 I'm going to start the board meeting for August 23rd, 2021, starting with the agenda and I'm going to change it. I'm going to add errors in the letter. I move to approve the agenda with the added errors and emissions letter. We add one more thing. That's why I'm a little bit late. There's been a couple of incidents down by the reservoir of people being attacked. And if we could bring that as an agenda item. What? People. Well, one was... We can talk about it. We can talk about it. So I'll put that on the slide board. E for the reservoir. So I'll amend my motion and include Mike's request for discussion about reservoir problems. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Consent agenda items minutes from August 2nd meeting. Move to approve the consent agenda items. Okay, for a second. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Public. See Danny joined us. Anyone from the public that wishes to speak can do so at this time. If not, if you want to speak on specific issues on the agenda, you can speak to them when we call upon you on those items. So I don't think I see anyone from the public that wishes to speak tonight. So we could move on to slide board business. A COVID update recreation camp outbreak and discussion asking. So we haven't met since we had the outbreak at camp. I think we met on August 2nd. And then I believe it was maybe the next day. Most of the gas right there. Anyway, we did have a COVID outbreak at the summer recognition camp. The impact that we had three pods of cameras one at the. In this field one at the Methodist church and one at St. Peele's Hall. And it was the St. Peele's Hall pod where the outbreak was. Those were the younger kids. And we had a couple of kids that tested positive on Monday. We found out that they tested positive on Monday. They immediately contacted the health department. And the health department started the process of. Contact tracing and trying to, you know, alert people about what was happening. If you've paid attention to the papers at all. And some of the news. We were a little frustrated that things didn't go as smoothly with the health department as we had hoped. Initially they identified three children. And they asked us to close the camp on Tuesday at St. Peele's Hall. They told us the other venues could continue to operate. So, Nick and his staff spent that day. Trying to communicate with parents to let them know that they could not come on. On Tuesday and suggested to parents that they think about getting their children tested. On Tuesday the health department contacted us and told us that we could reopen fully on Wednesday. And we did. And unfortunately the case count continued to rise. And anecdotally we were hearing that there were people that folks who had children who had tested positive had given their information to the state health department about people that they had been in contact with over the previous few days. And admittedly, self-admittedly, I spoke to Mike Smith, the Secretary of Human Services, back a week plus ago now. And they unfortunately, I won't say dropped the ball, but they did not do a thorough job with contact tracing. And ultimately, I think that and some other factors played into the fact that we ended up several days later being told by the health department that we had to shut down the entire camp for anybody who had been attending anywhere in the camp for that particular week. So the last week of camp, we basically had 20 kids that were able to come to camp because they had been away the previous week. People go on vacation, what have you. Any child who had not been at camp the week that the COVID virus was detected was able to come back. But I don't have a final count now, but we made the decision internally that because of these external forces that required children to, that we had to cancel, we were in the process of processing refunds. We thought about it on a pro-matter basis the number of days. So Carla's going to be busy signing checks, I think. I don't know if you know how many there were, but there are a lot of refunds. So we only had about 20 children who were able to finish up the camp. And we had to refund some money because of course the state told us that we had to shut down. It wasn't the individuals who just decided not to send their children. So I felt it was unfair to not give money back for that last week. Some children may have lost a little bit more than a week if they had been out the first week that COVID was detected. Ultimately there were 31 cases that were attributable to the camp. It seems that it was limited just to children. There's not a lot of evidence that there's been a lot of spread amongst other family members. I'm not saying that definitively, but the information that I have is most of the cases that were related to the camp were limited to campus and they didn't necessarily affect other members of their households or other individuals. The Watery Roundabout has done an excellent job, I think, reporting on this. If you read what was posted yesterday or today, they have a pretty good article about it. The staff did an excellent job, I think. We've only heard good things from the parents about our response. There was some frustration expressed in the beginning because why hasn't someone so been called by the health department? We told them that our children had been in contact with these people and it didn't seem like contact tracing was happening as efficiently as possible. Mike Smith, I don't think it's necessary at this point, but the secretary did suggest that if the select board felt compelled that he would be willing to come here and talk to the board about this issue, I told him that by the time we meet again, the camp will be closed. I'm not certain we're going to gain a lot. I don't think he's going to tell you much more than I've just been able to tell you. But, you know, Watery has, in addition to the 31 cases in the recent week or so from the camp, there's been about 23 or 24. I think 55 is the total number of cases in Watery since the middle of August when this outbreak occurred, which according to the roundabout is kind of the fastest rate of increase, you know, goes back to the early part of the pandemic. And as you hear on the news, this is not limited to Watery. I haven't heard of other recreation programs that have had this happen, but cases are upticking in many places. And it's too bad, but I just wanted to give you that briefing to tell you what kind of had happened here. And I think, you know, Nick, especially was disappointed. I won't share names, but I did share with the Secretary Smith. You know, some people in the Health Department were extremely helpful. There were others who, it was like pulling teeth, getting information from our staff. So it was a little bit of a mixed bag of results and efficiency from the Health Department. So anyway, that's all I have to say. I don't think I'll be able to answer too many questions, but if you haven't, I'll try. Just a couple of quick, real quick questions. Do you know how much was in terms of refunds? You know, the refunds are totally justified, but do you know how much did we? I don't know right now. Like I didn't. Michelle was processing them today. I didn't think to ask. I don't know. And are all the counselors, I assume, are they going to get paid to the full amount? Oh, yeah. They can see before, you know, they have 20 kids. The pooling may go in. So we didn't have a full staff. And then, you know, the day camp stopped. You just look at those refunds. I was like, paid for them? The day camp stopped the week before last, but last week they had an underneath fishing camp. You know, for a small number of kids that had signed up. That was able to go on. And then I think after school is, we'll have an after school program. Now our school is starting up that, you know, Nick was able to work with some staff and been able to implement that and have that available. I don't have a number right now. Nick's not feeling well otherwise he would be here. Nick did a good job on, you know, his little piece on TV. Yeah, he did extraordinarily well. I think he really took the bull by the horns and was a good public face. Yeah. He answered a lot of questions, had some good interaction with the media. So I think we're all happy and I know Lisa's on and I appreciate all of the information and how vigilant, you know, Lisa's been trying to get good information. You know, as a good reporter she has better contacts at the health department than I have. I got some information from her which was quite helpful. But yeah, Nick did a really good job and so did the rest of the staff. Right. You hate to make the news or something like that. Yeah, it's not fun but it happens and with this thing it's almost inevitable. I'd be curious to know the degree of immunity that these kids have now that they've had it. You know, what are the percentages of them getting again? School starts up next week. Thursday? Thursday. Yeah. Is there any concern that we've heard of schools starting with possibly these cases still? There's concern being expressed by some parents that I've just seen, you know, I'm post on much form and other media outlets. You know, the school has a, or a college place. They've been working closely with the Secretary of Education and the Governor's Office to talk to the Dean of the Health Department. I believe they're going to have to be masked when they start this week. And I know in the upper grades they're talking about when those schools reach a percent of vaccinations, they may relax that a little bit. But I think there's a lot changing right now because of the Delta variant in particular. There seems to be a strong commitment in the state to, you know, have five-day a week in person schooling. And I think going to remote learning is going to be at a last resort. I think that cases are going to have to grow up wildly for them to do that again. Questions? Anyone from the public? I see we've got a couple people in there. Any questions for, uh, we move on to discussing the masking policy? Yeah, I just want to say that I think the whole town proved it a great job. I think it's a great job to make, especially in the United States. And imagine how many people were coming from every direction. So please extend our thanks to Nick. Um, masking policy? This is requested by Mike. Yeah. So one quick thing. Lisa sends a link to her most recent article on the COVID outbreak and then the school Q and A is happening right now. Thank you, Lisa. I just want to at least bring it up. I know it's starting to come up in other municipalities again about masking and just even just having discussion about, you know, should we go back? You know, if anything indoor masking, I don't think you know outdoor masking, you know, but it's not required. It's just something I just thought would be good for discussion. I know some municipalities, I think Montpelier has gone to an indoor masking policy. Um, I'm sure there will be others. I know they're as, you know, we're seeing we're in. I think the fourth wave, uh, things are going to get worse. You know, I've been hearing from some members of the public that they think it's a good idea because we're going to have a swarm of, um, influx of people coming for, uh, foliage. You know, do we want to, you know. So when you're talking about an indoor masking policy, are you even talking about putting back the, the rather informal mask mandate that we have for all, you're not talking just about municipal facilities. You're talking about universally in one place. Right. It's universal. Clear. And I don't know. I've been hearing buzz around the community that there's some tolerance for that. You know, I see more people around the community masking again. You know, you go to Shaw House, you see a lot more people, you know, you know, you're masking. I just thought it would be good to raise, raise the topic. I have mixed, very mixed opinions on whether it's a good thing, but I think it's something we should at least approach. Again, I don't mean to lean on Lisa. I don't know if she knows. I, I wasn't able to, I didn't have a chance to look for it today. Like I was away last week. At some point in the recent past, I, I don't know if I was reading a story about Brownville, but I thought it was, I thought there was something that said because the state of emergency has expired by now that if municipalities want to have a mask mandate that you have to have that blessed by the health department. And so I don't know if we have the authority to, to do it on our own. And again, I don't know, Lisa, if you saw that story or know what I'm talking about, but if you have any information and share it, I was hoping to look to try to find that today, but I thought that they said that they were going to have to reach out to the health department to get approval to do that. And I know, you know, the governor has been unwilling to do it statewide. Right. So I'm not, I'm not arguing against it. I'm just wondering, you know, if businesses certainly can do it on their own if they want. Right. The library is instituted. Anybody that goes into the library, they want people to wear masks in the library. We have a sign up on the door here that if you're vaccinated, that you need to wear a mask. And for the most part, Carol, you can correct me if I'm wrong because I was away last week, but pretty much the staff out in the front are wearing masks, especially when they're public. That's, yeah, primarily for our own comfort level for those that have children at home. Yeah. I'm just looking out. Did, didn't want to be here after that. Like for instance, the health department's blessing. We don't know. Like I said, I'm asking maybe Lisa. Hi folks. I did. I saw that story. The rebel reformer had a story late last week about that. And that was the one thing that stuck with me too, because I had not heard that previously that there needs to be some sort of sanctioning by the health department if a community was going to do that. The city of Burlington is talking about the same and I hadn't heard it discussed in that context. So that's actually one of the questions that I have for them. I was hoping to be on the press conference tomorrow and that was one of the things I wanted to ask. So at this point, given that you're right, given the fact that there's no state of emergency towns and municipalities are on their own, but I had not heard about that extra step being put in between. And as a result, we ended up with this hodge podge of, you know, businesses kind of all doing their own, their own recommendations. Right. Well, that's kind of where I stand. You know, I thought it would be good to have, at least have the conversation. I think that the business community is smart enough to look at, you know, what they want to do with their own businesses and, you know, for us not to mandate, you know, you know, masking. I was just, I don't know if I'm out there, you know, you know, do other folks here think there should be a reinstitution of masking in the community? I'm not sure. I think if individual businesses would like to reinstit that they can go for it, I know some already have. I know schools are still going to be messed up 24-7. Athletics are not right now. But who's to say when it comes to the winter season, what's going to be going on? I don't really have a say right now, or yes or no. Yeah, I think it's tough because, you know, so I'm in one of the more high-risk businesses and it's really hard because even if we mandate masks you're sitting there eating and drinking without a mask, the state's not telling us we're doing something incorrect, so it's really hard. I know last time we felt like the state wasn't moving fast enough on maybe bringing in the original mask mandate that they ultimately did do. I have not heard that they are considering it at least very seriously. And I know that they, the only way they can do it I think is if they reinstated that emergency order, which I've heard there. Yeah, the governor is very reluctant to do that. I mean, you know, they're talking about looking in other places in the world, England and the Netherlands and India, you know, the Delta variant has ramped up and then it kind of plateaus and, you know, so there's some evidence around the world that while Delta is highly transmissible, that, you know, it will begin declining. You know, we saw on the news tonight that the Pfizer vaccine now is fully authorized by the FDA, so they're hoping more people will get vaccinated. I mean, I think that's a huge key, is the vaccination rate. If nobody's really inclined to, you know, to do it, if there's questions, I would suggest that we don't. We'll see how it goes in the next couple of weeks and I'll try to find out. And if Lisa finds out from this press conference tomorrow what this deal is about having to have the health department sanction it if we're going to do it, I can bring that back and revisit the issue. But I think for now, given what I'm seeing out there, that, you know, most businesses all still have signs up that say if you're not vaccinated, put a mask on. And I see the same thing that you're seeing and when I go to shops now, I put one mask on. There are a lot more masks going on recently. And there's signs too, masks not required, but appreciated. Right, right. My chiropractors stayed open the entire time, never shut down one day, never required masks, never did anything. And there's been no cases of COVID come out of his office at all. The only reason I'm wearing this here is because the sign says that I have to. I don't want, quite honestly, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it. I think we're all tired of it. Yeah. Go away a lot faster if everybody did what they should do. They say if you get the virus your immunity is 6.7 times better than if you get the vaccine. And I think I've told you before I'm pretty sure I had it last spring. That's neither here nor there. Having 6.7 times more immunity is great, but having to be hospitalized or dying is real. And to me, the way I look at, you know, I'm vaccinated, I firmly believe in vaccination, but I also, those of us who are vaccinated, we could become carriers. And that's where I'm working, you know, even though we have 85% vaccination rates, all of us who are vaccinated, we could still be transmitting around. Luckily, we're probably not going to die or go into the hospital, but I'm proud of our vaccination rates in Vermont. I just brought it up for a subject. I think it's going to become maybe more of an issue because, you know, weeks down the road, depending upon what we see, what happens with this fourth wave. Sure, as we go inside at the border. Exactly. Everything's going, you know, right now, I love going outdoors. You know, I think your transmission rate is so low being outdoors, you know. But indoors, I'm starting to even think of a lot more places even though I am vaccinated just for everyone's health, you know, that wearing a mask is a good thing. My personal opinion. Yeah, I think we keep an eye on what's happening in the community and find out the answers to even if it's an option and then we can just discuss it in the future. All right. Any further comments on that before we move on? I didn't discuss transfer of e-foot property in town. And we have a guest to speak to. Let's get it. Yeah, we could. It'd be great. So they all can see me? Yeah. If you use the same alley, you got to speak up. I'm not even talking about it now, so it turns over. Focus is on you. That's the alley. Yeah. Coming in or what? Coming in. If you know about a little bit of history with the village in its 100 years of existence, we tried to merge with the town, I don't know, eight or nine times and it all failed. And we gave up and went and formed a utility district and got a charter and three years ago. And when that passed, we kept all the village property and things that we had that we had acquired over different years. And after three years, we're now some of these properties we don't need for the utility district, the operation of the water and sewer. So there's four properties. I'll pass out this. We've kind of listed the properties and their current uses and how we acquired them as well. I started on the list from the small to the largest here. And the smallest one that the e-foot owns is the welcome sign down by the underpass. There's a small piece of property that the welcome sign sits on. I think we probably acquired it in 1957 when that underpass was built acquiring right away. That's the sign on it. Does the railroad charge you anything for that? Pardon? Does the railroad charge you anything for being in the railway, the railroad? It's outside the railroad right away. Yeah, they only sit on the e-foot-own staff. 50 square feet. Yeah. You know, and I only know a little bit about that because I was a trustee when village decorating went into the building that the FedEx is there. And we gave them some of that land for parking at the time. And the new sign that went up a few years ago, the town paid for things. So that's the welcome sign. The next up was the Elm Street parking lot. It's a little bit larger there. Used for parking. The trustees acquired it in 1959. We bought two buildings from Phil Baker. 1999. 1999, yeah. And then we advertised and constructed the parking lot. The town plows it. And at the time of the construction, the town contributed $15,000 toward the construction cost. Next up was the Rusty Parker Park. The village acquired it from the railroad in 1930. It was used to store wood for the steam engines and things. And they negotiated with the railroad. Originally, the railroad wanted $7,500. And the village got it for $4,750. They paid for it out of a water department money that they paid back. There is a clause in the deed that says it can only be used for public buildings on it. So you couldn't sell it to a private party and have them construct something on it. In 1938, there was a water shortage in the village and things. And they went around and drilled about 15 or 18 test wells all over Waterbury. And the only place they found water was a gravel pack well in the park. That's when that pump house was built. And it was used to supply water to the village when there was a shortage coming off of Hunger Mountain there with the normal source. I think the town pays to maintain the park at this time, whatever it does. EFUD has put some repairs into the park. I mean, the pump house at the park that used for the consents. I think it's a little $5,000 brickwork. So just to be clear, the town, the town highway department personnel load the lawns there and the town takes care of the trash there. EFUD pays all the power bills for, you know, the busy boat, pump house and all of that. The Waterbury Club does a number of things in there on an annual basis and usually in December Al Lewis for the Waterbury Club sends me a letter and says, well, we've spent this much on these things like light posts and repairs to the Z-ball on the light. And they ask for reimbursement of some of that. That is paid for by the water department. So the town's maintenance of that property really amounts to something like mowing in and trash disposal. The pump house at EFUD has spent $1,800 this year. So far, amazing work to do some brickwork there. I think it worked out about 10%. And then we've got to do real good work on the roof. So that's in the EFUD budget this year. And last on the list and largest is the 40 acres down with the ice center on River Road. That's the old dump site. And it has multiple uses at that time. It's the, you know, material storage from construction and things, recreational activities. And in 2002, the village leased for 99 years an acre of land through the ice center for that construction along with some parking areas and a potential outdoor ring. This has a little more history of how we acquired it that I'll talk about in a minute. And also when it was used as a dump, I'm probably the only person here who was living in Waterbury before the interstate was built, that we had a dump that's underneath the interstate now. And when the interstate came through in 59, they paid, they took that land and paid the village something for it. And that feels where the ice center is was owned by the state. And after negotiation, somehow the village ended up with that land where the ice center is. And when we got it, there was a hole probably 15 or 20 feet deep where the state took the gravel out to use in the interstate. Since we had closed our dump, we were looking for a dump site. So we then jumped on the chance and filled that hole in with trash from the dump and things. And then it was closed in the 70s when there was a requirement to build landfills and it was Burmy and everything. During that time, there was a Velkor chemical company operating out of Waterbury in the Foundry Building and they collected chemical tools around the state. And there were no prohibitions against it. They dumped it in the landfill, the dump at the time and then set it on fire. Which burned the trash and destroyed some of the chemicals but it left a contamination and things that was there. The village trustees hired Heindl and Noyes in 1999 to investigate it. And I don't know how much we spent, probably $50,000 or more over eight years because we had to monitor it. And in 2008, they said the levels had decreased significantly that they closed the site so that we don't have to monitor anymore at this time. Something couldn't come up in the future if something else had been discovered. So that's part of my full disclosure statement. You're interested there. In 1998, the town did pave the road out there. That's a town road. And we do lease, I don't know, five or ten acres to the town for the material storage over the old dump that's filled in there. So that's a little bit of the history of the properties. What's not on this list is 51 South Main Street that... I was going to ask you. I was going to look there. I didn't see you there. It's on the back side. I was very busy, Chris. I think the commissioners are interested in doing something. We paid for that. We paid a lot of cost to get rid of the building and things. It's not... We kept it open for parking during Main Street construction, but it's not... These are used for a municipal function at this time, and that's why we intended that they would continue as a municipal function. So you can see the appraised value, and you're probably going to ask, what's the cost? And I think the commissioners would entertain a 25% discount for cash. I'm just kidding. That's a humor to that thing. Now I'm going to hand out this MOU with what Bill and the commissioners have put together that if we want to proceed with this, this is along the lines we're thinking here. I've got one there now. In summary, the main points are in Article 1 of this, and we would entertain giving it to the town. There may be a nominal fee of $10 or $100 if the attorneys and other people say that's necessary to transfer it. But what we'd like to get an agreement for those properties is that as long as EFUD exists and has employees and things in this building, that we wouldn't be charged rent for the space in the building, whatever they occupy. We would pay our normal share of the administrative cost and things, but not including rent or major repairs and upgrades. We would pay those as a part of the EFUD and customers and things. There are also town taxpayers, the majority of them. So they would be paying for those repairs through their property taxes. Do you have anything? That's the crux of it. I think if the SLEG Board is interested in proceeding further along these lines, EFUD would need to have a public informational meeting advertised either maybe at one of our meetings or it could be a joint meeting with you folks where the public could, you know, we would tell what we're proposing to do and the public could offer their comments and see what they wanted to do. I think there are two options to transfer it. One is the commissioners could vote to do it and if a member of the public, you know, wants to have a vote on it, they would petition us and it would have to go to a vote. Or we could have, I think it's Australian ballot not to sell property or vote. Just those who attended that meeting. I don't think it has to be Australian ballot. That's right because we lost the gas station property by two votes years ago and it's not. So they could ask for a vote that would be at a meeting and, you know, properly warranted it. So as far as the transfer is concerned, we, Skip and I met with Paul Juliani who has done real work for EFUD as well as the Village Board and also the town. So as Skip indicated, the voters have a say in whether they want to sell the property or transfer the property if they want to say. And I know when they talk about selling 51 South Main Street, you actually have a special Village meeting that did it that way rather than sell it yourself and suffer the petition process. The Select Board, there's no requirement for the town to have a meeting to purchase or accept property. You can have it if you want, but the Select Board could simply accept this. And as it's being offered or no cost to the town, there's no appropriation necessary from the public so you wouldn't have to have a town meeting. I'm saying that you shouldn't let it can't, but you don't have to. I think from the commissioner's perspective, these properties are pretty much used for the general use of the public and the greater water community. So it seems reasonable that the town should own these properties rather than be fun. The Village was a full-service municipality. It had the ability to have parks and recreation if they wanted it. They didn't choose to do that, but they could have. EFUD has no authority under its charge to do anything except water and sewer and the remodeling water fund that it has. And it has the ability to keep and trust the property that the village owned. They could keep it if they wanted to, but from their perspective, there's really no reason. There's minimal costs if this transfer happened. Right now I can't remember exactly what the lease payment is, but the lease from the village or from EFUD, the use of two material storage areas. One is down at the other center and the other one is this afterwards water treatment. I think it's like $3,700 down it. I think it's about $4,800 like that all together. So that lease payment could go away if you owned that property. And then the Rusty Park Park, it's a community facility that's used by everyone for concerts and farmers markets and all kinds of events. So the town owned that seems to be a reasonable thing. And then the nice center property, again, it's almost exclusive. Well, we have the material storage area down there which is exclusive to the town right now. It's all gravel and crushed asphalt and everything down there is used by the town. And then the rest of the property is pretty much in recreation uses. Again, EFUD has no authority to really run in recreation. We have a couple of leases on the property right now which would stay effective if the trains were to happen. The ice center has a lease basically for the building that the building sits on and then that lower soccer field has a lease that... We just renewed that for 10 years. Oh, it's been 10 or more years on that lease. And they're very interested in leasing more land out there. So those leases would transfer to the town? Yeah, the landowner would have those leases. So if you became the landowner, those leases run with the land. Do you know approximately what the old ice center is? It's cheap. It's a long lease. What's that? Does the lease cost to the ice center on an annual basis? It's cheap. Oh, that's it. The lease is $100 a year. We're not going to be leaving any roads with the revenues. Yeah. And we've had a number of meetings with folks that are interested in the skateboard park down there. So that's one of the incentives we'd like to transfer back to you folks and you could deal with that. That brings up a good point though. That 40 acres is subject to an active fit and the old ice center was going to develop that property to build the ice center and have it go through Act 250. So the whole 40 acres is subject to Act 250. There is a master plan that is unfiled with Act 250 that got permitted by Act 250, right Steve? Yes. And that is there's always things changing down there. If certainly if the skateboard park which I'm not sure if they approach the recreation committee or not Frank I know that the recreation committee has expressed some concern about whether that's a good location for it or not. But whatever should happen down there going forward probably should have a new master plan developed for the site. It's unfortunate that the select board back in the day decided to pave that road. It was all forward at the time and it was a mistake the day we did it. We did it to save the greater from going down there several times a summer and we saved that money. We spent money to put the pavement down and I think sending the gradient down there made by knowledge where it crossed the single lines the paving crossed. But the road is really in the wrong place if you're going to use that property down there for its best intended purpose of a recreation facility. The road goes right down the center of that field. It didn't break where it goes because the rivers are by there once it breaks out into the field it should be over in the railroad track where the water and sewer lines are. But anyway that's a good question. So this might be a stupid question but EFUD being EFUD and no longer municipality are these properties subject to property tax? Well EFUD is a municipality. Okay. So they're not subject to property taxation right now because they're within the political properties of the municipality. The properties that EFUD owns that are outside the limits of EFUD of water works properties that make the taxes on that because they're within the districts of EFUD. We pay a lot of property tax to stove. Oh yeah. There's also a historic site down at the ice center where that clump of trees is on the right and there's a cellar hole there that we've paid to have investigated and we're hoping that we could get approval to cover it over if we wanted to build a soccer field over it but I don't think Steve has heard from the folks whether they approved that or not. In the Elm Street lot we've had inquiries in the past from owners of the prohibition pig they were interested in purchasing that lot from the village at one point there we didn't. I guess he wanted to swap 51 South Dane for that lot or something previous. He was talking about paying to develop 51 South Dane as a parking lot and getting the Elm Street but that didn't work without the commissions and that's a different owner anyway so that's it. I will let us know what you'd like how you'd like to proceed or I do have a couple of questions one I know you see where Boss is monitoring hazards chemicals is that property the 40 acres none of that is designated as brown fields for anything of that? No it's smacked as you know the I don't remember what the name of those things but the site management action is complete. So no it's not a contaminated site at all it's a cleaned up contaminated site. That's not what I thought. You wouldn't want to I don't think you'd want to build something over where the material storage is. It's trash underneath that was burned. We've done borings down there to see how much cover there is That's an ideal spot for material storage. We're using it I think for its highest and best use right now. That was my biggest concern because of the potential liability of the town. The other thing and I guess I just don't understand why it was done in number four where you have your exempting out Rusty Parker Memorial Park What was the thinking behind that you know I don't think the town would ever be looking at shelling that property but that was Bill's idea. I wrote that before I knew that railroad had put a restriction on the D that said only public facilities and you know there was back shortly after Irene there were a small number of people that were really pushing to you know sell off some of Anderson Field down here to build a hotel and in case one of those people with a bright idea decided they wanted to build a hotel on Rusty Parker Park I thought off but now is that our clause that restricts it to public facilities only and I got to get a copy of the D to Dan Sweet and he's going to lower the value for the park if there's a restriction on it so you can rest assured that okay I heard just price will go down I didn't think you wanted to purchase I don't think we wanted it either it's too much of a gem for the community to you know just get a buck 85 you know for it for you know some greedy purpose. That's all I have. One thing I've written that was that you know if the community really wanted that to happen they could deal with it but there was some hoops that had to go through before you could get rid of the park right but I think put pressure on e-fund anyway so this hasn't been looked at by an attorney as of yet this is just kind of our thoughts putting them together and what if we agree with things it would need to be you know looked at by the attorney that's my my legal knowledge I did seem like a pretty good agree well bill's pretty good at that stuff you know I think the rusty part of art helps me a lot and the welcome sign for what that is they're kind of no-brainers you know there's no there's no real big liability there's no huge future costs to the town the ice center site I think from e-fund's perspective as I said they don't have any authority in their charter to do anything for recreation so they're limited they can lease the property out if they want but they're not the town entity the town has a recreation department the town has a recreation committee and there's a lot of pressure for recreation activities town at that site and it will it takes some planning and and because it's subject to act 250 there's some potential costs not huge costs but there's time and effort kind of costs and there's really no incentive for e-fund to do anything to do any of that work why do they want to spend their money on you know trying to do master planning and things like that when it's not a function that they really have any authority to be involved in and I think that's the one where I think it's an asset and I think it's an asset to the community but if the town does take that over I want to be clear that going forward there may be some expense I think it's a worthwhile expense but it is probably some expense to to planning and developing recognition there and one of the biggest uses of that site is offsite I think is that mountain biking you can go down there on Friday night and see 70, 80 cars all parked there for people using that mountain bike for people up there Danny I see your hand raised go ahead perfect I don't have the MOU of course so I'd love to look at it but I just wanted to voice my support and appreciation because I think I think Phil said it's a no brainer for a lot of it it makes so much sense to me to go through with it and I see just a huge potential as he said in recreation with those ice rink area I had previously talked to a couple books about the idea of the K park and their plan but with Perry Hill on the ice rinks and the fields down there we do see a great potential for recreational area of course it'll take time, money and effort but I'm fully in support so I really appreciate it and I like hearing what Kim had to say about some of the history as well so thank you thanks Danny random question for you is that old graveyard a part of this property too that one behind the ice rink by the interstate like behind the dump site no that's a cross I think it's a cross attract isn't it? yeah we don't maintain the old graveyard that's the cemetery commission I do have a question I guess there's a little bit of this check and balance of the E-FUD being able to buy back I guess it's kind of a safety net of sorts of we for some reason wanted to sell these properties but the tiny elephant in the room is what if E-FUD no longer exists in the future does that really do we have to think about that as we go into this MOU not saying that we are at this point but if E-FUD becomes part of the town what happens to the majority of this contract basically becomes null and void I think that it would probably be null and void if E-FUD went away I mean it would depend on how E-FUD went away I can't imagine some other entity would buy E-FUD's assets but it could be successors but if E-FUD was absorbed into the town at some point in the future then I think that merger document if you will would take care of rolling all of their assets into the town and we would need this MOU So I guess my question is just to confirm I agree I think it's a good idea I'm going annual costs associated with making these properties this monitoring hazardous chemicals comes at low cost there's nothing required at this time it would be if somebody discovered some chemical that we had sampled for something they always we just thought it would be monitored anymore is it no we're not doing we're not required to do anything at this point that was my biggest concern because if you get into hazardous ways the dollars start rolling up real quick that was my job for 40 years so when we realized in 99 that that's what it done on there we wanted to investigate it and deal with it early rather than trying to give it away to you folks and have you deal with it so it turned out to be we probably spent $50,000 on it and then the pump house included in this actual structure it's no longer used as a pump house it's the bathrooms in them yeah it's all filled with concrete as it was cleaning those bathrooms or maintaining those are we doing that already? yes and like I said there's minimal maintenance on the building and in 2021 we spent about $10,000 to fix up the building so I don't expect any major issues with that building in the foreseeable future that's my question a little bit of property insurance if there was any kind of major repair to a roof or wreck or whatever there's no costs right now to the 48-hour site that's all and the costs down there in the future would more or less be planning the road is already your responsibility so it was some kind of grant or something that the Regional Planning Commission for erosion control that was supposed to go on down there I'm not sure what they've done with that is anything ever happened? yeah that's with the stormwater study because there was more than gravel and roots and I think they decided that there were so many great grass treatment areas for the runoff that there really wasn't a need to do stormwater treatment so they focused in different areas like the shopping center you know we do e-fug goods a home down there somebody can't remember who's the guy that smoked that anyway this is a nominal couple hundred dollars a year oh Marty Wells we kept the field mowing down there brush hog the capital soccer they maintained their soccer field they mowed that cut that so there's really no real expense down there and the town's already kind of taking care of maintenance of the rest of Parker Park some of the maintenance and the trash removal the town they think does pay for the mowing at the end of the park already so there's not huge no concerns on liability of the dog park under our I'm just going to ask if the dog park is still the dog park there's an MOU between what the dog park is called the dog park people pretty much take care of the dog park schools a lot down there I don't even think we have any agreement with them or have we just allowed them to do that well it's not a legal lease type thing no no it's not a lease it's just a memorandum of understanding they have some rules that they're going to do so there's no lease any other questions are we looking to try to vote on this tonight or I know this is a memorandum we've got we're not asking for that I don't want you to be approved tonight no no I I think it needs to be you know you need to see if there's anything you want to add to it then if you want to go forward then we would take that back to EFUD and we would plan our informational meeting what we needed to kind of do that and then you could decide whether you that wanted to be a joint meeting or not or you wanted to have a separate meeting and I think I think the commissioners are prepared to do the legal work necessary to transfer and everything the legal work for the transfer you were going to do that too yeah would this be subject to one and a half percent property transfer tax I don't know Mark I've got a question if you mentioned the 51 cell thing it's not on the list what do the EFUD commissioners have any current plans for that property or are you still thinking you might sell it the Grand Hotel oh I was just curious what the thing was behind retaining that if that conversation has even gone that far well we talked about it that we didn't think we wanted to include it as a gift to the town I think the village purchased it, we put a lot of money in cleaning it up to get some of that back what we use it for I'm not sure we've inquired about the potential for affordable housing out the lot there there's no formula to plan other than to mow it for Ann and it didn't really get a lot of parking use during Main Street as much as we expected and the bank parking lot across the street has been expanded it has twice the parking it had originally there so I don't think it's necessary as a parking lot has probably better use of some things that's really a separate conversation is what you're saying I was curious any other questions from the board do we want to try to go just a warmth of the board and just in support so we can move forward with this I mean, I sound like Danny's in support I don't know if the rest of the board I'm in support now that I found out about the hazardous waste kind of concern but it sounds like it's not an issue I don't have any problems so it sounds like we'd be in support of so you're interested in moving forward with it and I'll report back to the commissioners and keep in touch with you as to the steps I think this is something if that happened before the end of the year I think we'd be doing good you know what stuff is that kind of a process there before you get up since you've already voted on this I think I'm going to keep you in the hot seat for the municipal manager compensation I know we met and it sounds like you moved forward with approving what we discussed to remind the board the only person I believe in the town that Phil doesn't have control over is his own compensation we're kind of behind the ball typically around April I think we didn't move fast enough in terms of and we really should make this retroactive but we as a board have to decide Phil's compensation and it's our responsibility to make sure that we prioritize it and vote on it so that's a reminder to the board it won't happen without our movement so Bill had approached the board with everyone else's plan for increases I believe the inflation estimate was in 2% and so Bill worked to try to get everyone to increase correct me if I'm wrong on that I just want to say that I think Bill's done a great job through managing COVID and all of the difficulties that come from managing COVID financially he presented I believe last meeting how well we're looking I think it Bill has mentioned that we do start to need to plan a master transition plan I think he hasn't set a date but I just think we need to take all of that into account the eFlood approved an increase of 3.5% on Bill's compensation and a $5,000 bonus I know that there was a conversation around that maybe not being something different there or how it would be handled but that's what I'm suggesting that we do as a board to be able to hear discussion I know in the past we've talked about you know public birth private compensation I have employees and so it's a conversation where not everyone in the community I think has seen an increase in their income but again we are in control of our employees Bill is one of them we're doing well in business of being a town I do believe that it's warranted and fair but I'm happy to discuss yeah I can drop that same proposal I had 3.5% with a one-time payment of $5,000 to the eFlood commissioners at our last meeting and they supported that retroactive until April 1st I think so they were in support of that that we would pay our share of how the salary and administrative costs break down to remind everyone that Bill's compensation is shared I can't remember what approximately the breakdown of the changes in the town's budget there's there's some payments to eFlood and then in the eFlood budget there's payments back to the town I think in 2021 I don't have the budget to fund me but it's around $98,000 that eFlood is paying to the town not only for my compensation but for the compensation of other town employees that do work for eFlood we look at that every year and it's presented at budget time to both boards and it's something that I think we had a very complicated formula at one time way back in the day and then we finally kind of agreed this was several so I board a go now but we finally got to a point where neither board was wanting to change the formula any longer it seemed like a good formula so since then it's basically just been adjusted by inflation but eFlood does pay a portion and I can't tell you what the percentage is but it pays its cash so everybody knows that I've always had a rub with government compensation but let me first say that Bill Sheplick is a hell of a good man he earns every bit that he has come into him my rub is a bigger problem than this board could solve ideally what I would like to see if it were possible to start with is stop annual raises every 365 days people in government are obliged to raise when the rest of a large part of the private population aren't obliged those raises so there's a disparity and outpacing of income levels that continues year after year after year and quite honestly I think it has an impact on inflation I believe that compensation government wide that means education system as well and you could even include hospitals into that group as well because as time goes on it seems more and more that hospitals are I guess under the government thumb that contribution every year contributes to some degree of inflation and if it were at least spread out on every other year basis based on the two years back not on prior year that it would at least maybe level the scale a little bit and maybe slow down inflation I'm even upset with what's happened across the board since COVID with just everyday living expenses building expenses everything I mean as it was a recipe for I guess so some degree you could call it abuse by the markets to hike costs at such levels that has impacted the economics in the country but that can only last so long because it will self correct itself because when people stop purchasing those goods then the companies that are providing them are forced to either lower the price or run a business but that doesn't happen to government government always stays consistent increase yearly after year after year I disagree with your premise Chris we no municipal employee we went from April of 2019 until this year and nobody got a raise until this year so and if you want to talk about inflation maybe government is part of the inflationary problem but there's a lot of issues that contribute to inflation we've had very low inflation here we haven't been giving anything except cost of living raises to most municipal employees for quite some time now and you can argue that the private sector world that you live in doesn't get it but the private sector world that a lot of people that do get raises on a regular basis and when you're talking about executive positions in private corporate America there's plenty of raises being given out so it's not quite that nobody's getting raises out there in the private sector secondly I would say that we are in the world that competes with other jobs out there and we've got people in the municipality that do things more than you know shovel or rake or even drive a snow plow we've got people that run water treatment plants multi-million dollar waste water treatment plants that they're hard positions to find somebody to run those jobs and if you don't give people like that raises they're going to go somewhere else so it's not public employees just get a raise all the time and nobody else does so I disagree with what you're saying I won't get into the your opinion but I don't think it's correct I won't get into the internal issues that you claim nobody got any raises last year I'm not even going to go there okay well I'd like it if somebody got a raise that you know because it'll end up getting nasty if I go there okay and I didn't my suggestion wasn't that private sector people don't ever get raises there are companies out there that are making so much money that their people get and compensation on an annual basis but there's a large part of the private sector that don't and I know that for a fact because I've been in the private sector for 40 years okay and those are the people that I'm trying to stick up for because they're the ones that are feeling the impact of all the government spending but to your point to your compensation I have no issues with it whatsoever it's well deserved and you've always done a good job and I think that if you look at what our budgets and our budget increases and our tax increases have been here over the years I think we keep them under pretty good control I just want to say and I'll preface it I am a fiscal conservative I have no problems with that the person before us Bill Shepplett who's done an outstanding job and I think he deserves every bit of what skips I know me and Mark we've met I don't think Bill's a take take take person I really value him as our town manager I think we have a great town manager and we should be lucky and I think that's the question before us right now you know his compensation and I have no problem as a matter of fact I might even go further but in terms of being fiscally conservative I think Bill probably thinks that's adequate compensation from what the conversation myself and Mark had with him I have no problem at all with compensating him in that way I think it's really you know I think you have to treat employees as employees whether they be public employees whether they be private sector employees there are good public sector employees there are good private sector employees those people need to be compensated fairly there are bad ones those people should be either fired or you know look at retraining and look at them getting on a better task and how many times does that happen in government I know it did when I was in government I'm just saying I think too many people there is abuse in government sometimes but I don't think it's happening in our town of Waterbury but that's what's before us and I think I value our town employees I value our town manager I think I think what we compensate Bill is I think the least what we could compensate him is what E-FUD has recommended and that's my personal opinion I didn't know anything about the until E-FUD met I know that this was on the agenda I had mentioned both to mark and skip that I hadn't had a raise at the E-FUD meeting when skip made that proposal that he just told you was passed by E-FUD 3.5% and $5,000 bonus that's very generous there was a surprise to me I was not anticipating that I wasn't I had not you know told anybody this is what I want you know whatever the boards decide I think is I would have accepted that and I think it's a very generous offer I ain't going to tell you what I told E-FUD they surprised me with that and I would be lying to you if I told you that I didn't want to take it but before you go and say I asked the least you should get the more I asked the E-FUD board that if they would make whole the salaried employees who last year took a 5% pay cut voluntarily and there was one E-FUD employee and there's two other employees on the town besides me that took a voluntary pay cut and I don't have the number I don't they took a pay cut from April to August so it's not it's not going to be tens of thousands of dollars or anything like that but I would like to be able to compensate those people who voluntarily took a pay cut we laid off a number of people last year 14 or 15 people and it turned out they ended up getting paid because of $600 a week that the federal government kicked in on top of unemployment they were getting they needed to be laid off because we had to be careful about our budget and what the federal government did made it easier to be able to tell people that they were laid off but we laid them off and it was a necessary thing to do but there were a couple of individuals who took a pay cut and I would like to be able to compensate them for that lost wage they didn't get a pay raise a year ago they took a pay cut on top of that so even though they got their 2% inflationary increase this year they missed a year so they're still kind of behind I know Chris doesn't agree with that but that's your discretion bill to do that because you manage the staff yeah I manage the staff and I have a budget that has been approved by the select board and ultimately the voters and I think the budget will be able to handle what I just talked about but I also want to be transparent I don't do things behind the board's back at home you know if I'm going to give somebody a raise I let the board know that it's in the budget so I would like to offer that this way I don't have a rough idea I don't have a I'm first and I don't know it's clear what Bill was talking about making that employees whole as Bill is recommended so I'm also in support I think Bill does a lot he attends a lot of meetings and does a lot of work for the town on top of this and goes above and beyond so I'm also in support Danny I don't know if you yeah thank you um this is certainly a unique situation to be in sitting around discussing so Bill I appreciate your patience and you know we certainly got behind on that so thank you for your understanding and for your patience that I'm absolutely in support of the numbers that we're looking at and you know I think we'll certainly do better next year in terms of... Thanks Danny um yeah I mean to Mike's point I have 100% agree we're here talking about Bill's compensation um you know I think the one thing that you know I mentioned before that I don't know how much longer Bill's going to be here but we have to recognize what Bill's done since he started here we are financially I think stronger than many towns around us the investments that we've made over the years and how we've managed our money protect this town and Bill's a big part of that I think the tax stabilization fund is a great example of that um every year that I've been on the board I really do feel like he takes the finances that are hard to continue to make this town as affordable as we can as a town um you can see that through where our tax rates have landed for many years I truly believe that he cares and we're lucky to still have him around I think once he decides to move on it's going to cost us a lot more money than we're paying him right now even with this increase and I'm going to fully support it so um it sounds like we probably have enough support to make a motion before you do can I just remind you that I did say that my rub was not I heard you and I'm not angry about what you said I disagree with what some of what you said but anyway I heard what you said and I understand like I'm in a business that has at times 150 employees there are times where the market I feel you know bears who's at the door and do I feel it but lately I've been giving raises out like crazy just to hope for retainment you know so I think we as a town have to understand that we are in competition with other towns later or whatever else that we have we especially have some higher management that I think is going to turn over in the next couple years but also just a realization that if we don't keep up potentially with our competition we can potentially have turnover and turnover is extremely costly so I do believe that we have to take employee compensation very seriously and not believe that and I understand that there's an additional cost every year as a percentage of what we're paying but there are other ways to offset it we've seen that through grantless growth and other things that helped but we've also seen other incomes that we didn't expect at times pilots been hired and we thought it would be at times there are other offsetting factors and I just want to make sure that you know we have a responsibility I think as a town to make sure that our employees are also keeping up with things like inflation bill comes every year and presents basically inflation and points us towards that as a gauge I know that not everyone's seen increases but I do think that this is fair and how bill represents our employees of the town's compensation on a yearly basis is very well thought out so I appreciate that and I do believe that this is fair so it can have us just another sector so because of my concern for people making having a difficult time in life financially there's some things that I've done in my own life to try to help compensate people or benefit people I took a project on over in Duxbury to try to provide affordable lots to young people so that they could get their first start even though it was a financial burden to me to do that I felt so strongly that people that are having a hard time financially if there's no help for them where the hell are they going to be left my business I've seen construction industry businesses across the board all raised their pricing on everything I've held mine steady why because I know what the end result will be if I along with everybody else keep increasing my cost it's a fast climb to the ladder just to fall to the bottom I've seen it too many times and I don't know it upsets me to see young people especially struggle like hell when they're trying so hard in fact I had a guy come down by one bail of hay off me the other night and he's thinking about leaving Vermont he just bought a place up on Neil and Flats here a couple years ago and it's become so financially difficult for him and his wife that they're thinking about leaving it's those types of people my heart goes out to and they struggle he told me we're struggling to try to make it here and I don't know it's just it brings out the worst in me sometimes you know because it seems like there's no voice for those people it just seems like it just always more and more and more I mean I have to respectfully disagree I think there's plenty of people who are screaming about affordability in Vermont and school taxes and where they've been headed and the percentage increases there's a significant number of people that recognize the affordability problem all the way down in Montpelier so to say that no one's talking about this and it's not in the public her view is not true there are plenty of people trying to address you know we have an aging population we don't have a young population who are enigmatic not sticking around absolutely we have an affordability crisis in the state we're specifically talking about I understand that and I don't think it's fair to bill to go off and not focus and make him feel in any way that this isn't if he does I apologize I want to move the question I make a motion to approve a 3% raise for the town manager accompanied by a one-time $5,000 3.5 3.5 3.5 sorry I didn't want to cheat you Bill 3.5% increase to his annual compensation with a one-time bonus of $5,000 can you add retroactive retroactive to April 1st 2021 all second moved and seconded any further discussion all those in favor please say hi hi thank you all thank you well sir moving on errors and omissions the addition item B so I was going to list to you earlier here is sweet since you will enter there's a property owned by Mr. and Mrs. Crowe they purchased a lot in home lawn carry lane in November of 2020 the assessor reviewed the listing at the request of land over on August 12, 2021 the number of errors in the data contained in the listing were discovered this errors and omissions entry is submitted to correct the listing and the grand list to produce the correct tax bill the assessed value was $466,700 and the tax amount was $10,837 the corrected value was $413,200 and the tax will be $9,595 the second property is Waterbury Commons they had previously been assessed on 7 approved lots 3 approved lots have been sold in 2020 resulting in a net of 4 remaining approved lots the assessor had failed to remove the lot sold from the Waterbury Commons listing the original assessed value was $175 $175,000 the tax amount was $3,989 the corrected value is $100,000 and the tax amount will be $22,790 so in both cases the assessed value is large meaning the tax is very large can you remind us so we need to agree to these changes this is how this is how this is how it's written in the statute that if there's something that comes to the attention of the listers or in that case the assessor that you can make these corrections that were obvious errors on the part of the panel since the select board has to set the tax rate on the approved grant list you've got to make this change we don't change the grant list and raise everybody's taxes this is just there'll be a few thousand dollars worth of taxes that we won't collect this year but this happens usually usually once a year and on the Waterbury Commons is that saying that four lots are valued at $175 now $100,000 each or is that the $175 that was listed as basically playing the old buy $25,000 so three lots have been sold $25,000 per lot comes off of this assessment so the four lot is $25,000 a lot that's what it's in for taxes any questions so we need a motion for or we need to sign it so motion and then we sign it as a board anyone want to make a motion? a motion to approve the Ares and Admissions document as presented August 23rd, 2021 second any further discussion please say aye can you sign it item E added Mike's concerns over is it specific to the reservoir? yeah this is specific I didn't know it was going to maybe becoming an issue like I wound up getting I'm on the full disclosure I'm on the board of Friends of the Waterbury Reservoir their board and I guess there was just something that came out in that group this was a Vermont State Police press release that came up I guess the middle sex barris there was lewd and lascivious conduct down at the reservoir and again I'm looking at this release it doesn't kind of say very specific as to what happened it doesn't say it's not very specific and this is all just come to my knowledge then I was fishing on the reservoir at noon and when coming off the reservoir there was a gentleman at the Blush Hill Access that he said he was attacked by two gentlemen and I don't know how accurate or what not but I'm wondering you know it's funny that the two things kind of come back to back and I know there have been a lot of issues at the reservoir you know because of the conflicts I was really amazed today at how low I guess because we're back to school you know and I guess the weather wasn't as good as it was but today was this line of traffic as I see maybe things are going to start leveling out but things have been pretty tense at all the accesses so I don't know I don't know if there's anything that can happen this is more just to bring this to all your attention when he told you that he was attacked by two people did he report it to the police well I asked that I said did you report it to the police and basically he said no it's not going to do anything he was very reluctant to do it I was concerned for his safety more than anything else and I said did you get the person's license plate I said you really might want to report this to the state police because if you were attacked this may happen to other people and if you know something it may help someone else and I don't know he was not very forthcoming in terms of details he basically kind of wanted to not broach the issue much more so whether how true it is but after just getting this report I don't know what it entails because the state police report is very kind of vague about what the lewd and lascivious conduct was comment from Lisa that happened across the reservoir from the blusher access in remote campsites I think the bill's point and something I'm a little surprised but I have a lot of conversations that I don't think there's a full awareness of even residents in the town that we have a police force because we contract with the state police and they're straight police vehicles there's not an understanding that there is somebody in town a lot of times during the week that we can call and the response time will be much better than I think would previously the town area of just calling the general balance they never showed up or whatever else so I think it's an interesting challenge to make sure that the residents know that they can call and probably get a police officer pretty quickly and not feel like they need to self-police by any means and I don't know how we can get that word out because I think that is an important fact that there is policing available to us how old is this gentleman let me ask him the one that I met this afternoon yeah he's probably I would guess in his 50s a little heavy set yeah it's really people should know if they get hassled by somebody you're going to call it a pact your action is to call a police officer exactly that's why I encourage it was kind of right before and I dealt with it the best I could trying to encourage him to make some sort of report but he was saying nothing's going to happen of it well we had talked several meetings ago about trying to get Lieutenant White here now that some vacations are ending everything else so I'll try to get Lieutenant White here maybe one of your September meetings just to talk about things in general before the pandemic the troopers were having either monthly or every two weeks meetings up above the fire station for community input and would that be something you could discuss with? we can talk to Lieutenant White about that again I know they were a little disappointed with the attendance of those there were very few people I know but it wasn't very well publicized either they used to also come to our select board meetings and that with all the pandemic that lesson too more of an FYI I hope this is not something that's going to become more of an issue that's going to we do have a police force but with only having two troopers you know maybe they just need to be aware it's two more than the town used to have alright okay to move on managers items consider Borek grant application letter of interest is this specific to Hope Davy? yeah this one is so Frank Spalding on behalf of the chair of the Recreation Committee and Steve Watts who's the planner made this off maybe Bellboard and James Brown are also on the Rec Committee and they're in the fact to move thanks for recognizing me Bill thanks Jan and Meg so did the board give a chance to read this before? I did send it out I sent it in the late this afternoon they've got a chance to read it yeah I'm not going to go by it so there's a grant application that's due 27 or something like that there's a letter of intent that's due so the BOA grant application is a essentially 100% grant there is no match required available for immediate recreational improvements around the state of Vermont that's part of the recovery from COVID part of Governor Scott's initiative to promote recreation through the Recreation Economic Collaborative which is a non-profit support group promoting recreation economy in the state of Vermont if you haven't had a chance to read the doc this is essentially just a letter of intent by Friday we need to it's an online form we need to submit our intent along with a project description and a budget for a scope of work which must include actual physical work to the property the Recreation Committee since December has been discussing Hope Davy Park specifically the southeastern portion of the back portion of the park where there's a disc golf course which essentially overlays and is on top of a nature trail we've been working since since last December to come up with a solution to the use conflict that is occurring out there and really we've recognized early on we've recognized the need for a long-range management or master planning process and as early as January and February we were brainstorming ways to get it done including possibly reaching out to the Rubenstein School of UVM masters a senior program to take on as a project that wasn't successful but anyway, so it's a good identified need this grant comes along which provides a perfect opportunity what you see before you is essentially essentially mirrors what the committee has been identifying as a need for this product it is a long-range master plan through contracted services following the format that has been laid out through the Department of Forest and Parks for planning, recreation town forests or town properties so it would bring back a master plan a scope of what to do and how to the physical and possible operational changes to address the conflict of use that currently occurs in the back of the park we would intend for it to be a robust public process meaning that all parties would have access and place the table and that the product of this planning process would be a path forward and the committee has identified early the recreation committee identified early we know that we will need trail work out in the back of the park it's given where exactly the alignment of that trail work and how and where it goes, we don't know yet because that's what the master planning process is for we identified that we'll need substantial trail work this grant asked for mine to do that the committee also recognizes that in the front of the park, the developed portion of the park there is a need to improve the accessibility of those amenities that currently exist in the park there is no ADA access to the shelter there is no ADA access to the clothes there is no ADA access to the playgrounds this grant application would solve that after the planning process again we know that there would be a certain length of trails roughly we don't know what the alignment would be or how the actual layout would be the master planning process would provide that so this lays it out the budget we're asking for is $299,000 $299,500 these estimates are based on I actually contacted the SE Group which was the group that assembled the toolkit for the Department of Forest and Parks and Recreation for this process and they gave me a budget of $60,000 to execute this roughly speaking understood no, can't hold them to it but they gave me a price the trail construction estimates are based on an estimate that we have from the south and will be that the state has from the south and will be to do a similar type trail based on the length that we measured out improvements to the front of the park are based on similar work that's being currently executed by a well-known trail builder up at Mount Fado State Park and estimates are based on those figures administrative costs and website enhancement is really our effort to make sure that once this work is done that we tell everybody about it so that it has the effect we want it to have so we're asking for the approval to move forward this letter of intent the granting agency will go through all the letters of intent and then come back and invite you to submit a full application I want to thank Steve for amazing amount of work he did today to get this really wrapped up for us because this came together quickly and it wouldn't come together without your work Megan and Jane's work as well so any questions is the maximum grant amount $300 is that how you that's totally random but why was it $300,000 a number of what was it? that's just how your estimate came out hooray, there's $5 million total they're hoping to issue about 25 grants it's likely to be pretty competitive anytime you offer people money and municipalities money without match it's very attractive the group that is promoting the idea of a park a skateboard park by the ice center is also interested in applying as a non-profit it doesn't have to be a municipality that applies it can be a non-profit organization but the whole letter of intent process is to get feedback from the department of forest and recreation on the proposal so they'll give us feedback and then as Frank said they'll invite a certain number to do full applications and then we can get into more detail at that time that we would actually get your authorization for a more precise budget in other words we come back to you because we won't know until the end of September if we're selected for to be an applicant and then those are due by the middle of November so it's a multi-step process this is just the first part there isn't so much of a letter of intent as it is the preliminary application that's a good way to praise it because with a letter of intent you're just letting them know that you're going to apply in this process they're going to review all the letters of intent with all these summaries and budget estimates and then they're going to actually cut some out for others to apply so it's just a little bit of semantics this is actually going to be judged and will be this is already a competitive process right now and I feel really good about this because Jane attended there's an online educational forum about this grant and there's five pillars of recreation if they want you to meet this project nails them all we've really taken the time to align this project with those pillars that are identified in the grant application so I'm naturally optimistic when it comes to the grant amount I just said the quick math it's 5.25 million it's 200,000 on average is there partial funding to any of these grants or they decide that you've gone too big or you just lose the opportunity how does that work in terms of like is there a chance to get 100 instead of 300 do they partially fund things to try to spread the money out so first of all I need to disclose that I'm actually an employer that I have nothing to do with this grant process I realized I should have said that from the beginning in fact because of COVID I hadn't even met the people that hired to do this so to be fair did they talk about that at all Jane no they did not that question did not come up I'm going to I'm going to stand up so that question didn't come up in the information session that I attended so I don't I had the impression that they were trying to fully fund projects I also had the impression that it is like a pre-application process and that there's some give and take in the next month where you can they're available to discuss it actually says it like they want to help you strengthen your application so I was just reviewing what it said and that includes I think in our description we don't really get so much about stakeholders but I think your application is strengthened by having more participating groups and without getting too much detail about the golfers if we could identify who some of these are the it's getting a little off topic with your question but I think what they want you to do is really keep an eye on ahead and have a strong application and get fully funded the toolkit for the Forest Parks Recreation Megan and I both met online with K4 who developed the toolkit as an employee of Forest Parks Recreation and it's a very I think it's perfect for this process because it was developed for Town Forest but the goal is to include stakeholders to get people around the table to work out what their visions are and we have been trying to address like problems putting on fire sort of wappable with the whole disc golf and like controversy and maybe I guess it's just different different uses up there in the park and this is where it became obvious we need a plan this is where Kate told us when we met with her about this toolkit the purpose is to develop your vision and your goals as a group and get all the stakeholders to the table rather than going after all the problems one by one which is what we've been trying to do so we're kind of going backwards we need a vision we need to have some some buy-in and everybody won't get everything they want but we need this process and this is perfect for where we're at with this Hope Davey having attended since November myself for committing meetings and met with the disc golf group et cetera so I think it's maybe we can I just want to say that I think this is not just about disc golf this is really really addressing the entire property because it is the entire property that feeds into that when we talked about the trail system the economic development you think about the soccer jamboree that goes on there you think about people waiting to play a game suddenly that trail becomes something that those people can do and a quick visit to the park becomes a day at the park that's the kind of thing that this grant is all about it's about charging up the outdoor recreation economy to help communities and we've got a lot of a lot of bonuses with Waterbury doesn't need downtown all the good things we're doing all that stuff that's great about this process and I think one of the nice things about our application is if they do come back and say it's too much will they do that? I don't know I think it's the grant process I've been involved in I've been in-house so it's not fair for me to know that but the if they came back and said it's too expensive we have a front and a back we can pick a winner and we can say okay let's not do the ADA path we'll deal with that later on or we can pick the most important thing to get done and say let's just focus on the back and we can rewrite the grant application to reflect that so we have it's not like if they came back and said it's too expensive we didn't have to follow that so I think that's a good place to be with this application they want a minimum of $50,000 application and they require implementation you can't just reflect the plan anyone so it's a little but there's some obvious things that we don't need to be so we were careful we were careful not to be too scripted about what we're going to do because we didn't want to shortcut the planning process it's ingenuous to people that take part of the planning process if we come out and say that we're going to blow a multi-use trail through the back part of the park we don't know what we're going to do with that but we know we're going to need some trail system work in the back part of the park the application is worth it thank you if you want to say something I'd like to just say that we have a tremendous opportunity with this grant to change the narrative about Hope Davy which I think is really the exciting thing this could be so great to actually have a new vision and set a new plan and be able to move forward with this incredible natural resource and also just the whole span of recreational activities in our town so like Eugene was saying the whack-a-mole we just stop all this like the disc golf route whatever it's not really about that anymore it's about how Waterbury as a town wants to support disc golf as a recreational offering how that looks we don't know and we have a natural resource that we also have to protect because if we don't it's really taking just a huge wear and tear out there the other thing being is that it's actually been identified as a class 2 jurisdictional wetlands which I didn't even know what that meant but that means that it's a class 2 wetlands which is a protected class in Vermont and a jurisdictional wetlands means it's not mapped but in fact it's a protected wetlands so in terms of looking at this grant time and thinking about how we can revision as a whole community as a town look at what we've got look at what we want to do and be able to go forward and stop what we've been dealing with it's been a really long process as we all know so whack-a-mole so that's really the thing we have to think about the environment so when talking with Pete Forer and also actually several recreational specialists what we learned was that it's really important to start with your foundation and the foundation is the Pope David Park itself so of course we've got the 18 acres natural area in the back and we also have the playing field area in the front which my understanding is about 10 acres so how we would want to start for this grant process is actually map if you will map the vision map the land and really look at what we've got so where are the sensitivities okay where are the sensitivities in the land itself I mean we have those out there we have it in the front with the wetlands we have the thatcher brick in the back which is also a wetlands we have vernal pools which are protected you know in and of themselves and once they're identified that's also class 2 wetlands so you get into buffers you get into all this other stuff you know all that and then once we know that we can say you know what we've got this and okay over here on recreation for the back area we have disc golf which has been tremendous I mean people love it and you know clearly in Waterbury we support that and we want that to continue how that can continue within that space you know it's not 20 years ago it's the year 21 and you know things are different there's a lot of people there's a lot of use and there's also in the community if you think about it with a new company that's moving in there's going to be more residents we had the community event down there a couple weeks ago and a whole bunch of families about 100 folks were out there and the playground was full and all these people all the way down to the river and they didn't even know that that was down there they didn't realize that that is part of the park and I think that that's really important so I'm just you know so glad that in this grant we can also have like Frank said you know we want to make sure we talked about this in our committee it's so important to re-vision and do all this work and at this point like we want to share that so even in our own community you know folks don't know and they just simply do not know if you go to the picnic shelter at Hope Davy there is a map in a circular plaque that shows the walking trail the multi-use area and it's what the original walking trail was and it was in a circular to the jet that you broke came back across the knoll and then it goes back out across the little bridge that was built by Ben and Jerry's volunteers 20 years ago so the disc golf course came along and evolved and on kind of on top of those trails and so now for somebody to walk and follow those trails they are crisscrossing disc golfers and so what has evolved on its own is cross purposes to each other so this is why we think we need a management plan to find out what the resources are through the mapping and people together to talk what is intentional, what do we want and we have a lot of young families that would like to use that national area too so I think that's why the toolkit is perfect for this and it's a great opportunity so jump to the other select board members have any questions just in that sense of time I do I'll ask a hard question as much as I think all the stuff in the front is all great I think the whole thing is great where I know we have discussed the conflicts that have happened will this planning process bring some you know finality and some good common sense you know cooperation between the different parties I'll go back to what James said that I think and I'll describe it this way I have this belief that when you have a mission you have a big arrow the dodging mission and within that big arrow you got little arrows going where you hope they all go the same direction we were working in the land of little arrows we didn't have a big arrow this is the big arrow so I think the answer to the question is this is the best way to resolve because the whole goal is to bring all the parties to the fiscal not just the neighbors but businesses other users water all these people come to the table and we as a community come up with a resolution of this and move forward so the answer to your question quicker than I should have than I took is yes this is the way to fix that good I'm glad because it's what we need to have I'm in support of this a couple questions I don't know if you can answer now but you say on the back page informational and interpretive kiosks is that kind of going to be similar to the one that's in front of the trails right now or the historical ones? so none of this is intended to be totally prescriptive so kiosk is a placeholder for physical information on the site be it kiosk be it panels whatever it may be we put a monetary placeholder in for that interpretation because that would also come out of the planning process as well do you think you would have that on the back trails though or just out in the front? I don't think I think this is agnostic to that actually you're right it isn't a front but I think that interpretation could be an element that comes out of the master plan I wouldn't exclude it nor would I commit to include it at this point in time I think that's really got to come out of the master plan and I'm dodging the question I know but I think I'm really trying to honor the planning process I'm sure that if there may be people that want to save some nature trail I don't want any signs or I don't want everything fully interpreted to the full extent that you can put a post somewhere so we got to find that balance and I want the planning process to do that without not declaring it and then a follow up maybe you want to answer this one too parking improvements if you had any ideas because parking has been an issue there for so long and even on the main street that's just been paved there's no parking signs on private lawn so if you had any ideas ways to address it with stakeholders so have you been up to the park lately by a picnic shelter and seen the expansion I mean it's right here my house yeah so I think the answer is that we're working on and that's a separate project that our department's been helping with I think once that gets finished then I think we're going to have to reassess this through this master plan process and see you know not only how we manage events but manage the visitation so that people aren't parked on different lawns so I think the answer is yes that will be part of the master plan but we didn't identify physical work because we're not at that he is first so grants, grants always arise on the back of my neck because one problem with grants is there's never any reoccurring revenue source to support the problem that's created by the grant or the effort created by the grant and I'm wondering if what kind of support system financial support system will be needed after say you win the grant you get to do all this work and everything what kind of maintenance is involved in supporting this effort afterwards have you addressed that or you know a lot of people get wrapped up in the fact that oh it's a grant you know it's going to allow us to do this but there's always this hangover afterwards of how you're going to support supporting movement Chris I love that question because actually in my other volunteer role I'm on board of regents for a school management department of recreation and we talk about that exact subject and I think if you look at this project there's already 3,300 million feet of trail that we identified as possible there's already 3,300 million feet of trail out there that's being roughly maintained and I don't mean roughly as a derogatory statement they're maintained within their capacity by the disc golf organization there are trails that have been created they're maintained as best they can the goal is to take this grant money and improve that system to a point where it would be easier for them to maintain that and so there's already a trail system out there this is going to hopefully fix it it would also say some standards because now you have volunteers putting things on town property in good faith but they're not being built or designed to a particular standard so as possible more grant money that you can seek no rec has recurring grant right now it's got a lot of money in it I don't know 10 years from now it will but I think we're at a crucial point where you need to plan any standards and just not have volunteers building things and doing things I love seeing stuff like this it's just that my concern is that it's going to fall back on to the taxpayers later on and if there's a possibility of some form of revenue source either through not necessarily donations but is there any fees that could be charged for I think that could be something that could be looked at in the planning process for activities that are out there especially possibly so many people using the facility for things like this but looking at the pure formula we have now for disc golf the fact that we have volunteers maintaining the trails if we fix this trail system and possibly identify other volunteer groups in one hell too disc golf has been shown to be willing to do work out there whether everyone likes it or not they've been shown willing to do that work and try to get them to work in those we have a draft agreement kind of like what Skip talked about with the dog part of folks we've been trying to push towards a small formalized agreement with them so that they are responsible for the maintenance so it doesn't fall on town but by taking this grant money and investing in basically a capital investment to create a system that's going to be easier to maintain that will result in a better use system that shouldn't cost the town any more money to maintain the ADA trails in the front country that's a new humanity but I'm going to essentially say that that's something the town should be doing anyway that's a accessibility between the humanities of a public entity is a title 2 requirement of the ADA and that's something we should be doing anyway so there is no revenue recovery for that and we're going to point blankly to maintain it and instruct it properly so they take less money I mean it's good to get people to do the physical work but if there's any structures that have to be replaced there needs to be revenues in place to pager those products to then allow the people to put them in I think as Jane said revenue costs are going to be a conversation in the long range planning process and I would invite the board to participate in that oh it's good to see that we might be able to get a handle on a long time this is our best chance this is a really good chance is there concern on other groups in Waterbury like this escape park group applying under the Waterbury address I'm just wondering if competition obviously is high in this because there is no match I mentioned this to Nick and he had mentioned the escape park group and I thought there was another one he mentioned I just didn't know if you were aware of any other groups that were looking to apply and what they were applying for obviously I'd like to see no that's the only other one Mark and I think that's the benefit of this preliminary application process is that's kind of feedback that they'll probably provide that well we're only going to look at one application from your community and that may be feedback that we get and it may not we don't know yet so I think when we come back to you we'll have more information about about that so tonight you're looking for is there a signature involved or just a blessing or what do we need what do you have for us I think just a motion to authorize the there's no real signature electronic form we're going to authorize the town of Waterbury to submit a letter of intent for the GO-REC grant for the Hope Davy Parks massive grant for these upgrades and improvement they got more or less what we're looking for for a motion anybody want to move that motion second second any further discussion second question any further discussion did Danny ever hand up on no all those in favor please say aye aye thank you I wanted to you mentioned the skate park and the recreation committee earlier on and I just wanted to clarify if I went back and marched through the minutes to find out exactly what we talked about in the skate park we did not come talk to the recreation committee and we did not take any action on either recommending or but we we did express concerns about ongoing maintenance care of the facility or the future or both current future or both future skate park the fundraising and so we had planned to engage with them again in July or August and we got focused on this and well so we intend to engage with them again it's an odd situation because they're proposing to build on e-foot land it might come our land it might come our land and then the recreation committee is really a town thing so we kind of walk in a little bit of line there so we stand ready to jump in and the lessons learned from Disco from Hope Davey and I think this is exactly the direction we need to be going with Hope Davey and hopefully we come out with a better more less conflicted area that's good thanks appreciate it thank you very much thank you moving on to Stow Street you guys signed it too much thank you thanks did you want to sign that too so I think on this one it's from the meeting that the presentation was out on the bridge alternatives we had some options and we needed to get back to them on a certain time frame yeah the sooner the better so we did meet with folks from Petrans at the last meeting on August 2nd we presented the bridge 36 over Thatcher Brook project and staff's recommendation after that meeting we're talking beforehand with Bill Woodruff Alec Puscany and Steve and by the fire as well staff's recommendation is that the select board support what the proposal was they offered several alternatives but they suggested that alternative 3A the full bridge replacement with the very structured traffic maintained by the offsite for a 60 day closure period was the recommended was from their perspective was the best alternative they're asking you know do you want the temporary bridge I think they made a pretty compelling case that temporary bridge would be very expensive require way acquisition and if you did that you would lose some of the incentives that you get from this project so what I would recommend is that you folks sign this that would check off the alternative 3A which is that full bridge replacement that I just talked about and that the select board agrees that the bridge will be closed during the duration of the project that no temporary pedestrian or vehicle bridge will be required the town will be responsible for signing and maintaining the detours and then you know whoever is here in 2024 2025 timeframe will have to make a decision about whether you're going to do something for pedestrians in terms of busing I think that's overkill right now I certainly it's going to be next year I wouldn't recommend that but that's really what our recommendation is is to allow us to check off with this caveat that there's no temporary bridge no provision for pedestrian or vehicle access and that was from the 3.4 in the end he's down there yeah I don't have that in front of me Chris but I believe that's that was the one that is a three form concrete arches with basically dirt construction similar to a railroad roadway on top of it just like a concrete culvert big culvert very structured so we get the highest the highest benefit from the the state will pay the highest percentage of the costs if we choose this if that's the agreement with I think just make a motion to approve the alternative to treat A that was presented by the trans by the second my biggest gripe with the whole thing was just saying that you could do a pedestrian temporary bridge but it's going to cost you 300,000 so much more money but it's your option it's like no you really put us against the wall on this that kind of spending doesn't seem to make sense but I do feel for anyone who does walk on that path which I know there are plenty of people that potentially do that we're not aware of but I see them walking I know that one guy works at Shaw's I'm not so I feel for that scenario and I hope that we as a town or maybe we can work with our W find solutions for the pedestrian scenario but I really do feel like the state I don't know what just even presenting that a detour walk route was up perry held down was just like I don't know it was kind of upsetting to me but hey good to see you kind of made us feel like we had a choice and then it looked like it was a choice to take that away from town members but really it wasn't actually that was the only frustrating thing to me too but but I think it sounds like staffs recommendation I don't think anyone ever said they thought we should do a different bridge but my concern too I was a little bit concerned about pedestrian you know people who use as a pedestrian but in the scheme of things a short term you know can we work to have some sort of public transit around there you know through Green Mountain you know or volunteer on calls right exactly but the unfortunate problem is and this is I know Chris will appreciate what I say here is that okay you need additional right away if you're going to put a temporary bridge and you're going to get some rights from private property owners okay so you can deal with that I think even I could build a bridge that was saved across there pedestrians walk across that do it for you know a couple thousand dollars the way the standards are and what we need to do in fact that there's no sidewalk up on Route 100 that's the sky falls in it doesn't matter that people are walking across the sidewalk to nowhere now if you put a new bridge that goes to nowhere they freak out so the standard that they have is going to cost $300,000 to build a bridge that you can put a log across there but it also wasn't the cost it was that if you choose this option the 5% change just to 10% so it wasn't just the cost of that it was also like we really don't want you to choose this and we're going to penalize you if you do and like that really hurt me you know I mean to say it if you think about it we live in a pretty blessed country right we're so blessed that we've gotten to the point where we're pretty spoiled to me a 60-day inconvenience to have a brand new bridge that will accommodate walkers and you know hikers and bikers afterwards isn't too much to ask we have to be aware of the time there are people that can't afford cars to get to or from work I think it's worth looking at some type of a shuttle you know my wife said use the damn wreck bus right you could put that in sort of a good idea but the reason I asked you about the 3.5 million because I'm thinking to myself after that presentation I walked away from it and I said $3.5 million in 60 days that's a pretty good rate of pay and it just you know it goes back to our conversation earlier just got my blood boiling how things have been orchestrated throughout the government system that have just driven costs so high that it's impacted people who are now telling me that they have to leave and that's just one of many that you know are struggling with the affordability aspect and then I'm hearing stuff about what's going on here in the village with the project here I see them jacking around concrete and I'm seeing seven people standing around watching one man work and I'm just this stuff like that doesn't just rubs me the wrong way you have to forgive me but so it's 5% of that 3.5 of what we're thinking it is so it's 175,000 is the quick math on that so obviously we're years out from that but we have to take that into account that that will have to be in our future great motion I make a motion to approve option 3C's 3A we almost got a different bridge second it's been moved in second any further discussion all those in favor please say they're giving you any better timeline on it we're talking what 2024 2024 seems like the earliest right now I think it's for 2025 and it could move up a little bit now does this lock in that price no it locks in it locks in the percentage it locks in the percentage it'll have to be bid so anyway go to you know that so where is the sign there's no buy one no price is definite it's been moved in second all those in favor please say aye aye thanks everybody thank you last item on the agenda is the racial equity training so the last meeting I passed out to you summary of the next steps that may have recommended and the question is who do you want to go through and have one more session with her as I said the last time the last two times you know she she had kind of an agenda and especially the first time she dealt with a lot of the things that we were dealing with here she kind of turned a little bit into a counselor if you will and just you know talk about some of the struggles that you folks were having and some of the issues that you're facing I told her that in my point of view that we were going to do one more that we should try to do a better job to allow her to get through her presentation so that's it's the board's choice you've committed to the training you've had two sessions what do you think you want more or not it's your choice but if you do go forward I think sticking to some of her educational materials and her more standard presentations the likely what's the cost of my it's about it's about 14 hundred I think plus lodging all together I have no problem doing because I know she wanted to get to and I think it was good it was a little bit of a counseling session but I think some of that was very helpful but I think some of the nuts and bolts wouldn't hurt us I don't have a problem with either if we could stick to the agenda and get through our whole slideshow presentation I think that would be a plus I think it's important that the community as a whole recognizes that this is still ongoing we are making a conscious effort and it's still part of our itinerary to keep doing this and there's some expectation of possibility she talked about she included here that ongoing something that one have some more public presentation and public engagement as opposed to private sessions it's not necessary of course and since the board has undertaken this with Mary there's much less public input so I don't know where we are with the public on this issue whether they are thinking that we need to do a lot more to include that but it's the board's call so on a macro level money is not an issue at the last meeting I explained to you that we're going to have a significant surplus here just because we're so conservative in our estimates with payments from the state I think we're going to be in a good position going into next year so on that macro level this is not a financial issue on a micro level you've already spent several thousand dollars on the two sessions that you've had do you feel it's worth it are you bidding it in the eye of it it's your call at this point it's not going to hurt on a budgetary global basis but do you feel that this value to for another session is really a question I'll chime in and say that I absolutely think it's worth it it's a small investment there's four members that are going to continue on next year and it's setting the tone for where we are as a board we interact with the community and I think I think the sessions we've had have been very good but obviously we've gone on tangents and I think getting through this and understanding the core of the education that's trying to be presented and moving that forward into the following years I think is really important so I think I'm not surprised that we how our sessions have gone but I think they've been very good and I think we've learned a lot about each other and I think at this point hopefully through our education we'll also just help address some of the other issues of just the communication the core of the the issues at hand so I think it's worth one more Danny keeps turning Danny are you trying to jump in? Yeah sorry I mean I don't think for a third I think we figure out kind of getting the bigger conversations that we need to have under our feet and then moving forward like you said more of that both in education setting the tone as we go forward we also start with a couple of properties and ideas I think would be helpful to finish and get some more comment thinking steps on moving forward and how to move forward No we don't I'll work with Mary if the board decides they want to do it I'll work with Mary and come up with a date I mean she's been willing to do it on select board meeting nights I'm sure we can find a time but nothing is scheduled yet Danny because they didn't know whether or not the board wanted to do more Do we need a motion for this or is it more The consensus seems to be to have a third session I think we could pay for it by raising the temperature here a couple of degrees It was really potty It's been cold last few weeks One thing Mark Are you done with this topic? Are we done with this topic? During the discussion about the municipal compensation you made a suggestion that the board approved the the free town I think they already agreed to that I don't think we actually We didn't make a motion or I don't know if you but I don't know if we actually did specifically do that I think the consensus was there and I think it's Bill's Bill pays The conversation that went on that was okay If you want to specifically make a motion I thought what I heard was that you were supportive Yeah I mean I personally think it's fair and I appreciate anyone who offered to take a pay cut not knowing what we were headed into but obviously as you pointed out we are financially as a town doing alright and I think that those employees deserve the money that they are doing and like you said they continue to work and they would have probably done better if they didn't anyone else not feel like we should we don't need a motion on that Let's move forward I think that's it Going FYI I'll probably be virtual on the set I have to do some stuff with my stepmom but I'll put it all beyond I'm going to say Sixth It's a Tuesday meeting Yeah So the next meeting is on Tuesday, September 6th So you'll be virtual on that thing I won't schedule the training for that day No please don't I want to miss it I think it's important I'm all for I'm all for the training I've been through a lot of diversity inclusion training with the federal government I think it's really important it's us as leaders to show you know why it is important and how we do value diversity, inclusion anti-racism personal opinion How many of you should do a journey? Second Second Second Any further discussion? Please say hi Hi Danny Hi Danny Thank you Thank you