 630. Additions to the agenda. We have two on the slide form memo. One is the agreement for James Parlow. The other is discussion of Worcester-Slekport email that John Keating told me about this evening. Bruce was nice enough to put it on the edition. And I think we have some information that John Keating forwarded us doing on. Yeah, there's an email. Yeah, so we got an email that will explain what this is all about. So we'll fit that in on the business or wherever we can. The next thing we have is review of minutes, March 7th. We have any comments on the minutes? I read them. I move to approve them as written. Judith, can you hear us? I'll second that. I heard more than one. Yeah, we have a second. Any further discussion now about the minutes? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is it approved? Yeah. Aye. Aye. We have five lives, the eyes have carried it. The next item is public comment. Do I see any public here? I don't. There's some. Put that? Oh, did that public? Yeah. Oh, did that Mr. Public? It's Mr. Public, we're just viewing, enjoying. Oh, thank you very much. I believe that's Scott Hess. Picture's not that good. He's probably here for the planning commission stuff. Okay, B640, we're a couple minutes ahead of schedule. But we have the state police waiting patiently, conversation with the law state police, so before you do that, you wanna talk to Jeff and tell him the same thing you just told Eric? Where's he? Oh, okay. So, Jeff, I can't really see him. Hang on. There you go. Oh, it's definitely Bonnie. That's why I didn't see him. He was behind the agenda. Hey, Jeff, can you hear us? You're muted. The little hand needs to stop. We'll figure it out. We'll just stall him. All right, you can't hear us? You can't hear us? You can't hear, yeah. Oh, Jeff. Hello. Yep. I just wanna pass on the information about the Shade Treat Preservation Plan. We're not considering the plan tonight. All we're doing is trying to schedule it. Schedule the item on our agenda so people can tune in and discuss it. So tonight, if it isn't on the agenda as far as discussing a plan, it's only on there to discuss the time to discuss it. So, we want the public to tune in on this plan to discuss it, but we're not discussing it tonight. Okay, got it. All right, so now we'll back to be conversation with the Boston State Police. What do you guys have to say? I'll start by saying good evening. I am Lieutenant David White, the station commander at the Middlesex Barracks. I'll start by apologizing for my casual attire, but the biggest part of my day today was doing something that got me a little bit dirty, but for good cause, we're collecting vests to send to Ukraine. So that was what I was doing for the most, for the better part of the day. So I was looking nearly as nice as Sergeant Warner here as if I had been in my uniform. We apologize for our casual attire. Yeah, well, we're good. Thanks for doing that. Oh yeah, you bet. So here with me is Sergeant Bill Warner. He's been at Middlesex temporarily for last year, plus. He officially transferred, what, just about the fourth of the year to us, and he will be managing the contract for East Palm Pillar moving forward, assuming that we agree to the terms of the contract that I have here. That should be the same as the draft I sent over earlier. So just, you know, I'm not going to go into the details So just, you know, this has been another challenging year for us. Obviously we're hopeful. We're starting to get a little bit back to normal just in terms of the contract. As written there, it's for another 20 hours per month. Same as the last couple of years, it seems that our staffing levels have really pushed us to an interesting time. We actually have mandated overtime shifts that sergeants and troopers are required to work, which in my 19 years I've never seen such a thing, but our staffing levels are so low that it's a requirement that everyone, sergeants and troopers are required to work overtime shift coverage shifts. So obviously with our work rules, we're only allowed to work one of our days off in an overtime status. So that pulls some of our folks away from some of the elective over time, such as a lot of our DOI time and our clicker ticket stuff and the contracts, the local town contracts. I believe we worked 60 to 70% of the hours. Last year or at least from April 1 of 21 until coming up at the end of the year now for our contract time period. So not quite back to working all of them and nowhere near where we were at one point in time where we were working 40 hours a month. But I think it's important for us as I'm hopeful that it's as important for the folks of each month failure to continue to have us in the town. And I think Sergeant Warner's got some numbers to throw out for the last 12 months. It looks like you're 81%, so it's better. Yeah, I was giving you credit for the last date was February 12, so I cut it off there and did the percentage off that. Yeah, and I think, I know we've had some of the guys really jumping onto it here recently towards the end. So I think we started running those numbers a little bit maybe earlier than you did. But I can honestly say your bookkeeping is probably better than anything that we have on the State Police side of things. So I'll hold you to that, Bruce, and thank you. And just because those are extra hours besides when the State Police would be here one month. The State Police would be here any minute. You know, oh, we're driving through each month. But these are additional hours you put in touring the town around or doing whatever, stakeouts or whatever. So, I mean, I have certain feelings that's attitude for us, but I don't know what else you want. I think it's fine. I'm happy you're doing this because I was reading recently about all the Cadillac converters taking on vehicles like in their remote, some of them are remote, parking rides like in water grays are pretty remote. And the one in Williams sounds pretty remote, but they could do it anywhere. It's nice to have some of them. So they go in parking rides? Yeah. Whoa. And I don't... Allegedly. Well, I'm not sure if you guys are aware of that, but one of our guys, he wasn't working the contract, but coming through East Montpelier saw a car acting pretty fishy right here and actually cost him one in the act of putting Cadillac converters on vehicles here right here. So, yeah, it's... I think there wasn't a market for that, that people... Oh, no. No, I mean, I understand that there was, but I mean, who's accepting these obviously stolen goods at this point? Oh, because somebody gives you other. Well, you show up with... How many people are going to show up with like $50 or something? Why don't you show up with three? Okay. The point is, they keep track of at the junkyard. They keep track of who brought them in and so they have that data. And I guess how one of them got caught is because he had someone else take the material over, take the Cadillac converters over for them to the junkyard. And that person, I guess, you've got to testify against them. So, that was in the paper, but... Well, I've known people that are legitimate bringing in, oh Seth, will you do that trip car all back? Oh my God, I'd like to get rid of it. He's like, I'd like to have the Cadillac converter get rid of it. Okay, we'll go ahead. I mean, you know. I told him to take the car too. Well, now he did. We've got the state police here coming in. We've got it. We've got it. We have a few more minutes. Okay. So, do you want to go over your data? Or do we discover enough for you? No, no, he's going to go over the data. Let's do it. Well, I mean... But just keep it short, buddy. We want to talk more about Cadillac converter. I'm sorry to get off on this. I think you guys may have posted this on your website, but this sheet that I have is probably the same sheet you folks have. Just summarizing our last 11 months in the town. It's not exclusively for the town contract. It's for our regular shifts, so to speak, as well as the town contract. Generally speaking, I'm putting the asterisks approximate with this, but approximately 341 cases in the town. 24 arrests and 167 traffic stops. The majority of those arrests were driving license suspended, DUI, or the top two arrest categories, if you will. As far as the contract itself, just approximate crunching the numbers about in the first 11 months, roughly 12 hours per month. And that's normally between the troopers that choose to work at. We normally have three to four troopers per month, averaging 12 hours per month through the last year. And just to be clear on these stats that you're presenting, are they just on the hours that you're working on the overtime shifts, especially to the county of East Montpelier, or are these all state police? No, these are for East Montpelier, but it's for all of our involvement in East Montpelier contract and regular. What's that? Hi, Judith. Hi there. I was just curious, given that, you know, obviously the BSP, the Vermont State Police can't be here as much as we would want them or they would want to, I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for what we as a town can do to help, you know, provide for enhancing public safety or promoting public safety. So we have looked at that. At this point we felt that the state police contract at 20 hours a month was adequate, and we haven't had any feedback to say we needed more coverage by other law enforcement. That was my question. My question was to the two officers, what they can recommend, we as a town, understanding that the Vermont State Police isn't here, what we as townspeople and as we as the governing body for the town can do to promote public safety, to educate our residents to promote public safety, any recommendations they have? I would say probably the biggest thing that I've seen in these days of social media, a lot of people will turn to Facebook or... We're running in progress. Sorry. Facebook or some other form of social media and put it out there and they never actually call us and tell us that something is going on. And it's more of like, you know, the front porch forums and things like that. The word will get out to the people that are involved in those forums or are friends with those people, but a lot of times there's a number of conversations that are going around within the town and we're not involved in those conversations because no one actually calls us. It's hard for us to combat anything that we don't know about. It's gotten a little bit worse and progressively over time just because so many people are more comfortable getting on their computers and making a complaint on the VSP website but that gets rooted to someone else who then has to get access to it and then it could be days before that message ends up getting back to us. Yes, there is an outlet there for those types of reporting mechanisms but it's not always efficient. So just picking up the phone and telling us to call to let us know that something's going on is always the best avenue. Did you want to continue your number punching there? No, that's pretty much all I had but just kind of echoing off the Lieutenant's last statement encouraging people to call as timely as possible. A lot of times people feel like they need to have every detail or kind of a big picture of whatever reason they're calling for. If it's something that's concerning enough then try to encourage them to call as soon as possible. When you say call, are you meaning 9-1-1 or is there another type of access that you'd recommend people call for? Maybe a non-emergency but a imminent or trend that's being observed by a neighborhood. Yeah, certainly not. We'll leave 9-1-1 for the emergencies but our normal non-emergency line is 2-2-9-9-1-9-1. That gives you a dispatcher that is sitting at a desk exclusively working the middle sex area. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, so comments and a question. I serve as animal control officer in the town and I just want to say that most of the calls to us we handle internally but those cases where I've worked with state police it's been a very good working relationship and I really appreciate all the openness that you guys have had in cooperation that I've gotten. The question is you're talking about everybody being mandated to work overtime shifts now. So could you give us an idea of how many hours per week you are mandated to work now as a minimum? So it's based on the openness or the availability of shift coverage and it applies for middle sex. It applies to the entire northern half of the state. So as our scheduling sergeants are making out the schedule for the next month when we go below what we call our minimum, our minimum number of people that we need to really at that point run defense is all we're doing if we're at our minimum staffing but if barracks are dropping below that minimum number we have an overtime portal that all the troopers and sergeants have access to. Those overtime shifts go on the portal and you're required to work at least one overtime shift in a two month time period and if you don't and there's other shifts available that haven't been taken there's actually an individual with the state police who goes down the list and see who has not worked an overtime shift and then at that point they will be mandated to work that shift. So it's not necessarily a specific number but it's based on shifts that are open throughout the northern half of the state. Right, thank you. Okay. So I think that the next item here is to consider the contract and if we want to do what we should make the motion to. I move to redo it. I second it. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. There you go. You can pass it to me because I think my name's on it. Okay. So I guess that motion also was offering as in the town administrator decided on behalf of the selection. Yes. Agent name. Yeah, I think I wasn't sure if you were still here. So I left it. I'm not sure who the audience agent is. I guess it's a russian. You want to pass that to a russian? He's putting out his paw. So let's keep him happy and give him something. Thanks. Okay. I think that covers that. If we have more questions for each other. There's a second page so that signature might be on the second page. No, it's right here. It's just, my name had been in the draft one but it's not on this one. So technically. You will, oh. You sign it. So it says Bruce Johnson there. But not on this one. This is the original. So which one do you want to have? You sign the original. I don't want that one. That's his. But don't confuse him. You may have a spot and I will put my name in the other spot. Work should be ready. Yeah. Company name. Got it. I just want to say thank you for the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And thank you for the other work you're doing. By collecting that. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Live in parallel with college. Thank you for doing what you do. Okay. Yeah. I think we're going to move to the next item since we have so many things to do. Yes. Don Mulch. I don't hear it. It's the State Police Community Advisory Board report that should be Don. He's behind the. He's behind the. All right, we will. Drop down. Okay. Okay, Don you're on board. Can you hear us? I hear it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So. Thank you, John. Thank you. Okay. Finally, in response to this question there. Do you have a question in terms of how can we, as a community advisory board, public safety. Our original goal was to provide a conduit between the town and the state police and that has, you know, over the years it has kind of weakened and we're at the point right now where we're trying to determine do we have a role, do we have a need out there that we need to pursue and we're going to be having a meeting, well it's been scheduled in post-pwn several times over the last three months and so we're looking for a purpose out there or whether we just need to disband. So if anybody has any ideas of things that we can help to accomplish, we would love to hear them and pursue them because there's a number of towns, I mean we've got probably eight, probably no more than eight out of the 18 towns that are represented because people are losing interest in what we do. So this is kind of we're at a watershed point where either we continue or we disband. So that's about all I have to report. We have done a lot over the years in terms of, we've learned a lot but one of the things that we have considered doing it is we did 18 years ago, we put out a survey to towns people to say okay, what do you think about public safety in your town? What is one of the questions we had at that time was what is your expectation for response? I think that most of the responses well within five minutes or whatever and that was not realistic. It is probably even less realistic today than it was then. We had the neighborhood watch program that we promoted for a long time that was, it started before social media was as active and as many opportunities that now you can because we just heard that people are not necessarily calling as often immediately directly as they wish they would. So the question is can that be modified and made more useful in some way? So those are some of the questions in front of us but we're hardly looking for input from the towns, the towns people and so forth is the whether we can serve some useful purpose or we're just extra out there. So maybe with the comments. No I was just wondering when you said that maybe you're becoming irrelevant or we've evolved past the neighborhood watch because of the social media aspect of things where people do more connection that way rather than in person calling. What's that? I'm just wondering if we've evolved past your role and that's what you're thinking also in that we're doing more people are doing more things electronically rather than going through you folks. They deal with it by social media and that's the neighborhood new neighborhood watch is via electronics. So yes I think there are separate issues. Can you hear me Don? Yes. I think we're hearing a question from Don as to whether the State Police and Community Advisory Board itself is worth continuing and then he was also talking about one of the projects that they had earlier on was promoting these neighborhood watch groups which are maybe less relevant these days with the social media. As for the advisory board I'm wondering Don if you have reached out to Black Lives Matter or any other organization that has been involved in the robust conversation that's happening here in Vermont on equity in policing to see if your group could be a platform for them to make their concerns known to the State Police through that way and get a good dialogue going. We have not. That is something to discuss. I think that if you are wondering whether to continue or not that that is a sign that people are relatively contented with the way the State Police are doing their job or they don't know about your organization, they don't know to rally your bars, to send feedback to the State Police, but I think that having you guys around is helpful in case there is an incident or a series of incidents that gets people up in arms and wanting to have civilian input into local State Police actions and in-site two-way dialogue. So I would encourage the organization to continue to exist even if it seems like activity levels are low for the State Police. Our main activity for the last few years has been to provide a gathering place for the troopers and their families and other members of public service safety to gather at a picnic up in Waterbury. That has been very successful and I think that it has served a good purpose and this year was more effective than it has been in a few years because we had families there, kids, people, wives and husbands and so forth and not necessarily seeing the family members of other troopers which I thought was a nice you'd see groups of them get together and the kids playing together and so forth which was nice. I would kind of, I would rather not lose that because I think it's, we call it the trooper recitation day and I think it is worth, I guess you've got to do it. I was supporting what you're saying. I think following up on Carl's point maybe another opportunity might be outreach to U32 or the elementary school about providing education or information to students about the role that BST plays and also what are some of the security needs and the issues that young people are facing. I have a young adult child who, you know, her anxiety is really high given the state of the world and feeling safe at home I think it would be helpful to people. But there might also be other issues like Carl's dress, black lives matter or trans kids or other groups that want to make sure that, you know, that they're being protected and that their concerns and issues are being heard and I think it provides an opportunity for young people to get to know law enforcement and vice-versa and that promotes, you know, community interaction and who knows maybe as a appreciation for young people can be serving the food or coordinating games or whatever. But I would agree with Carl, I think if we can keep the organization and maybe, you know, do some more outreach about what purpose it might serve or what people in the community might want it to serve, what purpose they might want it to serve because I think a lot of people don't know about it. I think that might be part of the issue. Okay. Those are good ideas. Thank you. Also, we're running out of time here but Carl wants to say something so after that I think we're going to have to move on. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that Judith and Don, if all you do each year is to have that picnic, you know, I think that would be great just to keep it as a holding action so to speak. And it's not only that the troopers families are getting to know each other but you are building a relationship with those troopers. So if anybody in this community ever has an issue that they want to bring to the state police, they can go to you and you're not some outsider coming in. You're someone who already has a relationship. So go for it, please. I appreciate the feedback and I wish we would get more feedback like that from some of the other select boards around. If we could get back up to 10 to 12 out of the 18 towns that would feel like it's much more representative. Well, it sounds like Carl and Judith have filmed some good ideas out there too so maybe you can build on that a little bit in your other presentations to other select boards. I'm just throwing that out there. But thank you, Don, for coming in and we're just going to move to the next one. We've got such a packed agenda that I don't want to cut you off. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to get these ideas. Thank you, Don. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Welcome. So the next item on agenda is Conversation with the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition on April 5th Community Forum on Drugs and Alcohol. So we have someone here, I believe, Eva and Olivia. Yes, we're Olivia and I are on Zoom and thanks for having us here. Yes, well thank you for tuning in and we're ready to hear from you. Okay, great. We'll keep it short because it's funny because we have a lot going on. Yes, we do. We've been to Eastmont earlier before but I know you have a few new select board members so we'll just quickly reintroduce ourselves and then talk to you about this event that we have coming up that we'd appreciate your support with. So my name is Eva Zera. I'm a Public Health Specialist at Central Vermont Medical Center and the Project Coordinator for the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition, which you'll hear about in just a minute. And I'm here with Olivia, who is serving with us as an AmeriCorps VISTA as a rural community organizer. The Coalition is an interdisciplinary collaboration of professional organizations, state agencies and nonprofits working in the fields of substance use prevention, harm reduction and disease prevention, treatment or recovery, some other areas like restorative justice, law enforcement housing, use services. So we have broad representation at the table of fields and factors that are directly involved in substance use and also sort of peripherally touched in some way. And the hospital serves as a foundational backbone of the organization. The Coalition was founded in 2017 and has been meeting monthly every year since then. Our mission is to create a harmonized and stigma-free system of care in Central Vermont where there's no wrong door, there's no wrong time to get help and support for substance use disorders and to prevent the initiation of substance use, particularly among youth. And the participation of people and families who have experienced the harms of substance use is really vital to our work. So in 2019, we received a three-year grant from the federal government to address the opioid crisis in all the towns in Central Vermont, especially the rural towns. And one initiative that's come out of that is the organization of these drug and alcohol community farms throughout our service area, which is primarily Washington County and a few towns in Washington County. The farms are organized by Supervisory Union because that's how we get the best data that we can share with the town. And we have completed two so far. One for sort of like the Northfield, Williamstown, or in Washington School District. One for Montpelier, Roxbury. And our next one, I'll be able to take about in just a minute. But I just want to say, lastly, that these forums come at a really critical time because drug and alcohol use and overdose deaths have increased dramatically during the pandemic in every part of Vermont. And youth substance use rates are increasing. And this is a really good chance for the community, parents, anybody to come and ask questions and start a conversation and get organized to make some efforts in that community. And so our next forum for the Washington County Supervisory Union will be on Tuesday, April 5th from 6 to 7.30 p.m. And it's right now just on Zoom, but we're working to make it a potential hybrid option, which we will make sure to communicate if that doesn't come an option between now and then. We wanted to be here tonight to ask if there are any questions that we can answer now or that you would want us to be able to answer or address at the forum. And if there's any insight on how we can further promote this event, that would also be super helpful, but we really hope to see you all there. All right. So who's got questions for these two young ladies or two presenters, questions, comments for Eva? Oh, here's one. What additional support or do you need additional support from us before the event or at the event? We don't need any additional support at the event. We basically have a panel of experts who are going to be there to inform their resource they have available, answer questions from the community members, and we would really encourage you all to attend and, you know, by word of mouth in your community, spread it, the word, and that would be great support, but that's really it. And this is just on Facebook, right? It's not in person? It is currently on Zoom. Yes, so we have a Facebook event that has the Zoom link in it, and it's also on our social media, and we're trying to make it in person. So if you all have any suggestions of in person locations, I'm currently waiting to hear back from the school to see the potential out there. But if that is something that becomes an opportunity, I will be sure to send out an email and you will make that clear. Okay. Yeah, sounds good. What time of day is it going to be? Oh, six o'clock. It's seven thirty. Seven thirty, yeah. So are any of the panel members, are they treatment providers or folks who might talk about treatment issues? Yeah, we'll have the lead for treatment from Central Vermont Medical Center for adults, and we also have a youth treatment provider who's coming to answer questions. A lot of parents have questions about tobacco and cannabis use, so it's particularly he can be helpful around those areas. So again, I just want to reiterate that these are organized by Supervisory Union, but they're not only for youth prevention or for youth focused areas. We are really happy to answer any questions that anybody might have about the sector in general. We just can get really good data from the behavior survey that's organized by Supervisory Union. So we'll do a variety of counts that I know are sort of spread out from one another. But we're really hopeful that this can be a good opportunity for the community. Please feel free to email us any questions that you might have. Olivia will be in touch. And we really appreciate your time tonight. Well, thank you. Thank you. Anybody have any more questions for Olivia? All right. Well, thank you for tuning in and we'll see what happens. Thanks. Thank you for all your efforts. Appreciate it. Okay, so that's done. Next item is North Street Sparrow Farm Road Astree Management Project. Consideration of UCF carry for canopy program grant. Okay. So we have a grant application. Is that it? We have a grant agreement. Agreement? Yeah. We already got the grant. Did we not? This is getting the grant right this minute. Yes. Okay. I move to approve you to do that. I second. All in favor, please say hi. Hi. Hi. The ayes appear to have, they do have it. Unanimously, we have the pass. Anybody have to sign this? Yeah. So we also authorize Bruce Johnson, the town administrator to sign off on the grant. That was part of the agreement. I missed it. I was way ahead of you guys. I was way ahead of you guys. I was way behind you guys. And the next bullet here is consideration of North Street project of big results. Okay. There was one that was considerably cheaper outside. Yeah. Is there somebody who's going to present the results to us and sum up what they were? I'm just looking at it. Or do you want us to just jump into questions? Yeah. I mean, I can just briefly cover it. I mean, we had three bids. Native earth from Fox fire was the low bidder. They did the work on the county road last year. I would note that there is quite a spread between the low bid and the next two bids, which are around $41,000, so roughly $10,000 difference. So definitely Fox fire is the low bid. The cost of tree removal, this project is fairly similar in scope to the county road project that we did last year in terms of the number of trees, tree diameters. Obviously, big difference in roadways in terms of working on the county road versus North Street Sparrow Farm Road. Nonetheless, it's a more expensive project. So it's basically $10,000 more than the paid for the county road project. So we're kind of scratching our heads a bit to kind of try to understand why the per tree cost has gone up in each of the three projects, starting with U-32 County Road and now with North Street. And it's higher than the rate of inflation. I'd say that. The rate of inflation is worthless. I try to apply the rate of inflation to some of my costs. It's like this is ridiculous. We have costs that go up 50%, not 6%, not 7%. How did Fox fire do on the county road project? I think overall we were really pleased about the work that they did. Paul, being a county road resident, worked really close with Nate and his group. And Guthrie, the road crew, worked with them as well. And I think overall we're super pleased with the work they did. I've had Nate do work for me and he's always done it like a job. They're real professional in their work too. Plus he's right here in between Plainfield and Eastmont-Pillier anyway. I think last year there was a big difference between a guy from Marshfield and someone else. And so I think the difference is bigger because of inflation, but basically it's still a difference. You're saying the cost per tree is up. It doesn't matter who's doing it. But I'm just thinking that a lot of times when you see a difference like that, you're thinking, hey, somebody's cutting corners somewhere, but I know with the Fox fire, they don't appear to be cutting any corners. Yeah, I mean one thing, we're sort of rethinking our five-year plan that we had presented to you a few months ago in terms of thinking we could do an incredible amount of work of spending $20,000 a year. So obviously the numbers for cost are going up. The numbers of people and the type of organizations that bid on a project make a big difference too. And none of the big people bid on any of this stuff. So there's just like two or three in Hardwick and just one down in Montpelier and none of those people bid on it. Because they're doing line work for everyone, cleaning up their lines and everything. So probably that's had some part to play in that as well. But you kind of wonder if the cost will come down because we are dealing with a bubble and who knows what will happen. And just going through what you said, five-year plan, $20,000, whatever, you don't really know. It's hard to know. Until we get there. We don't know until you get there. I mean it's not likely that cost will keep going like this. It's not sustainable really. Jeff, one of the higher bids broke out the cost for the trees themselves and also for road safety. So I didn't go back and double check the RFP. Can we assume that with the low bid as well, there is a road safety component built into the RFP? The traffic control is included in the other two bids. Michael from Vermont Arborists, they're the group that did the U-32 project. So I think he perhaps just wanted to highlight the cost of traffic control, which was $4,000 for his project. So it's just kind of noteworthy that that's a pretty good size expense right there. So it doesn't sound like there'd be any reason that we wouldn't take the Foxfire low bid? Right. So they're selling it immediately? Do we need a motion on that? I think we do. You want to say something? Yeah, I would just say that I think the chances that the price per tree is going to go down considerably don't look good in my view based on what I know and what I'm trying to learn. Because we happen to be ahead of the eight ball here. And so people are asking them to bid on something that they're probably not used to bidding on jobs like this. Most of these outfits are more apt to be cutting two or three trees in somebody's yard instead of 200 trees up the side of the road. And so I suspect we're seeing that they're finding it's costing them more purely aside from what's happened just in the last two or three months. But we're also, we now have the bug in town that we know we do. And what I'm hearing from other places, and actually right over here in Plainfield, a Forester friend of mine says that the population, which is an initial start population, is fairly low that he's now finding that they're out marking trees that are infested. And the population has now started to build up more quickly. And so he says he didn't see how we're going to go back. It's just going to be more food on the table for the bugs. And once their population really gets started after the first two or three years, then things speed up. And so if we're in the position we are right now where we're actually making decent progress, we're going to find that a lot of the other towns around here, if they decide to go this route, you know, and protect the public, traveling public, that there's going to be more competition for the operators that we have. And the prices are going to go up for that reason. They're probably also going to go up because, well they will, because once the trees actually start to die, you know, the recommendations are out there that you don't climb trees. And, you know, it's pretty soon it gets to the place where you don't cut the trees off either because you can't trust them, they're just snapping off, people getting hurt. I guess it's been people killed. So that doesn't look good in my view. So we either need to speed things up and figure out that we're going to have to cover our costs before the price gets into a battle to hire people to come in here and do this work. And before the trees get so in such rough shape that we can't, we don't have any choice and we just say okay, you just keep your eyes open and you're driving down the road and crush your fingers. So I don't particularly want to get there. I would rather see us get this figured out and do what we need to do so that we don't end up with more serious headaches. So there is a motion, we made the motion we haven't voted on. Second. Okay, we have a second. The motion is to approve Fox Fire Tree to accept a bid on the flight. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. So we have that done. I think that we could move to the next item, which is discussion on next steps for shade tree preservation plan. So what I've told people that have come into the office and also tuned in is we're just trying to make a time and a date to discuss this plan on our agenda. And there is a lot of people that would like to tune in. And I suggest that we make some time for it. Now, do we need to consider a larger venue before holding in for some meeting again? How much interest is there? I don't know. Okay. Would this be separate from our select four meeting? No. We're just going to incorporate into a meeting. We're going to be talking, you know, an hour or whatever. The longer the 20 minutes, obviously. So the fire station in theory is going to be available to us starting next month. They're reviewing just like we are. Orders this month. The board meeting is next week. And we've already asked them for planning commission hearing at the beginning of May. And they're expecting to be able to offer the place on its normal standing rather than 13 or 14 people. Yeah. So that may be available. That's a good idea. You can have our meeting in April. Can we do it in April or April? We're reviewing it now. You can do it. You've got two meetings coming up, both of which have stuff on them already, but you can agree, space. But would we be able to get into the fire department at that point? We wouldn't be able to for April 4. I'm not saying that. It's the 18th. It's the 18th I'm going to be here. I'd like to be here for the Zoom thing. So I'd like to see for the 18th. And the good, I like the time. An hour, something like that. And it'd be nice if we could do it over there, but we can't accept it here. We could start a little earlier, so you have a little more time. Yeah. We could start earlier at 6 o'clock. I don't know what else. I think that sounds great. Okay. Okay. So that's our goals. So I agree with you for the shade tree preservation plan discussion. For what? For the shade tree plan. Okay. All that agenda item tonight was just discussion when we should schedule it. Okay. The discussion. Oh, that's all it's so we're just trying to make. Enough time on our agenda and maybe a different place to have it. So we have more room for people. So I think they're doing it all the way to the fire station if we can on April 18th. Okay. And we'll probably start that meeting a little earlier, because we have a lot of stuff to do and we want to allow a lot of time for that. So just out of curiosity, if we can't get the 18th, do you want to aim for the second? May? Yeah. Oh yeah, sure. Because I don't know how hard we're pushing the fire department. Yeah, I don't need it. So. So yeah. It'll go for the second. So you're going to have it in April? Well, we're going to try for April 18th. Okay. But we're trying to do it over the fire station until more room. Yeah. And if we can't do it on the 18th, because that's scheduled, that room is busy, then we'll try for May 2nd. Which is our regular meeting. We're just trying to incorporate it all together. But I can assure you we will allow enough time for that shade tree preservation plan. So everyone has a chance to evaluate it. That's fine. I'm going to get back to who we're boiling right now. Yeah. So that's good. That's fine. There you go, Bruce. I know we're just scheduling here, but if I recall correctly, Bruce, you were not at our earlier discussion on this. Would it be in order just to ask him to give us a few thoughts right now? So we have that. No, he doesn't have to. No, he doesn't have to. This isn't okay if we ask him. We've got a few minutes in the schedule. Yeah. I wasn't at the last meeting either. I read about it on the paper and I kind of keep track of things. All you say, like to think I do. I have no, I saw no notice about that. That was a hearing. Yeah. Right. But I saw it was in the paper. Was it posted? It was posted everywhere. We put it on from porch form. Yeah. It was on from porch form. Yeah. There's been a post on the website for three weeks ahead of the meeting. Yeah, it was out there. But really the hearing was important. But nothing has been passed. Right. And the, when we have it on our agenda, it's still public. The public can weigh in. Yeah. So in effect, it's like a hearing in that everyone is welcome to say something and we will have it enough time on the agenda so everyone has a chance to talk. So I know the hearing is important, but nothing has been passed. Right. Oh yeah. I saw that and I just was, I thought, gee, I must have missed it. I didn't see anything in the paper and I always kind of looked and I looked online and you know, I usually read that front porch form all the time. Yeah. I just want to be sure everyone that nothing happened. And I know that's not an official posting site. Front porch form. I don't think it is for the town. It isn't, but the website certainly is. I know, but in terms of getting information out to people. Yeah. Engaging people. But it was on front porch form. Yes. And I just noticed that callus puts its flag board agendas on front porch form. Middlesex does also might be helpful. So has you read the plan? Yeah, I did. When I went back and went back onto the website and then I read through it. How about Bruce? Have you read the plan? No, I heard it from Colin Blackwell. Right. Okay. But the plan is on the website, right? Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah. So I went back and I read through it. I was just telling Bruce that if he wanted to read the plan. I did. Okay. Yeah. So when he comes to the meeting on the 18th or second, you know, you've got information. Yeah. So it might be good just to advertise it again. You can't put out too much information, I guess. Okay. Well, thanks. No. Yeah. It's important that people know, especially landowners, that have land abutting public roads. Yeah, I got a lot of it. So. I have a lot of it too. Myself. Yeah. I'm excited about having the public weigh in on this important thing. So thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you for your interest. Yeah. Thank you, Bruce. Okay. See you later. Yeah. Okay. So. Paul, I don't know if you want to talk about the site visit. I mean, we had talked about the site visit. Yes. For North Street? Yeah. North Street. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we probably got spring weather coming. You folks would be happier to see the weather's nice. So, if you want to schedule a time, we can go over and look at the site over there and where Carl and. After month season? Well, that doesn't have to be a month season. It will be over a year within a few days. The wind is really going itself. Yeah. But probably, you know, two or three weeks out. So I just wanted to do it in conjunction with that. Well, you can't just meet there earlier or something. We already made it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. If we don't, then we're putting out the main site. No. So, yeah, I just wanted to be able to be here. I won't be here for the fifth. But I will be here at the 18th. I mean, you could do a site visit at five o'clock at the 18th if you wanted to. Yeah. Hurry over to the fire station. Sure. I'm just trying to line up. That actually might work well. I think that on the 18th, maybe if we did it at five or something like that. I'm trying not to suck up too many days of town business. Yeah. We're trying to do it. I'm trying to do it in line with Amis. Yeah. You know, it works well for Amy and myself. I don't know about Carl. So, I'm thinking the 18th. At what time? You're saying like five. Five. Yeah. And where specifically would we meet? North Street and the intersection of North Street and Sparrow. Okay. No. You want them down at Jacobs around, right? Yeah. The intersection of Jacobsville and Fairfax. Fairfax. Right, right. Which is a whole different ballgame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. I'm sorry. But you can. I mean, the odds are there will be a couple of driveways that are unused like the palm lot just below. Yeah. Where the farm is. Yeah. Where the farmhouse is. Yeah. You get five here. I would recommend, yeah, parking by the trailhead. It's just not a ton of space there for more than a couple of cars safely. Well, maybe we should. This way you can get on the road. Yeah. Right there. All right, there you go. But there's no site denounces. Right there, so. I'll do it virtually. And no. Okay. Good luck. So, there's only going to be not that many of us there. I don't know. It's a public meeting. You might have two dozen people. Yeah, sure. Highly unlikely. Okay. I think we can figure out how to do it. Five of them. Okay. Does that leave enough time to get to the either the fire station or the town. I think so. I can't believe you're going to be there for more than a half hour. I cannot believe it. We want 15 minutes. I guess you haven't spent much time looking the roadside. There's a lot to see that you are familiar with. I can tell you an alternative that might be a little closer is to actually see the work that we did in the center. And I know what you think Paul, but you can actually see a little bit more in terms of a managed hedge row and what we have done for selective clearing. You know, when Jacob's road, that's more like the ash trees. Yeah. And the guard rail issue that we talked about before. And I don't know if it'd be better, Paul, just to do the center program be there for 15 or 20 minutes. Maybe we should do both before and after. You're thinking of going to Jacob's. If we all have 15 minutes, the center might make more sense. We've got more than 15 minutes. Does that one have to start at 4.30 now? No, I do not. I actually have something to do. I'm going to start at 5. I mean, it would be better if we did both before and then switch by the center on the way back to the fire station. I think that's a good idea. So then start at 6.30 at the fire station. Okay. Five o'clock, Jacob's road. Jacob's and the intersection of Sparrow. We're going to be... John's not to be there. I will be in spirit. Okay, thank you. All right. So that sounds good. Any time you want to go, call me up. I'll take you up here. It would be good to do that. Sure. We're going to be at the firehouse at 6.30 instead of 6. We're going to two different sites. Yep. Okay, I got you. Okay. And just to give you an idea of what comes up. I mean, Jeff and Paul and I walked the ashes along Sparrow Farm Road from my house down to that corner, which is half a mile, and walked back and we had an ash-focused conversation and a specific tree-focused conversation ongoing pretty much the whole time. We did talk about a few other things, and we ambled that half mile each way. So there's plenty to talk about out there, as Paul said. Okay. And with the help of skilled people like him who have a lot of experience in seeing the trees and reading them, we can learn a lot. Okay. All right. So I'm thinking we should move to the next item, a little behind, but not too badly. So with the preliminary review of the proposed amendment, please, roughly, Elaine, if you'd like to develop it. Sure. It's got a lot of things. And we've had them. Right here. I learned a few things reading those from. What are you doing? What are you doing? No, it's not worth sharing. It's just not worth just me complaining. You can do that at the hearing. Right. No, they're not changing any of that stuff, I don't think. The stuff you complain about? Yeah. Just stuff I didn't realize how invasive our land use regulations are in the average person. The only good thing is they don't get forced. So I guess I would like to get Bruce to give us some context here. I'm intrigued by this bullet in the Select Board memo saying that when the Select Board war is a first public hearing on the proposed amendments for the next 150 days, the ZA must review applications under both existing and proposed regulations. Can you tell us more about what that means? Do projects have to meet the requirements of both? Basically, it's the most stringent, taking any action. And then we went to the town vote. They passed and we flipped the other way. So it was a weird stretch. And the same thing in theory could happen here. Right. And is it clear in the new regs where one or the other is more stringent, or are there cases where they just say different things? Well, it's relatively clear when it's setbacks and things like that. Sure. But as far as in the village for uses, I mean, it's not clear. It's more a case of we won't get that many projects and we'll look at them carefully each time. And you can also look at the draft that they had marked up. Yeah. I couldn't find out. I found the draft that they're using, the working draft. And I found the ones we're on now. But for some reason, I couldn't find that marked up one. The marked up was very valuable because you can look and see where the changes were made. And you can do a cross-referential across and see which ones are more restricted. So there is a problem with that. We didn't have control of the document. Oh, so a bunch of you marked up. Yes. They were already cracked 14 different ways. Yeah, that's terrible when it happened. Yeah. Never mind. Yeah, you won't want to. The report actually lays it out pretty clearly as to what to be looking for. And a lot of the village stuff is explained in great detail in the Village Master Plan because that's where it's coming from. But the other stuff, the accessory dwelling items, the setback items, they're pretty self-explanatory. I didn't see anything of the changes that were, that bothered me at all really. So there's a setbacks in here, the new setbacks? Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of different ones. But they're being reduced to a certain extent. Yes, they're all being reduced to a certain extent. And the rules about, we always had an exception for state right-of-ways because of their varying widths. Well, the town roads have varying widths as well in certain areas. And we brought that particular definition to ensure that that was covered better than it was. So little things like that are, to me, more important than a lot of the big picture items because they're cleaning up inconsistencies. Right. But as far as, sorry. No, go ahead. I was just going to say, as far as the stuff in the village, I've got nothing brilliant to add. The Village Master Plan is a 100-page document. And that's what they're playing off of. Yeah. So the zoning regs are 110-page document. Yep. It's tough to shoehorn at 100 pages. You've got a wind barrier and you're just at 22 pages. So, getting back to the 150 days, is there a way to reduce that time if we move with alacrity through the process after we first worn the first off period? So, from my perspective, yes, if you put this on a fast track process, once you start the process, last time, the 2009 ones are the best example because that was such a torturous journey. But the select board, we learned a hearing right off the bat and triggered that 150 days and then sat on the silly things for the rest of that whole one-year period. Wow. And then there's a petition right after that one-year period passes. The Planning Commission led a petition drive. Okay. And that's what led to the town vote. Hopefully we can avoid that process this time. But we have, I mean, Seth has been helping me. We have a couple of applications that need to get in before you warn a hearing because there are some people that are being taken from the industrial zone to a residential zone and that is a massive change and in one particular case, there's a business on it that is not yet permitted and is trying to get its acting gear to get its permit application in and we don't personally, again, don't want to see him stopped because the town utilizes that business. He's been a very positive force for the last decades. Yeah, so they're right. I think we should be making decisions upon what's best overall versus one particular permit, permitee or applicant. And I would concur with the goal of let's try to make this as efficient as possible and pick a hearing time that closely aligns with either the next meeting or within two meetings of the public hearing, we can vote on it so that the window of time is shorter. But I don't think we as a select board should be making our decisions to favor one applicant over another or to make these changes to benefit a particular business. If our strategy of trying to be as efficient as possible aligns with that, that's fine but I think we should be careful about being objective about implementing new regulations. I think he was just mentioning from what I heard, he's just mentioning the fact that this person needs to move his permit along in order to get in place before things change and he may not even be able to do his business there anymore. Even though he's had it there for 10 years. I feel bad for him and I'm glad that he can get some help to move along. Otherwise I don't think it has anything to do with where we're going with our new regulations. So the object of this is to send hearing? No. The object is to get a sense of how you want to play this. Do you want to... The hearing obviously is a formal thing. You can have forums like what you're going to do with the Shade Tree thing either in advance or after but preferably in advance that Shade Tree hearing was kind of weird. Well it seems like our forum would be... So the planning committee already had a hearing? They did. And it wasn't very well attended I don't think. And unless there's something that triggers this won't be very well attended. Right. So when will we do something like that? I mean we've already... Our next couple meetings are going to be pretty well blocked. So as I was saying if really up to you guys it's more a case of do you want to have a couple meetings where you're talking about this? Yeah. Or do you want to jump right into a community event? I'd like to go through this more myself. I haven't had a chance to and I don't know what kind of change. I can see I just read the report and that does lay out with the change. Yeah and you can just go to the sections and see. It's pretty clear actually. I would like but I guess the next step really in the grand scheme of things is to have a hearing. Unless... Because we have a chance to review this ourselves. So normally I would say okay we've got a planning commission that's worked hard on a project. They've handed it off to us. They've done their work and let's keep building on that momentum. But maybe I'm putting too much importance on this 150 day. It is important. I appreciate you pointing that out. Okay so my question then is is there any sense at all to do our due diligence, learn about it right now but postpone formal action on it until say November or sometime when there aren't a lot of pending permits so that we don't have a lot of permits? I don't think you have to wait that long. I think you... What I really want is for you to be comfortable you guys to be comfortable moving forward. I don't want you to warn the hearing and then you guys be the implement that stops it cold. I want you to be comfortable before we even go forward. And if you weren't a meeting who would do the presentation? I mean who would think you would have like similar to what they had they did a PowerPoint presentation didn't really say that a lot but it'd be nice to have some sort of presentation for people to look at. And they could easily come and do it. I mean they will want to be part of the process no matter what. There's a page too of the PowerPoint so if you want to look at that it talks about some of the major changes. So from this date if we set the hearing for 60 days, say, a pass would that give a chance for pending permits to play through? You're trying to get past the May 2nd May 3rd DRB meeting. Get past it? Yeah. So if you kind of in your own mind targeted a 60 day window where you're at the end of let's say the 2nd May meeting you say okay we're ready to go forward schedule the hearing for June and see what comes out of it. That's what I think we should do. It may be nice to do it that way because you're going to have those town plan amendments and you have to have multiple hearings for town plan amendments and you can piggyback a hearing. So you can get one of them out of the way with that. Judith has her hand up. I was thinking Seth that you had indicated that you wanted to educate yourself on this and I do as well I thought it might be helpful if the Planning Commission could come before this, before the hearing and meet with us the Select Board, we can ask our technical questions so that our questions regarding the logistics and how A5C goes to C can be answered and then at the public hearing we'll be in a position to actually hear the public comment from folk if there is any public comment but most of our technical questions might have been answered up until that point and then after the public hearing we'll be in a better position to digest public comments with the information we obtained from the Planning Commission and then be able to act pretty quickly either in the next board meeting or two board meetings from the public meeting that we have. Does that make sense? So Zack is ready to come back to a Select Board meeting at any time. Yes. So you just have to say when you want him and he'll be here. Could that be like May 16th or something like that for the next two meetings? May 16th. When are you coming back? I'll be back the 1st of May. Will you be here for that first meeting? May 2nd. Yes. I will be there. I was thinking we might end up having the whole Shade Tree thing pushed to May 2nd. That's true. I was thinking of doing the next meeting. I think May 20th and if we want to have a chance to really read through this very, very well and maybe a little bit more time. I want to bring this home. I want to read some more. So if we have some questions. I may not be at the May 16th meeting. I may be out of state on that day. Can you zoom in that day? I may be in Spain. I may be able to but I'd rather not. No? It's also not unusual to do a list of questions for the Planning Commission. That's what some of the people did at the forum. The Planning Commission would respond to that. That's actually really efficient. If you want to do that, Judith, that would be great. If you wanted to just have a list of questions that we could present to Zach or that comes in. The only other option is to put it off to a date where you could be around. It doesn't much matter to me. What do you think? So can we just reuse some so the date that we're going to do the planning tree, excuse me, the shade tree plan is May 2nd or April 18th? Exactly. But we don't know when we can get the facility over at the fire station I think that it would be preferably the April to April, but if we can't get in that soon then it would be 2nd Choice Day. Yeah, May 2nd. And between the site visit and that going on, we have enough going on. Besides regular stuff. So putting off the questions to May 18th makes sense, or may whatever it is. May 16th. You'll get it. Judith, if you're feeling strongly, do you want to attend that? We can put that meeting off. Well, when is the next meeting after that one? May 16th. That's actually always a wild card question. June 6th. Yeah, June 6th would be the next obviously. Yeah. But we often run the meetings in a staggered schedule at that point. We haven't really talked about it yet. So it would be the beginning of June probably. That's not going to hurt anything. Yeah. Did you want to do that? You could drag questions or do the June 6th or whatever. So... What do you think? I'm fine either way. I kind of like Judith to join us with Thomas from playing via Zoom. At 3 in the morning. After having some sangria. So the June 6th sound good? That's fine for me. Whatever the first one and Judith. That's fine. It gives us some breathing room. It does. Thank you. So the only reason I'll comment on that particular date is that puts us in a bit of a bind for the hearing. Because these have to be worn to a certain length of time. So you're probably looking at July at that point. Which is fine. But it just puts you behind the A-ball on the town plan hearing. So you may have your first town plan hearing before you do your zoning rank hearing. What's driving the timing of the town plan hearing? The trick with the town plan is you want to get them going as quickly as possible because you have to get through two of them. And then you have to get through the regional planning official process. And the planning commission would like to get those cell tower telecommunication facility updates in sooner rather than later. That's all. So do you want the regs on agendas between now and that June 6th date? Just a general discussion. I don't think it would hurt to put them in one of our meetings between now and then. So you want to do that one at the first May meeting? Wait a minute. I thought that's what we were just discussing. No, we were just discussing. We can talk about this one ourselves. That's my understanding of what we were just discussing. Scheduling this one, hold on. We're going to schedule the select board meeting where we have our own internal discussion on this so that Judith can be with us at the first week of June and first meeting in June. And then at that meeting we're going to warn the hearing. That's my understanding. See, I thought that was the one yes to all of that except that was the one Zach would come to to clean up any inconsistencies. I didn't know if you wanted to have your own see where you're standing before that. Before we started. We're going to have a discussion among ourselves. Without Zach. Okay. I harken back to that 2008 process. Things got off to a great start and then the select board members started to have less strong feelings or maybe stronger feelings just in the opposite direction. And it would have been a little cleaner if they had figured out that they had strong feelings ahead of starting to invite people in and then all the rest. That's why I think we should put it on our agenda. Just for 15 minutes and we've been reading the thing. What do you think? Amy, what do you think? And I think when I look at it again I'll look at it from a different perspective too. From some of the people who will be impacted by some of the changes that you can see. The biggest change is the districts. We helped to put the kibosh on that big project was because there was too much district changing going on. Now it's just a few properties, but there are still some properties affected. So Kyle, do you have a plan to? Okay. Zach free discussion and then Zach full discussion. Exactly. But as a public meeting we'll do it again. Exactly. So I'm going to cross off G and move to H. We're just flying through this. No we're not. It's going to get slower. Liquor license renewal for CPW store. I move to approve the liquor license renewal for CPW store. Second. Do we have somebody, can I ask this one question? Do we sign differently? I'm so used to when we used to sign it. All the select board members used to sign those. They don't now, right? No, you're going to tonight. Since you're here. Yeah, I saw that. I just knew we didn't do it last time. We had one person authorized to do it. Okay. We only had one select board member. Right. I'm just questioning that. Do you want me to sign it? No, just having three is enough. Okay. Maybe for the discussion about the liquor license renewal. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. You got through that one. But now you have to actually sign so that they can take the people in. We can talk and sign. I can chew gum. I can. Okay. So we're going to sign under approved. I did that. Didn't I? Yeah, you did. I've seen people go, one person signed it and it disapproved. It was so funny. So the next item is I discussion on town management in light of COVID-19. The first bullet item is review of order regarding municipal operations during the pandemic. And the memo says that the office staff is comfortable with lifting the max expectation. They would like to keep the limited access element although that doesn't necessarily have to be part of an emergency order. So I would like some clarification on that because when I have asked about I haven't used the word limited access that people need to make an appointment to come in. No, they just walk in. So could you remind us what is limited access right now? So basically the limited access means those two doors are closed. And for you to get past those doors you now need to be invited. Whereas in the past those doors were open and was, was or was. It seems to feel better. And I think it's improved the way the clerk and the assistant clerk handle things up front. Is that a COVID related thing? Or does it feel better just in general in the way that the office works? I think it's the feel better just in general because I think the attorneys, researchers, etc. are now trained to number one do stuff online as much as you can, which is great. Call ahead. And then we don't end up with six attorneys here at one time with three of them trying to go in the vault and the clerks saying no. That was never comfortable. This stops that. And it's just worked. And it really has nothing to do with COVID or not COVID. It's just a better story. But you're saying in the select board memo that that doesn't have to be a select board policy. We don't have to speak to it one way or another for limited access. It's not part of the emergency order. Yeah, it doesn't have to be part of a pandemic emergency order. You determine how this building works. So you can just say it's acceptable to keep that limited access aspect. But not necessarily part of the pandemic. You don't need a motion. Can we just say by consensus that the office workers like it? We're going to talk about the whole fall of last year. We're talking about lifting the mask maybe in the past. There are several issues. They are. We should talk about the mask mandate first. I was thinking that. Because if we don't lift that, we definitely won't lift the other one. That makes sense. This makes better sense for a order of things. So Bruce said he talked to Rosie and I have also and they seem like it's comfortable lifting the mask mandate in an office. What do we all think about that? I think the people who work here are the ones who get exposed to the greatest variety of people who come in. They can control whether they wear masks or not. And if they are comfortable lifting that mandate, then I'm comfortable with it doing that. Especially given the fact that under these new community level guidance, the CDC has given Washington County and most of the state of Vermont and the northeast is in a green situation right now in a low COVID state. Okay, so it sounds like everyone else is supporting lifting the mask mandate in town. Yeah, absolutely. Everybody's good with it then. Yeah, everyone seems to be on the same page. Judith? If the employees are comfortable with it, that's fine by me. So, I would think you'd need to end your emergency order if you're going to do that. You may not have seen it because I sent it just after 6 Bruce, right? The other resolution. Oh, okay. Doesn't have anything? Well, actually the original, I think, did say talk about the mask mandate in the town office. I removed, I believe, any reference to that of this one because I assumed that we were going to possibly take it away. Well, you have face coverings in the town office. Well, it doesn't say town office specifically. Right. All establishments located in the town of East Montpelier should adopt the face covering policy. Yeah, so this one doesn't talk about the original did talk about the town office. This one does not. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Carl had a document around it. Yeah. So it's on the website, Judith. It would be right below the three documents that we were reviewing tonight. But if you haven't refreshed that page, you wouldn't see it because it didn't get put up until about 625. Okay. So Carl, does this resolution have to do with the third or what I am in our agenda here? Well, that's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the one that I was working off of, that is also on the website, that that one I believe does talk about the town office mandate. Okay. Actually, it doesn't. It uses that as a whereas. That's when people are together and for all visitors. So that one must have been a separate action on our part. Yes, I think so. Okay. So going back to bullet number one, that's what you were just talking about, is the review of order regarding these vombrations? Yes. Okay. So we're going to rescind that order. Is that correct? That's what I would think you were doing. Yeah. So let me just call up that order so that I have the right thing to say. So we'll figure out what we're doing. So this is, as further provided, August 12, 2021, the town building will be open for limited access to the public until further notice. Mask use and social distancing are required for all parties, including employees and volunteers, when in the presence of other people, etc, etc. Okay. So I don't see anything in there that needs to be continued at all. Is there anyone else? I don't know. So we're rescinding that. Do we need a motion to that? Okay. And we have a date that was made so we have something to review. Right. As revised, August 12, 2021. Okay. So let's rescind that. We need a motion to that fact. So you would have the original date and the date it was amended. There are several amended dates. The final one. So let's say the March 16, 2020 order as finally revised August 12, 2021. There are about four or five other dates that were amended. So you made the motion. Seconded. And we have a second by John. Any more discussion about that? Okay. All is apparently set up. Okay. That's rescinded. And I just want to comment that this is something that we're doing on this date in 2022. And circumstances may change. Absolutely. We have it on file. We have so many versions on file at this point. Okay. So then I want to go to the next bullet in vaccination mitigation policy for employees. So I brought this in both for the fact that you guys are reviewing all your policies. And because we had said we were going to get back to this as we approach the summer season. Because there is an issue and same issue that we discussed six months ago. Okay. Has that one person been compliant with that? That's a different issue. But yes. So now we could say employees don't get tested and don't want that. You could say that. Or you could say that part-time seasonal employees. Remember we had that discussion about whether you covered them. You could say it doesn't. No. Or you could choose what you want to do. I'm sorry. I think people are assuming we're all in agreement of rescinding this or modifying it. I'm not of that opinion. I know the state hasn't rescinded its vaccination policy and I don't know why we would I'm not convinced why we should rescind it. I'm not saying we should rescind it. All I did was I just brought it up. Because it's on the agenda and I'm not sure where to go with it. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying anything about it. We are in a very low risk situation right now so is it fair to continue? I'm talking about that one person. I know the other issue too about the outside seasonal workers is different I guess. Yes. They're outside and I think we had already decided that it probably did not cover that anyway. Exactly. Unfortunately we didn't. We decided it did but we were going to review it before it became an issue. So the second our full-time employees we are able to get into a situation where the risk of getting COVID in public places is much less than it has been in the past being a high percentage of the population vaccinated has been a huge part of that. I think what we see in Hong Kong right now for example where they're seeing a huge spike in deaths because they did not bother to get their older people vaccinated in large numbers and the older people are the most vulnerable shows that vaccination continues to be an important policy. I think as employers I would favor us going ahead and changing the policy in place at least for the full-time employees and I'm open to discussion about Cemetery Commission employees. Can we not target members that was part of the problem? Part-time employees. Part-time employees are mostly outdoors anyway. Part-time employees, yes. So less likely to change it. And we know they won't do this. And we know, the other thing we do know too is that those who are vaccinated are pretty well protected. Vaccinate is really taking the risk as opposed to those of us who are vaccinated and boosted and have good immune systems. And at the time when it's hard to get employees to do work, we want our employees I think to not be at very much risk for COVID. So Carl, you're saying that you would have the Cemetery Commission be under this vaccine. I'm not commenting on the part-time employees. We're just down with the full-time employees. Okay, thank you. So if you leave the policy in place. Yes. So part two would be are you willing to revisit your decision in November that it applied to part-time seasonal employees and not to appointees. Those were the two questions that were asked at that time. You have one direction and one and not with the other. I think an important distinction is whether people are working primarily outside or primarily inside. If there are people who are working part-time in the office here, for example, that's different than working part-time outside. Even if they're appointed, they would have to go out and either get vaccinated, a test to be vaccinated, or else get tested. So we didn't go that direction for the appointed. Of course, the elected are in this office without any control. So you can narrow it stated as narrowly as you want and it's your policy. Right. So full-time on the road crew is what we're talking about. It's a road crew. It's Bruce. All full-time employees. Yeah, the problem is we don't have any problem with compliance. It's the policy. Yeah. It approaches everybody, though. Brush stroke. Right. This is a policy regardless of who the employees are in each position. I'm also kind of wondering how easy it's going to be in the near future to just go drive up behind Burger King and get that test. I think they're shutting all those things down. Yeah. It's really going to be a burden. But... That's a tough one. I think that's not up to us. Should we let it... Is it later? Can't really wait. I'm sorry. We can. It is a time-sensitive issue. If you would like to table this until your executive session at the end, I can explain it to you. But then we'll have to come out and make a decision, but potentially. Potentially. I think we should do that in an executive session. Yeah. It's more information that might be helpful. But you've already made a decision. I presume that I'm correct in saying that you want to keep the policy in place. So that's off the table. The question is the extent of its effect. I think that's my position. That's what I was kind of getting a sense from everybody. Yes. Okay. We're going to table the review until we get more information in the executive session. Now we have to review the resolution encouraged in wearing the face cover. The last bullet. And the staff that this is. Yes. Just this one little bullet here. The bullet on our agenda under eye. With your resolution encouraging and wearing of face covers. And again, this is something that I just put out based on how I anticipate the discussion might go looking at our earlier resolution that this would be replacing. Updating it with current information and just as a point of discussion. Right. And then we'll read it, Judith. Yeah. So when you say the cycle intentionally do this matter at every meeting. Are you buying this to that? This is a statement of intent. The intent is not really binding. I think that we should continue to have this have COVID management on the agenda at every meeting and maybe we'll say, okay, nothing new to talk about. You're right. It's still, it's not a pandemic. Right. Still have more than a thousand people dying a day in the country. Right. Yeah, I just don't want to be held to it. But I think it's a good idea. Yeah. What did you say, Judith? I was just looking at the face covering section of the proposed resolution. Maybe the last clause. Something like are encouraged to adopt a face covering policy consistent with their company policy. Something more generic than that their staff and customers are comfortable with. Or can we even end it, are encouraged to adopt their own face covering policy period. And the policy could be we don't require masks or we have no face covering policy. Do you want to come up with some good language for that, Judith? Yeah, I hear you. To adopt their own face covering policy period. That sounds good to me. Yeah. Do you want to keep it as a singular or do you want it to say their own face covering policies or whatever? All of that was there in policy. Thank you. And can we accept it? Do we do a motion on this resolution? Yeah, that seems good. So we can accept it with those changes? Well, yeah. We could just move it with that change. Yeah. Unless there are other changes that people want to see. Okay. Judith seconded. You or me, I don't care. I guess I put it before you for consideration. I guess I'll move it. So are we also rescinding the prior resolution? Because this isn't really an amendment or it isn't. Yeah, that's right. So what language should we add to make that explicit resolution? Just rescind the other one. And rescind the resolution of whatever it was, May 12? Yeah, but you don't have to write it in here. That'd just be for the motion. They'd be separate actions. So it's one motion that does two things I think we should say? Yes. Okay, so we've got a motion. We have a second. We have third discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Thank you. So, Judith, this is going to mean there will be a document that you probably do want to sign when you have a chance. The other ones will sign it. So if you get a chance to stop in, you can add your name to it. We'll have to sign an amended copy. Okay. But it will go into effect as soon as three of us sign it. Three quarters of the way around the table. Okay, so I think we're good. Wow. On that one, yeah? It's like seven minutes off. Actually, I went a lot faster than I was. Okay. So I'm going to move to the next item which is the appointments. Bruce, do you have more copies of the zoning regs or a copy? I have eight copies. I don't want to spill your last copy. I can make another one. I'd like to have it. Okay, thanks. So I'm looking at the appointments and they're listed with proposed appointees and term end dates. So all the people listed here have been contacted and are willing to keep serving. Except for the one shaky agreement to start becoming the Central Vermont Solid Waste Bank. I saw the emails and John agreed to do it. I think. Yes. Thank you very much for your faith in me. Because you're always going to play Tennessee State. Yes. So that one comes with a form you have to sign and a conflict of interest thing you have to sign before we can finalize it. The Central Vermont Regional Planning thing is still a bit of a challenge. That is. There isn't anybody that strongly wants to do it. That could be really time consuming. Is it? Yeah, you got to put some work into that. You're going to be effective too. And Julie put a ton of time into it. I might put so much into it. So much. You have to replace her real quickly. No. So it's a small thing, but for the animal control officer, Bruce, at one point in minutes or something, we'll go to the position of the second animal control officer. The official position, as you put here, the assistant animal control officer. Is there any distinction between a second and an assistant? It's whatever you want it to be. Can we just rename it here, the second animal control officer? Is it sufficient in our list of appointments to change the name of the position in that motion? If you would like to change it, we certainly can change it. I feel we have such a cooperative arrangement that it's not like there's something that I have to sign and she can fill in and do anything, so I feel comfortable calling her the second. For the terms, it's designated. Is that okay? Yep. Because they're all different. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. So before you run off on this one, it's another discussion of future stuff. Conservation Commission. Yep. As we're coming out of the pandemic, do you want to bring that up? There's a lot of people. It's hard to find people though. Well, a lot of these people that I'm getting remember I've been sending out emails to people, so some of them are sending back saying and when the Conservation Commission comes forward. We'll be ready. How many people would we think it would be on it? You've never made a decision. Okay, so we need to put it on our dinner. You can have quite a few, right? Yeah. You would talk to anywhere from five to nine. You're good negotiator. If you get too many on, you get quarrel issues. Too many. It's hard to get a lot done too sometimes. Yes. I think the proposal said up to nine. I'm trying to remember how it was phrased, but nine was in there. Nine's a lot. Yeah. And you also have to make that gut wrenching decision as to what committees are being rolled into it, what committees might become some committees of it. Right. Committees are going to stay underneath you guys. Right. We're going to need a list of... There is a list, right, in that proposal. Yes. You just have to make the final decision as to how you're going to do it. Do we want to wait until we get the town plan and zoning rig stuff off our table and throw the plan out? Up to you, whenever you want to do it. I think that sounds prudent. Yeah. I know. You're wanting to walk two guns at the same time. I can do both three times at the same time. At the same time. Whatever you want to do. If people are feeling overburdened with all the stuff we have to do in the next couple of months, we can put it off. If people feel a driving need to get a conservation committee set up. Well, I didn't see that. I've seen it in a couple of places. Planning commission has asked for it and the conservation funding advisory committee members want it to happen because they want to have their committee go away and join the commission. I think it depends on how much we have on our agendas coming up. Because it's going to take a little while to flesh the whole thing out. That's a complicated topic and that's why we have to touch it. We need some time. I think sometimes just to review the old minutes. It's going to take some time to review it but it's going to go away. I mean, my brain isn't even there. I don't even remember what. I have to go back. Well, I happen to have a meeting. There's a meeting where the fire station where we talk about where is that so I'm flexible whenever people feel uncomfortable about putting on the agenda then we can start doing it. Whatever you want to do. I think we have a bunch of packed agendas and hearings and stuff we might want to wait until after. Okay. I mean, it's something that should be done soonish but I think if we... It's just that if we start putting in our agenda then we can start getting a mind around it and if we put it a fairly close meeting the next meeting we have it So you're talking about little 10 minute increments or something like that? Well, I'm talking in 15, 20 minutes to start talking about it and start talking about potential people Is there any way that we can get homework so we're not just sitting here spinning our wheels and... I don't think we'll be spinning our wheels. Everybody remembers exactly what we were doing. I can put it together. Put it down. Yeah, I mean you can review it and then we can... I just think that it's whenever you feel comfortable getting on the agenda. I mean, you're probably right and if Bruce is willing to... He's going to put the material together. So that and that will jog your mind a little. Yes. No, that's good. Good. Thank you Bruce. So, whenever it happens, I'm fine. So, can we move to next? Okay, so we have warrants but we've got this other business we're going to deal with. What does it deal with? You know what, the warrants we can just look at and improve them real quick. Yeah, I've already signed some. I already signed it. There's a special warrant too though, right? No, no, no. You've signed the special warrant. That's already done. That's just for their review that they have to. And then the March 21st warrant? That's the one I'm passing on. Yeah, I've had it right here anyway. Okay. Nothing very exciting on that. Although the MAC, the 2018 MAC had to get some structural, some plow aspects repaired and now the 2013 I told you about that. I told you about that home. I was right. I said, there's like a big hole in the road. They did take a big hole. In the town the plow went I already signed. What's that? I'm just wondering about this story. Oh, it was that day it snowed. It was soft and plowed and then I drove out of my farm and the boat had a new plow. I drove down to the intersection of Trio Road and Kelton Road and there's a lot of mud all over the place and there's a big hole in the road. I'm like, whoop whoop, the truck goes in without this fire. And the road had been plowed to that point. So I knew the plow road. And because I was plowing having a hard time because the plow kept digging in and knew where it happened, that they were driving along and the plow all of a sudden went cut in and everything stopped very quickly and I knew that something got broken or a thing was going to happen. And then I saw a country truck go by the straight line that we bought for spare trucks. I saw it go by later plowing the road and I'm like, oh, I know something broke. You were right. Then we had to spare the truck. Well, they were already using spare truck because the other truck went down. So they being a 2013 the model your parts are no longer made so they're having to replace a couple of a support post yeah had to be replaced as well so it's going to be a couple thousand more. It was going to be a plow frame. So the plow is like this and you're going along and it's so soft the thing just cut in and then all of a sudden everything stops I thought it would grow yeah and I had talked to Frank about it how fast we were going along and he's like I was going 12 miles down but I had been plowing previous to that and I had my foot on the clutch and the thing my tractor stopped because it did the same thing like this and all of a sudden you're in the windshield you know it doesn't always go well so anyway so under other business James Barlow matter James Barlow matter so we have used Jim for a number of things but we've never had an engagement letter for general services as opposed to the specific things and the Reed estate has finally been opened and we're going to need a during that process and it would be nice to have him on board where he can charge us in a normal way there's no retainer element this is just an open when he works he'll charge so I didn't understand the difference that this would make the way you presented it so usually we have an engagement with Jim but we don't have a town attorney anymore the normal things that we had done for 35 years was just to call Bruce and say hey those days are gone at least for right now and we're using attorneys as needed for specific things and so we always have a engagement agreement with them for those services so with Jim we have tax sale agreements you always do an engagement letter for him a series of tax sale agreements this is more open-ended this is more of a general services agreement that's all of this can I ask a couple of questions could we ask him if he's covered by malpractice insurance because I've recently learned that Vermont attorneys don't need to be covered by liability or malpractice insurance so I'm hoping he is but that would be an important question and if he is I would make one change to the letter in the first sentence after the town of East Montalier I include a parenthetical the town because subsequently he refers to town but because he also mentions the town of Calis so that it's clear to which town he's referring when he says the town we know it's the town of East Montalier have you discovered Vermont? that's on line 3 Judith that you're suggesting the parenthetical line 2 it's actually the first time the town of East Montalier is identified got it since he's working for the town of Calis and advising them on the fire department then he wisely to avoid conflicts of interest does not include matters related to the fire department are there issues that we might have legal conflicts with the town of Calis or other towns with and in what case what do we do in that case we just go to somebody else on an appointment letter we don't have to go to him for anything he's just kind of laying out what he would be willing to do for us and so he was very clear he's been clear to us before because we went to Calis a couple of years ago and he was sitting in there and he made it clear that even though he was currently representing us in the tax sale agreement that he was there as Calis's attorney for that purpose that night so I think he's just being very careful but I don't think you have to list every possible yeah because we don't have to hire or utilize them or whatever it's kind of an open-ended agreement looks like I like the work that he does I enjoy talking to him I like the advice that he's given us of the select board with his animal control officer I have had occasion to consult him about an ordinance or a possible ordinance I think he's been very helpful and I am very comfortable signing a more open-ended engagement letter with him do you want to table this and come back to it in two weeks or do you want to approve it now and subject to having these changes because obviously we can't answer your discussion right approve it subject to him having the malpractice insurance is that okay with you Judith or yep and with that change yeah so okay I make that motion you have a second John second all those in favor please say aye I taste care I'm I'm labeling let's move to the worst the worst thing they called me it was late the guy talked for a while and then I thought this would be a good matter for the select board to bring up it down in a timely way so I told him to call Bruce, gave him the phone number and I said I have to put this off his email and here we go so does anyone have a chance to read it I am not I am not I found it out I read it the concern is though that they're looking for the public utility commission to make changes in its application or in how it applies its own policies and rules the problem is the statute dictates the criteria under which the public utility commission determines whether to approve or not approve a telecommunications project so the fact that the statute specifically excludes consideration of the town plan from its criteria the PUC can't consider that so that's a statutory change that would need to take place asking the PUC to consider that they can't because it conflicts with the statute so it's kind of a moot point then yeah I mean I appreciate the sentiment and you know I'm sure as a slip word we likely share the desire for towns to have control over where these telecommunication projects are cited and that they be consistent with our town plans and zoning bylaws but if we want that we would need to talk with you know Kim, Jessup the next time she comes by or look to make a statutory change because I don't think this will be effective I agree but just to say I'm sort of on board with this letter and I don't mind sending a letter in support of the concept I agree that it doesn't have any effects I guess I feel uncomfortable about signing on to a letter or memo asking the PUC to do something that they can't statutory do so I feel uncomfortable signing on to a letter like that I read this as a letter to the select board of the town of Middlesex not to the PUC no he sent us the email that was developed for the town of Middlesex so this is a copy of an email designed for Middlesex and in his Middlesex email he had a template attached template for us he just kept the wording of the Middlesex thing but not as a separate so you're reading this as a request for us to write the PUC? no I'm reading this as Worcester putting a finger out in our direction after having actually dealt with Middlesex in an agreeable way and so they had a plan this is a first stab so I'm sorry I'm reading this as a letter to the Worcester select board that's what they would want is a letter to them yeah sorry no thank you I request they can't do it I think I misunderstood to whom this letter would be going so what purpose does it serve sending it to Worcester we're just supporting what they're trying to so I'm thinking just trying to put myself in their shoes Judas I think that they are maybe thinking the same way that you are that this does require a statutory change and that having the support of other towns in the region would give them a stronger hand when going to the legislature I mean I'm just reading between the lines I don't know but it says towns select boards and planning commissions must be involved in deciding what his wish list is Judas saying they can't be involved with it because the ordinance, the law the statute says they're not I think that this guy is implying that maybe they would change the statute I'm not reading that unless I'm mistaken the way it would play is we would send Worcester a letter either to the select board or to the planning commission it wouldn't matter and they could then upload it because they are a statutory party to this case and so they're just like we've been saying they're strengthening their case but we wouldn't become an independent party we wouldn't be able to send this to the PUC as a filing exactly it goes through that so help me understand what the current process is Zach said something the last time I was here speaking to the planning commission about the planning commission tackling and I think you alluded to it earlier today a town plan revision that would be like the proposed one that the energy committee was working on for siting of solar and so on that would specify where in town we would or would not want cell towers it would give greater standing to our plan if they were modernized to meet the current allowance I guess you would say yes if you put into your your plan that there is you know scenic areas and tie that into your telecommunication section that would have weight if you put them into the zoning rigs and had standards in there and but maybe to a degree it would help the standards are so overwhelmed by federal statute there's just nothing there there but you can try and what they're trying to do is make it so that it's kind of alluded to in here you know if it's a 200 foot tower and the house is 150 feet away that's bad news you can probably rationally put the kibosh on it it's more than falling distance but still all the other things that come into mind there really isn't much you can use to stop it even if you've amended your plan in that way because then you fall back to those standards that are essentially not open for discussion so you're looking for I'm not sure this was a great letter but it's certainly you don't even know well you may simply because it's been in the news but he didn't even give you any specifics he just referenced himself so you're not even sure what the situation is to know if it's one you really want to sign onto but it's certainly drawing attention what is their time frame I don't know if they're in the like we were if they're in that pre-application period I don't have a clue he didn't say anything he had a conversation but he didn't say where they're at as far as the time frame goes so in the letter he's saying December 22nd 2021 that would still be 90 days they could still be in that pre-application period they aren't even really fighting a real application yet but I don't know I know nothing about it you didn't tell you except where they were in the process no where I was in the middle of working you know I listened for a while and it's like oh the count has to get on the trailer now can you just can you just get a little proof it was 229 I gave the phone number and the extension and he was very nice thank you profusely I mean I'm wondering if we as a town I mean this is their language and if we as a town want there to be more input into sighting and more factors considered when these towers I mean if that's something we want to say and then whether we give it to Kim or pass it along to the town or whatever that might be something we want to do as a town I'm not sure if these three points or four it's one premise as telecommunications in our state several restrictions must be you're never going anywhere if you say several restrictions must be observed several factors must be considered or don't start with restrictions but if we want to come up with some ideas or thoughts or putting something together we can do that I'm not sure I don't know what the purpose of this is and I'm not sure if just saying these three things accomplishes the purpose that the town of Worcester wants well I'm thinking that this sort of purpose is trying to make a statement trying to get support why not let them make a statement why do you sign on to it because you're going to need your own independent there may be a case where you'll need a different thought process this is pretty general yeah if it's general it doesn't do anything well it's specific enough to say that town ordinances, zoning and town plans must be following well they're hoping that would happen they're just trying to get things changed I don't know that we stand behind that at the time we had a robust discussion a year or a while ago about the specifics of one cell tower proposed location and the process of involving the towns and I think it would be useful to pick up that thread again and to have a discussion about okay should towns have a veto power over all cell towers should they be able to specify places where they are or are not permitted should the towns be involved in the balancing all look good in expanding the cell service versus possible detriment of having these towers I think there's a whole range of positions that could be taking the towns had a lot to say back in the day a lot of that was taken away when that new I think when Governor Shumlin was here and they were moving ahead with the Kinect Vermont or whatever actually it was when the feds 2006-200 whenever it was changed to the Code of Federal Regulations went through that was a huge that was a seismic shift from the way I understood how it played through I remember though when they initiated they put all this money together and said we're going to connect and bring fiber everywhere towers everywhere we had when I was at Harvard we had an influx of towers up there attempts to do that some made it in some didn't what we're talking about is going back to the way it was but we may not be able to because of federal regulations as well as state statutes well it sounds like to me that the Cycloids are comfortable with signing on this so we should allow you to show them that's right Carl's idea of having this discussion again is going to happen naturally because that's going to be your town plan that's a town plan so it sounds like the concept here is not one that would feel comfortable signing on this because it says things that we may not believe that the town planning commission is supposed to be involved we say that may not work for us in town ordinances we don't we may not favor that as far as cell towers go and public good may be something that we're not interested or a more invested in developers profit just to be clear public good is a legal term of art so in the telecommunications statutes so yeah it's fine public good is what drives it but what does public good really mean public good doesn't mean what you or I might think public good just to be clear the red flag that I raised was primarily do we want the town to be the ones that decide on these locations or do they have increased input these guys are saying both actually and I'm not sure we agree with both it's not really our argument right now I mean we can spend a lot of time just on the semantics and stuff but it doesn't I mean we were just going to meet our neighbor and Todd Faber and a waste of time I was just trying to be in good name thank you for that and you did your best that's how I've gone that far I'm going to stick to a statement we may need them but they probably will not be on board with our concept it doesn't matter let's move on let's see we did the oh here we go we did the other business we're all done except for personnel matters town administrator report do we want to just leave that anything we need to talk about there we'll give you guys a little bit oh there's a the school board they can see in the east on Twitter's plot I'm comfortable with thanking the school board for the notification and leaving the appointment in their hands I am too thanks for consulting with us yeah and what about the Vermont homeowners program which was before that that's actually a fascinating program and we've now got notification that two residents are in the queue already and it's one of those things where the state ARPA funds are being used to pay things that we may actually appreciate because it may keep a few people out of taxes which would be nice especially if the pandemic is causing them to be under that possibility so we don't have to take any action on that no they really they just started to blanket the state with notices about this program and I think you're encouraging you know creditors to advise their you know customers of the program we know of folks who tend to fall behind we might want to let them know we've already put it up on the website as I said if it helps good the tax sale stuff is going to be bad this summer and if this helps limit that badness you have to do it and do you want me to give a treasure selection committee update like one okay so we narrowed it down to five candidates we interviewed three on Friday afternoon and we tried to interview the other two but we had eight actually and we did this be an executive session no I'm not going to say any names okay alright thank you okay so we had eight applicants three of them we decided we were going to work so we got rid of those and then we had five left and Bruce contacted then we gave Bruce some times where we could do the interviews Bruce contacted the five we conducted three interviews on Friday afternoon and we had two more schedules for today of the three interviews that we had on Friday one we crossed off and two for the second interview and the two interviews we had today we had stood up so Amy and I got stood up we're not going to have to sit around here for two hours Amy and I have been here since before four so we're moving into our sixth hour you weren't here before four before five that's right I was feeling bad for you I forgot one of them actually did call it was a flaky sorry group call okay it was weird and then the second one was just stood us up we got the phone call so what we did is we said that they had 24 hours to initiate contact with us and then we're going to close the interview process they could have been some they got an accident from here I think that they had a head-on with each other you weren't definitely going to slap that so that's what's going on so there's two great candidates that we recommended to the select board it would be fantastic I can tell you don't have a hard time deciding between the two so Amy we originally had some of our most knocked down drag out battles so anyway so do you want to do anything silly like say when your committee makes its recommendation how you want to handle it at the select board level yeah that's a good question so we'd like the candidates to come in to meet the select board and like Rosie to be here at that time because she was at the committee also and we've also asked Rosie to check on references and she's doing that right now and the references she checked for these two turned out to be fantastic you doing it and then when you get down to it you do a background check I guess I've talked with the league about that we haven't had before the only thing I can say is we really got to do it soon well I've just mentioned it's a town of treasure position it's very important to do a background check it's going to be bonded too so you really need to do that that sounds like reasonable the only thing I can say though is we've got to do it in a timely way and we want to let these people know so a background check could be done like that and you can also make the offer conditioned on the background check so when are they going to come and meet the select board would that be at the next meeting or do we need a special meeting so when are you going to be around and when are you going to be around well I'm going to be around for the next the rest of this week and next week I'll be around until Tuesday I'll be around so when is your committee making it well we have 24 hours we've already recommended it to so you don't need to meet again to make a recommendation we've already done that so do you want to set a meeting for next Monday okay sure yes let's do it join a day, evening, afternoon it's going to be towards the end of the day afternoon can we do it like 5 or something do it in between milkings well I've got people having the milking but there's other stuff I have to do it and when you make it at 4 o'clock in the afternoon it's like okay fine so do you want to do the one hour routine again I don't think they need that much time for this do they whatever you want 45 minutes to 20 you think that we even like this live part after they already I've grilled okay whatever we're all doing it to these people so it is a new piece because they're going to have different questions I kind of want to do the interviews because everyone has different perceptions that's the only thing that's the questions should we have should we have standard questions we're just moving on to that and Amy and I already talked about this somewhat we need to have standard questions and what works really well is if you assign the questions to every man you always do number 6 and you always do number 7 so we need to be like half an hour ahead of time to put that together and just remember it's just like where it's going to be making it higher you have a list of questions you already asked so would we be asking the same ones over again we should see the list of questions okay well why don't we meet before the meeting and we can go over the questions that we've already asked and then we'll have to email them to because I'd like to have those and I might be able to think of a couple two three questions before we come in so what time do you want to meet do you want to meet at 4.45 so we have 15 minutes to talk about the questions do you want to meet at 5.00 and have the interview scheduled for 6.30 5.30 okay so meet at 5.00 and then the interview starts at 5.30 the next one we can put it off at 6.30 for the second one if you want it gives us an hour to interview interview and talk about it's fine let's do it that way are you going to want it to be a hybrid meeting or do you want it in person so everybody gets a sense jeneth can you do in person next Monday I will do my best to get there but wait a minute the people that are interviewing the psych board members can zoom in the person that's coming needs to be in person it's getting you so you're saying that it's okay that jewic can't meet yeah it's okay but realize that we have to advertise that it was a public meeting as a hybrid meeting so it's a couple extra steps is there really a reason to go into executive session during the interview process that's what we did that's what we did so it's a hybrid model people I mean nobody is going to tune in anyway but if they did you would just kick them off immediately for their interview yeah okay okay so five five third six okay okay that's what we got to do so do you want to stare at orca right away and say don't come next week don't come next week it's all going to be executive session okay now what you'll send us their resumes and so on yeah we have those we'll send around the questions now okay so if we're waiting 24 hours I'll send something out on Wednesday yes we're waiting 24 hours that could, if we I don't think these people are going to get interviewed just because what's happened but we've got to leave that possibility open are you going to give us something formal or is it just going to be oral formal on the two interviews on the recommendation do you want to write it or not we'll put it right yeah we already did the motion we have it recorded it's in our minutes and we can pass that okay just your question about timing Bruce we heard from the committee that there are at least two candidates that they want to recommend to us to interview so would it make sense to go out to them tomorrow and schedule those interviews for next Monday and if either of the two who did not show up today with something that the committee accepts and they interview them and they decide to recommend them as well then we can just add a third interview that night sure that would be on the calendar of everybody right yeah we could do that because if they call us for the 24 hours and then we for some reason decide to interview them we have to interview them right away yeah I don't think that's like that's not going to happen that's okay okay so I think we've done all that the next thing is a personnel matter and that means or if I need to go away so for the following I moved to go into an executive session under one BSA 313A3 the appointment or evaluation of a public officer or employee of course this is provided that we shall make a final decision to a higher or a point the person in an open meeting and explain the reasons for the final decision in the open meeting so can I ask a quick question are you going to do this individually for the three topics or are you going to do it as one my intention is to do it for the following discussions the following personnel discussions the rest of the meeting so does somebody second it second all right