 Welcome Scott. Welcome everybody. Thank you. I'll begin the East Montpelier flock board meeting on May 1st, 2023, 6.30pm. Since we have a picture of people online and here, flock board members online and here, why don't we go around and introduce ourselves. I'm Carl Attenire. I'm serving as chair tonight, vice chair of the flock board. I'm John Jewett, and I'm just sitting in my chair. I'm Zoe Christensen, and like John, I'm just sitting in my chair. And online? Scott Hess, I am sitting in my personal chair. Very good. Next, additions to the agenda. Do we have any additions to our agenda? I see none on the select board memo. Very good. Then it's review of the minutes from April 17th, once each 23th. Does anyone have any comments on the minutes from April 17th? No. Okay, seeing none. Motion. Motion to accept the minutes. Look good to me. I'll specter now. Look good to me too. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of approving the minutes of April 17th? Do they see? We have two sets of minutes here. So I believe this is a joint motion to approve the town forum and the flock board meeting minutes. Is that correct? That would be my motion. Okay. So we have two sets of minutes. I like them both. And let's take a vote. All those in favor of approving these minutes, please say aye. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes have it. The motion is passed. So we will go to the second item, which is public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to speak out on issues that are not on the agenda that they might want to rave with us. Are there any members of the public here who want to raise issues that are not on the agenda later on? Are there members of the public here, but presumably that's not what they want to do right now. So we will move on and our next item of business is to welcome Zoe Christensen as a newly appointed select board member for one year of a three-year term. So until meeting day next year, welcome board. Thank you so much. So this is just an item to give you a chance to ask us questions and to give you some unasked for advice. Great. Bring on the advice. Oh, you get plenty of it. Unsolicited or otherwise. Welcome. Welcome. Very excited to be working with you in person for the next meeting. Thank you for joining us and looking forward. Thank you for having me. We're all excited to have you. We voted unanimously to select you and we recognize that it's tough to start a little bit late in the select board year and I hope that you'll take advantage of the resources that the town has and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns has to train you as a select board member and feel free to ask us any questions. Thank you. If you don't have all our contact information, we should make sure to get it to you after the meeting. Don't worry Zoe, this is my third meeting so I'm somewhat of a rookie freshman too so we'll make it through together. Thank you. And speaking of contact information, do you have a town email address? Okay, but you know about the process. So that's an option and I would encourage you to do that because that makes it easy to comply with the public records requests in the future. If you have all your email correspondence on that account and then you just archive everything from there, then if somebody asks you for all the emails that you've sent or received about such and such you have them there. I don't have one and I didn't even know that was available to us so somewhere I should investigate too. You're on the list too, Mr. Hess. Well, thank you. The Biden didn't even know it was available. I appreciate it. I wouldn't have expected otherwise from our town administrator. Okay, any other words of wisdom or support for Zoe? I think these words of support will come out over time. Yeah, words of wisdom. And always ask questions. Yeah, always ask the question. Okay, we're all learning together. Absolutely, and I do that all the time. And if we're not having enough fun, help us out and have more fun. Okay, I'll try to do that and I'll ask as many questions as I can as long as people will tell me when I should stop asking. Okay, the next item is to discuss the Murray, Jis, and Barnes Roads Ash Tree Removal Project and to consider a quote to remove additional trees. I believe we have members of the Resilient Roads Committee here to have to talk about that. That's true. Okay. Welcome Paul Cage and welcome, Jeff Cuddo. Evening. I guess I can chime in. The original count that we had done that was part of the RFP for the project was 193 trees. The contractor, Matt Foster, brought it to our attention that there were more trees than were tabulated in the RFP. The Resilient Roads Committee went out last Friday. Four of us carefully counted stumps, carefully counted standing trees. And found that yes indeed, there were 21 additional trees. So that's about an 11% difference. Although you could look at the RFP and think, hey, it's a lump sum bid. The trees were marked. And Bitter's had an opportunity to see the scope of the project. Paul and I feel that it's reasonable to compensate Matt for the additional work given the mistake in the count. So it's about $149 per tree and the revised quote was provided to the select board. It's a little bit over $3,000. Okay. And you know your trees? I assume that you were able to verify from the stumps that these were actual ash trees that were cut? Yes, there are fresh cut trees. But then the right-of-way, the logs are still adjacent to the stumps. So it's kind of obvious that they were project trees. They're not all ash trees. Some of them are other hazard trees because we do mark other species when it makes sense. But the truth is that yes, you can tell both from the wood and the bark and everything what kind of tree it is. So you shouldn't be mistakes that way. I would expect you to be able to tell on a starless night faulty just by sense of smell involved. Well, or by field because I can't see it. The trees have already been cut down? Not all of them. I think there are about 28 trees that are still standing. That was Matt's estimate and he was holding on the project until this was resolved. Okay. So if we don't approve it, then they'll still be standing. What is negotiation? He said he would at least cut another four trees because four of the 28-inch plus trees in the table remain. I expect bidders to be able to do business with the town and to rely on representations that the town makes about the scope of the project. And if there was an error made in the documents for the bidders, then I don't think that they should either eat that cost because they didn't go and double double check the count of the trees or that they should stop before the project is finished. So if we have money in the budget to handle this, I think it's a good idea to have them finish the project. What do the rest of you guys think? I agree. Especially he said there's a number of other trees that are 28 inches plus in size, still dangerous that they fail. What happens, you don't be aware of what happens with trees with ash trees. They get killed, but they die, they get really brittle and they just pull apart the wind. So just for historical backgrounds in the record, this is part of a non-boying project here in East Montpelier, where we have identified hazardous ash trees six inches and larger in the right of way that could blow over or explode onto the road and we are preemptively removing them because we realize that the emerald ash borer is here and it's causing damage or potentially causing damage to all the ashes. Following up on that, the board might be interested that we actually found emerald ash borer galleries and several trees on Barnes Road that were ones that we had marked last fall, but we hadn't noticed that they had actually had emerald ash borer damage. So we're glad that this project is being done and geographically the location makes a lot of sense now that we know the emerald ash borer is actually in that area. Right, right. For the galleries. Where were they? Where were the trees you mean? Where on the trees were the galleries? Right down at our height, which is where we could actually peel some bark off and find the galleries. Otherwise the symptoms of the problem are not very visible to an untrained eye and we know what we were looking for and we still didn't notice it when we marked the trees and it had been in the trees for several years because some of them were completely dead and one of them even was snapped off where it was still six inches in diameter up in the top and three was only probably a eight or nine inch tree and the top was already broken out of it. So it had obviously been there for a while. Some of those trees were actually dead. It usually takes three minimum three years to kill a tree. So it's reasonable to expect that we've got it in a number of other places probably in town where we haven't found it. So this is why we're preemptively doing this because if we were just starting now all the trees that we've removed in the last few years would still be ahead of us and so we're kind of hoping that we can speed this along even faster because we've still got quite a few trees to get down before they do start getting seriously infested and breaking up. Would you remind us of the numbers in the project and where we are right now? How many total ash trees were identified in the inventory of the ones that we wanted to take down along town roads and how many have we taken down so far? This would be the fourth year where we've contracted to do ash tree removal projects. So some work has been done under contract. The majority of it and the road crew is also doing some work. So overall we've probably done around 800 trees once they finish this year's project and I think roughly in town within the right away we had approximately 2,400 Paul somewhere around there. We had 2,696 or something like that to start with and then a certain number of them what was it about 2 or 300 where we're in under the power lines. Yeah some are utility trees right? So those have disappeared so we're working away at the so you're taking what 800 from about 2,400 roughly and that's where we are. So we're a third of the way there after four years? Yeah and that's a lot more project or a lot more progress than other towns across the state. We're kind of out in front of it. And you say you talked about accelerating the process possibly what would that look like for the next year? It'd be great if we could double it and the state is expecting that there'll be more Forest Service money available starting next year. We didn't get a grant for this last project. We had received grants for the prior three and hopefully more money will be available next year and that would help us accelerate things. Okay so when should we be looking to apply for that Forest Service money? That'd be at the end of the year. At the end of the calendar year? Yeah. Okay in the meantime I've talked with Guthrie and you know when the guys have a little break in time and can do a few trees here and there they're going to try and do that so we can keep moving ahead as fast as possible. Okay how will those trees be marked? Well you know with Guthrie you mean? Yeah the ones that Guthrie will be taking down. Well you know I'm in contact with him fairly regularly and so you know we just he'll tell me that we might have some time to do such and such and so we'll go out and mark him if need be. You know he's pretty savvy. We don't have to explain everything to him every time. You know he's pretty sharp so but yeah I'll jump in the truck with him or whatever or Jeff and I will go out or you know we'll go out as a whole crew and and do it however it works best for him. And we happen to have our sharp enemy road foreman here Guthrie Perry do you have any comments on this process? No I think it's going along fairly well and like Paul was saying there's a few roads out there for sure that have just four trees on them. It doesn't really make sense to send a contractor or that like this so when we can take some of these smaller projects we did dog road and that was I think around 40 between Dodd and Johnson I think it might be close to 60. Yeah yeah and that was that had some challenging trees on it but we took a made it a winter project and basically made it a little longer than I thought it was going to be. But how does this additional work that you didn't have before how does that fit into your road maintenance here? So with the county road last year we didn't do a project and depending on the winter if you can get a week of just decent weather when those snow kind of dry week is what we'll call it then we can really focus on it and do a really a good chunk of it usually so that's for this next winter coming up I want to make sure we have a you know because you're going to do the hearing and all that right make sure we have another chunk of roads situated and ready to go right. Okay well do you need a motion or to for the extra expenditure of funds is there a motion necessary? There is and there are two numbers that I've seen which are the which is the one that is to be in the motion 3134 or 3153? Yeah and I initially sent a quote for 3150 and then provides that email that it's the 3134 it's a calculation. Okay as well as the committee I'll make the motion as long as the committee agrees with that I'll make that motion for 3150. 3134 is the sum that we're using so the motion that sounds even better 16 bucks more. The motion is to to pay the map foster logging and tree and additional 31 34 dollars to complete the project on barns, bliss, and Murray roads to cover the cost of the additional trees that were found there marks trees is that your motion Scott? That is correct. Good job. And authorize the town administrator to accept the revised quote. Yeah just say that. I must have been paused. Yeah Scott mumbled that quickly. That's exactly. Carl? Yes. Carl Steve Miracle just came on I think on the agenda we were at 650 so he just came on I don't know if he wanted he's one of the affected landowners I don't know if he wanted to speak on this. Okay let's see if we have a second for the motion and then we can have discussion on the motion. Is there someone who wants to second the motion? Okay John. I'll second it. Okay. Oh Stephen we have been talking about the the project and there's a motion on the floor now to pay the logger to complete the project there were more trees marked than were represented to the bidders and we want him to complete the project on on these roads and are willing to pay him to do so. So that's the state of the discussion. Did you have any comments on this project you wanted to make? I'm not so much I understand that the town is going to pick up the wood that's laying on the side of the road and carry it somewhere and dump it in a pile is that correct? It's Guthrie and his crew will come through and we'll pick all that stuff up and get it off the road so we don't have a lot of people out there with their own equipment and whatever in the traffic trying to trying to do. Yeah I was I was picturing being out there with my tractor doing just what you just suggested we don't want to have and I realized that my being in the road with my tractor picking up that wood I don't have insurance to drive my tractor on the road and you know I'm not sure if that's a good idea so I'm happy to hear that somebody else is taking that on. All right so what because we have your sheet that says you know you want to keep the wood and everything that's why we came and find to find out where you wanted it and when they pick that up they'll bring it in and dump it where you okay laid out the stakes. That's planned ahead of time just so that we don't have complications with that and have people be safe. Okay well that's the only thing I was curious about so. Okay thank you any further discussion on seeing none all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed please say nay. Eyes appear to have it. The eyes do have it. Motion passes. Anything else you want us to consider while you are here members of the resilient roads committee having to do with ashes, hazardous or any other resilient roads projects. Well I think until we get this one done we'd probably just get better keep our nose to the grindstone so what I would just say is feel free to call us if you have any questions or issues because we'd like to handle them before they show up in our area of experience here. Right well your noses on the grindstone have done a great amount of work along the roads sides of East Montpelier so thank you for that and we will certainly do speaking for myself I want us to do what we can to get you the funding to accelerate the project as you discussed. It's good to hear I'll mention one other thing as you probably recall we're working on a shade tree preservation plan under the new state law and we've sort of put that on the shelf for now but you may see that come back at some point. Good those have been interesting discussions. Yes thank you. Okay thank you. Thank you. All right I'll sign it out. So the next item on the agenda is consideration of notice of intent to participate in the FY 2024 municipal roads grants in aid program. We have something about it in the select board memo Gina would you like to or Guthrie who would like to present this to us? Well this is something that comes up annually so it's the same form as last year it essentially just gives us the ability to submit for funds for any projects complying with this. So form james in your packet but I haven't worked here as well. If we're good with signing up for this year then we can get Carl sign it and send it in. And are there any plans to sign it up for? Not that I'm aware of now. It doesn't necessarily obligate us to anything directly but more gives us an opportunity. Right. And any opportunity to improve certain segments of roads that might be eroding or causing problems? Generally the hydrologically. Right. So it's a good thing. And do we have any specific applications in mind that we might want to be making this? I got kicked out of the first two last year and we ended up somewhere I didn't really think was totally great so we're going to try a little harder this year to find a better first choice. They were not considered enough work in the air. It wasn't a bag for the buck. Yeah. Okay. So sounds like you're not not ready to divulge what you'll be applying for yet. Yeah okay. This frame showed us a few spots that could use some improvements. Just have to figure out which one's going to be the most hydrologically connected outlet it's going to play into. Right. And could you explain what hydrological connection is? Where road cross sections with a waterway or the discharge from an area road exports a waterway. So this would be road work that would both increase the resilience of the roads, reduce our long-term maintenance on them and protect local waterways from the road. So motion would be in order to approve the submission of the notice of intent to participate in the FY 2024 municipal roads grant in a program and to authorize the vice chair to sign the letter. So is there a second? I see a second. Okay. Second Zoe. I wanted Zoe to make her first motion but maybe for the next one. Discussion on the motion? I think second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. Motion passes. And then we move on to the access permit 23-0-1-0 for a new curved touch on lot eight in Pine Ridge Road. Pine Ridge Road. All square. Okay. Yeah, I see it. Lots of games actually. Yeah. I mean it's on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's on. Yeah, it's on. Yeah, it's on. Yeah, it's on. Yeah, it's on. You're looking at it, right? This one, unlike most of fire, it's over. Yeah. Okay. And it's new development to travel across the first lot out to a further, further lot that they involved. It's undeveloped. Yes. Right. Okay. What do you want to say to us about this? Nothing. It's good. Yeah. Chase and Chase, the engineer behind the old projects, old projects, all the all-around work and they're always meticulous about everything. So right. Okay. It's been really well thought out. Okay. So a motion would be in order to approve access application 23-0-1-0. Zoey, Zoey. Are you making a motion? I'm still in control of my head. Okay. What do you want to make the motion? I'll make the motion to accept the curb cut. Okay. As stated. What do you want to make the motion? Anyone like to second it? Okay. Very good. Further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to say nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes have it. The motion passes. And then we have warrants. The expense report. So Zoey, this is the warrants review is essentially a review of all the checks. So every select board meeting, we have checks essentially coinciding with the meeting. So this is a list of all the vendors and payments that we are making. So it's an opportunity sometimes people ask questions like what's a mushroom shoe? Because usually there's questions on things with the highway department discord. It's not questioning the bill. It's some of it is what is this? Which I usually don't have a great answer for. There was one at the time. There's a pair. You didn't point it out. He told me what it is. It's just a real thing. Yeah, it is. It gets worse. I have a banana shoe I need to. I have both also. So it's going to be even more simple to get started. Okay. That's how they focus. Yeah. Yeah. The poor thing she was for a time code. Yeah. So so for this, you'll see just various listing. Sometimes the notes on them are a little bit mysterious. And we're often asking questions like as Gina said about that, you'll see the sum varies from here's one for $10 for training that Gina took. And then here's one for $2,194,577 for the school system. That's a school tax payment. Yeah. So what Carl also has copies, all of the actual invoices come with this. So they'll a lot of times pass it around among the. So if you want to look at an invoice, it's there. Yeah. Much more information than the coding on this two page. Yeah. So we don't need a motion for this. We just pass it around and plan it. And while those are being passed around and inspected, we have a forum here. So with the three of us signing it, then it's approved. Then we can go to the town administrator support. Pretty short and sweet. Just a reminder that the developer is out of the office this week. So the need that's filling in Monday through Wednesday. And we have some signs out there with a little bell asking people to ring. So like Denise left, makes a lot of support. So then Michelle and I are kind of on deck. It really helps to answer any questions and you know, let people know. So people have come in needing things that unfortunately needed the town clerk. So you know, we're letting people know that she's will be back on Monday. So everyone's, you know, understanding and appreciates the information and we do what we can. So it's working out okay. Today went okay. Yeah. Yeah. So mostly it's tax payments coming in. So that's the most of what we're seeing right now. So luckily we can handle that part. So but yeah. And Denise knows obviously the front office really well. So there are certain things, you know, we can't do dog licenses, mostly because the system changed in the time from when Denise left and she doesn't have access to the new system. And we just decided it was easier to let those wait a week. Most of them were kind of past the brush of that anyway. Yeah. Okay. And this is our first meeting since the special town meeting with the vote on the colors of our library. So that was the results were announced on front porch forum. Yes. For our record, we should probably and once I'm here, I didn't I don't have the numbers. You can get them on the website. Because they are there. I have some numbers in my mind that they could very well be wrong. But the long and short of it was that it passed by an overwhelming margin that the vote to fund the public library and the amount that they requested this year. We intended to put before the voters Tom meeting day and messed up on the ballot. Yes. We had 646 votes cast and 574 646. Yeah, 574 work. No, 526. Yes, 120 now 646 total. Not sure if the 574 is actually okay. So that was a remote. Okay. And other business in your time administrator report in the select board memo, you say there's been one new permit applications last meeting. And you really next week have our meeting scheduled through September and very helpful to have that because it's a bit irregular over the summer. Yes. And I did add the fire department meeting for August 10 helpful to. So that is on this list as well. Yeah. So there's a meeting that happened. But I think there's year. Yeah, it's starting as a quarterly meeting and we may call it a quarterly meeting, but then we drop one of them along the way. Yeah. So it's meeting with the fire department. So call us the 10th that meeting as well. So yeah, yeah, they did not attend. They're they're undergoing a change in their entire selected. So I think there was a little bit of confusion on who was on deck. But but we typically do attend those meetings. After Rose, one of the biggest posts on our budget is our funding for the fire department, which is an independent nonprofit entity. It's not owned by the town or not under the town's direct purview, the way it is in a lot of places. And so we try to keep in close contact with them over the course of the year to see how the finances are going when they want to make certain expenditures. Then they need to come to us by the agreement that we have with them. They need to come to us for with a request. And we currently have a fire truck, a new fire truck in the process of being built for us. And that's all approved in both Dallas and here. And now we're just working with them to get them the money that they need at certain points in the construction process. Okay. There any other business to bring before the meeting today in the select point? Thank you for sharing it, Carl. Absolutely. Thank you for coming. Even though Seth wasn't here to chair it. I'll make the motion to adjourn if there's no other business. Okay. Is there a second? Yes, Zoe. All of the paper we're adjourning, please say aye. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes have it. We are adjourned at 707. You're like the earliest meeting we've ever had. Take care, everybody.