 Welcome everybody. It's 6.15 on a rainy night and I'm going to verify that we posted the agenda in three public places at least and on the website and interested parties have been emailed so we have warned the public that we're meeting here tonight so here we go. Does anyone have any agendas to the additions? You know what I was going to say. I don't know if this is the right time or not but the next meeting you have listed here is Monday December 23rd which is the night before the night before Christmas when the big thing is going on. Now obviously I mean I won't be able to be here and I can get the minutes from her later but I just wondered if it was possible that that would be a conflict for others and maybe you can have it the 30th following one thing. But who knows. It's a thought. Okay. And did I see your hand up there Harlan? You did. Yeah. What would you like to add? We're testing books. 30 years of Frances's greatest history. Okay so we'll start off with the minutes from the November 25th meeting which I found do a good job of communicating what we did so I've moved to approve. Second. All in favor? All right. Okay. Those are there. And Vic you want to talk about the requesting an approval for Rochester to participate in a multi-town working communities challenge grant? I do. Thank you. Yeah. Let me tell you first of all a bit what this is about. This is a grant fund that was created by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to support economic development in New England. It's six or seven years old I think. Process they've been working primarily in more urbanized areas in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and have a lot of case studies. I'll give you three real quick examples in a minute what they're covering. And now they're starting to fund programs in Vermont and so within the state of Vermont about two dozen towns have been identified as potential recipients of the grant. Those that are 6,000 or more in population are eligible themselves. Those that are less than 6,000 population in their specific town not every town under 6,000 has been identified as a hub town and they need to get enough adjacent towns or nearby towns to go in with them on a grant application to make up 6,000 or more people. So in our area Randolph is a designated hub town and so all the surrounding towns Brookfield, Braintree, Bethel, Chelsea and Rochester are invited to participate and in fact I and others from these other towns have been working with Jesse Jerome who's the economic development director for the town of Randolph to put this thing together. I'm representing the vision Rochester in this process. So the grant program is two stages. There's the first stage is a planning stage. It's a six month grant for up to $15,000 begins this January and that is to go through a more intensive planning process for implementation. If you're successful in getting a planning grant then you're eligible to get an implementation grant. The implementation grant covers three years starting next summer and the award is $100,000 for each of those three years. And what this is all about is funding cross organizational and cross-town collaboration in addressing ways to improve economics of the developed communities particularly those issues that affect low-income residents of the area. So it's looking at potentially things like housing and transportation and job creation, job eligibility, legal issues that by working together among several organizations in towns try to come up with creative ways to improve the economic well-being of the citizens of the area. And let me give you just a couple of examples of grants that have been awarded and projects that have come out of those from the state. So these are three examples from the state of Massachusetts. So in Chelsea, no it's in Lawrence Berge, Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lawrence working families initiative is a two-generation effort that call us regional employers, service providers and public school system to transform the local workforce supports for parents of students connecting over 200 individuals to higher-paying jobs introducing nearly 650 families to wrap around services to help their children thrive. Here's one from Holyoke, Massachusetts, the SPARC. It's an acronym. SPARC initiative in Holyoke developed a data-driven ecosystem for jump starting and accelerating the pipeline of Latino-owned businesses in the city with its initial effort supporting 70 entrepreneurs who established 33 new ventures, 82 new jobs, filled primarily by Latino and women residents. And then the third one is from Chelsea, Massachusetts, Chelsea Thrive, it's the name of their initiative. The team created evidence-based cross-sector crime prevention effort to identify and serve families with acute risk of crime resulting in a successful pilot bill or two over 205 families receiving intervention. The effort saw crime figures decrease in the target neighborhood and at the city level. So it's just to give you a flavor of what this is about. So it involves, in our case, we're involved Rochester working with all these other towns plus a number of organizations who have signed on as partners to like give her to hospital, the Capstone Community Action Center, Claire Martin Center, Barbara Bank and Trust, all the number of others, Brookfield Community Partnership, Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, and then there's a number of other organizations that we're still pursuing more. So we think by cross-collaboration among these community service organizations and employers and the towns come up with some ways of addressing needs of low income people in the area in particular. And the way we intend to go about this in the planning grant, if we're successful, is to involve potential beneficiaries of program in the planning process. In other words, we know there's housing problems, we know there's transportation problems, but all the data is at a high level. So what we're looking to do is get on the ground experience and input from people who could be affected by this, you know, what's their lived experience? How would reshaping some of these things be beneficial to them and use that as information to inform the implementation grant. Also, during the planning period, the core team of this collaboration would be invited to participate in several all-day workshops to get better educated about the process and how to go about it and how to collect and analyze data and learn from other towns that have done these kinds of things elsewhere in New England. So what the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is trying to do is, you know, make the opportunity for success as strong as possible. The odds are not terrific for our getting just by the numbers. As I said, there's about two dozen towns that are eligible. There's only six grants that are going to be awarded for the planning phase. And of the six awardees, they're only going to award two or three implementation grants. So, you know, the numbers are not in anybody's favor. But we want to make the effort and do the best job we can. It's competitive. A couple of us would go to a interview. There'll be a jury in January who will interview all the teams. And, you know, like an art fair, you know, the majority. So anyway, so that's what that's about. And I have a resolution that we drafted that we're taking to all the select boards to review for signature. Our application deadline is this Friday. So that's looking out. Let's see it. At what point do we know whether we're contenders or not? Well, end of January, the award, the final award, the planning grant by end of January. So we have to get our application this week. They'll review all the applications from wherever town submit. And then those submit will be invited to, you know, make a presentation. That's when we know we made the cut. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, that's, that's everybody who was applying. So I think it's okay. But then they'll consider that plus the written application and make a decision at the end of January. So this is something that they will be signing, right? If we agree to, if you agree to, I'll have these guys. And your your role here is like our representative and vision Rochester, some of the town of Rochester. Do you need other townspeople or? Catherine Shankman has been working with me on this. Okay, good. And she went to the initial meeting and we both got very excited about what we saw and heard and she's away this month. So I'm carrying on without her this month. She'll be back in January. Okay. And I'll look to get other people involved as well as as we define the project as we go. And if we get awarded, then I'll be looking for other people to get involved, primarily as advisors or consultants. You know, I'd love to have someone from the school district that talked with Ethan Bowen a bit about it, but I haven't had enough concrete meat to give to them to an even very busy, you know, play recently. So another organization would like to get involved, too. But, you know, we get the first base first and see if we get an award. I think it's definitely worth supporting us. And I would, you guys are done. Let's give it a shot. So is it is this the kind of grant that the town would have to match something? No, no, this is totally the Federal Reserve of Boston. Yeah, right. Yeah, and there's some other foundations involved, but there's no, there's no financial obligation on the part of the town. Match it with some energy. Energy and enthusiasm. Right. And that's what because here I represented the spearhead of energy. And you see the same enthusiasm from the other towns are dedicated to this. I do. In fact, we're just talking about Miley and Linley, two owners of the Arnold Flockville. They're very much involved and very excited about this. Rebecca Stone has done a lot of work with them. The town manager from Randolph said that his boss, the town manager is, I know he's a economic developer. His boss is the town manager said this is a high priority for the town Randolph. Okay, okay. And I've met people from other towns that were trying to get other, other towns involved as well, even after the applications submit. So I'd love to see Ancock and Granville and Stockridge involved as well. But I have a question for you. Do you know of any other towns that are that have reached conclusions on any of these things as examples of what they actually accomplish? This is the first time out in Vermont, so it hasn't been done before. Okay, but I know you had talked about low income housing and things of that nature of transportation, stuff like that is those are kind of things we're referring to here as as potential outcomes. Those are areas of those are in within those areas, there are barriers to people achieving economic success. They can't afford to house it. They don't have a car. They have a prison record. They have health issues. And so how can we work with existing organizations and agencies to find ways to help people? And you know, I don't know what the answer is that. And so this period of the planning grant is to figure out what are some ways we could do that. The concept has been pretty well established in these other cities in New England. And the Fed feels confident enough about it to expand it now into rural areas. And we're the first is the first go around these communities that you read are known to be low socio economic communities, and a lot of immigrant. Yes, correct, correct. So if they've had some success there, that litter their literacy issues and cultural barriers and language barriers. It's interesting that those were the ones that were many more. I just picked those off the website. There are plenty of others who could talk about that. That's part of what the planning process would be about is trying to identify some realistic goals and projects. That's right. Yeah. And to involve low income people in the planning process. So you know, there's real participation like this. That's our aim. So I moved to pledge the town's support in this endeavor. I'll second it. Yeah, all in favor. Hi. All right. Thank you for your information and your figure. Yeah, if you would all sign it off. I can take it with me. We will scan these into the application Friday. But it's also something for you to envision with these different communities that have proximity to each other. If none of us should be fortunate to get it, just start working on the same basics ourselves how we can accomplish this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. So Joan is not here tonight. She had a rehearsal, but I have a printed report from what she's been working on. So I'll just read that off. We've got the final TATRA reimbursement request has been submitted to VTrans for approval and payment, which is on the Bethelmont Road project. It's included in tonight's warrant. The amount is five hundred and thirty-four thousand three hundred seventy-one dollars and seventy-one cents. Get that, Martha. So the final TATRA reimbursement request has been submitted to VTrans. Okay. We're submitted to VTrans. It's five hundred three four thousand three seventy-one and seventy-one cents. So the TATRA's total contract amount after numerous change orders added up to two million sixty seven hundred thousand dollars, eight hundred seventy seven and fifty five cents. Contract for the entire Bethelmont Road rebuilds. That's TATRA. That doesn't include TATRA contract. TATRA contract. Thank you. Yeah. Pretty lucky that storm took that road out. So fifty-five cents on the end of that one, right? I was right. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I hit right. All right. And then when Dubois and King submits their final invoice, which is due at the end of this month, Joan will be ready to submit a reimbursement request to VTrans for the town's direct expenses for site one, one BN2. And the total so far before the DNK final bill is close to six hundred thousand dollars. Most of that is Dubois and King engineering fees. So when Dubois and King, or Dubois and King, sorry. If you want, I can just give you this sheet if you want. If you wouldn't mind. I'm sorry that I didn't want to interrupt you, but I want to make sure I get it correct. Yeah. And Dubois and King has submitted all final documents and plans and the FEMA paperwork is continuing and will continue for a while. And she's going to submit the better roads application for grant this week. So thank you, Joan. Tony, we've got anything exciting to share with us tonight. So, yeah, we have a couple of days of the library will be closed and we closed the 24th and 25th for Christmas, of course, and the 31st and 1st because of New Year's. So those won't be there. They there's a knitting program going on. That'll be the 19th and there is a cooking thing with someone from, I think. The I want to say the cafe is not the bakery, maybe bakery. That's Sandy's going to do this. They're going to be making Bobkas, which are Jewish cakes that are filled with various things. I guess they can be quite different. And that'll be on the 17th from 1030 to 1130. And the drop in program for computers is continuing. And that'll be on the 12th from two to four. I guess if I have a computer program, a problem, we can just go over and this person will tell you about it. Oh, that's just the worst, yeah. Yeah, that's been happening. Yeah, that's it, I guess. Thank you. Thank you. So we're in terms of the budget process and the ongoing quest for the perfect budget. We're hoping to invite Yola and the librarian on the 17th of December meeting and for the budget and finance committee meeting. I'll reach out to Yola, but I figured I'd mention that to you also. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know the fact, we didn't know that that was even going to happen because we have a different line in the budget. Yeah, but still different lines. Correct, but we want to be in the now because the bottom line affects our tax rates. Oh, of course. And we want to still want to be in the 17th, you said? Yes. So it's the library trustees and the town budget and finance committee. A lot of things happen on the 17th, I think. Yeah. The whole month is the same. And that's at three o'clock, right? Yeah. Right here. Thank you. But like I said, I'll reach out to Yola, but if you can, you know. Okay, we'll have the trustees meeting tomorrow, so I'll remind you of that. Thank you. Thank you. I guess the cooter is probably out working. Sanding. Sanding. Yeah, we're pretty lucky we had missed a lot of the possible freezing rain. It's just been raining, but still a mess. Terry's not here. We've gone down to, in our new business, we've got an engagement letter from Nathan Hawley, the CPA, who's been working on the town audits. And he's been doing this for a few years for us now and doing a good job, so I'd move that way and engage him again. Move forward, won't they work? Aye. This is to do the fiscal year 20 audit, right? Yes, and providing the number that we're going to put in our next budget. And we have, also, came up in some of the budget meetings, but we started to realize a small bit of income from the sheriff's department in terms of issuing tickets. So they're currently two four-hour shifts per week. And there's been a thought that perhaps that income should be invested in hiring them for a third shift in the week. Do you have some numbers that you want to share about that? For July, August and September, the amount of money that was deposited to our account in fines that come back to the town is $2,536 for the first three months that they worked for us. The month of October was $1,193. So we think that we have enough income there to sustain another four-hour shift. And if we have another four-hour shift, these numbers will actually go up as well. So what were the actual costs for that same period? It's about $2,000 a month, is that what it is? It's about just over $2,000 per month. Per month? Yes. So you're up $1,000? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So working off of the budget from the previous year. He doesn't have like just a shift, you know what I'm saying? No, they're randomized. Yeah. Even we don't know when they're showing up. Yeah. Yeah. They will show up for specific events that we requested like on the 4th of July. In the first four months that we have had the sheriffs in town, we have equaled the amount that we collected and fines for all of the previous year. So they are being effective. It's important to point out that this, we don't hire them as a way of making money. But they're the money that they are making. It seems like it makes sense to fold it in and that some people have been concerned that we had slightly less coverage because of the hours. But this would be a step towards equalizing that. I think people like the visibility of their being around. They were catching people on Main Street about a week ago because I saw those blue lights three times in one evening. Yeah. So I think that's a good idea. And I moved to go ahead and engage them for the third shift. Second that. All in favor? Aye. Is this to be effective January 1st? January 1st, yeah. Who's going to let them know? I'll make a new contractor an amendment to it. Yeah, I'll do that. Okay. And we've also had kind of concurrent with this transition from the constable to the sheriff. Our animal control and constable position has gone vacant. And that's something that we need to have by statute constable even though it would not be a law enforcement constable. It would just be in title. And we have, I know of one person interested in it. I think that's why we have such low attendance tonight. Because nobody wants to be tagged. They saw that on the schedule. Is that, should we just put that out in the public meeting that we are soliciting anyone interested in taking that position before we give it to... Get in touch with us or... Correct to say that, you know, one person who shall remain nameless who's interested and the board is hoping other people will express, apply or... We're just giving options, not that we have any... Yeah, it's an appointed position, so... And there's a job description here. It's not much of one. But it's not much of a job. It's not much of a job. Not much of a pay either. Not much of a pay idea. So it's a name only. So that would be something that we would hope to to appoint, you know, early, by the end of this year, early next year, Christmas present, someone who could have a new job. Marlon? In consideration of, you know, dog problems in the past, maybe, you know, beef up the job description a little bit or empower somebody. You know what I'm saying? You say it's not much of a position while in... Well, animal... In reference to what's gone on in recent years, it would seem like it would be good to have a position where, you know, somebody's going to say something and get something done. Just saying. I think we're referring more to a constable position. An animal position is definitely a serious issue. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm not sure what... Does that seem to have escalated in your perception of animal issues? Well, I just... Ben, you know, I've listened to the people coming in with problems with other people's dogs. You know, the animal control officer doesn't seem to have much bite, or nobody seems to have much bite, actually. I won't put it in a tent. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we've got the proposed approval of the Economic Proposal Study from S.E. Group for the Bellamont Grant. This is something that the town of Rochester is spearheaded on behalf of the Rochester Grand Valley and Hancock, and the application of a... for a grant to study and develop the Bellamont Trail. And then I was part of a three per... no, four-person group that studied the proposals from six different engineering companies in terms of their... how they would go ahead. This is for the economic impact that it would be. It's not for physical construction. And the S.E. Group out of Burlington was a unanimous choice from all four people evaluating their proposals. And so I would propose to formalize that approval for that proposal. So this is just a study? This is a study. This is... So it all takes the required studies. The fact of all this... An economic impact study. After Bellamont's grant to a show on the ground? Nope. It's all just an economic impact study. And this is paid for by Bellamont? This is... No, this is a grant. It's not... There's one grant to pay for. It's not paid for by the town. Correct. Yeah. So the grant was then required soliciting for the proposals, which then were evaluated. And a lot of them came from far away. There are people in Maryland and stuff. It's interesting. But these people are pretty local and know what's going on. And so I've moved to approve that proposal from the S.E. Group for the Bellamont grant. I'll second that. Yeah. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And we'll see if they had... She give you something formal that she wanted signed for that? Well, okay. Well, we can... We've officially approved it. So if we get something in writing, I'll sign that. And we got the issue of the next meeting, which is the night before Christmas, which is also the night that there is the night before Christmas. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people to go to that. I mean, admittedly, I'm just asking because it wouldn't work... No, this came up before, too. And I said, what do you guys spot on that? Do you have tickets for the night before the night before Christmas? Yeah. What time does it start? I didn't, because I thought I'd be able to select one meeting. I believe it starts at seven. I mean, the posters are around here. You have to get in there before. Yeah. But it gets really crowded. And the theme this year is home. And, you know, it's gotten really popular. And last year, in particular, the theme was immigration. And people really enjoyed that. It was really... No, it's a good event. There's no question about that. Yeah. So I don't know. It's just a thought. But the night before the New Year's Eve, I don't know if that would be anything. Well, not for anybody else. Christmas Eve, honestly. You sort of need to be in a position to sign bills. Oh, okay. Yeah. Especially right before the end of the year. Okay. So the three of them wouldn't work then. So, but maybe earlier in the day on the 23rd. I'll be at work. We're putting this paper together that day. I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, if I can't... If you can't do it when I can be there, I can get the notes from you. You can always watch it on Archimedia too. Oh. Well, what do you think about moving it to five o'clock on that day? Would that work? That's fine by me. Fine by me. I still won't be able to get there because the rehearsal may start early. It's okay. Yeah. Well, that's all right. You can... We'll give you the notes. And like I said, you can, you know, if you can't sleep in the middle of the night, just dial up the power website. Oh, she won't have her ready the next day. She told me it takes a couple days. Oh. See, I might not even be hearing it. Oh, you might not even be hearing it. So you're going to depend on Archimedia this time. Yeah. I'll baby him. Okay. Thank you. Let's do it. Instead of pushing it on till the 30th, I think that... So you're going to do it December the 23rd at 5 p.m.? 23rd at 5 p.m., yeah. Okay. So I'm going to count on you, dear. And it will be basically, most likely we'll be just doing your bills soon. Yeah. I don't think we have anything that would... We're not expecting a major beyond that agenda. All right. So that was a good point. And Harlan, do you have anything else to report on the search for this book? Oh, it's open to you to have some. No. Nothing. Is anybody... If I did, I would have put it on the agenda. I was going to ask you, who do I contact to try to get access to American Legion? I mean... No, she's... We have a key. Do we have a key? Yeah. Okay. I wasn't sure. Okay. Don't expect much. I don't. Yeah. I love it. But you know, I'm not an artist, so I'd like to just check the condition of the space anyways. So, at the same time, I think it would be a good idea. They've been doing it for a lot of years. I know. In less than adequate space. I know. Does the Legion still meet down there? I haven't seen them. Well, probably not. I think Tommy Simpson is... Wow. No, I think it went beyond Tommy. I don't know. Tommy's not? Well, Tommy, I'm doing good, huh? Okay. I think they were here... Was it last summer they had a meeting? There were people from other towns that came. Who's American Legion... I think Jeff Brown may be the one who's in charge of the movement. He's the one I contact when they do the barbecue for Fourth of July. I think he's probably the most likely person to comment on things. We should at least know that we're in there. Why we're in there. Oh, absolutely. You might be willing to come down and help you or something. Well, right now he can't. He's not in any condition to do that. Jeff? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, I think that's it unless anyone else has something else to talk about. How much... How much do we have to with lawsuit? We've got a number on that one. I heard it. $54 and $55. $55 duty? Yeah. We could just get another bill for $1,907. $55, 587, and 29 cents. That's kind of disgusting, isn't it? That's where it is. Just keep grinning. Yeah. That's where it is. Yeah. If you want me to do it for sure. That's like four or five cents on the tax rate. It's a whole library budget. Yeah, but at this point... We're going to solve this way back. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you very much.