 All right. I guess we'll get started. It's now 701. Call the meeting to order. Um, is there public comment for items not on the agenda? Okay. Any changes or additions to the agenda? So the, I don't know if Alfred's coming on or not, but. Um, He sent out some information regarding the purchase of a used truck. And we have our usual list of questions, which I think he's accustomed to now. And I'm wondering if it makes sense to. Delegate working on that issue with Alfred to. John and or Rick or both. And to come back to the board with a recommendation to save time. What do you guys think of that? Yeah. Yeah. I'm okay with it. I'm brand new on this. You know, so I don't know what you've kind of historically asked. I definitely want John or somebody in the room. Yeah. We can do it together. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, I think the turnaround time is. Pretty quick. So rather than get bogged down here at a meeting. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Just that. And the other thing about a truck. Um, and John's had experience with this with. Trucks and stuff with us before. So, um, Maybe you guys could, can we have it in the minutes that were. Or maybe I'll make a motion to delegate. The, um, You don't need a motion, Denise. It's just. Just what we don't. Okay. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. To be delegating. The review and. Evaluation. Of the truck. With Alfred that he's proposing. And I think the turnaround time is quick. Because the last time it. Something got sold before we could even act on it. Yeah. I guess the one question I would have. Just from a financial point of view is, um. If there's a down payment that's made. If we're going to hold it. Can we get a refund of our down payment if we decide against it? And I don't know how much a down payment would even be. But. That would be one question I would want. You guys to look at. This truck wasn't going to be available until later summer, right? As well from, as I recall from his conversation, wasn't that the case? Yeah. Charlie boys. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know the background on this. Did I miss an email? I know that we're. Looking at one here, but. Yeah. Trade from another town or. Yeah. As a trade in from another town, Alfred sends a bunch of information. Yeah. That I forwarded to the board. Okay. He talked about, you know, he talked to the operator operated it for it since it was new and. So that he, you know, that. I don't know. They've got all the records for it. He said it's been, I mean, the guy raves about the truck itself. So. So I don't know. I don't know beyond that. You know, we, we should talk to Alfred. I guess. Yeah. I mean, you guys understand the ins and outs of trucks better than. Oh, okay. And I certainly do. All those documents are in the folder for tonight's meeting as well, John. Yeah, I'm seeing. I'm on the email now. I'm seeing it now. Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got to wait for the town. It's coming from for them to receive their new truck before this one's available for purchase. Right. But there was discussion about an option of being able to. Reserve it and have first dibs on it. If we were willing to put in a down payment, but that brings us to Denise's question, which is a good one. Yeah. Boy, that's a lot of dough for. 2014 was 75,000 miles on it, man. Wow. How much is it, Joe? $77,000. Wow. 75,000 miles is pretty high mileage for a 77,000. That's why I was wondering how was it used as a town plow truck. All right. Well, Rick and I will look at it. Okay. It's a lot of dough for an old. And then I think the idea is that would replace the. Sphere. That we have. I think that's the plan. The irony for me is, you know, and I know we're not supposed to get into this deep here, but the irony for me is our cycle is seven years. That truck and I've been told. It doesn't matter about mileage. It has to do with years and pushing and loading. And that truck is seven years old. Yeah. That's seven years old when we're trying to get rid of trucks. Yeah. I think that's the logic of it. And the magic, the logic on this. Well, I guess that would be stuff that you can talk to. You and Rick would talk with Alfred about it. This is from the world of bizarro to me. Okay. All right. All right. All right. And then let me know. If you're ready for it to be on the agenda for May 10th. Yep. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. All right. Now we're a few minutes early. I thought this would take longer, but it didn't. So. Cindy, do you, and you guys know if there's any other. People going to join about. The update from Wilson and. Have you heard from anybody? I don't know. I haven't heard from anybody. Okay. We may have to. We'll get back up a little bit if other people join in, but. Wilson, you want to give us in. And I guess John to an update on the. Situation in Maple corner. With the horses. With the horses. Yeah. Two of the horses are a John Bravance. And two of them have vanished. We don't know where they've gone to, but we think. Elizabeth's father has gotten rid of them and given them back to her. So the horses to her. Could you talk a little closer to the mic? No, so. What's that? Could you talk? Just talk a little closer to the microphone. You better. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Two of the horses have gone. And two of the horses are a John Bravance. Her father has agreed to pay damages. And boarding. So we'll see how that works out. Okay. My understanding is. I have two mayors at our place. I got the two well behaved horses. What's that? One is a kicker. I'm not worried about that. My wife's a kicker some days. The good reason. Okay. But. I don't know. Terry fosters the fourth one. I'm not sure where it is. It might be up at Terry fosters and Hardwick as well. Is a distant, distant relative to the fosters of the foster farm on the. Bachman's farm. So. Anyway. They're going to try to get rid of the gilding. Terry's going to try to get rid of that gilding. But. You know, I've never been to where they came from. No, a gilding is. Tell me what a gilding is. The guy who had his things cut off. Yeah. Okay. You can tell they're a gilding. They talk, they talk higher. Okay. Got you steer. All right. So did the father come up on Friday. I'm saying I thought I was going to see you this weekend. And he texted me back that he just got in town last night. He was up in Maine. I guess Elizabeth was up in Maine at his. At her uncle's at his brother's. So. Pretty much all I know I've not seen the dad yet. I expect to be meeting him this week. Okay. And Elizabeth is still. Um, out of commission. Yeah, I'm not going to talk about that. Yeah. No, I'm not. That's why I asked you the question the way I did. So she's not available. Right. Okay. Um, I think Cindy wants a horse. I do not. I've got two very nice horses. I'm all set. But I have a question. The white horse who's a carrot, maybe a carrier for strangles, a communicable disease. Is that the one you call the, um, the gelding? No, the other one, the white horse. The white horse is the gelding. This is the carrier strangles is the carrier. And that's the one that we don't know where is it that we do. It's a John's house. You have that at your house. I've got the two mayors. So which one has the strangles or whatever. I don't think any of them have it anymore. If they've cycled through it. That's what I thought from looking back. To go. But they can be carriers that can be in their, um, Signes and they can be carriers for life. They'll come and go. I was reading up on it. And I don't know the status of this particular horse, but I think it's the white horse who had, who had had its strangles. Before. Is that right? I don't know. I know in the minutes, in the minute searches that I did or that Katie did. Um, it talks about one of them, but I don't know which one it is. Okay. So board members. Any comments or questions for. Wilson or John about the horse situation. It sounds like it's settled down temporarily. I don't know how long that will last. Do you have any idea, John? How long they'll gonna be at your farm? I need to talk to the dad about that. Okay. Is there any, do we have any latitude? You know, I know on the. We're limited on, you know, kind of crossing over on other people's properties, but on the road side of this, you know, where they're dumping hay right beside the road. The horses are in the road. That kind of is a color hills, not exactly a high traffic area, but it gives a safety issue. And it certainly seems like it's a problem. If you're great. You know, vehicles are parked there and you can't, you have to grade around them. That's not good. So that's not the case anymore. I mean, yes, that is an issue. I mean, her car was parked literally in the travel. Travel lane. Yeah, I saw the photographs. But that's way back. I don't know what they did. If they pushed it, it's way back off the road. That car is unregistered and I'm inspected. Yeah. My understanding was that what's his name Terry. Is it Terry Foster? It's my understanding that he went and moved it. Yeah, I did. Okay. Well, it's stay that way. Sounds like this is a recurring problem. That would be the question. Yeah, it is. So I mean that. I mean, do we have any recourse with that ourselves? You know, or should we, I don't know. Well, you can tell the vehicle. After a warning, I guess, and we think we should warn them. But. And if it's unregistered and uninspected. And you know, it's not, it's not unregistered. State police to give them tickets or to share of could write them tickets. Yeah, it's my understanding that you have to get the share off of the state police. To issue a ticket. That's the research I've done. But now. I mean, the idea is. They write tickets in order to get people to get them off the road or get them registered or inspected. The issue is the is that this stuff recurred recurs. Right. So. And where is the vehicle now is it at. It's for house or is it. Peter Harvey's calling me and I'm in a select board meeting. I don't know why he's. No, he's on the screen. I don't know what he's doing here. Oh, wait, I'll answer it. Hold on. Hello. Yeah, I'm in a meeting, brother. He can't get on. He can't get on. He can't get on. All right. Tell him to dial the number in the agenda. Dial the number in the agenda. And just join us by phone video or something, Peter. Further down on the agenda should be on the agenda itself. Should be a phone number you can call in New York number. Link. New York number. All right. I almost didn't pick up Peter. I thought you were losing your mind. He probably is. Okay. All right. Okay. See that Cindy has her hand up as well, Denise. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make see if board members had. Questions or comments. Sharon. I appreciate that we are that there are mitigation. Steps in place now. Wilson. Thank you. John, thank you. Thank you. I hope that we can turn our conversation can kind of bigger picture because it's, it's two things, right? It's like, what do we do right now? And then I know we've done this before, but, but maybe revisiting what are our options. At least I share. That. You know, you keep cutting out. I'll put it in the chat. Okay. Yeah. I mean the, you know, the, that's, you know, you don't know what it looks like. When I hear what, what all the options would, would be. Cindy, you want to, you had something to say before I go on. I did. I wanted to comment that they were down on County road running loose, and that's just not safe. Also. The fact that Colin Hill doesn't have a lot of traffic. Doesn't mean people don't use it. because you can't get into a herd of four horses. Right I mean I think we have to look at what's the longer longer term fix and I mean looking back at minutes this has been a problem for years and you know it comes and it goes um you know with her parking it's two things in my mind she's you know when she's parking her vehicle in the town right of way or on the traveled portion of the roads and then the horses so they're two separate issues um you know we can we asked our state representative to do something with this in the legislature back in I think it was 2018 because we had an issue and Marshfield did with livestock and I think there was something done although I haven't looked for the statute on it but it only it only applied to cows and pigs it didn't apply to horses. Oh I haven't seen the wording of it but it passed in the house and didn't didn't go anywhere in the senate because of COVID here and so a new biennium now so it would have to start over again and I I spoke with both Janet and Andrew um and I don't know what's going on I didn't get answers back from them yet so it's a bit late in this year I think you get everything done right join the meeting I have one more question has she been notified in writing with a registered letter does the town have documentation I see it's in the minute but I think it'd be good to have documentation that you've been communicating with her you're not in Katie there is we did a letter to her back in um September of 2019 we sent her a letter about parking um parking any vehicle animal in the town's right of way and sent her a copy of the statute you know the the other option is an ordinance um and ordinances are difficult to enforce in my experience um you know you've got to have some mechanism for enforcement there's the other option of a pound keeper but most towns at this point don't have pound keepers because the pound keeper was back in like the 1800s when everybody had it when everybody had a farm everybody had a barn so if somebody's cow was out roaming around they might corral it and take it to their place to take care of it so um those are those are two things that I can think of um for longer term fixes so I wondered if it was a notarized letter like an official letter that you know she received and have proof that she received because before you take anybody's animals you really have to notify them formally I would hope yeah yeah I mean no this was this was just a letter that we sent um and then the like it does perennially it goes you know the problem goes away and then it comes back so um this is why we're having this discussion to see what we might think of for options and what and what to do and we might it sounds like maybe we'll have more information after John talks with the father John you wanted to talk so to sort of answer Cindy's quest list of questions that are in her mind um rightly so um you know we've explored a lot of this and hit dead end Cindy um my recollection is yeah we could grab the animals and stable them somewhere but the cost to do that and what we would get reimbursed for there's a huge gulf between those two numbers it's like three dollars a day or something right yeah and and at the time there was an issue with the horse having strangles and maybe other stuff going on so fast forward to where we are today um one reason I'm I've been in conversation with the father um phone conversation with the father is you know to have the the discussion about the need to recognize not only the person that's kind of owns the horse has been the subject of this discussion ongoing but also the property that she you know keeps her animals on and the the capabilities of that property to to keep horses on that and so the father I I strongly encourage him to see if he could find a quote unquote farm property with you know 10 acre field on it and a house with running water and electricity because there are more issues in horses going on here right now not getting to details but it's a difficult lifestyle for a 20 year old she's in her mid 40s um it has some health issues and um I think it's burning her out and um so the father recognizes that and I'm keeping my eyes and ears peeled for a property that might fit that you know level ground a driver where she can park her car maybe a barn to put horses in storage field so um you know we'll we'll see where that leads and that's that's where I'm hoping our conversation heads us and maybe we'll the solution will be more less a matter of litigation and more a matter of kind of assisting this resident in finding a better set of accommodations for both her and her lifestyle I guess that includes John June are you do you know has the father ever seen her place yes oh yeah oh yes okay so he knows when you're talking about this he knows what you're talking about okay good Sharon um I think I if we're gonna take this continue this conversation around you know revisiting our options around ordinance and etc then um maybe we should appoint a couple of us to work on that with with the interested neighbors and at least bring back a report the you know pros cons things we've we've already heard but you know pros cons formalize it see if anything has changed see if there's any creativity that we didn't think of um and if we're not gonna do that then are we satisfied that there's not much we can do and and addressing the issues for in this one or two situations rather than sort of more globally from a policy perspective I guess I'm wanting to raise which which branch are we on because I know we're gonna have to move on and and I like I like to be clear before we do that I guess I'd like to see how John um makes out in further conversation with the father and what he's willing to do and have John bring back to to us what he's learned and if the father has a plan before we take any other steps because we might not need to take other steps if the father's you know stepping up and helping out John does that make sense to you yeah well you know um I think this is a useful situation and a unique situation for our town at present I mean Judy could tell us looking back if this has been an issue in the past I'm sure there has been a farmer or two back through the decades you know I can think of a case up in Cabot about 20 25 years ago I remember a case in East Montpelier and I'll leave that one at that around well about 35 years ago so this does happen every once in a while people fall in hard times and um animals get neglected and there are reasons for animals to be you know grabbed and you know either put down or you know other find other accommodations being found for them but um so we could we could pursue two tracks I'm inclined to stay on the track I'm on I don't think it interferes with the track that Sharon's suggesting it's just another work work effort um so if we don't anticipate this becoming a chronic issue with other residents and let's just say we're successful in getting this resolved for the longer time frame um that's a lot of work um and it may not be something we utilize so it's given what our workload is lately it's kind of been a concern to all of us on the select board maybe we might want to wait a little bit um or if if Sharon's inclined or others are inclined to pursue that other path just at least get the information together then if things don't work out on the track I'm on then we can then jump to that either way I think yeah I mean I think we know what the track is the only you know the track that would be in ordinance and we know how we know what that procedure involves I would be inclined to hold off for a bit and see how you make out in talking with the father like you said we we've got enough work on our plates right now um I guess I would wait for a follow-up and see where we're at I'm good with that I just really I appreciate being really clear because there's people here who are interested so just having that clarity what we're doing or not and it's really good thank you okay Rick or Cliff any other thoughts I'm good with that uh with waiting until we until we have a little bit better idea of how this might get resolved I mean I do get if we put an ordinance in place an animal's got loose you know all the time I've had many visitations from horses but not regular occurring things like this but you know I hate to create a situation where something you know we have an ordinance we create a problem where there really isn't a problem if you follow me yeah we're not looking for a solution and look at the problem yeah I mean this seems relatively isolated though it is a recurring one so if we can get rid of this recurring problem you know I would hesitate to necessarily jump in an ordinance yeah Cliff yeah I would agree with that as well I think if we if we do have to look for a um larger solution a more global solution we could revisit as well the idea of partnering with other towns to to create a sort of alternative humane society as it were that would be one possibility ultimately though I think that larger solution is going to have to come from the golden dome yep oh yeah yeah okay Cindy did you have any last comment I did I'll check in with the with the golden dome again and see what they're thinking down there okay I I do think it would make sense to document this with a letter that's sent by registered mail so you have the town has proof that you've communicated with her about this um and I also want to bring up a case I don't know a lot about but there was a bull that was struck by a car and then the driver of the car was killed here in Vermont a number of years ago oh yeah I remember that you know people fly on county road we haven't changed the speed limit yet here but even at 40 if you hit a cow or a horse it's a problem yeah on the other hand I have animals and they get loose once in a while too but it isn't chronic and I don't intend for it to go on it might happen once or twice I've been lucky but this is chronic and the horses are damaging people's woods they're I can't believe all the neighbors that were in touch with me about this after I indicated in a concern about our woods so it's a it's a bigger problem I think than people who haven't been watching the cars stopping the car on county road to avoid them getting hit it's scary yeah yeah or loose horses trying to get them to go up the snow machine trail through our woods and watching them crash the woods as they go and they're completely out of control it's really scary yeah yeah so I think it should be documented my my suggestion would be to document it with an official letter that you send by registered mail so you know that she's received it and you have that official communication um and and then I'll talk with a golden dome down there see what they think about a a law because I think it's a broader state problem there was a case and yeah it is a it's a it's a bigger problem and like I said you know we went into this in great detail a year or two ago um and then the problem goes away eventually but we do need to you know stay on top of it and I think we'll wait for John to come back with us from his conversation with the father it doesn't sound like the problem has gone away up on the top of the hill there it sounds like Nick and Valerie have had trouble with the horses they kicked Nick's dog it's been a problem up there yeah but right now the horses are are not around right John the two horses around in my fenced pasture yeah that triple wire high tensile you've got good algae fencing and um the other two are in hardwick with probably even better fencing um we'll make a comment that um that that yes uh the person got killed in killing tin or on route four there yeah out of state fat couple um hit a bull some guys bulls never kept him just wandered around route four and it was that night and they hit it and those are kind of low low uh short-legged animals as compared to horses a horse like hitting a moose yeah moose in your windshield yeah and it's they're almost always fatal to the driver and even front seat passengers because they wind up on your lap yeah um and those are big animals they're probably as big if not bigger than a moose so just food for thought yeah you don't want that on your lap no Sharon you had a comment thank you um I just want to pick up on Cindy's point about a letter Cindy I was I was like formulating and I agree with Cindy but then I realized right now while the issue is kind of abated there's maybe not this isn't the right time to send a letter I mean the time to send a letter is if the if the horses end up in the winter or at whatever point they end up being back there uh at the home on collar road that's the time to send the letter and that's what I want to wait and see what John finds out with the father if there's if he's looking if he's going to make a long term solution then you know then we take it from there but I don't think we can do anything until we hear back from John with his conversation with the father right and a letter right now would be would be moot yeah I think a letter right now would document that there's been an ongoing problem and could acknowledge that right now the problem is in is in contained is being contained but I think if I were a parent or if I were an owner and received an official letter from the town that I had to sign to receive and it said your horses have been out they've caused damage we're upset about this townspeople are upset about this this is an ongoing problem and I think it stops there you know have the have the lawyer I think look at it but I think it's it's uh it's kind of like when you're documenting the abuse of a child at school you just kind of make notes and and keep a record of it a written record that the paper something something tangible to point back to yes well I think yeah I hear you Cindy thank you for your um for weighing in so are we are we all set on this topic tonight and John you could get back to us on depending on when we have our next meeting either we have a special meeting or on the 10th yeah okay so hey folks seriously keep your ears open there's a property with a nice little field in a warm house with power and water running water that that would be helpful we'd like to know that yeah it would be nice if she had better living conditions for sure yeah I think that would go a long way yeah yeah so the summer that we're going to hear back from John in two weeks or some people are going to ask me what happened at the meeting I just wanted a final so yeah John you can just tell them that you know John will be meeting with the father and he's going to um get back to the select board with what he finds out and we'll probably take it up again on the 10th thank you yeah if something changed if something changes Cindy I'll let you know Wilson did you have anything else to update us on with um just that this has been going on for a very long time she's a habitual offender she has 11 acres of land she won't cut trees she has other animals that have died there chickens ducks I've tried to take care of the chickens and ducks they disappeared in the past couple of weeks there's two cats left you know try to catch them and turn them into central Vermont but I've been feeding these animals for a week and a half now I'm sick of dealing with her it's been a long time yeah no and I know you get the brunt of the people that are upset and mad and you know and it's unfortunate that they send some of the stuff that they send but we really appreciate everything that you've done is there a way to catch those two cats and take them to cvh yeah I'm working on it okay they're not in danger right now the other animals where the chickens are gone probably a fox got those uh a fox or raccoon yeah conducts there they're gone you know and this has happened in the past with her she's had rabbits that have been killed I've sent you the picture of the corral I measured it out this weekend she was keeping four horses in 70 square feet of space oh my god yeah and it's I mean it's basically a homemade pole barn four inch birch logs uh with a plastic roof over the top it's not an ideal condition right she she has a uh fenced area in the back of the property it's not really sense they get out of that easily no I know well my understanding is she actually intentionally let them out well because everyone else's resources to feed her horses right yeah yeah it's really gotta stop but let's see where we get where we're at after John meets with the father and then we can get back together and see where we're at and come up with a plan because I don't I think we can't come up with a plan tonight until we have more information okay yeah if we can't get a firm resolution you know by getting her off that property in some place where she can manage these then I agree then we'll we are gonna we'll turn up the burners yeah so are we are we are we thinking this is a May 10th topic or a May 24th topic well John's going to be talking with the father I'm hoping May 10th uh this in terms of the to the extent that the property and the facilities they are a lack there of is a large component there are other components to this problem I'm not great we're not going to get into all this meeting right but they're personal to her and I don't feel comfortable in broadcasting around town so but even if things go fabulously well and she finds a better situation then might not even be in this town that that takes time you know even if we're on a good track so you know this in the meantime I mean the horses can stay at my place um as long as they need to just don't want that gilding and he's getting shipped somewhere um and y'all don't want the other horse so I the horses are fine they're friendly enough um they hang out with the cattle it's fine doesn't bother me well thank you John for not a big deal I don't think this is going to be an issue for a while now but you know there is still what Wilson was talking about other animals and not being cared for and yeah so let's just see how it goes take it day by day week by week and see where things go hopefully they progress in a positive direction right and that's why we'll stay on top of it with follow-ups okay okay so it makes sense everybody okay thank you um back Wilson yeah thank you thank you Wilson you did a fabulous job I know it's a difficult situation you handled it very well thank you Alvina thank you thanks well thanks Cindy thank you Cindy yeah thanks um okay so I thought I saw Alfred here oh there he is um Alfred we already talked about the the truck issue and John and Rick are going to work with you on that those documents oh there you are that you sent so you'll be hearing from them in the next day or so so they're going to work with you and get back to the full board how are they going to work with me with uh by zoom meeting are they going to come to my shop but I don't know they'll I guess they'll have to contact you when you guys can figure it out probably by zoom is for me right now I'm really busy at my work so it's hard for me to get this during the day I was thinking I'd write you a letter sometime Alfred yeah sure yeah well sure I think we I think we can get this done quicker um with with um John and Rick working with you on it and coming back to the board with a recommendation I think we can get you get it resolved quicker okay I just don't want to lose another truck this is a good truck yeah I know if you want to people John do you have any time tomorrow you and Alfred I can Alfred do you have a window where you could get half an hour with us or something yeah I've got a I've got a meeting at Chapin Forest Road at 10 o'clock I could do it before then or after them I'm booked up my mornings are tough I've got a bunch of afternoon it's fine yeah does that work for you John sometime in the afternoon like a Skype yeah I was gonna I just rather just meet go down to the garage and meet Alfred in person it's just a little difficult for me it's it adds another hour to my okay okay I'm working yeah I'm really busy right now so I don't know could you put could you put Rick on by phone and and John if he's available if we go right to the shop do a conference call with Rick yeah that would work for me yeah but Rick where are you you're gonna be at your house tomorrow yeah yeah I'm working if we just meet you at your house tomorrow I could do that it shouldn't take long for me to this you know to update you on the information that I've received yeah why don't we could do that we could do that can we meet at Rick Tass at four o'clock we can have an outside meeting or something yeah yeah yeah that works okay sounds like a good plan that work Alfred uh four o'clock I'm due to be home uh three o'clock let's do three perfect okay all right great thank you guys yeah um do you need me for any more Denise because no no I think we're good okay great have a good night all right thank you Alfred bye okay uh Denise can you hear me I can Peter how are you oh hi okay uh then just so long as you know I'm here you haven't talked about the my email yet no that we don't we didn't have time to put that on the agenda tonight I have it down for us to talk talk about it on the 10th okay it was on the agenda that uh was on front porch forum the other day no I guess I don't understand why I have a list that says future agenda items and dates after each item so I don't know how I can I'm trying to figure out how I can make it clear all right is is Alfred good to start mowing roadsides or can I can I put up my signs now anyway well we're not going to make that decision tonight Peter is all for good to start mowing road studs pretty soon that not yet nothing's at that point it's growing yet I'd be a month off anyway anyway a lot longer than that all right six weeks okay um so on the 10th yeah we'll try to talk about it on the 10th okay all right thank you all right thank you Peter Peter Peter Peter before you go um one of the things that we're working hard to do is is you know at the end of each meeting we spend time thinking okay how much time does this topic need so if you have um a particular thought about how long you're going to need to make the points you want to make it might be good for you to just let us know that right now so we can be planning on that well I think I already made just about everything in the long email I sent you but um the only thing I would add to that is that I'm not pulling large flowering plants anymore I'm just digging everything up that's over six inches high and because I found the last summer with the drought that I couldn't pull them up because the ground was so hard and so I started using a garden fork to loosen the soil and take them out that way so I'm getting not just last summer I didn't just take flowering plants I took all the plants I could find well I think we're I think we're getting into it tonight more than we had really planned for so maybe you could kind of do a bullet point list of you know just do a bullet point thing because your emails are very thorough and very long yeah yeah yeah just I Peter I wanted to just you for you to have a heads up that that we are we are we are working really hard to be disciplined and and intentional in getting topics open so thank you thanks for being here we'll see you on the 10th right yeah we'll see on the 10th and if you have if you have um something like I suggested with a bullet point list it's easy to to read that would be really helpful okay okay why don't I was it Sharon that was talking with me well Sharon and I so we got it okay we got it I will uh I'd like to talk to Sharon on the phone then I'll do that uh and then find out just what it is you really want and not make it too long so I'll catch up with Sharon later all right thanks Peter thank you Peter okay bye bye okay now we're pretty much on track so um next up is we have Grace hi Grace we should introduce the board to you let me go around um Rick Keen you want to raise your hands so she knows I guess she can tell who everybody is yeah on the screen I introduced each other when we first signed on so okay and hi Grace I'm Denise um John you want to say hello to Grace oh my order is on yes hi Grace hello hi everyone and then we have Sharon you want to say hi hi Grace welcome thanks and Cliff hi Elizabeth welcome and thanks for joining us all right so there's been a group working on this local hazard mitigation plan for since what was it 2019 Grace we started or something yeah we had our first select I came to the select board meeting maybe January or February of 2000 yeah I don't remember time flies and this is Ruby she said a while oh very cute say hello to Ruby hi Ruby look at all those people Ruby yes you're such a good okay so you had um we're kind of getting close to the end of the process and I have made a note that we need to adopt this like sometime in July yep okay and we've been having some different zoom meetings um and going through various hazards and how we might mitigate that making our identifications and it worked out really oh the moon is just amazing if you guys all look out the window um the um COVID pandemic you know we hadn't when we were started this who who would have thought about a pandemic so we've added a pandemic to um things to think about and how we deal with those but I know Grace has a slideshow presentation yep um Cliff Cliff's our cameraman oh great is this the one I shared like four in eighth um I don't know Cliff is it I know Katie put it in the folder okay it's fine if not your speakers turned off Cliff it's dated for 26 21 okay okay great thank you Cliff all right so yes this is short I promise it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes it won't be death by PowerPoint um I can just say next slide if that works all right so okay agenda just wanted to give a brief background on what exactly a hazard mitigation plan is why it's important and how it can benefit call us or yeah call us um give some updates on how we've been going about this plan update process talk about what the hazards are mitigation actions and then next steps next slide all right so uh local hazard mitigation plan is really just establishing the foundation for a mitigation strategy for the community so what are the hazards that affect call us and what can we do to mitigate those hazards and reduce risk so there are a ton of different benefits um one big one is that for a lot of uh federal emergency management agency FEMA grant programs uh the community if you apply you have to have a current local hazard mitigation plan so that's a requirement for a lot of those grant programs and another one is uh you may have heard of the emergency relief assistance fund this is when there's a disaster declared and communities can apply for uh reimbursement for projects from FEMA the state pays for some of that but the community pays for the rest and once your new hazard mitigation plan is adopted your share of what you would contribute after a disaster is going to go down which is great so those are some of the big benefits next slide so this is the basic uh you know contents of the lhmp community profile is you know what are the demographics what's kind of the land use uh what development has been going on things like that planning process just describes you know how did this plan get updated what kind of meetings were held who was involved and then the meat of the plan is talking about the hazards so what are the hazards that affect the community and um really going into you know what kind of events have there been what kind of disasters have been declared what has been impacted you know uh bridges or roads or neighborhoods and things like that really calling attention to the areas that are vulnerable in the community to these different hazards and then mitigation strategy so looking at those hazards and thinking about you know what can the town do to mitigate and to reduce the impact from those hazards going forward over a five-year period since these plans are updated every five years next slide so CVRPC is assisting callus through an MOA um callus can callus is going to pay up to $2,500 in cash or in-kind services so i've been documenting with the assistance of the planning team i've been collecting these match forms that they submit every month just to document what kind of meetings and what kind of work they've been doing on the plan um so we've held six meetings so far and the planning team has been really great they've done tons of work on you know various documents in between the meetings which has been really helpful um we also put out a survey in january that got 37 responses which was great and we kind of looked at that and thought about you know how does the survey responses how should that factor into the plan and then um so i'm going to be putting out the draft for public comment the first week of may so in a couple weeks and then after that i'll take a look at the comments and we'll meet with the planning team if you know if there are a ton of really in-depth comments that require a lot of discussion we'll have another meeting i'll develop the final draft and then once that's approved by vermont emergency management the select board can adopt that final plan next slide do we have to hold any type of like i can't remember do we have to hold any type of public informational meeting on this or anything like that i don't believe so but i'll double check okay that's a good question so hazards um the box on the right hand side is what the 2015 the last lhmp talked about in terms of hazards so some of those have carried over into the 2021 plan but like denise said there are a couple of new hazards um pandemic is one of them callous is one of the first along with montpelier one of the first communities in the state that's going to be incorporating that into your lhmp just because we started it in 2020 um and then invasive species and drought are also new uh next slide so these are this isn't the full list of mitigation actions but these are just some examples i wanted to show you all just to give you a sense of what kind of things the planning team has been talking about there's been a lot of really great uh discussions during our meetings about you know what does the town actually have capacity for what kind of things have you already been thinking about and planning maybe and you know what projects are kind of in the works that you can include in this plan so there are kind of there's this huge table we've developed um and you know it lists the hazard and then it lists some mitigation actions so these are just some examples of that um one of them and and there are some that apply to kind of all the hazards like establishing a town account for vt alert um that was something that came from the survey because uh some people or i think the majority of responses like didn't have awareness of vt alert so that was something we kind of wanted to leverage and then another one was developing a section on the town website with information on flood resilience and hazards and we wanted to do that to kind of just raise information and awareness of hazards in the town from the residents perspective uh next slide all right so like i said i'm going to be putting the draft out for public comment in may collecting the comments and revising the draft and then submitting the final draft in june and once we get that v e m for my emergency management approval callus can adopt it at a select board meeting in july i think that's the last slide that's all i wanted to share i just wanted to give a really you know brief overview of what we've done so far and where we're headed and i can definitely answer questions yeah i want to thank grace she's really done a great job of leading us through this process it's been um nick and betty and jan and myself um working together on this and i think i think from my perspective i think we've done a really good job everybody's been very active and participated and come up with ideas and it's been it's been a great working group i have to say from my perspective yeah thank you agreed looks like a thank you for yeah and i think you know when i encourage you know i do who was talking yeah that is you know i'm wondering if it's rick rick oh okay i'm wondering in this is there any do we have any technology basings like usha heady you know the cloud the crowd or cloud-based information sourcing that that might be on a website we don't i didn't see anything mentioned in that you know where you know people can download an app like we did this in our regional and they used the sofa in japan during during the tsunami and it was it's been used in africa but people can download a free app and if there's a disaster anywhere in town on a road that they live on or they drive they can actually report it in and it can be then checked uh you you can verify before you actually publicly post it but it's it's a way of improving your eyes and ears in a community and it's really valuable kevin beam actually is the one that found this down at addison regional you know he was our gis planner i think he just retired but we were experimenting with that and something of that nature it was very simple and something that anyone in the public can use and it really it really improves your eyes and ears early on and things like flood or disaster you know covid is one of these longer emergency situations floods and you know natural disasters like that you tend to have a lot of your risk is right at the beginning most of your and that's when you actually want eyes in the air so if you're able to filter in that information very valuable so it may be it may be worth mentioning or it may be worth the town exploring that because if it was something information on say if it was set up so that we could operate that people could just download that if you know they would see it referenced on a website or something and then we would just have to manage that i think we we were looking at it from the rpc and they were doing it for our towns but i'm sure that's something i'm sure that's what is it called a good check out yeah what is it called again usha heedy i can't spell i think it's us h a and then h i t i something like uh i could find out for you grace if kevin's i've i can contact kevin i think he's still down there at addison temporarily he's retiring but talk to him he's the one that found it interesting that's really interesting i've never heard of that but it sounds really cool the only like similar app is vto alert like that is used on a statewide level but you know similar to how a town can set up a vto alert account and put out personalized alerts that app sounds really interesting i'll definitely it was really great i mean they like i said i think it was developed i believe in africa and then they used it during that during the tsunami in japan very effectively and then i think haven't had it set up we were using it during iran as well here at us and and and so um all right thanks rick yeah share and you had a question or problem uh yeah hi grace thanks hi um so i was on the 20 on the examples the 2021 mitigation exam actions examples one of the the one that caught my eye is the um and i understand it's just an example but i but i want to hear really what does that mean and where did it come from determine ownership of curtis pondam i i think we've already done that right so you know i so right am i misunderstanding guys john denise we already know we already know loans and so raising it as a as though it's a question makes me curious this is no i can give an update on that if you like um that has been a ping pong ball going back and forth um the ownership was established then that person um re unowned it and then i went to another it got another legal opinion and it's been all over ping pong all over the place my understanding is the current status of that is that we are back in the um a zone of unknowing now john's for shaking his head no so john you may have more up to data information so it's convenient to the owners to say that it's in limbo it's convenient to the owners and their liability to say it's confusing or we there's a there are dueling opinions it's kind of like if i can use a a current example it's kind of like the one scientist in the world that disagrees climate change is real and then using that as the argument that there are two prevailing arguments um that's what's going on here we have there is no disagreement we are confident in our legal opinion we we hired a law firm and i will put it right out there and i'd say it's right to paul gillis who was representing the father gills paul gillis cited a paragraph from a section of the law without and took it out of context and if you add it in the next paragraph it made no sense at all and it wasn't applicable to this situation and when we then our attorney then challenged him he backed away and said well we'll we we just want to work it out and so subsequent to that we are made in arrangement with the father gills and without the father grills agreeing with us but we clear we were clear that we were we're clear on the law um the he agreed he and jeff and kandace agreed that you know they don't want the dam that's clear and they had no problem with the town pursuing an application to have a the dam rebuilt or replaced and had no problem with us taking an elite on it and as the landowner and as a dam owner and signed us agreement or signed off on our being allowed to do that um and so we did pursue and we got a special uh reprieve from the state requirement that the landowner the dam owner had to be the applicant because the state understood the town was not the applicant or the owner either and that the father gills were so with all that being said we went through a very involved engineering evaluation and design and finally got an engineer set of engineer final engineer plan stamped approved by the state for a new dam design and the understanding was that when the dam got built and it was funded by someone other than other gills i.e. the town um and maybe other contributors that once the dam was built the new dam that the league would then be able to insure it because all the liabilities that are associated with the current dam the risks um fall away and there's an engineer certification that this meets all standards and vlcts insurer um was passive passive going to include that new dam under its policy and at that point in time we would accept ownership of the new dam um and insure it so that was the arrangement this is not confusing this is very clear we had a very clear path um there's a is an interest to make it confusing what i'm just gonna say and uh we spent a lot of time and effort making making drawing those clear legal lines okay well thank you john my information is at least two years old and i appreciate the update so we can cross that one off off the list of tasks but i yeah my information's older than that nick it's just that there's been there's been a lot of misinformation that continued in swirl and maple corner um just so you know there's a lot of i think it it originally came up as a possible hazard if the dam were to break yeah yeah more than more than possible yeah yeah significant they could just wonder behind that that's a serious concern yeah and just to be clear they what the state considers as the concern behind the impoundment is is the fluid and they include the mud right and if you will that there's there's not as much water that would actually because that was originally two ponds that are below that dam level and then when that dam was built in whatever 1810 it raised the level to the point where both ponds became one and so that all that water would it's understood would not drain out but a significant amount of mud would come out with the water that did leave and that's where the hazard is is would be from yeah anything else for grace are you ready to move on all right thank you thank you grace um one question grace we have to re-adopt the local emergency management plan which is different than the local hazard mitigation plan it's another yeah i know i'm wondering there's all kinds of acronyms out there so i'm looking perhaps we could do that on may 10th yeah that's fine we encourage to get it in by me first but there's not really a penalty so it's fine if you do it yeah okay all right thank you so much have a good day you too bye thanks grace thanks bye okay um we're a little well we're almost right on schedule that's amazing um website group has been working to to do some work on our newly updated website um and they could use some assistance there's a memo that they sent us um can you call that little anyways they're looking for some assistance and um i think katie if the board approves it has agreed to do some extra work outside of her recording duties recording secretary duties um so the website group is asking us to approve katie to work on that project and to pay her the only question i had and i put it out there and maybe nick i mean it's not that much money but nick do you know if we can get reimbursed through the covid funds for that i have not looked into that but i will do so i mean it's like i said it's 600 it's like we're looking at maybe $600 or so so it's not a huge amount of money and it would be nice to get the website um i've had mixed reviews from folks on the new website so i think we really need to get it um in better shape well the main issue currently the status is that they gave us a great visual graphic design but then they tossed the the content into it willy-nilly so really it's not usable because you can't find what you're looking for but it looks pretty yeah i haven't i haven't had great luck finding stuff myself when i've looked so i think the sooner we could get it up so that people can find stuff on it the more useful it will be to the public anybody else got a question i can't see everybody's hands anybody have any thoughts or comments on this yeah i would i would move to uh go forward to to move to authorize katie to work on the website okay and are we putting in a fixed price or do we want to say i don't know that it's 600 is enough we want to say 600 and if it gets to be that amount we come back or do we want to have a little leeway to say between six and a thousand dollars i'd like to amend the motion to um pay katie whatever our going hourly rate is um with the understanding that we have 600 as a base but that if it if she spends more time than anticipated or she goes over that six hundred dollar amount based on our hourly compensation that you get that added additional compensation okay if you i think we look at 20 hours an hour don't we yeah that's what she gets now yeah yeah so i would second or i guess cliff that's a motion a friendly amendment to your motion yeah i would accept that friendly amendment okay and i'll second it any further discussion comments questions all right can actually yeah i i think denise you asked the question are we john does your you ask the question about whether we are okay with going over 600 and john did your amendment address that question yeah my amendment says that we'll compensate katie at a rate of 20 hours an hour and if she reaches a 600 dollar amount um and exceeds that that we will continue to compensate her at 20 hours an hour until she gets the job done and okay i'm fine with that except i i just want to repeat because i really like this thank you denise nick if we can pay for it from the covid money which makes all sense to me in the world because it's related to the covid project of the website even better all right thank you i should clarify that we can't use the grant money from the grant that's already over and done we'd be anticipating future covid money coming down the pike but we don't know for sure okay so let's keep that so nick you'll keep that in your pocket to check out at some point yeah i'll keep an eye on that well okay if that's the case if that's the case um if we get the covid money i'd like katie to get a hundred dollars an hour okay so is it so is it up to a thousand dollars that we're willing to spend without going back to the board for additional approval is that what i'm hearing that means it seems reasonable enough if it's getting close i mean that we would be able to within a two week period we'd be able to revisit that if we had to yeah yeah okay all right are you ready to vote select board um rick i i'm an i um cliff hi john yes and sharon yes great thank you so much have fun katie thank you judy thank you katie website team thank you very much thank you yeah okay up next is ruben how you doing ruben you're on mute hi y'all how are you good how are you good so we um asked you to join us because this is kind of like our annual checkup and our contract is due to be renewed on may 1st i believe is that right i believe that's correct that's correct so we had requested that you annually meet with the board and kind of give us you know our physical annual physical on all of our technology and what recommendations you have and all that good stuff so i'll turn it over to you to give us our annual okay so i'm i'm gonna first apologize because normally we give you like an executive summary that the select board reviews ahead of time um and i didn't have that until uh friday afternoon very late so um i did not have a chance to review that and get it over to you ahead of this meeting um that aside the network is basically a brand new network at this point and needs i think the only note on the executive summary is the laptop that we sent a proposal over for last week everything else in the network is basically new and running optimally the server was replaced last year the infrastructure was all replaced last year your wireless infrastructure your link over to the town hall your backup infrastructure is all running on close to new gear so there's there's really nothing to do other than that one laptop in the next 12 months and then from a from an annual sort of budgetary perspective you know our standards our standing recommendation is to replace a quarter of your work work stations per year so you just take the number of machines that you have divide that by four and put that money aside it doesn't mean that you have to replace the machines on year four if they're running fine and they're not causing anybody trouble then you can defer that purchase and that expense by a year but from a budgetary perspective it's really just a matter of putting you in the driver's seat so that you're looking at all these expenses a year or two years three years out so that so that you're doing appropriate financial planning nobody likes going to the select board for more money so so it's all all in support of keeping you folks that are responsible for the fiscal pieces in the driver's seat was there anything in the executive summary that stood out to you let's see short-term recommendations are replace or retire the aging laptop and create a financial plan that those are the recommendations so you know to sort of parse that apart a little bit that means that you know you just did a server that's going to last between five and six years so I would advise you to look at that project and probably add 10 percent just to be safe and put that you know a fifth of that 20 percent of that aside per year as you know as this project you know that we have we have started a technology fund so I know that we talked about that last year so this I wouldn't expect that this is coming as news to anybody but I also see a couple of faces that I don't remember seeing on the select board but we should we should we should back up and introduce everybody um you know me I'm Denise Wheeler Rick do you want to go next yeah you I hey Rick but we know each other from the school board so absolutely how are you I'm good and Cliff and you know we talked a few times you've been a few times yeah um John Ruben I just moved here from Utah um Sharon hi Ruben we met last year I wanted okay or I guess two years ago baby um whenever we whenever we were in the office but I want to say I do want to say thank you I am so excited that we have we're having this checkpoint in time where you're saying this is good you need a new laptop here make a plan like this and we're like okay thank you no surprises this is very much our we work really hard to get all of our clients to this spot where you're you're just you're operating according to plan you you know what's coming up you know where you're headed you know the the variables are basically isolated now to new things that come along that you need to do either as an from an IT perspective or a network management perspective or change of business that requires a you know line of business application or we're basically just running according to plan and responding to new things that come along so good on you for for being responsive to to the recommendations that we've made um and I know that uh you know we we did a couple of sizable projects this last this last year um and uh so now you're just in the okay we can sort of sit back and and run our IT for a bit yeah well and we we appreciate your helping us come up with a plan so that we don't have surprises and we can you know plan for we can't really plan for everything but we can do our best to um be responsive to your recommendations and I think that's what we've done in establishing the reserve fund. I have a quick question Reuben you have you know have has uh Nick Emelon involved you with any of the emergency management planning local and then is our technology I mean obviously this all of our IT technology is major communication and data sharing of great importance in the kind of emergency events and we've got you sounds like you've managed all our core needs here but I don't know if there have been any conversations about that emergency planning resilience and it's are there opportunities there that we should be looking at good question you know and good question rex that's a great question so um I'm going to preface this by saying that at the end of the day all of the planning and work that we can possibly do is still contingent on insufficient internet at the town office which you know when COVID happened we we all talked about a couple of ideas related to the fact that the internet at the town office was just insufficient to do what you were trying to do and my remind me I don't I think you're still on DSL correct correct yeah but there's a plan in place my understanding and then it sounds like we're at least optimistically hoping that this fall CV fiber or something will come through which I would be fantastic and to your question rex would enable a much more robust conversation around that to back up a step though you have full remote access capability into the network through VPN and all of the things all of those things are already in place that's frankly it's the standard that part of any network that we build and the it's contingent on having enough bandwidth and a reliable enough internet connection to be able to use that and so that you know going back in time that a year ago when we were talking about this maybe it wasn't quite a year ago we're sort of brainstorming with how do if we can't get internet to the office can we get the office to better internet and that was a there was a very smart conversation to have it was you know I ultimately that didn't end up being I want to say that maybe you moved to the Nimrack cloud yeah and so that mitigated some of the some of the real tripping tripping points oh the goal is to have David Healy our CV fiber delegate come to the board sometime probably early summer and give us an update on what's going on and what the plan is should I remember to invite you to that discussion would you be interested in hearing you certainly can David you know so I David is phenomenal yeah and you're incredibly lucky to have somebody with the amount of knowledge of the stuff that he has yeah working in CV fiber um one of my folks is on the CV fiber board as well that's right Jared so yeah so he also a callous resident yeah um so I get um I get the high points um on sort of you know what's going on and and where things are at so the executive summary will you forward that to yes to us okay yeah I'll send it and it definitely if you see opportunities for us that we might want to explore put them in there that's you know maybe that's a conversation we can have with you in the future I know I've worked in this emergency management field a lot with the state with the emergency operations and things like that so I've seen where breakdowns happen and that this is like critical infrastructure for us today and it's yeah vulnerable so I don't know if things like star lank or you know even they're slower but if if you have hard line breaks I mean do you need redundancy of any kind or do you have uh you know this is what we'd be really valuable to talk to you about so risk you know disaster planning and business continuity are sort of standard fair for us and we're more than happy we have opinions about everything so you know it's it's an interesting conversation because last year when we were talking about this we couldn't even have a conversation about it because you had DSL and that was all you had and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and you don't have another option period and this year you have the possibility of getting a star link dish you know for for this I don't know that it's worth the hundred dollars a month for the town for how seamless it might or might not be right and this is star link is a hundred dollars a month is that what you're saying yeah it's a it's four hundred ninety nine dollars for the terminal and it's a hundred dollars a month I do have I know a handful of folks one of whom is an employee who have star link terminals and they moved to star link from DSL and it is an absolute breath of fresh air they can functionally work from home which they have not been able to do so it is it is it's great it's not quite business great this is what I'm hearing like the they're not I don't know I can delve into the sort of technical details of this if you like or I can just give like a real quick glossy yeah why don't you do the quick one I'm gonna do the really quick glossy so the stat the satellites for star link are not geostationary meaning that they're passing over right which means that as you as they run out of range your your terminal has to connect to the next one that goes by in line it's sort of like when you're driving on cell towers almost like the roaming handoff and so they're they're still bulking up how many satellites are in orbit and they're also adding a lot of customers so there are hiccups about every 10 or 15 minutes where you lose your internet connection and it might just be for a second and it might be for like 10 or 15 seconds not a big deal if you're just sort of doing stuff but if you're VPNing into an office and you're trying to do things that's more of a big deal so that maybe we wait until we see what update David and Jared can give us I would I would hold off on that conversation until you've got a little firmer idea of when the fiber might come and then if it's going to be a while then you know it may be it may be worth looking at and it may be something that from a business continuity and operations planning is it worth 1200 bucks a year to have that as a secondary internet connection redundant yeah so redundant see so how does so I guess how does that work so we would keep our DSL and if that wasn't working well you could hop onto this starlink thing I think considering that it's as we would probably we would probably have you try it as your production line and see how it goes I have a sneaky feeling it's not going to go great but you know we can we can test it briefly and find out pretty quickly and just you know flip it back over so that the DSL is the primary I do have one question that's if rick is done with this topic um yeah what what is are we in good shape security wise you know every little while we get some weird I mean gmail spam is far less than I gotta say my fair point my other account my fair point account I get a ton of spam so it's sometimes it's surprised when you get one that's gmail but you know they're pretty I mean I think we do a good job of looking at stuff before we open up an email and we usually and we report it you know right away to you guys I mean is there a lot going on that we don't see always but the the positive another positive of the fact that your infrastructure is all new is that anytime that we replace a significant piece of infrastructure we do a full security review it's not a security audit it's not a you know we're not going through the entire every bit and piece of the network or the workflows or anything but we do make sure we have sort of a belt and suspenders double check to make sure that the network settings and server settings and all of those things meet our standards of practice for security so so that got done as part of the implementation of the infrastructure and the server so so what do you answer to your question is that you you're in a pretty good spot so then how do you do you or do you recommend that we do some kind of a security audit I think you called it every year or something or is that just part of what you do we don't do a security audit every year we can do a security audit every year we we do security assessments for a whole variety of different folks generally speaking it's it's a good idea to do it you know it maybe you don't do it every year maybe you do an audit every couple few years and do sort of a light double check in the in the middle there's sort of two pieces to this one if we set it up even though I didn't set it up it you know may not be the worst idea to have somebody else double check the work to do the auditing if you want more of an informal security assessment then we do we do a lot of security work just to sort of put it out there and when we assess a network that we run which we do a lot the way that we keep the separation of duties and make sure that that there's no sort of collusion or anything going on is that we have a different engineer then manages the network do the security assessment and I oversee all of the security assessments and I assume assume there's an additional fee for that oh of course and you know that would be something that we would quote as a job and we would want to scope it out for exactly what pieces you're asking us to to investigate and how deep you want us to go and whether there are regulatory or other compliance pieces I'm on a select board Zoom but they're talking about Barbara Barbara could you Barbara could you put yourself on mute thank you so so that's something that we could quote that we would be delighted to quote and and sort of parse apart what it is that specifically you want to you want to assess well I guess it wouldn't I don't know what anybody else thinks but I think it might be a good idea to at least get a quote see what that would cost I would agree totally that's an issue to these days as we all know so I think I think given that our system as Ruben said is relatively new and they have done some peeking around in it we're probably in good shape but it's something that we could look to budget for in our next round of budget planning yeah that's when I would that's when I would get a quote is that something too that we actually you know do set up as a as a routine you know every whatever some recommend every two years or whatever that is yeah what would be we should you know we that's not something we want to let's slide you know because we're not having issues being at one point it's it's a point of vulnerability so so we could so we could keep this in our pocket to ask you for something like that when we start budgeting again but I think Judy had a Judy did you have a comment I just have a question um you know when we have our financial uh accounting audited it's at a separate independent group that does that and I don't know if it's more traditional to have a separate group do that than RB Tech so it's just a question in my mind yeah it's a perfectly fair question and the short answer is that we have seen it both ways we've been the auditors um and we've been uh more often than not worthy auditors yeah um and we also have done a number of audits of our own work um so uh we we had a security architect on staff and that was his game and he was basically he operated as a effectively as a contractor even though he was an employee he was totally independent um he has since moved out to California um couldn't take winter anymore um and I have since gotten my CISSP which is certified internet system security professional or basically a new app that says that I know what I'm talking about security um so we have proper professional oversight we have very good frameworks that we can do there is you know I would not be at all concerned if you brought in another auditor to um to do the work and the balance for the town is going to be that we know your network and so our our learning curve to audit and assess what's there is going to be shorter um and frankly we charge less than than most specialized auditing companies um and uh so there's there's a you know sort of a straight face piece which is you know does it make sense to have RB Tech audit their own work are they going to be honest if they find something um you know I will tell you that of course we are um but yeah yeah no I hear you because I'm I'm remembering something from the league um where we have to make sure that we have um good security as far as our insurance and stuff goes right I can't I can't remember exactly what it was but there's something niggling in the back of my mind that we got from the league that you know about making sure that our you know our technology that we have good security sure so here's maybe just to summarize this I would say I am 100 confident in the work that we do and I would not have any hesitation about having another auditor look at the work that we've done and do their thing that that said we would be more than happy to talk to you about what the league is looking for from that insurance and regulatory compliance perspective and just have a conversation about what you know where you are at you know what the measures are yeah um and uh that that may be a really good jumping off point yeah well we won't obviously we can't make that decision tonight but it's something we should remember and you know think about thinking think about thinking about I guess so thank you for explaining all that um anybody else anybody else on the board have questions um or would I think is our I guess we we should have a motion to renew our contract with RB Tech that that's the board's desire so moved okay I would second that is it a one-year contract yeah it's an evergreen it it auto renews unless either party announces you know we're planning on stepping away oh so sure we don't well we don't really have to do a motion then well no but I think it's a really good practice because um the the next step Denise is we should do it ahead of whatever the notice period is yeah which Ruben you're not in your head when when would we have done this if we were going to actually get ahead of the notice period the convenience or good cause clause is 60 days okay so for July 1 is that what we're doing no I think it's actually there may I've done it in March right we talked about putting it on the agenda uh back in March but because of what was going on with the election and all of that Judy asked us to hold off and have this conversation at a later date and we agreed to that because we felt that pretty good chance we would end up renewing yeah no but in the but in the future yeah if we're like we got that little window in February after the budget's done um that would be a good that would be a I mean it has the the process this is great and I said it early and I really appreciate it but it has the most integrity if we're doing it at a point where it's real and we could actually be giving notice instead so anyway that's all it's just a it's a comment but I like the idea of having that early sharing too like in that February window too because should we need to make some changes if we wanted to increase the contract gives us a little here's Reuben time to put something together yeah and then you know for approval and there is a trigger in place already because Reuben's team is very diligent and they give us plenty of advanced notice of when the contract is up for renewal they actually open a ticket and say okay it's time for us to to meet and talk about this yeah let us know when you want to get together yeah all right good so there's a motion on the table and I seconded it let's take a vote Rick yes I'm a yes Cliff hi Sharon hi and John yeah all right great thank you so much Reuben really appreciate the work that RB Tech does you are very responsive um you know your team is very responsive and we really appreciate that and most of the time I can even understand what you're saying we do try not to geek out too hard yeah that's appreciated we've been geeking out for in the office for staff meetings you can talk all the geek you weren't so I don't know if you want to thank you thank you very much it's very easy to work with RB Tech and we really appreciate how responsive you are I'm glad to hear that and we appreciate the partnership with the town as well and you might you can stay on for a moment if you want in case anybody has any questions on our next item is we need to purchase a new laptop for our recording secretary and you gave us a quote I think it's in the folder so everybody on the board should have had opportunity to review it so I just want to find out from you Reuben this is RB's recommendation it's it's a little pricey but there's probably good reason there's probably good reason for that um there's good and bad reasons um one we really like the Lenovo thing t-series they've been our standard for years and years and years um prices on anything to do with mobile anything right now are absurd oh that's right the supply and demand must be off the supply chain is completely blown out so like this was the laptop that I actually did this quote this was the laptop that I could find that was in stock had plenty of stock um last week when I heard that that you had a laptop that was failing um the stock on that may have changed like the 1200 that were in stock at our distributor may well be gone um so you uh the supply chain is very difficult and it's a little bit of a worse race right now and same thing same thing with lawn mowers I heard it's lawn mowers it's you know it's it's everything it's wood the plywood cdx is $50 a sheet and it's usually 18 like there's just some this fortunately it hasn't gotten hit as hard what we're running into is not so much that the prices have spiked absurdly although they're up like I don't know probably 15% or so um but the supply problem is a real problem where sometimes the machines just they're gone and we we can't get anything for a couple few weeks or there have been a couple of times when it was like four weeks that we couldn't get a machine wow got in mind I mean if this is an issue I mean is there a way would we want to just authorize I mean authorize you to purchase a machine so you didn't have to wait for two weeks or a week to get authorization it was a if the supply is that tight uh would we I mean I put this out to the board we wanted to authorize him up to a certain price you know to find a comparable machine that he judged to be so so Rick I can answer that for you there's actually a little asterisk in all of the quotes that says if we can't get this we're going to substitute something in that's um that's price comparable if we can't get something price comparable then we'll let you know okay that's fine that's fine yeah that's price and system right I mean you're looking we're not going to get a lemon yeah what we'd like to do is get a machine that you think is best suited to our need not have to sacrifice that away if we won't do something that doesn't do what you needed to do so if if I can't find something that fulfills what Katie needs then I'm going to come back and say look you know what's in stock is is 200 bucks more right I hope that won't be the case so and Brittany works really hard to to do that juggling to you know find the right thing that's close enough that it's I guess I'm looking for a way so that we don't have to wait two weeks to come back to the board again for approval I'm wondering and this is a question for the select board should we authorize up to maybe 2500 um hopefully it won't come to that you know rather than so that there's a little wiggle room for the team to find something yeah I mean I personally would recommend that right and then we can ask Reuben to come back if he were to have to you know he can if he were to have to utilize that come in higher than he thought on that's like this he could just tell us what give us the the details of why you know what we're thankful and then we do that as a matter of course if we end up having to substitute something then we'll send over the the delta between the spec sheets and say this is what you get or you don't get for the difference in the money right but what I'm looking for is to see if we want to authorize up to a certain dollar amount so that we don't lose out on waiting for approval for the purchase does that make sense yeah that's I would be good with that so if we went up to like 2500 maybe the quote is 2319 now right yeah yeah that makes sense so I would make a motion that we authorize the purchase of a new laptop and installation and all that stuff um for a price not to exceed 2500 dollars second is that work for you Reuben that's fine we're you know we're gonna do our very best to not go over the original quote right but just in case there's some issues and you got to jump quick maybe that would make it easier it gives you a little latitude yeah right so with your approval then what we're gonna do is tomorrow we're gonna order the machine hope i the specific skew that i quoted is in stock and if it's not then uh then bretney will go shopping yeah john has a question i'm just curious is that ssd upgradable Reuben either now or later it's a 250 i was wondering if there was a half terabyte how much that would cost i don't know off the top of my head um one of the really frustrating things that's happening with the supply right line right now is that the drives are no longer just regular two and a half inch drives that you can drop in a lot of them now are NVMe and some of them are actually soldered right into the motherboard sort of like the old mac days which i detest i really wish they wouldn't do that um and to answer your question directly i don't know on this particular machine if it's upgradable so everyone's going away apple's gone huh that's too bad yeah awful because to be blunt 250 is really borderline just enough for windows 10 right right you don't have a lot of leeway for a lot of stuff like your machine after it comes it's going to be an issue i mean if you check that out Reuben and i don't know i would check that out if you could get a crucial one terabyte and throw it in there or something that might be a good use of that added uh money we probably wouldn't do that preemptively just because it messes with the warranty of the machine oh really okay but um but if there's a comparable machine that has a little bigger disc then we'll i'll look at that okay you know if we can find a machine that's got a big enough drive and they're also doing the same thing with memory some of the machines come with 8 gig and that's all you get right 15 is frustrating goes now so is 2500 enough i think we'll we'll be able to make it work and um uh well we'll figure it out i think i think that's enough padding that's almost 10 percent we should be able to figure it out so yes if you look at 16 gig of memory and if you want 16 gig of memory and a half t or a t then you're gonna have to then you're talking about a different machine because it's probably also going to come with a core i7 not an i5 okay um so uh you know if you want to go that far then you're probably looking at so here's a here's maybe a suggestion maybe you authorize up to a certain amount for the machine itself um because the the labor we usually i always quote the labor just so that you have an estimate but we typically do the labor sort of folded in with your regular monthly stuff and we don't break the charge for that installation out because we can use you know three quarters of an hour that you have left on your contract or whatever so maybe what um maybe you could authorize you know up to maybe you authorize up to 22 or 23 hundred dollars because i think the machine is 1799 well it's already at 23 with the other add-ons with well it's 23 with the installation which is okay and chain 500 okay so i'm wondering if and maybe we're straying too far afield of the quote um so john are you thinking we should do a little fair like like ruben said i think that that machine is undersized the ssd is maybe maybe the eight gig of memories are right but the ssd is too small yeah okay with the large photo files we use we use map files and and i don't and like you said the new windows it's going to eat up a lot of gigs so should maybe i should withdraw my motion and ruben was suggesting that we maybe go with uh approving a machine price at up to and then whatever the labor is that's a set amount okay that work ruben i i think i would suggest that because then then what you're what you're really authorizing if i'd be so bold is to have judy say this looks okay right or or maybe katie sorry yeah the machines um but you know maybe the select board authorizes somebody to make that decision up to a certain amount yeah and that way that way you know there's a clear back and forth between rb tech and the town and sure you know yeah in clarity there can we is is it cliff are you the right person to get delegate that to on behalf of the board yeah i can certainly because i i see all of these i'm on the list when the when the quotes come in and whatnot judy always make sure that i see a copy so i'm i'm more than willing to do that i would propose a friendly amendment to denise's motion that that amount uh that we're talking about a 2500 uh be for equipment only okay and we can we add a labor contention to that or is that going to be under the regular contract like ruben was talking about where we cover that with excess time or and and that uh what we got there ruben four hours of labor approximately that uh we would then a lot for at least for minimum four hours of labor and if there's more than that involved ruben will let us know and can we add to that that we don't we authorize cliff to um work with rb tech to um determine the best option or the best computer whatever you want to call it well i guess i guess i as a board member i don't want to see a 250 ssd that's going to put it right out there i think i mean i upgraded all my computers to one terabyte and i don't use big map files it's just right the sign of the times right now and it's big files and um katie unit is going to be on projects is what we do and we want her to have all the capacity we don't want her to keep coming back there i think we're going to have a hard time finding a machine that comes out of the out of the box with a one t ssd well i'm suggesting i have i have i have okay so i i agree i agree the 250 is on the low end i just i don't want to i don't want to keep like pushing the price up and up and up because we're feature creep um so if 512 is good if you if you all are good with 512 i think we can find what you need in in the price range that we're talking about and i made you know who knows it's so all over the map i made we may do better i don't know yeah um i just i don't want to also have this conversation turn into a new feature that turns into a new yeah yeah this this isn't you driving that the year we know you're not pushing this is our own this is internally based on our own experience so yeah we're asking you so that's good we appreciate it all right so are we so we will do what we can do to stay under the cap and get sort of as feature rich as we can and is that all right that works thank you is the board ready to vote yeah all right rick yes i'm on yeah i'm a yes john i don't know what i'm voting on katie can you read the motion back 2500 plus an east wheeler made a motion to authorize rb tech to purchase a laptop with installation at a price not to exceed two thousand five hundred dollars churn when fanon seconded the motion because of supply chain issues drives are no longer laptop that you can drop in some of them are soldered right into the motherboard john bray bant asked holland to sec to check the size of the drive and ability to change it out and express his concern that the size was too small some of the labor will be folded into the monthly contract cliff emin proposed a friendly amendment to the motion that the amount of two thousand five hundred dollars be for equipment only and a lot for a minimum of four hours of labor if there's more than that involved rb tech will let the town know the town authorized cliff the select board authorized cliff emin's to work with rb tech to determine the best computer option and and authorized cliff is cliff is right authorized but he's delegated we're delegating final decision authority to him okay i think that i think i would say it said authorized right in there the select board authorized final decision authority to cliff emin's to work with rb tech on the best computer option the one thing i i do question in that was the you know we we we authorized the 2500 up to or for equipment only and then i want to make sure i mean you the original conversation was around uh ruben rolling that into our regular expenses where we were under budget in some areas brought a regular contract but we're not doing that are we i thought we were authorizing up to four hours of yeah that's what it said in the motion okay i'm i'm just clarifying i thought i heard differently i guess yeah no you heard right okay all right john are you ready to vote yeah i said yes okay thank you sharon hi cliff hi all right thank you great discussion thank you very much thanks ruben thank you all yeah thanks ruben all right good night we'll talk to you soon you can stay you can stay if you find it really exciting you know i do love me a good meeting but i've had a few already today so i bet you have i'm gonna i'm gonna peel off but okay you know that if you ever have questions you can always give me a shout yeah that's what's great about a local company ruben right it is all right all thank you very much have a good night thank you thank um all right down hall friends of town hall is who is carol are you the spokesperson tonight with friends of town hall um yeah i'm here and so is david sheets and it looks like barbara has joined us as well oh it says linda but it sort of looks like david right i know linda has changed now it's david okay thank you and barbara you're here for town hall yes indeed all right thank you all right so first of all thank you for squeezing us into this meeting we um we are working on a grant proposal for another cultural facilities grant um through the vermont council in the arts and are um on a deadline of june 7th to submit the proposal and unlike the last cultural facilities grant which the town actually authored the the the application for this one would be submitted by the um friends of the callous town hall so and a really critical piece of that grant process is getting the support of the town who owns the building um for for that grant proposal so we wanted to just have a preliminary conversation to uh hopefully i'll get on the same page with that um what we are looking for is a 30 000 cultural facilities grant um which is a matching grant so it would would have to be matched by by our own funds 50 percent of which can be in kind work um and the project that we are looking at is to get the second floor of town hall outfitted as theater performance um public space you know appropriate for the the anticipated uses of the building and that includes um light electrical work to support lighting and sound design purchasing and installation um a perch as i understand it and i i am going to be getting up to speed with the real details of of the project um over the next couple of weeks but a perch for um that equipment to actually reside in uh over the front door of the building which was part of the original drawings um that john mccullough did um darkening room darkening panels or curtains so that uh the the space can be darkened for uses as needed and then um uh theater curtains and rigging for for the stage so it's basically a package of of of work that that that really enables that space to be used as a as a theater and performance venue and um david do you want to jump in with anything or barbra what's that actually you too um these are the things in particular that the theater people in the midst of our group feel are the highest priorities in order to make the upstairs usable as um a new cultural center so that of course is the heart of what this grant program is all about um and many of the recipients of these grants often are town halls uh like ours that don't have necessarily a great history as cultural centers but are very much in the mode of trying to uh improve themselves to the extent that they can be used effectively for performances so um we stand a very good chance in my opinion uh but we do need very much the support of the town through their elected officials um that is a really important ingredient for our ability to have a successful grant application and didn't we get to david didn't we get the elevator through the cultural facilities grant we did ada is another major driver of this grant program so uh we took care of most of the ada uh stuff including the restrooms i believe with uh with funds from the grant that donna fitch wrote on behalf of the committee and the town a few years ago this year i think is the first year we are now eligible again to go back to the trough so to speak so to speak so to speak can i ask a question sure so david david carol cliff and barbara how much of what you described the the curtains the rigging the window darkening how much of that comes and goes and is kind of tucked away when it's not in use and how much of it changes the the ongoing look feel aesthetic of the space on it you know on a regular wednesday morning um i i don't think it i mean it will change the upstairs look but i think it will be done in a i very much hope myself sharon in an aesthetically pleasing way um we want to retain the historic character of the hall itself very much so uh the lighting would be up near the ceiling um we the the drapes i i would assume that what the theater people call darkening would be done with drapery around the windows that could be opened and closed as needed um are they are they drapery are they more like a roller i've put in darkening shades before and they actually retract they're they're not really visible when they're right retracted they roll right like a sure so it could be shades as well they're very large windows so they are the performance of a roller shade might be a little challenging yeah for windows that large but um that this is all frankly defining this by june 7th is something we're going to need to do so carol has already set in motion a bunch of the theater folks who are working on the uh details uh in the next month so that we can submit actual plans for this that are much more fleshed out than they are right now including a budget of course including a budget and including a coupled quotes the the program would like us to come back with more than one quote for uh what is included in the grant budget estimates right estimates right are you looking at like creating a stage area with legs like for lower legs hanging on battens or things like with a header cloth so they would hang or i'm just trying to envision how that you know for if you're creating a stage area so you have an offstage wing is that what you're thinking about well the stage is there that that was part of the project that was accomplished already so the stage has been built um what i think will dress the stage would be some kind of uh legs and other uh theater curtains that would be on either side sure banks would so they could be pulled open and when it's not in use and then you would close them when it's in use is that the idea that's correct yeah or usually the legs are different they they're not they're stationary they they block sight lines and they could be brought down for example the legs would not have to be up all the time yes right i i'm i'm not as clear myself frankly as the theater people in our group may be about their desire to have a traditional proscenium stage situation in the theater um to what extent we want that i think that's still an open question but we're obviously going to be having those conversations um as early as tomorrow when we have another meeting of the group trying to uh define exactly what the priorities are how to craft the budget and how to put together a package that will be successful any more questions some board don't you have any questions comments no okay click do you want to call up the letter i think everybody's probably had a chance to look at it but this is a letter of support it's different than ecct right we don't have to the board isn't actually the applicant or the the town it's the friends correct okay i thought the letter the letter looked fine yeah i was concerned yeah me too and anything else from the board on this or from the group friends i'm happy to make the motion that we um accept and sign the letter of support for the grant application i'll second okay would you who would you like to authorize sign it on behalf of the board oh i'll sign it okay all right so david i can just print it out sign it and scan it right on back to you guys yep yes and if you could send it in particular to carol she's yeah that she's the leader of the effort here got it great thank you carol and david yeah thank you all thank you very much good wait a minute wait a minute we gotta go all right rick yes i'm and i jaren hi cliff i have to abstain okay and john yes all right very good done deal thank you all let us know how it goes we sure will thank you so much thank you very much and next up is the water filtration system i don't know if any of the friends are interested in that discussion but you're welcome to join us ruby you can't type sorry all right um cliff do you want to give us a go over of this quote and the reasoning i i did look at it yep so uh just so everyone's got the background here uh much as we needed to install a water treatment system at the town office because of iron content in the water and the hardness of the water uh the the same need exists uh for the water at the the town hall it um it does have an odor to it um that's probably due to the iron content and the mineral content it will tend to be harder on the pipes we'll get shorter life out of the plumbing um if we don't do this um it was something that was not done at the time at the restoration efforts were being put on because they were looking for ways to save money anyway possible however to protect our investment uh going forward uh the proposal is that we put something in so uh we got a couple of quotes and i will um pull up a comparison so people can see how these quotes compare and uh the best of my ability answer any questions that you might have and uh hoping that we can decide how we want to move forward from here so before i pull that up maybe there's some other questions people have hearing none okay so i as we did when we looked at the rfp for painting the town hall i took our criteria put it into an excel file and using a scale of one to five uh rated each of the quotes based upon the criteria that we have in our policy for bid selection right off the bat you'll see that there is a difference in pricing and the reason for that is clear water filtration did include water softening in their quote um onion river did not however um if they included it in their quote it would add roughly with labor and materials uh another 1800 dollars to their price so really we are comparing apples to apples if we look at the full system of water filtration or water treatment for the iron content as well as softening to reduce the hardness of the water and remind me cliff right now we use clear water at the town office correct clear water is who serves the town office and we'll get into that in a minute here and so just walking everyone through the criteria um even if we add in factor in water softening to the onion river quote they still would end up being probably 150 to 200 dollars less in the clear water filtration system so that's why you see the ranking here five being the top score one being the lowest score just so you remember the scale here primeliness um we feel that both could get this system installed in a relatively short order in the experience column we talk about let's see if I can pull that up we talk about the bidder's experience and reputation including past performance for the town so slight edge there with clear water filtration since they're already doing the same service for us at the town office uh goods and services clear water with their quote provided additional information on the specifics of the equipment that they were going to install um onion rivers quote they listed in the quote the equipment they were going to install but they didn't provide any collateral materials that discussed that so a slight edge consequently went to their water filtration system there for insurance and bonding and whatnot both of the contractors have all of the requisite bonding and insurance in place so they're even there financial responsibility a slight edge for onion river because we don't have to pay them until the system is installed for clear water they would want half of the money upfront and then balance upon completion of the job future support this one's a little difficult um to quantify um slight edge though for clear water filtration for two factors one they've been doing it a little longer they've been at it for 40 years um onion river has been around uh almost the same amount of time but they've only been doing these treatment systems for about 20 years and it was also noteworthy that clear water filtration these water treatment systems is what they do that's all they do onion river as their name would indicate actually doing wells and springs and this is a sideline for them um uh capability um talks about the ability to complete the task really um only could give a slight edge to clear water filtration there because we know that they've done it and coming back to the fact that this is their core competency um finally and other the only factors to consider there is it would be my recommendation that we go with the clear water filtration quote over the onion river and this then is a summary that just averages out all of these scores and we see a slight advantage going to clear water filtration hey cliff thanks for filtering all this information yeah yeah that was bad cliff i really no i really appreciate that you that you simply went through everything and and you know brought it right to let us know you met you looked at it all the criteria and um landing it with a recommendation thank you you're welcome john um so the system would do all the water the water going to the bathroom as well as the kitchen or would just be going to the no it's everything okay everything you'd want it in all the plates iron removing iron and you'd want everything that's all your plumbing where the water comes into the building this goes in line yeah now that will save on the fixtures and stuff in the bathrooms yeah also avoid hard water stains in the toilet because we're not using them all the time so the water sits there those minerals would create nasty stains over yeah yeah you did a great filter screens build up all that stuff did a great job on the presentation thank you very much you're welcome thank you um do you have a recommendation yeah i recommend that we go with the clear water filtration quote okay all right is there any other questions or discussion on this what what where would this money come from to purchase this what since we have um spent all the money in the town hall fund it would have to come from the general fund okay and i would recommend that we not wait for the new fiscal year to start that we go ahead and get it done sooner rather than later because once we go back into business and the town hall's being used again that's when the water's going to start running yeah so um are you making the motion to i would move that we uh move uh prove uh the onion or the clear water filtration and system quote and for an installation to begin as soon as they can get it on their schedule yep okay i'll second that any further discussion or questions all right are you ready to vote rick hi i'm an eye chair chair all right cliff hi john yes very good great anything else on town hall where would the system be located in like the utility room or the utility room yeah just like it is at the town office okay great thank you for your work on this appreciate it now you're welcome all right and so there's nothing else on town hall like for barbara nothing right now all right very good so we are at nine nineteen and i would like to suggest that we have a special meeting on may third at seven to go into executive session to talk about contracts personnel issues and um first i would put on the agenda to get caught up on approving minutes and then go into executive session today i'm not going to be there i can't have select board meetings every week i'm just not doing this okay this is just it's really getting to me i mean the budget season we would do this and then it would end in january now it's every single week and you know i wasn't here for four months and uh but you know uh this every week thing i'm just going to go to every other meeting if we're gonna have them every week i'm just be right out there okay we're trying to get things wrapped up as close to nine as we can without going on forever i'm not going to be here you guys can have your meeting i'm just not doing it anymore i'm just i'm just telling you why i understand and there's always a reason uh to keep you know every time someone creates a shit show in town um it we have to like respond and have meetings and i understand but you know we i feel like we're being driven by everybody else's urgencies and everybody's lack of concern and sentiment and i'm just i'm losing my patience after 15 years of this and actually this is the recent thing the last two years or year i don't want i'm not agreeing to this um okay what would the rest of the board like to do with the time sensitivity on this particular item the contract item yeah okay is that i mean i what contract our department i do i do think we have i mean john i i i agree and yet i mean we have we have a we have five people on the board so when one of us is feeling done then then it's okay um and um we do there is urgency on some of these things partly because they've hung out you know things hang out there for too long when we and we just need to we need to keep working until we get it done the other thing the other thing is that the more you know we haven't finished our organizational work yet so case in point of how quickly we get away from things um and you know over time i think when we've done that and we're we i love that we are recognizing opportunities to get when we're when we're doing even more of that getting more work done outside of the meetings bringing it in nice and crisp like cliff did tonight we're we're going to get there to having shorter meetings and fewer meetings but we're just not i feel like we're just not there yet so i'm i'm willing to be there next week absolutely and i'm also fully respectful of people who feel like they just can't right now yeah i agree i agree with Sharon i'm i'll be there but it'd be nice to you know not to have to do that all the time but we're working toward that so right i mean that's our end goal yeah so it's perfectly understandable john so wait so this is the joint meeting no it's our we gave notice that we wanted to review the contract right and there's some time sensitivity there to get this our concerns and out you know list our concerns and get them out there because then we're going to have to meet jointly with east blood player select board to present our issue and how we might resolve it and then so that's that's one of the issues so i know we're not going to need the details and on the public meeting here but are the concerns so numerous and so broad that there is a meeting that we just can't meet before we meet with the east blood player select board i understood i think there was one that was a conference but i'm wrong i think we when we spoke last meeting we talked about doing our due diligence um in reviewing the contract which we haven't done in detail in five years right so to do our due diligence i think we need to at least run through it we know what our main concern is so that's the reason in part to meet okay cliff yeah um it is something we've agreed that we need to look at um as an alternative and just well let me back up a little as far as meeting next week i think i'll be able to do it but i do have something else that i'm involved with where i may not be able to make that meeting but i should be able to but just a heads up there um as an alternative though could we maybe sign this to one or two members of the board probably to it make sense uh review and then come back to the board with the recommendations this is what we should be talking about yeah we could do that um i think Sharon what about you and i taking a look at that yep i mean Denise and i have a meeting already um but yeah we can we we can do that and then what are we trying to do just jam it into a half hour that's a seven and nine window if that's if that's the case though guys watch your email because Denise and I are going to be sending you several documents because you know we have some personnel stuff Denise and I are working on um there will be this contract issue and there may be a couple of other issues i i'm a big believer and we can do you know without without discussion but with thoughtful review um ahead of time we can get a lot done just by look by careful looking at your drafts that that are coming good yeah yeah if everybody can really pay attention to their email and respond maybe maybe we meet at six on the 10th instead of meeting next Monday night would that work for everybody yes for me oh no no we're gonna do it we're gonna meet from seven to eight thirty we're me for half an hour an executive session now we're not gonna we have a whole bunch of stuff that we need to have on the agenda if you look at the minutes from the previous meeting we already agreed that we would meet at six on the 10th oh did we okay yeah all right then never mind i guess i'll have to save my lining go have some wine all right so we won't meet on the third and i think we all have our homework assignments um are you ready to adjourn okay is that a second Sharon yes a second i really love this guys where if we know the thing we went longest on tonight the laptop yeah we can get no we can get so much better at that so good job everybody yay making progress right yeah no we're making great progress i really appreciate everybody pitching in it makes a big difference all right so would you like to vote to adjourn rick hi i'm and i Sharon hi cliff hi and done yes and katie you're gonna get a brand new laptop are you excited yay i feel terrible asking for it but i'm like it's not good when i can't see you guys i just keep typing and hope that something's happening that's that's that's why i didn't want you being the one who agrees i thought katie that katie she's gonna say no i don't know i'll be like pencil and paper i'll just no we want you to have only the best did you ever learn did you ever learn shorthand i used to have i used to know shorthand but i don't anymore i forgot it all i didn't know yeah okay all right good night everyone thank you yeah cliff i'll come by probably midday ish pick up the board orders john i'll see you three tomorrow yeah see you thank you yeah good night i'll see see you cliff