm up race to like Queen City Marathon in Burlington, generally. And the water station was there. I don't know why they put it where it was. It was an issue for him. And I have offered to the race organizers. They could, and they had years ago, they could again set the water station up in front of our property. It's just seven-tenths of a mile off the road. And we actually have a hydrant there that they could use for water refilling. So that might make it easier on them. So then, that's in dealt with. Mr. Finney was concerned about people being able to view inside his home in the daytime. There's this kind of angle of refraction or something. When you have a light on the outside of a window in the daytime, you cannot see. It's nearly impossible. Maybe you can see the shadow. It had screens to that. It makes it all more difficult. I stopped in front of the south. I walked around from the road and could not see anything in the daytime. At night, the light's on, probably. But that's all of our houses. My house is right uptight to the road. A lot closer than his is. So that's kind of my view on that. And I don't think anyone's entitled to privacy if the window's open. If you build a house within, I shut up the road. I bought a house knowing that where the house was. And he built a house knowing that he was waiting to house. So that's kind of my sentiment in that. But he did raise this specter of liability for the town. I know that Denise consulted with our attorney. And that's kind of an attorney client. But regarding liability, I was looking. I looked at the court duty provided us as a possible template, a special event ordinance that was developed for the town and is in play in the town of Berlin. Yeah. And referenced it. I'm going to do that. You know, right now we're not involved in these races, bike race, running race, you name it, you know, fundraiser. It's not, we're not involved. And we set an ordinance in place. And the basis of that ordinance is to reduce risk to the participating public or traveling public where they interact with that. And we establish a set of rules, advisements, standards that are there to protect the public. And what if there is a situation that arises, someone gets injured, someone gets seriously injured or worse killed. And then the loved ones of that injured person say, well, the town had 10 requirements, but they forgot the 11th. And that 11th would have saved my son or daughter or husband or wife from this, you know, running along the car or something. I don't know. So I see that putting standards like that into place actually creates a liability for the town. I agree. And then with that concern, I would not take this lightly if we were going to put an ordinance in place. I would see we would be, you know, creating risk and liability for the town unless we hire an expert. And then that gets into money. So I think I could talk more about that, but I won't. And I believe that the smartest thing, the safest thing for the town from a liability standpoint is to not get involved. And I don't see any of this. I think the race organizers are very well organized. They have people on the run. There are some impromptu small bike gatherings, but they're like five people in that formal bike races that I've seen. And there's little parades in Maple Corner. Right. And Black Flag Parade. All these things have not really been an issue. It's just one more layer of government. Yeah. And it's another thing for our people in this busy office to do. Something to manage. And there's a long list of grievances I have with even the idea, the prospect of this. And lastly, Berlin ordinance, like Denise and Sharon said, you know, Berlin's got how many traffic lights and dangerous, I mean, they'd be crazy not to have an ordinance. And I don't think they had a safety expert review their ordinance. Wayne Lamerton, if they haven't, you might want to look at that. So, you know, I guess in some way, I would oppose any effort by the select board to try to put an ordinance in place to regulate this. That's neat. And I would just second and echo all the comments that have already been made. The enforcement piece, I think it does, in a sense, make us create liability that we don't currently have. And we are a small community. We talk to each other. People call us at home. They send us emails. It's not like we're out of touch or don't communicate. Berlin is huge. And they've got a lot of paved roads. I mean, that is a whole different community than what we are. So, do you think that we need to make a motion that we're not going to... I think the minutes can just reflect our sentiment. Which is not to take action. And we actually haven't developed an ordinance anyway. It's a conversation. But at this point in time, we don't feel... I think it's unanimous agreement not to pursue a special event as ordinance might be reflected in the minutes. There's been no compelling reason for rationale. I mean, really, I've gotten maybe two phone calls about events that have taken place over how many years. There's one that goes by my house because it comes from Woodbury. That whole route there. The only thing is... I'm not sure my dogs are behind the fence, so they don't chase anybody. I think we're done with that, right? I am going to send this around. This is the grand list that we have to sign off on. Next up. So a concerned citizen raised the issue of wanting to be able to look at the documents Selectport had in Google Docs. And that's a legitimate request that those documents be available to the public. So I wanted to talk to you guys about this. Because what I'd like to suggest is that Cliff and I work with... Scott, who is the original person that set up the website and did all that stuff, and Katie, who's the one who's been doing documents, to see if there's a way that we can set up a Google folder that anybody in town or anybody in the world wants to access to see what documents we're going to be talking about at the meeting. I have an answer. Yes? We can do that. So rather than take everybody's time here, I'm suggesting that Scott and Cliff and I and Katie chat and get back to the board with the suggestion and then see if everybody's in agreement to approve how we might do that. And I thought maybe we could meet after all meeting on Wednesday to talk about it. Everybody... No, but we can clue her in or put her on the phone or something. But because she's doing a lot of downloading of documents, I think she should be part of the discussion. Yeah, it would involve another layer of management, but I think there's a pretty simple way to do it, much like what you do with the select board folders. It would just be a separate folder that you would make those documents available in that's open to public. There's a couple ways we can open it to the public so we can talk about that on Wednesday. My concern would be a constant link like you do in the minutes. You have the link to the town website. It would just be the same link. And the reason that we're thinking about doing it as a separate item is because sometimes there's personnel documents or stuff in the folders that we're looking at and we don't want to make that accessible to the whole world because personnel and legal matters are confidential. Okay, are you guys okay with that if we get something started? All right. So there was a EMFD quarterly budget update meeting last week on the 19th, which I wouldn't have been able to go to anyways, but it completely fell off my radar. I thought it was in August for some reason. The fire department did not, like, remind us, which I guess they don't have to hold our hand and remind us. Bruce Johnson from East Montpelier went and he sent around a copy of the documents that were discussed. It would be really helpful for sure to know, and I can put them on our calendar, when those meetings are. And I just think it was unfortunate that they didn't think to remind us. And I know Rose has some thoughts on that. And I think that maybe they need to hear back from the board from somebody they might listen to. Oh, I'm spacing out. That's okay. I'm glad you're listening to me. There's two levels of listening, as you know. Yes. And I'm thinking that Rose might be the appropriate person to send something, draft something for the board to plan off on. Requesting one that we know the exact dates. Like I said, I thought it was in August. And... Would we be up for a redo? We might be. We would like for them to come here and tell us what we missed. Yeah, it might be. It seems that they shouldn't have to leave. They kind of didn't have a full meeting. Well, they didn't. There was no one from the East Montpelier board. No. And sometimes there's not a good showing from the East Montpelier board. But there is always a quorum from the callous selector, always. Right. So for none of us to show up, that should be quite telling. Yeah. I think it was a screw-up. It's summer. Everyone busy. It's a volunteer party department. We're a volunteer? I don't say I'm sure they would entertain a request to redo it. So I would suggest that Rose draft something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just for the record, I was the administrative assistant for EMFD for six years. And so I sent out notices to the select board. You used to remind us. What? You used to remind us? Yeah. I said that was the name. Jenna that was there used to remind us. Judy Woodbeck is the administrative assistant now. Yeah. So she should have been instructed by the board of directors and the president of the fire department who happens to be Toby Talbot. To remind the boards. To remind the boards that the quarterly joint meeting is coming up. And so I think in my view, it was a clear, maybe it was just an innocent oversight, but in light of the fact that neither the Eastmont Pillar nor the Calis boards were there, I think it's definitely within our purview to ask for a summarized version of what we missed at that meeting. And they can come here to this meeting. So I probably work on drafting. I thought you might be. A letter. I thought you might be. Thank you very much. Gladly. All right. I don't know how much more you want to do, but I do want to get through a couple of things. David Ellenman, it's almost nine o'clock and we're striving for nine, right? A couple of appointment stuff. Karen McNeil has agreed to be the alternate to the TAC, which is what David Ellenbogan serves on. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Trails committee reappoint Gail Graham and Charlotte Hannah Bassage. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Webmasters. I didn't think Scott might not, I thought Scott might not be interested in continuing as webmaster, but I was thinking Katie, Judy, and I asked Scott and he is still interested. And I think actually, him still being available to help out with the web stuff would be really helpful. So I'd like to appoint all three as webmasters, okay? Is there a second? Question. Do we want to have a, they just all share responsibility and work it out amongst themselves or do you need to say somebody's a primary? I think Judy is like the primary. I'll check with her before I did anything. Right. We don't need to formalize that. Do you think, well, maybe we should. I don't know. I'm not familiar with how that usually works. I know it's handy sometimes, like Katie might not be around and Judy's not around and Scott'll post something on, before me. That's true. As long as what we have works, then I think if there's an issue, then maybe we can fix it. Well, if you send it, like saying I had something to post on the website, you just send one email but you put it to three people and you say, please post the minutes. Right. And somebody posts it. Right. And that's like a Katie thing to do with that. Yeah. So I think we can track amongst each other a little bit. Right. And it's interesting, because today is a perfect example of why Scott makes sense for him to still be a webmaster, is there was some kind of a snafu in the office. Judy did something and with signing into the, the website stuff and she forgot her password or something and then Scott got an email. It looked like it was a spam or a hacker thing. So because he was instrumental in setting everything up, he contacted the web company, whatever they're called. Gotgov. Yeah. And worked it out and it really wasn't spam. So there's a good reason for it. I think he's keeping Scott on. It's another double check. So. All right. All of that is done. Two more seconds. Yeah. Somebody. I second it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. The opposed hearing none. All right. Quickly. Update. Nelson Pond boat fire. Did you guys hear about that a boat on Nelson Pond on the callous and near the place where the Nelson Pond runs through into number 10? Oh. Saturday. I guess it was Saturday morning. I heard all these fire engines. All this and that stuff going on. And then I started getting calls. A boat caught on fire and like Bert disintegrated into Nelson Pond. So Woodbury Fire Department responded. Wilson called me and said, what do I do? So I think you need to contact the state hazmat because that's gasoline, fiberglass into the water. A&R has a 1-800 after hours number. And they con. So he called Woodbury Fire Department called and I called to make sure that it was on record that we had reported this hazmat thing. So that's done. Elizabeth Shed Horses. She has put something up from a porch forum looking for a GoFundMe thing to raise money to buy a draft horse. She actually has got some responses. I checked the site. She's gotten like $500 and she's looking for $7,500. I continue to get calls. Wilson continues to get calls. She continues to get calls. And we've checked it out every which way we can. There is just no way for the town to do a lot of anything. The latest event was an Alan and Susan Spaulding who live on Collier Hill where she built a fence on their property so her horses could graze. He and his sons were going last weekend to take the fence down. And as Jim has said multiple times really the course of action is for the neighbors to get together and do something. There really is nothing for the town to do. Only recommendation had and I'm willing to work on this letter is for the letter, for the select board to send a letter saying that you cannot park your wagon in the road in the town right of way and you can't graze your horses. The travel portion of the parking on the right of way is so precious. It's a big difference. Because this other gentleman that I talked to also raised the fact that she lets her horses graze in the road at night or at dusk and somebody is, this is like a, somebody is going to hit one of those horses and something awful is going to happen. So I would like to see if you want me to draft a letter which I can bring back for the board to report. I'd like to review that letter before it goes out. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to bring it back to the board. And I want to ask for the executive session in this regard a little bit. Oh, okay. All right. So my last thing is the resolution has been distributed far and wide. We've had a lot of good response from various different people about the resolution. And I was wondering should we be distributing this to some of the media? Will Walters ask me for it? So I sent it to you. What's that? The resolution. That we sent to the governor? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Whether or not we should be trying to do some kind of an op-ed piece for the time as Argus, you know, it was suggested that we send it to Seven Days, DPR. And I can do this. I just want to get your thoughts on where else we might send it. Well, I think, what is the board of education doing now? August 15. August 15. That's the one with the state house that we're asked to attend. Good. I can make extra copies here. I would like to see it all so I can attend that if we can. Denise, what day of the week is it? Whether or not we speak, we should just be present. It's a Wednesday. A Wednesday? Yeah. I don't know what time it's at, do you? I don't think it's been determined. But anyways, beyond that, and I do think that I was planning to attend anyways, but for the resolution, DPR, Seven Days, somebody said Bennington, Brattleboro Reformer, I don't know. What about the bridge? Bridge? That's the one I need to play, right? Not killing. Yeah, I guess the advantage of that is it does hopefully raise awareness and maybe puts more voices at that meeting. Yeah. You mean to distribute it to the media? Mm-hmm. And then, John suggested maybe a version of the resolution to be sent to the Times Argus as an op-ed piece. I was also thinking about sending the resolution to King of Bielenberg and Warner Shed and asking them if they might be interested in writing an op-ed piece. I think Warner was at some of the meetings, right? I can double-check with some of the school board members. But they're very articulate. You know, it might be nice for somebody else to be having a voice in all this. Is that an easy evening meeting? I think now it's during the... I don't know what time. You? I don't know. I don't ask you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know really anything. I don't know that they... I don't know even if they know yet the school board. We can phone. We can see if we can get an aid. I didn't ask. That meeting at U32 that we attended, that's when they said... Right, the State House meeting. No, the meeting that we're at U32, that meeting, they said, you know, the appeal or whatever will be heard on August 15th. But it's during the day, I think. Yeah, yeah. But we don't know what time. And I can follow up with the school board and see if they know yet and let everybody know. I don't think I'll be able to be there. I'm having knee surgery on Wednesday, and so I have a week off. Bugs are coming in. Bugs are coming in. So, I mean, I'm getting a week off. So I don't really want to ask for more time. Okay. All right. And I'm going to suggest that anything else we have, no minutes, I think, can wait until next time. Sorry. Like the request, are we going to the executive session considering a potential legal matter, potential, and then actually two legal matters and one has to do with the ranking list and that we've been encouraged to sign today. I signed it in my real credit, but I signed it in a future conversation. Okay. So is that a motion, John? Yes. I'll second it. At 9.04. Yeah.