 Everyone, as chair of the Rochester Select Board, I find that due to the state of emergency still declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursuant to addendum six to executive order 01-20 and act 92, this public body is authorized to meet electronically. In accordance with act 92, there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting. However, in accordance with the temporary amendments to the open meeting law, I confirm that we are providing public access to the meeting using the Zoom platform. And if you want to see how to log in through this platform, you either look to the posted announcements through town, go to the town website, or you can request a direct email from the town clerk. And I think that before we move on with the meeting, does anyone have any additions to the posted agenda at this time? Martha, you want to unmute yourself and tell me what it is? Or maybe I can unmute you. You figuring out how to do that, Martha? I thought I had- There you go, there you go. I'm sorry, I apologize. I won't take your time. I had talked to Pat Harvey about this. In past years, for 20-some-odd years, I've done the 4th of July parade. And if we're going to have one this year, I would have to start getting everything organized at the beginning of May. So the governor has said on TV that large- Oh, could you not hear me? Should I- I'll forward it to you. I'll forward it to you. I can hear you just fine. Okay. Well, he had his phone, so I didn't know. I'm sorry. In the past, I mean, on TV, the governor has talked about having large gatherings and stuff being okay, but he was requiring people. He wanted to ask people to wear masks and keep a distance. I don't know how we can do that with a parade crowd. And there are several suggestions that have been happened. I just wanted- I won't take up a lot of time tonight. I didn't mean to, but I just wanted to see how Patty and I have discussed this. I wanted to see if Frank and Dune had any opinions about this. I'm kind of iffy. So, let's just add that to the agenda at this point. And then we can come back and talk about that. Okay, I'm sorry. Sure, okay. Pardon me. Okay, just, oh, okay. I have, can somebody forward this to Joan? Pat, could you forward this to Joan? Because the computer is offline because I plugged into this one and yeah. All right, thank you. Any other additions to the agenda at this time? Kirk? I don't know if you wanted me to speak on anything that's going on up, well, allegedly up in Montpere. It's all happening in our living rooms, but if you want me to, you can add me or I can just be quiet. Glad that you're here to offer that. Appreciate it. Sure. All right, last call for amendments and let's go to the minutes of the last meeting and there was, on your last call. I should have said something, June. Yes, okay, yeah, say something. This should be quick. Vic and I want to donate one or two picnic tables for the park. They were well used last summer and I think there's going to be even more people that want to eat on the park. Great. But I know you have, the town has to take them in so I knew it was a question too. They put them out today on the park. Oh yeah? Yep, they did put the old tables out on the park. So yeah, that sounds great. Hold off on putting them out this week. Yeah. We have the fertilizer spread on it. Oh, okay. Frank, they already put them out today. I know they did, so we're still going to have to move. We haven't even ordered the new ones, so. Okay, that's fine. All right, we'll go ahead with that. So what, June, you got an addition there, Jeff? Yeah, Vermont Council on Rural Developments, Climate Economy Model Communities Program. They have a deadline into this month for participants, a participant in that program. That program, the Climate Economy Model Communities Program may be advantageous to us in, well, I'm getting into the detail of it. I know you're just wondering what the issue is. All right. Yep, got it. Anybody else before I charge ahead? Okay. We're going to the minutes of the March 22nd meeting. They look good. I had one correction when in Joan's updates that Frank had noted that he was under the impression that we would incur the cost of raiding the storm drains. I think it'd be cleaning the storm drains, right? Instead of raiding storm drains. I mean, we could raid them, but it's, yeah. Did anybody else have any changes on those minutes? Nope. All right. I did. All right. Then I'd move to approve those as amended there. All in favor. Second that. Second that all in favor. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. That one. And we have a handful of guests here Mark Shea and Gordie Merrill and Sarah Peary and Josh. Just hungry. How do you say that? Yeah, pretty close. Castling gang. Castling gang. You guys all here on the same topic. We are. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to, what's on your mind? Sure. So I'm Josh Casting with GMP and Sarah Ludwin Peary is here as well. We'll talk about this. We're going to talk about the resiliency zones work. I didn't know you want to hit that right now. Sure. Since you joined, we have that on the, on the, yeah. Yeah. Might as well. Since you guys are, you don't need to listen to the whole town and laundry before we talk about this. Yeah. So I'll, I'll start and then I'll kick it to Sarah who's just, we've got a few slides to talk through, but we basically, I think some of the folks in this committee and the energy committee probably saw that we had sent something over related to some work we're doing around energy resiliency overall, about a year ago, GMP filed a climate plan that was focused on doing upgrades to the electrical system to basically continue to improve resiliency and reliability as we get more impacts from climate change and weather and a number of things. And part of that was to work with towns, especially towns that are, you know, frankly, either more difficult to serve or more rural in the woods and the mountains and electric reliability can be more challenging. Maybe communications infrastructure is more challenging and kind of dive into those towns and look at the communities and some of the information and infrastructure there and see if there's a targeted approach to resiliency that might even involve using solar and battery storage, for example, creating micro grids or even very small micro grids at individual facilities. I'll caveat all with this all with its very new, something we're just starting to think about and figure out and we have a number of towns like yours that we're chatting with and thinking through this with and really looking for some partners as we pilot this idea basically of creating resiliency beyond just the traditional poles and wires that we've done in the past while we still continue to do that. So I think Sarah has, although I just got a text from Sarah that she needs to be let back into the Zoom meeting if somebody has that power. She got, you know, I'm out, okay, here we go. Awesome. And while we're at it, I don't, Pat, did you get that link sent to Joan? Cause I don't see her logged in yet either. I did, she got back to me asking if I had the link in another email, which I don't. I just have the one email. So she was asking. I sent the numbers to get into Zoom. So she really just needs to go into Zoom and type in the meeting numbers in the password. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thanks. Do you want to continue on there? Sure. So it looks like, yeah, Sarah has a few slides up. So I will turn it over to you, Sarah, to kind of talk through what this is. And then we can hit questions and go from there. Yeah. Thank you, Josh. So a little bit of background on the overall program. So this was brought around. Can you all, can everyone see my screen, is this good? Yes. Great. So this was sort of birth out of our proactive climate plan which involved several targeted initiatives to make the grid more resilient. And this includes a lot of traditional approaches such as undergrounding, installing insulated wires, replacing bowls and adding batteries, all with the goal of preventing outages and helping towns recover more quickly when they happen. But in addition to this standard grid work, we wanted to incorporate a much faster timeline because of our anticipated changing climate and also focus on something new, sort of a different approach which we're calling Rizzo and C-Zones. So a Rizzo and C-Zone is still something, a new idea that we're developing together. Hopefully we'll be developing with you which is oriented towards creating a community hub that stays connected even when the lights go out. And this could look like several different things. We're expecting it to include some combination of batteries, local power generation, like solar and then communications infrastructure. And this will be planned custom in partnership with the communities we're working with. So I believe some of you went to Pantone this week, is that correct? Yes, there were four of us from the energy committee and I am the town energy coordinator. Okay, great. So that project was sort of a new type of thing that we're pioneering. And for those of you who don't know, the micro grid was partnered with Pantone several years ago and it was organized by doing the local solar first which provides clean power close to where it's being consumed. And then we're adding a layer on top, which is battery. So that will allow energy to be stored and then used when it's more expensive or used when other sources aren't generating. And this day it's all J and P customers money. And now that those two portions are completed, we're adding additional micro grid capability, which will be online this summer. And micro grid capability basically means that if the rest of the grid goes down, this micro grid can function entirely by itself. So we can still be generating and storing and using power without the broader connection. So we're reaching out to you because we've done an analysis of several Vermont communities looking at data and reliability, communications infrastructure and some CDC vulnerability data. And we've identified you as a really good target candidate of a town that could really benefit from this, but we're also hearing about your community's interest in partnering with us. Sarah, what is CDC social? The Center for Disease Control. It's sort of a multi-inviter analysis of just different census data. Were there any more questions on that? Nope. Great, so what's next? So we'd like to work with about three communities each year in our pilot phase, this being our first year. And our partnership with Pant and began several years ago. So this will be a little bit of a lengthy process. And on the GMP side, we're here to offer help with planning, expertise and leveraging funding. But we also really want to get to know your community. I sent around before this meeting, I think possibly just to the energy committee members, a community questionnaire with some questions about your contact info, your planning and your community infrastructure. But we're really here tonight to just hear thoughts, hear any interest, answer any questions you may have. So, Jeff, what's your take? This looks very interesting and wonderful. Yeah, yeah. I believe that it will require some matching contributions from our community, which I know can be a difficult issue to deal with from a tax standpoint. But it does move us towards our town plan of increasing renewable energy sources in the community. And I golly, if anybody knows about resiliency, people in Rochester do. I mean, with Irene, even our dead were disturbed. And it took an awful long time for us to recover from that. And my understanding is we came very close to having worse problems with Brook Street almost taking out the water supply. So, all of these things, you know, I don't anticipate our weather is going to get kinder in the near future. So, I think that this is very interesting and very appropriate at this point in time. So, I would assume this is something that could happen in phases. It doesn't have to be one fell scoop or how would you, how would this unroll, unravel? Yeah, so I believe Sarah was gonna send. So, the next thing was gonna be to start to just gather a little bit more information. You know, one was, as Sarah mentioned, identifying towns. And then two, are the towns interested in exploring this with us? Which sounds like you are without any commitments, obviously, or anything like that. We're just kind of figuring out what this looks like. So, there's a set of questions that Sarah and the team have put together that. And Sarah, did you send those? May have sent those already. Yes, I received them in the afternoon, but a lot of these are gonna need to go to the select board for the response. And it's definitely, if there's some you don't have answers to or it's too much, it's a lot of effort to get, don't worry about it. It's really a data gathering exercise to get a sense of what kind of infrastructure there is or more vulnerable infrastructure, communications, things like that. And we'd start to, and keep in mind that this can be both, for example, we chat over the town who has, they have a lot of fiber optic to the home. And in that case, when power goes down and the fiber, the little battery backing up, the fiber modem is out, that's it. There's no communications for some customers that live in the outskirts of town, including some elderly folks that they don't have a good way to connect. So that was an example of some information that was really helpful in terms of how can we think about serving customers like that differently, even if that means batteries in the home themselves. So all of that stuff is open for discussion and for us to think through with you. So, we'd look to, have you take a look at those questions and data and be happy to jump on the phone with anybody at any time, talk more about what we're thinking there and then continue to have meetings with the appropriate folks to talk about certain infrastructure. Maybe we'd look at, if there's certain community centers or shelters or anything like that, those could be prime examples of locations where we look to build up the resiliency and the electrical reliability for a spot like that. There's the potential for more funding coming available to from various plans from the governor just announced recently and then we'll see what happens with additional infrastructure money, but there's potential there for some additional funds that we're all, I'm sure you folks are keeping an eye on, we're doing the same thing to see so. So would you be looking at matching money from the municipality or individuals or both? I mean, so that really depends if a match is even needed, ultimately depends on what is the solution because the interesting thing about the solar and storage is depending on the size of it and certain things, it actually can pay for itself because we use it for peak shaving and a number of different things. In the case of like power walls, for example, when we put them in a home, there's a fee that the customer pays in addition to, but it's a much reduced charge for the battery because we use it for a whole bunch of other benefits. In the case of a resiliency zone, we might be able to bridge even more of that to make that even lower cost if any for a customer, for example, that would all have to be determined. So what I would imagine happening is we'd look at, we'd look at the different types of infrastructure that you have with you or any other vulnerabilities, look at what kind of solutions we might even do like an RFP to see what some of the solar providers might have for options or ideas and crunch all that through and we look at, all right, here's how much we can leverage this to save the rest of our customers' money so we don't need to charge anything and then is there a gap and how much is that? So it's not like it would be a one-for-one match, it'd likely be a much smaller contribution needed for a lot of these things. What is the, do you know what the megawatt hour load is for the village? That I do not know actually, Jeffrey, it's a good question but something that we can pull pretty easily with the metering data. Freeman, I don't assume you have that info handy. I was just kind of trying to get a sense in comparison to Pantton. They've got a five megawatt load being served by, I think one of their committee energy committee members said 40 acres of panels. Yeah, that's, yep, that is a, that one came about basically we had built the solar project, it was a five megawatt solar project with over 40 somewhat acres and then tacked on the battery later and then created the micro grid. My guess is we'd be looking at something quite a bit different obviously in the town and it might even be, it could be, if there's individual facilities, for example, it might even be rooftop plus battery storage or there is adjacent space. That's all stuff that we could definitely look at with you. Rochester's count plan has identified areas that are constrained in other areas that where there is good solar exposure. I'm not, there was one designation. I've got to find out what the, I assume it's an acronym and stands for, but we could provide that map and I think our select board also has got a pretty good idea, a much better idea than I do of all the kinds of parcels that we have around the town. That would be great, it'd be really helpful. Pat? Of course I have a couple of questions. So you're talking about putting in a solar field and yes, our town plan does have designated areas. Do you have any concerns about floodplain? With solar field? Yeah, if, so if you were to do solar like on the ground in a field somewhere that you'd definitely have to take into consideration floodway and floodplain. Again, not having looked at anything specifically in your area yet as to wear a project or like I said, it could be a bunch of rooftop projects. It doesn't necessarily need to be on the ground, but yeah, floodway and floodplain would be considered. I don't think they're doing solar at all in the flood. I don't think so, that's not a good idea. How many towns are you, did I get in the presentation that you're doing three towns at a time? That's our hope is to like, just to get like get to work through some pilots to work with two or three towns, just, you know. So we would be in the top four towns to have gone into this program. Correct. Why Rochester? Well, I could let Sarah, so I don't know if Sarah, oh yeah, Sarah's still here. We did a ranking of electric reliability data, communications using, and this is using, and I'll say with the communications data, it's certainly not a perfect science, but we use the state data in terms of where broadband either existed, didn't exist, fiber and the CDC data that Sarah mentioned is really just some census data that spreads out across Vermont. So we ranked all the towns in GMP's territory and essentially had the top 15 that we sent to information on, and we've heard back from a few folks like yourselves. Not because we're the troubled child. Troubled child? That's cool. Well, we are from being in the woods, and yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, you know, the tougher it is to serve the area electrically. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we continue, so part of that climate plan also includes a lot of traditional distribution improvements. Just, you know, as we're thinking ahead a little bit, that stuff's gonna continue to be very important. We're gonna continue to build poles and wires, get them roadside where we can, get them out of the woods, bury where it makes sense. But inevitably that stuff takes a hit when we get nasty weather, which isn't lightening up. And so we're trying to jump ahead where in some areas and think through different ways of serving customers. And that's kind of why this is a pilot at this point, too, is that it's, we see it as a potential to grow and, you know, we'll have areas where maybe we don't even have poles and wires for eating it at all anymore, because we don't need to. We have another source to the customer. It looks no different. You just, your lights are on way more often, hopefully, and you're able to recover more quickly when an event happens. So it's part of the kind of the broader thinking as we're looking at this. I have a question. Is this possible to run under this project to run power in places that do not have power lines like Jerusalem Hill or Westo? That I don't know. I don't know the geography well enough to know where you'd put something in. I mean, I would say that what we'd be looking at here is probably serving existing facilities that probably are connected today, at least to start with. Usually we're thinking about key infrastructure that's like you could be water pumping, communications hubs, emergency shelters, first responder facilities, that sort of thing as we start thinking through this. Is it fair to say, Josh, that it's more likely, though, to be focused around the village as opposed to the whole town area? Likely to start. I think that would make the most sense. Again, if there's a pocket, let's say, of customers that are, for one reason or another, just more sensitive to outages and it's a much, much harder area to feed and we can think about creative way to help those homes stay on. We can look at that as well. I would say that the village, the community center is probably gonna be an area of focus to start for sure. Yeah, I say that because you didn't cover the entire town of Panton. You just did an area around the town center. And that may have been just because of the size of the PV array, too. I mean, so yeah, that's a good question Well, it was a couple reasons there. One, islanding an entire piece of the distribution system with only solar and batteries hasn't been done yet in the United States and there's a whole host of reasons why, but basically when you have a power system, you've gotta make sure that the protection is gonna work appropriately. If a tree comes down on the wire or a car hits a pole, all the protection in place, we have fuses and a bunch of things, they have to function. So when you're islanding with just solar and batteries, you still need all that protection to function. So that's why we're starting with a smaller area. We could actually feed probably most of that town if we want to, when we're ready to expand it. But to start, we've got kind of bracketed it with the town garage, the town hall, and there's a few homes and farms in between. And then once we've got that first one under our belt working and running, we're gonna look to expand that and build elsewhere. But that said, doing individual facilities, like if it's a shelter you have, or again, that is a lot easier to do today. We did that with the Vermont State House recently and you can do systems like that much quicker. Sorry, Frank, I think I cut you off there. No, that's quite all right. We do have a lot of backup generation already on a lot of our facilities that's already in place. Yep. So that might help with what you're trying to do. Yeah, definitely. And especially again, as you're, so like the State House example, they were actually, their gen set was 40 years old and it was time for, they were looking at a replacement there anyway. So then we worked with them to do a storage system instead. And then also the nice thing is we're able to tap into it and give them a revenue stream for using the battery storage. So things like that, like if you have gen sets, they can be part of the system or if any of them are nearing replacement age, it's something that just keep in mind as well. No, it's pretty exciting. It's exciting to be picked as a possibility to get in on this. Great, great. So I mean, I speak in from me, but I think the other two members of the Select Board would agree that Gail, let's investigate this. Absolutely, yeah. And I'm sure with the likes of Jeff Gephart, Greg White and Frank Severy in our town, they'll enjoy working with us. Yeah. We'll figure something out again. Yeah. So I'm just gonna show up here. What's the next step, Josh? So you have those questions if you're able to take a look through those and start pulling any of that information together. And like I said, don't make it a huge effort. If there's things that, or you have a question for us as to what it is we're looking for, feel free to reach out to Sarah and myself. We'll gather that information. And then, I mean, really just plan to get down there and get a little more familiar with the area in the town and then start talking about some potential options. We'll look at the data. We'll have, one other thing I should add is once we start this process, we'll have a regulatory process on the GMP side that we'll go through, because basically we have to show that, hey, if we're gonna do this resiliency zone, let's say we can't do it a cheaper way with poles and wires and things, we have to prove out to our public utilities commission. So that's all part of what we'll pull together and work through with your help and information there. Great. One quick question. Is it possible to lease batteries and not own them? Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, we've done that on the smaller scale side, the residential, but that works with any size system. Thank you. Yep. Does anyone else? I have the question. So I'll forward the questions to all of the select board members. Great. I really appreciate that and thank you, Dune, for the time. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Carmen. Yeah, thank you. Take care, night. Thanks very much. Jeff, since we've been chatting about some things in your wheelhouse here, do you wanna talk about the Climate Economy Initiative you're talking about? Yeah, just noticed over the weekend, actually I guess it was maybe Friday, that the Vermont Council on Rural Development has the Climate Economy Model Communities Program. Basically, their goal is to help communities model rapid change by implementing energy efficiency, transportation system, transformation, renewable energy generation, working lands development and entrepreneurship and business incubation to spur economic resilience and progress. I'm getting a bit nervous about our focus in our crisis here with our high school and the kind of disjointedness between that and our buildings and our community as a whole. I think that the, right at the moment, our need to figure out what to do with that high school has really gotten us in a very narrow focus. Yet I hear that maybe we need to move our town garage, maybe we need to move our town office, maybe we need something, some affordable housing somewhere in the mix. And of course, we need to do something with our high school building. But what I see this model community is providing is not money, but expert assistance in reviewing community needs. It's almost like going back, it seems like we got a really good start with Envision Rochester and then the pandemic hit and then the school issue came up and we've really shifted gears and we've gone to that. But I'm having a really hard time trying to weigh what's the best thing for us energy-wise and climate-wise with all these things up in the air and our focus on the school building can continue, should continue, but I think that we need to look at things more holistically and I'm hoping that this program would enable that. I am drafting a letter that I will send to the select board for approval to see if we can get that one town seat in this program going forward. I'll get you the letter and the emails that I have the information about the program and see what you think. The deadline for it though is coming up at the end of the month. So I've had conversations with the program director and I think it might be helpful to us to broaden our view again, to see if we can come up with solutions across the board. No, that sounds great. All right, well, I'll finish drafting the letter and get it to you guys for your attention. Great, thank you, Jeff. Pat and Frank, anybody else have any questions for him on this? No, I just have him get us the letter and we can read it over and see what we think. And Catherine, is that a hand raised or is that a high five? I agree that the whole, and I, and Frank and I were talking about this on Friday, the holistic approach needs to happen. It really does. So thanks, Jeff and Frank and I think. Yeah, and I don't mean any criticism of anybody involved in any aspect of this. I mean, it's people are putting in great effort on this. But I think that if we're gonna get it right for the community, we've gotta broaden, keep our view a little broader at the moment. Much agreed, yeah. Well, we, you know, the planning grant is going in tomorrow and we've gotten some fabulous endorsements, letters from Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation from Two Rivers, from our planning commission, from many different organizations and some individuals. So the phase, if we get awarded the planning grant is an opportunity to work with our consultants to look at a lot of things. I mean, it's very specifically related to the proposal within the grant, but it's an opportunity to look beyond two. Yeah, it's a big component of the analysis of all of our town properties that we should be making. Great, thank you, Jeff, for your energy and that energy committee. I think that this could segue into, Kirk, you wanted to give us an update on what's going on and the conversation to this point is pretty energizing. What have you got to add to that? Yeah, thank you for having me. And yeah, I'm always happy, as you know, my plan has been to visit you every month. And if you want me to update what's going on, you know, we've got another, in another month, it'll be, what, we'll be into halfway through May and we'll be getting close to the end of the legislative session. And so if you want me to come back next month, happy to do it. Yeah, those kind of programs are fantastic out there. I have had the great fortune of being put on the Commerce and Economic Development Committee. So my committee is one that reviews a lot of those programs and funds them and, by all means, take advantage of those resources and the Economic Development Corporations and even the League of Cities and Towns. A lot of those organizations have resources to help you navigate through those. The legislature, probably a large part of what the legislature has been working on, has been, initially, was COVID relief for our communities. Originally, the idea of bringing that out of the general fund. And then, since the feds have thrown a whole bunch of money now at us, trying to figure out how to allocate all that. The COVID recovery bill that the House passed last week, which the Senate is now working on, had $97.5 million in federal stimulus funds that we were channeling to businesses, schools, housing, workforce development, broadband, and a whole bunch of other things. And I could break that all down for you, if you want. But there's a bunch of money out there. And some of that money, as I said, is for broadband. It's for transportation. There's a lot of money going into the Transportation Fund, Fixed Roads. And yeah, there's just a bunch. Now, with the ARPA funds in particular, the America Rescue Plan Act, so there's a bunch of money that's going, as I said, into transportation stuff. So when the time comes, if you have roads, bridges, things like that, that you've been neglecting to fix, because funds are something like that, that'll be the time to jump on that. Additionally, it looks like last week, we had a presentation from Rebecca Ellis, from Representative Welch's office, and from Karen Horne, from the Vermont League of Saisons Towns, on exactly those ARPA funds that are coming in. And essentially, besides the large pots of money for very specific projects, it looks like there's going to be each municipality in the state is going to get a certain amount of funds. It works out to $293 per person, based on the 2010 census. And my best calculations is that Rochester should get about $322,000 out of that. And you'll get the latest news. Everything has taken a little bit with the grain of salt, because all the federal rules and things are still a little bit fluid. But the latest guess from Welch's office is that the towns should have 50% of that, probably by around June 11. So you'll have half of it, and then you'll get the other half a year later. You have three and a half years to spend it. And the advice is, don't, as perhaps one of your select board members suggested, just throw a big party with it. But rather, really, go through these processes with economic development and Vermont League of Cities and Towns to try and figure out the best utilization of those funds. And these town-specific funds, don't spend them on your bridges and roads. And don't spend them on your broadband, because there's other pots of money for that stuff. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns was also given a large chunk of money, as were the regional development corporations, like Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation, to fund staff for them to help towns navigate how to use your money. So there should be some resources available to you. But yeah, this is your chance to fix up your outbuildings and paint your whatever, all the stuff that has been neglected for quite a while because of funds. This would be the time to make a strategic plan on how to best use it. And in addition to that, there's going to be about $270 million going to the Vermont School Districts. So again, that's a separate pot of money. So you won't have to take that out of your 300,000 for your schools, that kind of stuff. So it's a lot of money. And the trick will be is to use it wisely. So a question so far. Now you can come every meeting if you're going to give news like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, this is probably the this is probably I'm peeking here. Probably we're recording this though. We can play it over again. Can we what category do our sidewalks fall into? Is that under transportation, or would that be another? That's a good question. I think that would be in a different category. I wouldn't think we'd have to use this 300,000 for anything like that. But yeah, we'd have to look into it. Yeah, I think a lot of that's going to depend where those sidewalks are and how much you can show that whether or not it relates to transportation, those kind of things. It completely relates to the village. The sidewalks are in terrible disrepair. And in terms of the pedestrian use and the whole business, it's right. So if it's not under transportation, what is it under? And it's really and if you could find that out for us, it would be very helpful. Yeah, and I will I will do my best to do that right now. It's again, part of thing is that the federal bodies are saying, hey, we've got this pile of money. We'll tell you what the strings are later and what the what the restrictions are later. And so they're they're still drafting all that. And and so we don't exactly know which things that part of about 300,000. That's the best estimate is the one that has the least number of strings. But as you as you dig into some of these other other sources, that will, you know, then then, you know, you'll have to follow. You know, you can't unless you can rationalize, you know, that your project fits into broadband transportation, you know, in some of these other buckets, basically. But yeah. So this is, you know, it's exciting, exciting times for a lot of communities that have not been able to sustain things to keep things up. And so this is this is our chance. And otherwise, you know, the at this point, just for the legislative process, there's a thing called crossover, which is a couple of weeks after town meeting day. That's when, you know, basically any bill that the House wants any chance of getting passed by the end of the legislative session or the Senate on their side, both of those have to sort of have those, those approved in their body so that on crossover, they switch over and the Senate looks at the House bills and the House looks at the Senate bills and and then they we each fiddle with each other's bills and and and sometimes they even sometimes the other body won't approve a bill. So it never gets to the governor's office to sign. And that's the stage we're in right now. So right now, the House is looking at all these Senate bills and it's looking at all these House bills and because the session ends in the middle of May. And so we're starting to get down to a crunch. But this coming week, probably the bottle bill will be a big, big one coming down to the expanding of the of redeemable bottles. There's been some controversy around that. And last week, they approved the House approved a decriminalization of small amounts of therapeutic anti-opioid medications. You know, and so, you know, there's a bunch of things that have been coming through my own committee. We've been working on, again, commerce. When I joined commerce, I didn't understand it. Also included exciting topics like insurance. And so so we've been, you know, working hard on understanding things like apparently insurance companies that cover dental procedures have been telling dentists what they can charge for services that the insurance doesn't cover. And and and just it's just they want to be able to tell their people who are buying the policies that the policy is cheaper because we just told them they can't charge for these other procedures we don't cover anyway. So we're working on little things like that to remedy that that's the stuff my committee is working on. So it's not as exciting as any more as the three hundred thousand dollars. But but it's important stuff needs to get done to kind of keep keep things going. Great. Yeah. Thank you, Kurt. Yeah. So yeah. And and hopefully I'll have have more information about some of this stuff next next month when I when I come to see you. But thank you for for having me. No, thanks for being here. Thank you, Kurt. Oh, well, we could sure throw a hell of a Fourth of July parade with three hundred thousand dollars fireworks. I don't know how I feel about the whole thing in general. So we'll discuss it when it's time for me to discuss it. Well, I just segue into that. Oh, OK. I don't know if we really can make a decision yet. But what were you saying? And when's the when do you need to know by? I need to know by like the first week of May and from what I've I've been trying to get in touch with the governor's office and haven't had any luck with that. But from what I see on the news, he's had several statements that he's allowing large gatherings, but he wants people to remember to be wearing their masks and and keep distance, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't know how easy that's going to be. Not very easy when you have such a crowd. Pat Harvey and I discussed this and she said that Terry Severey mentioned that possibly if we did have the parade, we could make a point of having, you know, how everybody generally stays on Main Street to watch it. We could have the parade route go around the park. And so we could ask people to together on all different sides, all four sides of the park, you know, that would spread the crowd out. That kind of thing. But the more I've I've seen a lot on the news, it's about places that have opened everything up so quickly. And then and of course, they can't control what people do as far as masks or whatever. And then they have a batch of new cases. So I will admit I'm nervous about I would like to do it because I know people like the parade and I would like to have it, you know, if we can. But I also am nervous about. Causing a problem, you know, so I don't know. I just wanted to know what the what the select board thought about this. Kirk, were you raising your hand? Did you have some input on that? I may. I may. So this is the 4th July. Yeah, our 4th of July parade that we've had for many years. Yes. What do you think the turnout is for that? Oh, hundreds and hundreds. And hundreds. I mean, I would say someone estimated once about seven hundred and fifty eight hundred people, but I don't know that. I I certainly never counted everybody. I'm too busy doing other stuff. Yeah. So the so the current plan, which is always subject to change, of course, depending on how numbers go. But the goal is that is it certainly by sometime in June that the rules would be for outdoor gatherings and events on allowance of nine hundred people plus an unlimited number of vaccinated people. OK, now, of course, masks distancing are all still still in place. But that's but that's the goal that the governor is just shooting for by by by early June. So if you're thinking there's always seven or eight hundred people that show up, you're probably it, you know, you're under the numbers that that the state might be more. I don't know. I've never counted it. It is certainly a good crowd. Anyone could tell you. And in the past, the Lions Club has always done a barbecue, too. Now, the gentleman who was in charge of the barbecue, Mr. Baxter died last fall. And I haven't been able to get in touch with a man who who helped him. So I don't know if that would be a part if that would be. I mean, if we should just have a parade, if we're going to do it, just have the parade, period, you know, and not worry about having anything else. People could go to their own homes and have something to eat themselves, you know. Here's Pierce Hall is planning to do the barbecue. Pierce Hall is planning to do a barbecue. OK. Right. All right. So who is in charge of that that I should get in touch with if we go ahead with a parade? Get a hold of Becky. Becky Doné. OK. Right. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I like I said, I want to do this. The other problem for me particularly is that. As of last summer, I developed a condition called lymphedema. And anyone who knows me knows that now I can't walk without a walker. So I can do all the organizational part of this. No problem sending out the letters and getting things organized and calling to get judges, etc., etc. I can do all that. That's no problem. The problem I just have a problem with I'm going to have to get some volunteers to help me like set up the judges stand, blah, blah, blah. Stuff I could always do before with no problem. I need help with now. I can't do it myself. But I'm, you know, I I want to make. You know, you know, happy memories for people. And I know people were disappointed last year. It's just I'm a little I'm surprised at how nervous I want to be careful. And yeah, I'm surprised at how nervous I am about this. I never would have before this pandemic thing. I would never even thought about it. You know, Pat, did you have a comment you want to make? Yeah, I mean, we'll watch it again for the next couple of weeks. I have heard that Lauren is going ahead with their parade, but they're not having the after parade party up at the school. So, you know, there's a little bit of guidance. We just still have to follow the state guidelines, the state guidance. And it does look rather promising that we would be able to go forward with it. But we'll take yet another couple of weeks to make that decision. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I will have our next to the board meeting is on the 26th of April. So yeah, maybe by then, I'll know. And I know, you know, I don't know. I'm good. I don't want to take up any more of your time, but I did want to get your feelings on it. And I. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So while we've been talking so much about activity on the park, I guess, Sue, your your offer of some picnic tables and Frank, that's a very good point about they're going to fertilize. So we would not want them to appear immediately. But what would you have in mind, Sue? Donate it up a bit. There you go. There you go. Told her she's coming out on the table. Yeah, yeah. Here I am. No, I'm here. So I was just reiterating what Frank said. We wouldn't want them to show up right away because they need to fertilize the park. And they're already going to have to juggle around the picnic tables that went out today. Yeah, I'll double check with that. We don't we haven't even ordered them. So it's going to be a month or more. Yeah, yeah. Did you say you were ordering two picnic tables? That was just one or two. We don't have to price them first. OK, how about it? Could I say a couple of or should I just say donate and donation of a picnic table or why don't you say one? And then they'll be surprised. Then we'll be surprised if there's two. OK, great. Thank you. I don't see any problem with that, McSed, the timing and I guess we'll look and see. I don't know what condition are the ones that they set out today. I know they've been getting they got used quite a bit last year, actually. Well, he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I talked with John earlier and the only reason why they put them out so early was because they needed to get some stuff that was behind them from the firehouse rather than handle of two or three times. They decided they put them out. I suggested they store them in the at the town office next year. So they'd be out of the way down in the garage there. They would probably be fine down there. Yeah, I thought I'd look at the ones at the cafe and see who did those if they they look good. They came from Rutland. I know they went to pick them up somewhere in Rutland. Ah, I think they're eventually the cafe applied for a what do you call it a permit to to expand their porch around to the south side of the building. And I think that those poor those tables will eventually be up on that porch. But I'm not sure. But they're nice looking. Yeah. So yeah, you're too big, but we'll see. We'll see. Anyway, that's another subject. OK, well, well, thank you, Sue. And we'll see. Those are the additions to the agenda. Joan, you finally were able to log in and get hooked up here. Yes, it was a different pathway for me. So I had to figure it out. But so I have a bunch of things that are sort of getting down from the visionary to the granular level. First, you know, Du Bois and King annually does an inspection of our wastewater system or the regulatory process. They do an inspection every year and they give us a service contract about this time of year. So they sent this one for $3,000. And I haven't been able to compare that to last year, whether it's the same amount or close to it. But it needs to be signed so they can get to work on that. And I've left it in the office. It just needs one signature from one of you. But I sent it around today by email so you can all take a look at it. Next, the Bethel Mountain Road payment from V-TRANS. There's one more payment left that's been hanging out there. And I got wind that that final payment is in process. Still can't tell you what the time frame is for it. But they have to go through this rather involved process at the state level where they have to put it through a vetting system to make sure that all the pieces have been properly vetted and approved. So they just got that started last week. I get an email just saying, we're doing this. Please let us know if anything has changed. Nothing has changed. So the wheels are grinding and we may see that final payment of I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $170,000. I remember correctly, sometime in the near future. Good night. I'll let you know when it comes in. So the paving on Route 105 V-TRANS has made some progress with regards to our discussions with them largely thanks to Frank on treating some of those stormwater and infrastructure under Route 100 Main Street. And today, talk to me about obtaining an email dune that you could sign and I'd be glad to write it down. It says that apparently V-TRANS, he didn't give me any background. So I think it's kind of interesting to be doing this. Prepare to do this now. But they are prepared to replace several storm drains on Main Street and drainage structures under the road, meaning pipes and connections to some of the buildings along the street along the road there. They need to be replaced. And which was something they originally said they were not. Right. I think they were a lot worse than they realized. Yeah. To run their little motorized camera down the way and it got about two feet and couldn't go anymore. Interesting. Okay. So now they're prepared to do something about it. And they're a little concerned because of course there will be disruption in the village at some point when they're doing that. Yeah. Which means there might be a day or so when some of the businesses aren't accessible by pedestrians and or parking will be, you know, eliminated so that they can do the work making the connections of the pipes under the ground and into the buildings. So they don't want to run into opposition from folks because of that. So they would like to know that the. That you the select board. So they're doing. I don't think it's pipes into the building. This is the storm stormwater drains. Right. We're more concerned that there's just going to make it awkward for access to the buildings. But I don't think there's any. Anything connecting into the. No. No. Okay. Yeah. Well, in any case, you know, they're concerned about that. They don't want folks to be able to do that. I think it's. It wouldn't be more than. Really. It needs to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So if it's all right, either you could do it. If you want, or I'd be glad to draft something for you that you can send along to Chris that just says the select board. The ports. Would be happy. Yeah. And you'll make sure you would coordinate with business owners too. So they understand what's happening and how long it'll last. Yeah. Yeah. Chris came in and chatted with me about that the other day. And if you would. Something else, that'd be great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And the last thing just so you know, I've been working with cooter. To. Get ready to put out to bed. The remaining. Road work under the FEMA 2019 storm. There's five roads that need. Most pitching work and storage. And I think that's a good thing. There's five roads that need. Most pitching work and stone lining the ditches. One cross-drain on Mount. Mount. Pushman road. And we had to kind of scramble because questions were raised by FEMA. The environmental reviewers about whether. We should have gotten. Permits either from DEC. And or army corps of engineers for work we've done. In 2019 and 2020. And we had to, you know, We never worked that the town was ever required in the past to get permits for. But. The female reviewers are, are looking at it. They're asking the question. They're not saying necessarily that we should have. But they're suggesting that maybe we should have. So I've been doing a lot of work with them back and forth to try and figure out. Which culverts or which ditches that are talking about. We finally reached out to Chris Bump to ask his advice so we can get at the state level and at Army Corps about whether we did need to have permits and going forward whether we would need any permits for the work we're planning to do this summer. So that'll be something we're working on over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Cooter has been able to touch base with the state at least and he's been advised verbally that none of the work we're planning to go out to bid with this month would require a permit from DEC, but I need to get that in writing so that we don't run into a problem with that work. So that's been taking up a lot of my time over the past couple of weeks and going forward. Hopefully that work will be out to bid in April in addition to the retaining wall, which is another FEMA project. The drawings are nearly complete for that so we'll put all that out to bid and so we'll have quite a bit of work going on this year and have it all completed by the end of the calendar year. Great. Thank you. I have another thing before we get off that. Pat, you and Dune, did you guys have a chance to look over John's request for doing the paving? Yes, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's something we should approve so he can sign up for that so we can get on the list. So we shouldn't let him know that. My question was, was there, is there still supposed to be some paving going on down at the town garage building? Only a small portion that's connected with the stormwater project. They're not going to do the larger part of it. Should that be included in what Cooter has written up here? I think that paving is part of that project. I think it's a separate, separate pot of money for that. But we shouldn't coordinate it so that when the pavers here, it does that. That would make sense to do that. So you are going to be doing that larger paving then? No, no, the little bit of paving that would patch what they need to dig up when they install that. Well, that's that's part of, that's part of what the WRP funding will cover. Yep. Right. I mean, it would make sense to coordinate. So when that happens, it's when the pavers are already in town, but that's, that's, you know, we'll see. Oh, we're talking about paving elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'm not too sure he sent that to you, Joan. I'll forward. What he sent to us. I don't know if you've got that or not. I didn't know if you were on the CC list or not. No, this is from Cooter. Yes. Okay. Yeah. No, I haven't, I haven't seen that. I'll forward that to you. Okay. I'm sorry. I should have, I didn't even think of it. Okay. Yep. All right. Well, that's a mouthful, Joan. Thank you. Tony. Any updates from the library? We're still doing the porch pickup. And I think there are some other things on the, on the agenda here, but we have a trustees meeting tomorrow at five 45. That's good for this report. I think thank you. Yep. All right. So we're on to the new business. We've got the, um, uh, collection of license renewals for the, um, Huntington house. They've got a first class hotel license, third class hotel license outside consumption and caterers license approvals for that business. And is there any time limit on that dune? I mean, as far as the at night, I mean, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, outside consumption and catering license. Um, we had said, I believe we had said at 10 o'clock, I don't think in the license that has that, um, but in the, um, In our, um, previously we had put a 10 o'clock cap, I believe on outside. And we could, um, I guess we could look into it. Um, I think that would be a good idea just so that, I know we've had complaints in the past and I don't want to cause them a lot of grief at the Huntington house, but I do think we need to. It is kind of a residential area. So we just need to be careful there. No, that's already in place. That was, that was either. Okay. Or the year before it might have even been. Yeah, I remember, I remember you guys approving that it was, you know, nothing after 10 o'clock outside. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was just checking. I wanted to make sure I couldn't see anything in the writing there. And I didn't. Didn't know if anything was like that or what. Well, I'm just asking. Good time to, um, reiterate that with, um, Theoretically, um, things getting more active this spring with, um, loosening of restrictions. So. Right. Right. So, um, I had moved to approve those applications with that, um, um, stressing that 10 o'clock limit and outside consumption. I can second that. No, in favor. No. All right. Thanks. That. And then, um, There was, um, something on here about the old firehouse building. Does anyone know what that is about? Uh, I'm not really sure. I did have the power shut off on it. Right. Right. You know, disconnected, uh, after John got out of there. Cause I found out, we found out it was cheaper to, to disconnect it and re-energize it in the fall there. So, um, I'm not positive about this and I don't know who it, but I think someone had approached them in the town office about. Inquiring about using that to do some assembly of some product. And I don't think that's some. Anything that we're, um, you know, that's, We're using it for summer storage of winter road equipment and the winter storage of summer equipment. So I don't think. I don't think we're looking at, um, Um, lending that out for, for other purposes right now. So, um, I didn't, they're not here to talk about it. So I guess that's, um, We'll move on from that. We have a, um, Oh, also from the library have a, um, applications for use of the park. Tony, you want to tell us what that's about? Still there. Still there. You're still, you're muted still, Tony. Uh, we're asking to use the bandstand during the farmers market. Times and days. For a storytelling thing. And also to be able to set up a, uh, Children's book reading program. Using, uh, pages from very, from stories, uh, around the park. And this would mean, uh, several stakes around the park with, uh, Pages. That, uh, kids would go to and read, uh, from. So what would you call that Tony with the, with the, like, uh, It's like a hunter sign. What would you call that? Like, I don't think it's, uh, is that someone else coming in? Uh, I don't, I don't think it's, uh, I don't know if it's a much of a hunt, but it might be a little bit and then go from position to position to, to kind of read through books. And the books would change. Periodically. Oh, it would be up there all summer. Uh, pretty much. Yes. Um, how would that affect like when you had events like the Sunday night concerts and stuff? I don't think it would. These would be little stakes along. Uh, that would be, uh, Out of the way as much as possible. So, um, yeah, how's that going to work with the mowing? Well, we thought, talked about that too. I didn't hear that. There was some static in there. Okay. I said we have considered that and we'd try and try to make sure that it didn't interfere. So if, um, it seems, I don't know, it seems like it would make sense if this was something that came and went like your, um, stories going on the bandstand instead of, uh, Something that's up, um, seven days a week. It might, um, I don't know, it might end up being a little more special if it's something that comes and goes, then if it's something that is just there all the time, I'd be concerned that the, um, Between the mowing and other activities on the bandstand. Um, Um, might be a maintenance headache for you guys. Well, we would try not to have it be, but, uh, Anyway, the idea is that people would be able to use it. I love, I love the idea. Is it, is it possible to use the trees that won't interfere with mowing? Well, that's a possibility where we're not going to be able to use the trees. So, um, That would be fairly small and low because we're dealing with kids here. So maybe you could tie something around low down on, on some of the smaller trees. Right. That's a good idea. I don't, I don't think we want to get into that as on a permanent basis. That just doesn't sound right to me. I don't think we want to get into that. Um, I don't think we want to get into that as on a permanent basis. That just doesn't sound right to me. It sounds like it'd be more of a nuisance than anything else. I mean, I, I, I understand the concept of what you want to do. And maybe the, the park isn't the place for it. Maybe down along the edge of the river. Along the ball field. Might be something that you could do. And, and promote it that way. That would give you parking and access and, and plus it would get it out of the way. And I would be more concerned with, with somebody doing some serious damage to it or, or, you know, causing a nuisance. I think it would be more of a nuisance myself. For that type of use. If it's something you're going to put up weekly. And take it down. Every day. That's one thing, but I don't think leaving anything permanent out there is a good idea. I think it would be more of a nuisance. That's one thing, but I don't think leaving anything permanent out there is a good idea. Yeah. What about starting with just, um, you know, doing it alongside with the farmer's market, when you have the, the activity and the kids are looking for something to do while they're, their parents are talking and shmoozing. And then, um, you know, explore the, uh, explore it that way. Or that. Be acceptable. Well, I don't know, but we can certainly, uh, we'll talk about it. And we'll get more information from other libraries and see what they're doing. I think the Dune has a good idea because that's a good way to, um, Help publicize it as well as, you know, it's some, a special thing that's happening during the farmers market. So while mom and dad are, you know, as Dune says, shmoozing and shopping, their kids have something fun to do. Yes, but don't forget. We're also doing that on or near the bandstand too. So that is happening there. At that time. Yeah. So, um, I would, I would move to approve the application for the use of the bandstand during the farmers markets for the, the storytelling, but, um, then put a little more research into this, the second half of your, your, your aspect. And it doesn't start till June. So we have a little bit of time. Oh yeah. That would be better. Yeah. All right. I have a second for that. Half approval. All in favor. Hi. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Um, so concerns with commercial traffic through. On Buffalo mountain road, the perennial, um, problem that we have with inappropriate vehicles driving over that mountain. Um, have yet another drive of, um, Request to, to reach out and try and make something happen about that. Um, I think Frank had gotten in touch with someone over in Bethel and trying to coordinate signage on both sides of the road. Frank, you want to talk about that? Um, yeah, I, I don't know if there's. I don't know if people were supposed to speak on behalf of this project, but. We're trying to avoid so much truck traffic on that road. And, and, uh, the GPS sends a lot of traffic that way. I don't know if that works. I don't know if that works. She's gone on to the GPS stuff and tried to. Do it that way. And I've coordinated with her and we're trying to put a response together that works for both towns. And we're, we're doing it through the AOT. Um, I've got a couple of emails out there. I haven't heard back from my latest one. Um, I was going to, uh, bone him up this week. Um, I'm just trying to look at signage, maybe on 100 here. Uh, indicating the route to 89 being. More, uh, uh, 100 to 107. And the same on route 12 and, and 107 there and 12, where it comes out of Woodstock to try to keep them, uh, you know, going in the idea that they use the, the main state roads and not our, uh, Bethelman road. Um, I'm just trying to, um, I'm just trying to, um, I'm just trying to, um, my biggest concern is entry into the village. It's, it's a real safety hazard here. And the problem with our signage we have now. It's, uh, it's kind of a little bit too late. They turn on to the park and they just see that little sign and they just go. So, and they have the same problem over there in Bethel. Once they make the turn on the camp. They're just, they're committed. They can't turn around. So, um, I haven't heard from the state, but, um, yet on the signage on route 112 and 107. And 73 that maybe would help us alleviate some of that. We're not going to cure it. Um, there's going to be people that are going to abuse it anyway. But if we don't try to do something and something does happen and someone gets hurt or worse. So I'll continue to work on it. It's not something that's going to happen overnight, but we'll, we'll keep at it. I just want to say as someone who, who lives on the Bethel mountain road, uh, as it enters the village, uh, there have been a number of incidents, uh, where trucks breaks catch fire, uh, where they lose their brakes by the time they get to the bottom of the hill, most of them are drivers who follow GPS who had no idea. The conditions they were about to go into. When we had the Bethel mountain roads closed, the, the traffic was rerouted to 100. And I assume that that had to also have happened with GPS. There were signs, especially big signs on both sides. So it was when the Bethel mountain road, uh, reopened the camper pro to that, the traffic started going again. And, you know, these folks are following GPS. They have commercial trucking GPS and, you know, maybe they're lucky if they have private, but from, from, uh, what the information I get that a lot of the commercial GPS does not advise them as to that road. There is no runaway truck, uh, ramp. There's no room for it. And so I think it's actually very critical and needs to be a priority, uh, issue. That's just speaking from what I have lived. You know, I once had a truck that was as high in as long as my house sit out front of my house for at least five hours till he could get the help and he was having his engine running, you know, so he could get the help he needed from his company. It is a problem. It's because we witnessed it. We're more aware than, than people who don't live on the road, but also there's issue of, of commuters and the experience that they get when they're literally crowded out by trucks on the top of Bethel mountain road. And I think that you received a letter, you received a proposal and a letter from Nancy Needham that really does describe a horrifying experience that she had being wedged, being run off the road, being wedged when she was transporting her mother somewhere. And this is, this is a real situation that we're dealing with here and it is a safety situation. And I would hope that the two select boards can get together and work this problem out. I was hoping to even have a situation where the two select boards would meet to, to really, you know, it, since it's a, it's a mutual issue for both towns and hammer this out. And we're in communication with each other on this issue. Okay. So, you know, we're trying to address it. It's going to take some time. It's a federally funded highway. So the state has a lot of say in it. And so do the feds. So, but we're trying to work out a solution. It is a town road when you say it's a federally funded highway, because we get federal funds for transportation. I mean, most of the. Road money that we get from the state is federal money. It's all, you know, it's the towns can't pay for this. It's literally a town road. It is. So there are things we can do and we can't do. So we have to make sure whatever we do is legal. Well, of course. It's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. Catherine Bethel mountain road is a, is a town road, but it has a special designation because it's a major connector. So it does have a federal designation in addition to it. Still being a town road. I know that's a little confusing, but that's the way it's been explained to me. It doesn't have a federal route attached to it. I mean. What is that? It doesn't have a federal route attached to it. I mean, what does that mean, Joe? All I know is that. It allows us to get federal money when repairs are needed, such as, you know, after the 2019 storm, which local roads nest would not have necessarily qualified for. I don't have all the details. So sorry, I don't know. But it is a complicating factor. That, you know, there's some. Well, but we're definitely. Trying. Exercise every option that we have to, to eliminate, but we can't, I don't know what we're, well, Frank's working on trying to. Yes. Egg down exactly what we can and cannot do in terms of restrictions on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're both working on it together. It's, it's something that we just, we talk about, we send emails to each other and we, and we are trying to put a united front here. And put pressure on all sides, but, you know, it's just going to take some time. That's all. But we are, we are working on it. So yeah, we hear, we hear what the problems are. We're not immune to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is Deb Moore. I, I just like to say that I was talking with Susan Vanis yesterday. We, we both saw that there was, I don't know if anybody here knows there was an accident with two cars, just, I think the day before yesterday. And I think somebody got hurt. And I don't know any more details than that, but we were talking about this. You were talking about what, if it is a town road, can we do some, can the town, while we're waiting for something more significant to happen, can the town legally put up like a great big sign, a really big sign, not just an ordinary sign, but just some kind of giant sign for all affect to just say, you know, use lower breaks or, I mean, lower gears or, you know, don't use your breaks or go very slow, dangerous, windy road or something, anything, and have it be very, very obvious because those little signs, you know, the little regular roads, roads of people just ignore those. But if it's a really obvious, colorful or something, very different sign, people will see it. There is a large Deb. There's a large orange sign on the Bethel side. I noticed that's a new to newer. That I know Teresa from Bethel has talked to me about how, how they had put that up. And it's very specific about things, you know, they don't want on the road. But of course they can't, you know, put a bar across and stop people from going. They're just warning people, but you're right. A large sign, you know, large signs are helpful. We're trying to get the state to give us a hand with that to, to really put up some major signs where trucks don't make the decision to turn on to that road and then see a sign. And that's really where our issues are lying, I think more than anything else. And if you talk to the AOT, they tell you the only thing you can really do is signage. So, you know, it's as far as Rochester side is concerned. To put a huge sign up on the park, maybe. I don't know how that would go. But it's, it's, you know, we have to look at something and, and Teresa and I are, are working together to try to alleviate this issue to somewhat, but there's no real cure for it. We're not saying we're going to fix it, but if we don't try and somebody does get hurt, then, you know, at least we've tried. We've tried. The accident she may be talking about that I heard about was on, over this past weekend with Java Hubbard. And it was at the end, around the intersection of Bethel Mountain Road and Brook Street. That was on Friday. It was Friday afternoon and was a one car accident. She thought it was two cars. Well, no, apparently there were three cars, but two of them had stopped to help. And what I heard from Kristen who we spot was one of the responders was that she swore to avoid us hitting a squirrel. No, but she was okay. No, apparently she was all right. Yeah, I heard. They took her to be with that, but she came home. Sorry. This is just barricade. My, my video doesn't work. My nephews live on that road and talked about the accident. They talk about accidents frequently. And of course it's scary. I appreciate what you're doing, Frank, to, to get some action and movement on this. The GPS, I think is a, a key part. And from what I'm hearing, the federal money might have something to do with why there was a GPS. I don't know what we can do to enforce that now, but I do think Deb's point about a sign could be helpful. Where you're talking about Frank. I think that's. Maybe. A little too far from where the accidents and where, what causes the accidents happen. So I would be thinking more. Gosh. I'm not great with directions, but up that Bethel mountain road. Where. Drivers experience the twisty terms and then a, a drastic reduction in speed limit. I think a sign there might be more helpful. And as someone who does worry about my nephews and the stories they tell, and I do appreciate this being taken seriously. Yeah, I was thinking, I know we've got a steep grade sign up, up higher and things like that. But we haven't put much signage after the road was rebuilt. But we still need to address it. In a, in a manner that. That works for everyone. I want to throw one thing in, um, about this situation. And that is. All these signs and trying to make a change. Need some kind of enforcement. To take place. There has to be some consequence. Otherwise. People will repeat and do things over and over again. And what I've heard is that smugglers notch. Had big signs. That truckers ignored. And the only thing that made a difference was when they started getting fined. And then the word went out. Amongst all the truckers. And they started using different route. So. I know we just have a limited number of hours with our enforcement. Policy and. And actions. But I do think that enforcement is part of the solution. As well. And I want to thank everyone who's spent time working on this. Um, Can I speak to that a little bit, June? We have looked at that. Burma. Basically what that road is under a weight limit. And we've looked at maybe a length limit or maybe an axle limit or something where we could adopt the fine situation there, but that all has to be legal. And Teresa and I are, are. Talking to the AOT about this and trying to figure out if we can have something that has more teeth. And they are under like, they have a 20 hour constable. Uh, Uh, deal that they have with their constable that. And we only have what, however, many hours, we only have a couple of hours. And we have a couple of hours. Our share puts in. So, you know, enforcement is a tough issue for both our towns. So, and we've requested a little more, maybe monitoring by the state police too, but they are really stretched in their facility. And their ability to cover places too. So we're all just, you know, working as best we can to try to cover places. So, you know, we're not going to go for a little more. All booze. Pat, do you've been having your hand up the while here? Um, I would like Frank since, you know, this is in your court right now. Um, after we, we did the Bethel mountain road, I think the speed limit on the upper section of the Rochester side actually was increased. And as I read through the documentation that was submitted by the concerned citizens. And Nancy Needham's, um, account of what her scare was, her scare was a speed. Um, not necessarily the fact that it was, you know, a large truck was a large truck coming around a corner at a speed, but speed limit on the upper section is 50. The speed on the other side on the Bethel side is I think 45. And of course, then the hill is 30. So, um, we probably would have a fairly easy time to reduce that speed limit to 45 or 40 on the upper part of the Bethel mountain road. And that would slow, you know, it won't get rid of the trucks, but it will slow them down. And Nancy would not have had the situation if that truck was doing the speed limit. It might not have been quite so scary for her. Um, so that's one thing I want to incorporate in that. And as well as not dangering the fact that, um, we could get federal funds to, to maintain that road. So that's one suggestion that I, that I have for that. That would require us to pass an ordinance. On that section of the road. We could basically. We did it. We did it on the lower section. So that's, that's what it would require. That's all I'm saying. I don't think that we'd have a problem getting the town to endorse that. No, it would just be a select board ordinance that we'd have to. Put out there. You had something you want to say. I'm not sure how that road got moved up to 50. 40 and all of a sudden the 50 signs were there. I don't know who did it. I think it might have just been a clerical error for whoever was buying the new signs for the road. Well, I was going to say, I drove over that mountain every day to the Herald and for many, many, many years and it said 40. Yeah. Um, Kevin, Marty. It was raised to 50 at a town meeting. Because somebody who drove over the road every day. I thought that it was too slow at 40 miles an hour. And it was raised to 50. Do you have any when what, like what year that would have happened? I, I don't, it was quite a long time ago. What year? Maybe 15, 20 years ago. I think, I think a review of our ordinances would show that because they would rate, they haven't spelled out where the speed limits are in town. Right. That's probably true. And review of those would be where to go with that. I just like to add one thing. Thanks everybody for addressing this. The, the truck problem has gotten a lot worse. It is numbers as well. And a lot of it is the skill of the drivers. A lot of the drivers who are sent over by GPS are not. They just don't seem to know how to drive. They just don't know how to drive. They just don't know how to drive. They just don't know how to drive. They ride the brakes, brake smoke. And they do cut the corners. I drive this road every day. And I just like to thank the select board for. Paying attention to this looking into it. Well, we'll keep after it. Kevin. I'm a. You know, on it every week, I try to do something with it to try to make. See what we can do. I think we can do that. I think we can do that. I think we can. Have, have some control over the situation. So we can come up with a solution. I will want us to work with us. And we want to work with them. So that's. That's a step in the right direction. Throughout the. Throughout the last few years. If I see a truck on Bethel mountain road. I'll pick up my phone and snap a photo of their door, which has the phone number on it. I'm going to pick up my phone. I'm going to pick up my phone. I'm going to pick up my phone. I'm going to pick up my phone. I'm hanging the truck driver, which, you know, I thought maybe I might get myself killed one day trying to do that. So I pick up the five snap my photo and I called dispatch for that trucking company. And I, I let, I speak my mind to that person. Because. Sometimes the drivers are designated to go that way. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they took them too long. Their route is specifically laid out to the minute on where they're supposed to be at all times. So I was fooled on that once too. So we have to get to the dispatchers. And, you know, I always felt well one at a time. We've just keep chipping away at it. Yeah, but. Penalties and, and, and stiff vines would get to the dispatchers, I agree with that. Just to throw one more thing out. Yep. I've noticed a lot of the trucks going over lately, especially the box trucks are completely unmarked. For whatever that's worth. Weird. I would like to make a comment also. Susan Bannis. Was walking up Bethel mountain road toward her house. And there was a very large loaded truck that came around from Parkhouse up to go to. Bethel mountain road and she stopped that truck driver. And had a wonderful conversation with him. And convinced him that he really needed to go south on 100. Where he had just come from. It's totally a true story. And he was so thankful to have a terrible ride. And I must say that. I put a lot of energy into getting a united group of people. And I think that has been the missing element. For success with Bethel mountain. So I'm very. Encouraged and happy for both Bethel and Rochester. That. They see it as a two town problem because it's one road that goes from one town to the other. And. And I really appreciate Frank picking up the ball and starting to get going on it. And it is clear that it's not a fast. But that people care and continue to speak up. Is the. Is an important thing. So I think it's. Working out pretty good. I'd just like to say one more thing about a big sign. Since. As Frank said, this will be sort of an ongoing project. And it's not going to be an immediate fix. Then in the interim. And this is actually a question. It wouldn't be possible. For Rochester to put at the top of the hill. As. As. Anybody's coming down. Trucks or cars. Just this giant sign. So it can't be ignored. Is that a possibility? I mean, is there any reason we cannot do that? And if we can do that. Who would do it? How would it get done? I mean, I think it's worth really discussing and not just. You know, forgetting about. And I think what Deb is trying to say is use low gear. Whatever your rig is, whether you've got 20 wheels. Four wheels. And I know there is a great sign up there, but maybe something short term and more dramatic. I mean, is there any reason we cannot do that? And if we can do that, who would do it? How would it get done? And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. So I think that's a great term and more dramatic. Before they, you know, before it's too late to hit your low gears. Could be considered. There used to be a sign that say use low gear. But I think that's disappeared. There was a sign on the corner by the Huntington house in. That you saw fate. If you were coming up the road from, you know, root 100. You know, I don't remember seeing it the last time I went over. No. I know you've probably seen it so many times. You don't see it anymore. That could be it. It could be it. Use the low gear sign was on the downward side. And I thought that was good when it was there, but it hasn't been there for a long time. And I also want to thank the select board and Frank, especially for taking this up. Yes. Thank you. I thought I had quite a long talk with Teresa, the town clerk from Bessel the other day about that on the phone. She called to tell me something. And then she went on about that. And she's very concerned as, as Frank knows. So. I'll look into that. Signage issue. I'll talk with John about it and see what we can come up with. Oh, great. Thank you for that. But you also don't want trucks going through the hollow. We got to hit it on route 100 and route 12 route. You got to do it before they make the turn. And I think the states agreeing with us on that, but I haven't really had official word on that yet. So. They're worried about, they're concerned about it too. They have issues. It's not a new problem for them. They, they do know about it. So the more we talk to them, the more we might be able to get something done. Good work. All right. Is that enough for Buffamotton road tonight? I think we've got some good momentum going here. The last thing I have on the agenda here was the approval for a. Driveway permit for a new construction going in. I didn't want to go too far into the area, but I'm not going to go near the intersection of Oak lodge road and Fisk road. But I haven't had a chance to get with John champion. On that and get his input on that. So I, I'd like to. Put that off a little bit. I can confer with him on that. Okay. So. That is unless anyone else has anything that they think we forgot to talk about tonight. That's all I have Though you have no executive session tonight. No, not tonight. Okay. Thank you No, I have executive session with dinner. Oh My gosh, and it's quarter of eight already. So you all right Thank you all for coming and On a personal note if you're still listening Kirk your bike's ready Thank you all for coming. Thank you everybody. It's wonderful to live in a town where everybody cares so much about everything. Yeah Good. All right. Thank you folks. All right. All right