 So I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Waterbury Select Board Monday, the 1st of May 2023. The first agenda item is to approve the agenda and I just found out that the library representative will not be able to address us tonight due to a emergency. And so that puts another 15 minutes on the agenda. And I'm wondering if we might just revisit the parking lot to see if what we might want to pull up giving it a quick look through. I thought perhaps an update on reappraisal if we have any update on what's happening from our legislature. I can provide a quick update on my conversation with Martha Statcus on planning and zoning. Also, I don't know if we have any update on the parade policy but we could decide how we want to proceed on that. So we have a travel supply. Tom and I went to visit Chris at the, the quarry. Sorry, sweet road. And so Chris I don't know if you'd be prepared to tell us what you were we talking about. Yeah, so we'll put that on the agenda. We'll put it up. All right. I'm going to try to get an update on all of these. Yeah, and then we can decide how we're going to address them. I need to add something to consent to when we have a second. Okay. And then I don't know if we have an update on the inclusivity policy training, just just getting dates worked out. Okay, we won't include that one. All right. So I'm going to start with Karen's amendment. I got a first class liquor license. Brewery today. So I just wanted to add that to the consent items. So I was going to move that we, in addition to that agenda, consent, those four items. And we do them after the zoning by logistic and that I believe our candidate for conservation mission is here soon. Okay, sure. Okay, I could add one more item. Okay. I just could give a quick briefing on a fire truck. Fire truck. I really got everyone fired up. Okay. So we're adding after the appointment. Consider appointment Marty Johansson. Gravel supply rate policy fire truck reappraisal. And we've got the amendment to the consent agenda. I'm going to pass license for free folk. And they're free. Motion to approve the agenda as amended. Second. All right. Motion moved and seconded. Any further discussion. All of their say hi. Hi. Any post. Any abstentions. All right. You have an agenda. The next agenda is the consent agenda items. Motion to approve all the items on the consent agenda. Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded any further discussion. Hearing none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any post. Any abstentions. All right. Consent agenda is approved with the amendment. All right. Now the public session. I'd like to lose part of the agenda where anything that's not on the board agenda can be brought forward by any member of the public. And we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less. I'd like to just start by saying that at our last meeting, a couple of people took a section to some of the comments made by the select board. Myself included. And I just like the offer apology after an apology to them. Like the offer public apology. If anyone feels as though we're impugning the integrity of anyone that's serving the town because that's not our intent. And it's certainly important that we. Do what we can to preserve the trust that we. Put in people who serve in a point of positions. And I think, you know, all of us can do better. I certainly. Make all efforts to improve my performance as chair and. Appreciate it. All of us can do that and just remember that everyone is serving as a volunteer. And that's very important to the function of the town. And that's what in addition to that, I had a, about 45 minute telephone conversation with the person involved. It was very frank conversation. I think it was very productive. And I think we came out. And I think it's a good place to move forward. Great. Yeah. Thank you for taking the time doing that. Thank you. Probably the preferred way of dealing with things, you know, public praise, private concerns. And let's, let's move the issues of the town. All right. Any other comments in the public session? Come forward. Yes, sir. I have a question. Yeah. Would you like to come forward? This is in regards to the gravel grinder. And I'm sorry to do this, but do you mind just saying your name for the rest? Marty Johansson. I had a question in regards to the gravel grinder. Sure. And the bathhouses are the, not the bathhouses, but the toilets are going to be open. And at the rescue park. There's only going to be two toilets. And I was just curious if they're going to have extra toilet facilities available. And I'll be about 400 people. Yeah. I think their paperwork does say they have. They've always brought parties in the past. There's only two. Yeah, that's two. It's not going to be enough for the crowd that they break. The question brought up. That's why I was asking. Pretty standard thing more than you'd like to see for any big events that they might have some sort of consideration for, you know, full of pressure. And they've been running this for a number of years. So they've got that under control. If not, I'm delirious about it. Thank you. Anything else from the public? All right. Let's move on to the library strategy. Strategic planning will be moved off. We don't know. Hopefully the 15th. Hopefully the 15th. And then appointment. To the conservation commission. Do I have a motion? Sure. Marty, maybe you could just come up and tell us. You don't have to introduce yourself. But do have a seat. Could you tell us why you've thrown your head into the ring to join the conservation. I've been involved with conservation work since the sixth grade, not in grade school. I have a degree in biology from University of Minnesota and then a master's degree in environmental health. Minnesota also. Far as interest in conservation work. I have a partial time on the family farm. I started a tree farm there. Work for the state of Minnesota fisheries department. Doing research and conservation work on. Lake. Or not lake up, but rainbow trout lakes that we work. I do have quite a bit of background in. Forestry. And in biology. I'm a very good teacher. I'm a very good teacher. I've always had. And what's the tenure for. Four years. Four years. You're prepared to serve for you. I love that. I just want to add. I don't want it fairly well. Just want to add. He's a very. He definitely has. Very interested in a hand. And I would second that he would be an excellent addition to the conservation commission, especially since I'm a liaison to that. Yes. Connections already made. All right. Any further questions for Marty? Do I have a motion? I have a motion to approve. Any further discussion? I'm not in favor of. Appointing Marty Johansson to the conservation commission. Say hi. Hi. Any post. Any abstentions? Congratulations, Marty. Thank you. Your service. Thank you. Thank you for coming forward. We'll move on to. Some of the. Newly added. Items on the agenda. The gravel supply. Just as a bit of. Introduction. Chris. Yeah. Tom and I to come up and. Take a look. I'm also. Bill Woodruff. Okay. We'll move on to some of the newly added. Items on the agenda. I'll take a look. I'm also. Bill Woodruff. Take a look at the. Gravel and sand supply. At the sweet road. And. Existing. Yes. An existing one. Not the one farther down. We also took a look at previous. And discussed. Whether there might be a sufficient material there to serve the town's purposes for a certain amount of time. And so. Chris, would you mind coming forward? Sure. So the gravel pit on sweet road is property owned by the talents. It's been an operation, existing operation for. A couple of decades anyway. The town did operate out of it at one point. First it was run privately by. And then. Then the town got involved in it for a short period of time. There was a risk and the town ended up. Not being allowed to use it anymore. And at one point. Somebody had come to me. And I had to get out of it. And I had to express the. Desire to get out of. That pit. And rolling me over. I said to myself. The state would allow me to. Operate out of here. So I went to see and stay connected to 50. And he was all in. So I've been running it for. Close to 20 years. It's been a great asset for me. For the locals. They've been able to keep the cost down on aggregate sources for. Projects. In lieu of what's happened with the ball pit or what's happening. With the ball pit. The permit at the town pit is currently being updated. With me as. Co-applicant. And. One of the thoughts that I had was that. Maybe I can help subsidize. A loss from. The ball pit. Just for those that aren't up on that. Tom and gone to. The owner of the ball pit to have to see if we could. Get an expanding supply of sand and aggregate. And. She's not interested. So the towns that did operate out of the ball pit. Are. Now going to be forced to go elsewhere. The McCulloch boys. I've had Ian McCulloch. And. His name. And one of the other guys there that's associated with the business. Up at the pit here recently. To look at. Talk about whether or not it's worth me crushing gravel. Not only for myself, but possibly the town as well. I've been recently. Extracting material. Putting it into a huge stockpile. Specifically for the town. I've been. I've been. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting. And sandwich bags, I'd be hard-pressed if you didn't even tell them apart, but that's I still got to research that process. But anyway, I'm still working on piling enough gravel to crush not only for my needs, but possibly the town's needs. I'm actually just spoke today about taking a few loads rather than having McCullum move in with her crusher and pay her next amount of dollars to crush this entire pile and jump. I was thinking about transporting a few loads to wherever their crusher currently is and running through the crusher to see if it's going to generate quality. Don't tell them to call us to operate out of berry. Well they're out of middle section. They currently bought the pit at just off exit six, actually bought that two or three years ago, what they call the brousseau pit. That's a quarry. It's a stone quarry that provides the stain that, the black stain that you see in everybody's driveway. But they also just purchased, would use quarry, which is a similar quarry, similar product on the ramp, just for the hospital, a month later, and they just acquired that quarry as well. But their gravel source in Southbury is depleting. I think I told you last time that they're crushing granite and mix with that gravel to try to stretch that source. I don't know what type of material it is, I haven't seen it yet. One thing I was curious about, if we can figure out, Woody hasn't come to the table with any information is, what is Woody, what is Celia and Tom, what are you guys investigating as other sources? I'd like to know what those are and the costs associated with that and how you're planning on trucking. I'm hearing things out in the construction world about other towns that are hiring other trucking companies to try to put up the supply. Yeah, there's lots of shuffling going on now that the ramp is closing. So I'll tell you what I've told you now and until I get a little bit further into this, I don't have a lot of better information to give you until I figure out what type of quality. Actually, I have just a video today that I was up there yesterday bailing material and you can pass this around real quick if you wanted to because the sound it has a lot to do with you can hear the stone that's in the gravel. Is that the same material that you were excavating when we were up there? You can hear when we drop the bucket, you can see it's not wrong. Who wronged you at this point? It's a beast of hope that has come to try to do it all the time. So I'm thinking it's going to be a really, yeah, let's not say it's nothing like that. Are there some other sources that we're currently investigating, anything that seems promising? There's nothing local you've got. So I'm actually, I don't want to today write in the letter to Julie Moore who's ahead of in an art about the potential site. There was a survey done in 1974, I believe, of all the digital gravel sites in town. And a number of good sites were found. They've all got roads or houses on it. So there's just I'm going to throw this out there. I think it's proven that you could somebody from the municipality maybe speak to somebody at some state level to try to alert somebody that the resource aggregate resource issue is going to be a huge issue in years to come because right now I don't see where it's on the radar by any state officials. And what's going to happen is you're going to come up against the wall. There's not going to be any resources. And then you should know is because he's in the was in the construction industry for years. Yeah, you're thinking he would just a matter of, I don't think it's just rising to a level that is necessary. You know, it's in terms of prices. That's what they're going to have prices. I've always said we're reacting. Well, he said, you know, writing to the letter is what he's got some of the numbers, but I don't know offhand how many yards of the different types of stolen revenue by sand. It's about 3,000 yards. But what is our tenant truck take a load is a 13 yards 16 or 16 yards. So think about think about the number of trips. Think about the number of gallons of diesel and the tons of CO2 put into the air and then double or triple it. And that's, so we're going to have a site. That high elevation sexual tour dirt road network. I know women are let CO2 is a big win for everyone. So two more things. So very kids only going to open from noon or 1230 on four. So that's going to make it much more costly. For a truck to go down there to only all half a day. It's not like hauling, you know, while they're typically halls for the town of Waterbury. On a kind of a spur of the moment basis when he has nothing else to do with a good fill in for him, it's cost effective for the town. But when he does it, he commits himself for a day. You know, if he doesn't have any other trucking and he can typically, he tries to approve about 11 loads a day. That's what makes it cost effective not only for him, but for the town. So by cutting those hours in half, now he's going to be calling a lot less in half the time he's going to lose the fishing suits. The town is going to lose because he's not going to be as efficient. If you said something earlier. So, you know, maybe I'm losing something. And maybe that's where people have this question. If you have a certain amount of material that you have to do, and you can do it in that in a half day versus a full day. I guess I'm not understanding where the cost. It's just not available. I understand it's not available. It sounded like, you know, like, like, while there was going to make happy amount of trips. Yeah, so if he makes 11 trips a full day, that's because he's there six, 31, right? And, you know, well before their open, so he's the first, and it's on a first come, first serve basis. But if you ask him to win 1230, he may only get three or four loads by the end of the day versus 11. So ideally, he could get five and a half loads in that, but there's no way, there's no way in the remaining, from fall 30 to night shift closes, there's no way that he's going to produce five and a half loads. He might produce three, he might produce four, where if he's there for the whole day, he's got it coming so that he can put out 11 loads a day. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, it's an experience of his day. Yeah, it's more efficient, yeah. You can utilize the whole day because he doesn't stop for once, he doesn't, you know, he's just straight, go, go, go, go, go, go. The other thing I was going to say, to haul, to haul material in those little trucks that we have, we have one hand them. All the rest are six, seven yard trucks. Those seven yard trucks burn as much fuel per trip as that big truck does. And you're only hauling less than half of the truck calls. So it's not efficient or cost effective to use those little trucks in any way to perform to haul material. So I guess, well, you would be aware of that so that if you happen to see that it's being done, you can question it. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just for the record, Julie more is the head of a and R chief policy. Person for the state. So I think we're going to the top. I think that's Tom's intention is to address this as a policy state policy issue. And hopefully we can be influential. I guess one more thing. If, If I can help by being there. Explain this whole thing. I'm happy to do it. Okay. Great. Chris, thank you for stepping forward on this. And we will try to get you some information about what our needs are, what we're looking for. And hopefully we can come to terms and make good use of your offer. Appreciate it. All right. Next item is. Are we on the fire truck? Right. Right. Right first. Sorry. This is something that came to our attention. When Scott Culver came forward and prepared a very detailed report. For the parade that we approve for the little league. The stick. Yeah. But he did, you know, We talked about needing to address the, All the access and address along the parade routes and we did just that. And so that sort of brought forward what is our parade policy. Parades that require road closures and those that don't, because it's pretty different. And so I started to do a little bit of research. I found that. My failure does have operate policy and an application on this, which I forwarded to Tom. Tom, I don't know if you've done any further work on this, but maybe we could like set a horizon. When we can. I think Scott wrote the map for us. It's a good road map. If you will. Turn that into a policy. Okay. Great. Do you need help with any of that? I think so. I think we're really close to my thing. Gary asked all the questions. And can it turn into not just a policy, but an application so that it's really clear what people need to fill out and do. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Applications for lots of other things that are sort of an algorithm. Absolutely. Cool. Thank you. Should we give you. Until the first meeting in June. To address that. Yes. I had a similar question in the big. I don't know about other just large events in general. In my mind, some of the nexus was not only the grades and this question of road closure, but again, the road races. Which don't always require things. Things like gravel grinder, which has. And we just asked about what a party. So I guess my one question would be, I understand if we want a specific policy. But I also wonder about just large events in water, right? Or W for arts fest, you know, again, I don't know. And to the extent we need to reference other state statutes, I believe we trans has a. Threshold for if you're above X amount of people. And we're actually spent some time on this last week. We have an ordinance. What's the entertainment. That's what we for circus. That. And one question I had last week was about the disc golf tournament. And so I read the ordinance closely. And we had a rent policy about events and field use. And I determined they didn't need a permit. They didn't need necessarily select board approval. But at the same time, yeah, it's an event with a few hundred people. Well, there's an under permit here, which is different than it was different. So there is a vendor permit, but that's different from the event itself. That's just a vendor selling them the event. So. It almost suggests to me more broadly that we should look at that ordinance and maybe update it. Maybe not, but take a close look at. The entertainment ordinance. And I'm seeing that, like you had the bonus, the share care and told them to have to be on for like the liquor, you know, kind of that check box of like, are you having an event? Does it have liquor? Here's the things you need to do for that. Does it have a road closure? Here's the things you need to do for that. Just to try it. Get folks a one stop shop. Does anyone on the board want to sort of take the lead on that? Take a look at those ordinances and working with. Tom and Karen. I have some, yeah, I have some capacity and interest for that. Right. Just a dumb question. I would say there's no dumb questions. How would a parade not have. Well, I can bring them. For instance, the, the empty car show. Yeah. Has a parade. During the Saturday afternoon, but we don't close the roads. They just run down the main street. Right. Turn around by the train station and come back. Very unique. Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously. Any other parade. Pedestrians walking in the street. But yeah, that's, that's one. Right. And actually a winter fest ran a similar parade a couple years ago. Just running cars down the street in the middle of winter. Nobody was on the road anyways to make any difference, but there was no room for you. Thank you. All right. So the resolution is that Danny is going to look into this and get back to us for the report. Do you want to tell us when you might. Yes, can I be that? Let's, can we make it June? First meeting in June. Great. Let's go. All right. Now we're on fire. So Gary came into my office late last week. Our fire capital plan actually called for two new tanker trucks two years ago. Because they were 20 years old at that point. I know they all look brand new because they're kept in great shape. But we've got two vehicles that are each 22 years old. We've got a vehicle available specifically in 18 to 24 month lead time on the vehicles. Gary talked with the sourcey, which is a Vermont vendor. And they've got a vehicle available in 12 months. But. Got to get the go button now. And I said to Gary. And we wouldn't pay this until 2024. And that. I want to bring into the slide board for pre-approval and bring into the slide board for the next two weeks. And I'm not sure if that's a plan yet, but when I said to Gary was. Give me a purchase order that has a non appropriations clauses as if not approved by the select one of the voters. We're off the hook. And pretty much all those contracts at that. And start the process. So we can get a vehicle a little quicker. So we can have a full proposal for you in two weeks. With some real numbers. And then we'll have a couple of options to consider for the budget, but it's obviously an increase in the budget for next year. Which we can. It's up to. Okay. Was this brought before the board two years ago? I don't know. Chris. You say. I think to myself, we just bought two trucks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I want to say a doctor. I know there was two trucks. Yeah. So I have a full, a full history in the full proposal for you in two weeks. Yeah. November 2019 special meeting, which I recall attending to authorize borrowing a million dollars. I know. And to replace two fire trucks through direct purchase for. From town's capital reserve, but I'm certainly not a firefighter. I believe fire trucks and tankers are very different. Yes. I thought. And this has the baller first. They were tank trucks. And are you requesting the pump truck? Let me get the full. I want this quote. Yeah, there's the differences, you know, the pump, the tankers, the bumper tankers, the ladder truck. There's the full suite as you know. Maybe if Gary can attempt a good to sort of get. The full plan going forward. So this doesn't take us by surprise. There's, there's probably planned obsolescence. And these in the last 20 years, you know, how old you are and when we've got to replace them and need to make sure that we're budgeting for it. I would say in general, I think to give credit to both town management and the fire department that has happened in the past. So that million dollars for two trucks, many other towns struggle to have that. And whatever I had planned well enough that that just kind of happened in due course from the boards at that time. So I would hope that as soon as we're in that case again. That's why I was wondering. We bought two, but I think whenever Gary puts together, hopefully we'll explain that all. Yeah. All right. And so we'll see him at the next meeting. 15th. All right. Sounds good. Let's see reappraisal. So the bill for the state to take a reappraisal appears to have a fair amount of steam from what we can tell. I welcome. There's a couple of other questions. In the bill. One, since everyone essentially needs to reappraisal now, they're proposing to put folks on a regular cycle. But if you need reappraisal now, you could be. A while before towards the end of that natural cycle. The other question is. So the state gives us in essence a stipend each year, which you're supposed to reserve for reappraisal. It's no legal requirement that you reserve it. Many towns should budget the revenue. So an open ended question is. The state has given us about $200,000. So that's reappraisal, which we have reserved. If the state takes over the process, taking over the revenue stream going forward is an obvious no brain effort. Do they reach backwards. And take over what they've given you. Even if they do. And we have to write the state a check for that money. It's still a pretty fair deal. I think to be rid of the process. The word forever. And we're doing that money. The other interesting pieces. We had proposed to use some of the funds for reappraisal. So those are our funds could be repurposed. So then our, our trunk of available other funds. Increases from a little over 300 to a little over 500,000. Yeah. So if the bill fails or in a good position, we've got the money to do the reappraisal to go passes. We're in a better position. What's the timeline on that? Sorry. Have to get through that. Yeah. It's usually the last session. It's usually in that. But then the video session and everything else. Okay. Thank you. Well, we were able to revisit a number of things that have been put in the parking lot for some time. That's helpful. I'm sorry. Your conversation with Martha. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Martha this afternoon. And. We discussed. Phase one of the zoning. Rewrite. I was just. She invited me to have a check. And a chance. And she is. Feels like it could be doable to get everything done by the end of the month. And she said that it's a little bit farther behind because. She was hoping to have the new. Planning director in place. By this month. And that doesn't look like it's going to happen. But she is working well with Neil. And she's also, we just got the. Contract for the SE group and the public process. And I think it's been scheduled in a. She thinks it's pretty aggressive. But the faster that the board approves that. Contract. The faster we'll be able to get them in here. Me with them. See if any further adjustment needs to be made to the time table. And she said that. She's already made some good progress. She and Mary and Neil have gone together and done some work. And she's been accepting some changes to the. To the zoning rewrite. And she feels like it's starting to take shape. So that's what I got. Also, you may have. More detailed information. I asked her if she was beat would be able to come in and meet with us. At the next meeting on the 15th. And unfortunately she's got a. Hearing. Solar. That evening. So she has a conflict. So I'm not so sure that she's going to be able to make it to that, but she said she would try to see if she can get that. Move one way or another. And see if she can make it. So we'll hold it open for her. And maybe if you can continue to. And see what can be done. We can figure out what we can get them on the agenda for next week. Or next meeting. That's great. And that's just to say publicly. The goal of it. We have talked about having the planning commission coming just to update about their work and how he supported it. Just make sure we're on the same page. And the only other thing I was at is that I also spoke for about an hour this week to really big door. Who's the new member reappointed in it. He's been to his first meeting already. I'm planning to go to the next planning commission meeting. So I will also be there with me and, and I believe we are doing interviews like this is what I would say for the planning zoning position. So. Also certainly share the desire to have someone hopefully in that position soon. And where are we on that contract? I don't say. Okay. Does the board need to sign off on it? No. Okay. Okay. So I want to know. So we're good to go. Right. I just didn't know. She she was under the impression that the board would just sign off and contract. So I would check on it this evening. Hearing that it's all set and that it's in place. So we can hopefully report him. I mean, ideally even have. Mark from Essie group. We'll be helpful in moving that process forward. Right. Now I think we're back to the warrant agenda. Formalize extension of the zoning bylaws with the motion. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And I pulled them up. So we discussed this last week. We have town of Waterbury interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district. These were initially adopted by the select board at April 26, 2021. There is provisions to extend them. They were, it looks like there were two years initially and they have a provision to extend them for one more year. So I will make a formal motion to. I would say, I would say a year and a half. We would have to extend them. I would say for an additional year, which is the maximum. I'm a lot by statute. We can always. But a year. What's the date that year would be ending. So these were adopted April 26, 2021. And they got it two years and then another year. So I'm going to assume. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion. Just just for the record, I for some reason didn't think we needed to make a formal motion. Okay. We have a public apology. Come the ordinance research. We have might come in that. Apology accepted. Just, just for discussion purposes. We have a public apology. We have a public apology. We have a public apology. We have a public apology. And we have a policy ready to go. Before, before we are our years up. Just to say, as a matter of course, what this is this downtown zoning district area. Includes the same area that is the phase one. We just talked about that. They're trying to be like, so yes, I assume you can get permanent bylaws. On the books sooner. They would like this as language rent. This supersedes what's currently on the books. Okay. To follow up. What if it's not done. He's expired. And then we revert to what's currently on the book. Or you adopt. What's done. Or adopt what's done as is. And then it can be. Any further discussion. Any further discussion. I will just say for all of these, there's usually like. Have to have a two public hearings, 60 day public notice, just things to say of. The time like to become a little long at the end, just by statute and warning and things like that. Yeah, I think that would be good to go over so that we're not. Running up against an emergency towards the end of the year. Well, that's certainly should figure into our time law analysis of the time. Okay. Any further discussion. Hearing none, all in favor of extending the zoning bylaws. Please say hi. Hi. Any opposed. Any abstentions. We have extended the zoning bylaws for one more year. Okay. Adopt updated emergency plan. Which is just towards the end. There's the table of vulnerable populations table 5.1. That's a book primary school still listed instead of Brookside primary school. Simple. Okay. I guess actually I didn't notice before, but. I don't think Holly's still at the church, right? So we can take her off of six one. And then Carla's also still listed at the municipal center. So this isn't the one that's on their website. Oh, those are updated online. I changed a lot of those, but. You know, and I didn't communicate those changes with Gary. So maybe he. Yeah. I guess we could vote on the one that's on the website. You know what I would be reluctant to do that because I don't know what other changes Gary might have made. So I would rather have you direct me to change names. Okay, we'll do that. If you've read, if you've read this document, then I would rather have you direct me to change names. Okay. That way we're not taking back any late taking off something that Gary might have changed because Gary and I did not. Converse about this document. So, so far I've got a change to that's your book to Brookside primary and I have. I'm not sure that's the one that's in the book. I'm not sure if it's the one that's in the book. Yeah. I'm not sure. And where's Carla. Right below. At the. The six one. The other. I just that you're again. And then Carla and. Probably are on. Or more. And then this again. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Is my name. It's about Karen. For an example, one, at one time there, the one online had Scott. I had stolen. Things of that nature. So that's been taken off. Maybe it has at this point. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have caught. In this list. Let's see. This is director. What a very senior center. I would think my name. They have a director. No. I don't know. No, they don't. Just the board chairs. Or chair. Or here. Could be. Here's Bill. Officer. So it's some of it's updated. Yeah, it looks like it actually. Yeah, but you're listed for. Kyle over here. So that's fine. Great. The only other change. I see this on the top of page two, three. Michael. We should just change that to select board chair. Since it's. Chair. That was Mike. I got it. Closure one one. So it has Roger's name, but like. Email. Wait, no, wait. Wait. Where was that? Why? I don't want you to show me. One, two. That position. It's the next. Roger's. Name and Mike's email. Oh, that's great. I got it. I got it. Closure one one. So it has Roger's name, but like. Email. Wait, no way. Oh, that's also not my email address. Do we want to just table this and bring it back next. And now it changes or do you want me to. I think it's supposed to be approved by. Like today. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's the same page. And this might be next week. Like a number of changes. I don't know what to say. I would say. I would say. I would say we could approve it. Yeah. There's mostly. His names and. The school. School. Yeah. So all of us can go through it one more time. Yeah. Prove pending these changes. The way you do. Yeah. I don't know. I don't want to make a motion. I make a motion to approve. and dated April 2023 as presented to the select board. I will second with the friendly amendment pending update of relevant contact information by our highly qualified town clerk who we are very grateful for. Thank you. Okay. Do I hear a second? That was actually a second on that. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? Thank you. Hearing none. All in favor of approving the local emergency management plan with the pending amendments or changes? Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. That's approved. Charter update. Has Mike, is this your person? Yeah, I try to provide you with a list of municipalities that have charters. There are a few cities, there are a bunch of towns. There are a bunch of, really a bunch of villages, but a lot of the villages, they're charters, you know, towns with, you know, utilities, you know, light, you know, light companies, et cetera, et cetera. The bigger ones have a little bit too much. It's almost like our operating procedures that we have as a municipality. And some of them even refer to back to state statutes. So even though they want, I think the big thing as we have discussed for a long time, and that's why I put you in a separate document, a lot of towns do have their charters, to look at different taxing abilities outside of their local municipal taxes. And there are four different ways to look at option taxes. One is via sales tax. Sales tax of 6%, you add up a percent. So for a total sales tax with the municipality of 7%, you could do it via a meal stacks, where the local of the state meal stacks is 9%. You could add 1% to that for a 10% total meal stacks. You could do it with a, I like to call it a syntax, a local option alcohol beverage tax. Take 10% add 1% for a total tax of 1%. And one that's, I think only used by two municipalities is the local option rooms tax. The rooms tax, because again, rooms and meals tax go kind of hand-in-hand, they're both at 9%. But some of them probably just are not choosing to tax meals, so they go with the 9% plus 1% for a total tax. To the users. I listed, if you look on the second pages, you look at most of the towns are using either sales tax or rooms and beverage tax. And you could see the list. Some of them are looking at both. There are numerous community, Brandon, Barry, et cetera. They use both taxes, so they hit people off in different ways. And the taxes can be used by the municipality in a variety of methods. Some, as you can see, the big municipalities, the cities, Barry, Burlington, Exxon Junction, and St. Albans, they have fairly prescriptive charters, which encompass almost everything. As we're now governed by state statutes, they include a lot of the state statutes into govern them. In terms of the towns, there aren't that many towns or four towns that are using charters, partway, Milton, Montgomery, and Sprint, probably determine what we want with a charter. How prescriptive we want it to be? Do we want it to be just like where it's a taxation thing? Or do we want it to be encompassing all the parts of our municipality? So you could do a very simple charter, which would include something just as a lot of them are prescribing how they want to have their town meetings on there. I know we're kind of, we're juggling around how we may want to see town meeting in the future. I think that's that stole up for debate, which way we're going to go with that. But I guess I'll entertain. I don't know, Tom, do you want to add anything to? I think given the cost pressures that we talked about with roads coming up, fire trucks, all those things, I guess if I had my brothers, I'd recommend that you consider something really simple to get the local options tax passed. And then some of the more detailed, inclusive charter changes that always come after the fact. Charters can be amended. And so I think, I guess my general advice would be to keep it pretty simple and really focus on the local option tax and think about what you would use that money for. And how you would want to, I'd advise you to have a policy about the local option tax where you'd want to spend at least how to spend a substantial portion of that policy. One other thing I'd add is if you look at the votes and some of the history of the local option tax, my observation, I'm not claiming this is empirical and that fact-based research, 100% of this, my general observation is local option taxes at the select board level oftentimes has some controversy. But they haven't faced a lot of controversy by the voters. Generally approve them pretty strongly, which is just an interesting observation that I think most people get it. I get that it's a difficult thing in this room, but it almost seems like it's a little less difficult for the general public than I thought. My one real question is if we were doing it mostly for as some sort of option tax, what would we, I know like some of the towns, they have it, you know, like, general powers is a per Vermont state statute, is we would be doing something like that nature, referring back to statute for all the other, just general operations of the community. We'd have to draft the language, but I don't believe you would need to, because if what that happens automatically. It's my default to slip. Yes. So it's not addressed to the charter. I'd be curious to have a conversation about, what other problems we may be able to solve or opportunities we may be able to create with a charter and think if there are some things pressing that we've noticed over the past five, 10 years that could be simple, doesn't need to be super combulated or loaded up, but I know this has been discussed for years and there's reason. So, you know, we had a conversation about what maybe some of those opportunities or problems to solve could be and what we might want to include in that first round. Alyssa, you had mentioned something about the appointments. I would say as a hypothetical example of a potentially easy way to include, the planning commission is now, you know, potentially interviewing yet another candidate. So particularly right now, because we default to state statute. Yes, I think the planning and zoning department appointments in particular might be a relatively straightforward thing, but that could make a lot of difference for freeing some time. It's not yet for the planning commission and also candidly reflecting more accurately that in practice, these employees have reported to have been supervised by the municipal manager. Chris. Yeah, a couple of questions. You said that, you know, a lot of the technology amended that doesn't select board level. Are you assuming that the state's gonna allow your charter can be amended that is not done at the select board level that requires local approval, how to town reading and then the state has to adopt it. And the second question is, when you say local options tax, can you write off many different variables as to the approaches of taxation, right? When you say local options tax, is that specific to one thing or what does it impact and who does it impact? I'm generally referring to it as the all in 1% essentially retail sales tax, the same thing you make sales tax on it, correct? Rums and meals, yeah. Rums and meals. So you're looking at the whole plan at all four, okay. And does that, is there any taxation through that process on every of these? Yes. Yeah, that would be part of that. Going along to Melissa's question, I don't think it should be just appointments such as for the planning commission, I think would be appointments for every commission and board that we have. And then clear, I wasn't saying the planning commission, it was because by state statute, the planning commission needs to recommend a candidate for zoning administrator, which in towns where you have very limited municipal staff, makes a lot of sense that your planning commission is supervising that individual in our municipality because we have a municipal manager form of government. I think that's created some, again, when I was on the planning commission, we spent three meetings, which in a group that meets 26 meetings a year before cancellations is a pretty significant percentage doing interviews. But I think guiding all appointments could be a good thing and control. Tom mentioned vacancies as well, I'm saying vacancies. Yeah. I was just saying, I was interested like Stowe is not on here and I see them online. Was that just a version you had? To me, they- Stowe updated their charter recently. I think it was because it wasn't in the book. Okay, so I had the online, which should have circulated and that was my bad. I just wanted to reflect, I feel like there are some kind of middle ground, I don't mean middle ground, but I would say not as large as the larger municipalities or as small as some of them that I think do have charters. And again, I think it's somewhat besides the point of Tom's point of recommendation around straightforward, plain and simple for now, but I just wanted to make that, it feels like in the list, I had seen there's some that are not on that. Yeah, it said that they have a, he wrote down that they have a local, the meals and rooms and alcohol tax 2006 and then the full local option tax is effective this year. I know, and I just mean they have a big old charter that dictates things like how employees are employed and things like that. I think it's been talked about as a model system, a comparable size community, not that. I think it's exactly analogous, but our rich men's aren't there. Just others that are, I think, a similar town that have town officers, appointed officers. Again, doesn't mean that's the first thing to do, but they're in there. Yeah, these communities are ones that have been fairly recently amended. Understood. It may not be all, this list is all in the closing. Yeah, no, I really appreciate it. And I saw it on the little one. Mike, I'd like to thank you for doing this research. Yeah, thank you very much. It gives us something to look at, as to what we want to include out. I tend to agree with Tom. I said, look, we may want to ask a fairly brief charter that covers what we need to do. And then we can always look at having a very much include, you look at Berlin, it's charter. It's like, it's my role. It's everything like from walking the dog, they have things, and they try about everything. Are they the ones you can't use? What is it, a weed blocker in the morning? A weed blocker's already done. No, it's a leafy one, yeah. Those things do make a racket. This is for wise arguments, this is in the parking lot. You're a little about the country, something like this. Yeah, so if anyone else feels like they've got things that you feel like could be addressed, like Daniel was suggesting, why don't we take another two weeks to pull those together and we can bring them back. I tend to agree with both Mike and Tom that we want to keep this relatively simple and just address things that need to be addressed and not going to leave blowers. And also, if you have particular ideas and can talk with some constituents about how we would direct the funding because I do think in talking with Theresa Wood that that will be an important component of getting us through the legislature and also pass the time. And I'm glad to entertain other suggestions in this discussion. And I think it's heard, I can't think of the word. Great that we had that ARPA survive done because we have data about people's priorities and where they want money to go. It's obviously nothing exact same, but it's good to at least refer back to that and see the priorities and enthusiasm that was there. So, yeah, good point. King, I spoke to a concerned constituent, a local business owner two days ago and they expressed that they would like to see if we were to do a local auction tax to house their employees, which I perked up at. So then I spoke to some. He or she wants to house their employees? Not like directly, but for the funds to go for two housing. Okay, for affordable housing or housing of any kind. So then I spoke to some renters about that because I was like, well, the business owner feels that way and I hope the renters feel that and they do. So I was glad to see that we now have some sort of core parity with business owners and renters or working people who are sounding the bell on what we should be spending this on and they're both pretty clear that they want the same thing, which is something that never happens. So. Good, yes, but we have any data on how much sales taxes collected in the municipality, how much Emil Rims and we know all that. Yeah, so how much this is going to generate. High-prevent. Right, high-prevent. This is going to generate two dollars maybe three cents. You know, it's going to be five, I know. If you get it on everything, last year, county year 2022 within 600,000 for the time. So it's a lot. What happens if it's just, do you know if you segregate it out just then into sales tax? I can dig it up. I don't know about the end. I'm just curious, how much like rooms and meals there's compared to like sales tax? Not my head, I think I don't know. I'm going to dig it up, but I don't want to miss it. This has to concern a little bit with me is the sales tax is kind of a progressive tax, you know, and it's going to, I know it's going to hit everyone, but there are certain necessities that everyone needs to have and there are a lot of people who are going to be, you know, affected with social services. Yeah, everyone's going to be affected, but, you know, if you look at any of the research, you know, a lot of the sale, you know, communities with, you know, especially where you have states with higher or lower sales tax, affects their citizens in different ways. Yeah, the big issue is it doesn't apply to groceries. Right. But it doesn't apply to vehicles. Chris, you have something, sir? Yeah, I wanted to address Keynes' point here a little bit. I want to just make sure that everybody is aware of the fact that I know you are at property taxes, are a huge part of affordability, yes, the affordability aspect. And the local options tax only benefits that because it is diluted by people who are here visiting. That helps the locals not have to work out so much for roads, bridges, infrastructure, fire trucks, whatnot. So in a sense, they came in all fairness by putting that money towards the municipality's needs. In a sense, does do exactly what you're asking in complete fairness to the other people that are trying to pay their mortgage and property taxes as well. It benefits everybody across the board, not specific, you know, to renters and whatnot. Because by paying down or being able to buy fire trucks or being able to pay roads through that tax, you're essentially not having to raise property taxes on the properties here in Waterbury, which in a sense helps landlords keep their rents at a reasonable rate. Ms. Aimee. I have to. Perfect. Good point. Thank you. Any further discussion on this? Okay, thanks to everyone that did the research and we'll continue to move this forward. My goal on this is to have something ready by, let's say the end of summer, that we can present to the voting public. And so that we would have something to, that's approved by the town to present to the legislature of January 1, 2024. Just as a quick aside, I was shocked to see how long it was for they have the stuff for Waterbury Village, how it's all been repealed, how long the repeal section is. It's crazy. It was a process. Okay. And please. Okay, let me read what's saying that I'm not gonna ask for this to be adopted tonight. I had a meeting that was a little bit delayed with employees. So I had it on Friday. Folks a little more time to digest our conversation, make sure to get some internal buy-in. Like I said, my memo, I didn't bother comparing this to the old handbook because the old one was so old. Couple of points I just want to make through when you go through sections like employer relations and employment opportunity and sexual harassment policies and procedures. I went through probably a dozen town handbooks to arrive at the language. It's what I would call quasi-legal language every town puts their own spin on it. I just tried to get a clear policy just to make it easy for folks to understand what the policy is, what the procedure is, if there is or is an issue. I did want to talk a little bit about some of the new proposals just to see what we're at and see what your reaction is. So on page 13, there's the emergency circumstances we buy back. And what I said to employees, and this was something I stole from St. Olaf's, which we use from time to time. And what I said to employees is, if you have comp time on the books, which is, you know, over time you didn't get paid, but you put into your bank is essentially vacation time or vacation time, by law we have to pay you that relief. We don't have to pay sick time when we don't pay sick time. And so I put in here pretty open language that would give me the authority to improve or deny them out of the circumstances. And what I said to employees were, hey, if you come to me and say, I bought a new truck and I spent 50 grand on this really fancy F-150,000 missiles and I've got an expensive monthly payment. Well, tough luck you bought a truck, it was voluntary. I'm not gonna approve you cashing out any of your time for something like that. And never mind the next seven years payments. Well, if they got a 50,000 knowledge, you're gonna steal it, that's probably true. But if you come to me and you say, you know, my septic went and I've got a pretty dire newsy and I've got to come up with 15 or 20 grand for a septic. A lot more menable to consider that request. And the other piece I said to employees is that if you have a challenge and it's December 15th and we're not making our budget, my answer is gonna be no, but it also might be, well, we have a new budget soon enough. So I said to everyone that if this passes, you have to be very discreet and reasonable about how you request this. I don't expect these every other day. It's really supposed to be just to give employees a little leeway during an emergency. So I would treat it that way. So something new, but I think it's a good act to give folks an option if there is an emergency. Again, we have to pay that time. So I think it makes a certain amount of sense to... I have a question about this. Does the employee have to have the vacation funding already accrued? Yeah. All right, so we're paying out something that we already owe them, essentially. And I think one of my other criteria I suggest to employees is that some employees, most employees have pretty good vacation bags and use it with some discretion, but every organization has a few where the minute the month rolls over and they get a new day, they use it. So if you're a 10-year employee and you've got very few hours in the books and you wanna cash them out, that would be a very different answer than if you're a 10-year employee and have 200 hours in the books. Any other questions on that one? A couple of questions. One, I know all of us people around the table here are paid. Are we subject to this employee? Right. And you are not employees, you are elected officials. Okay, I thought that was the answer, but I said it was something willing to ask. And the other thing that maybe I missed it going through it, our annual performance formal performance review is required by a supervisor. Not required, there's a section in there on performance review. I saw the thing. And what I said to employees is that I didn't put a form in here by design. I wanna have them, I wanna do them manually. But to me, the most important part of an employee review I've ever had is the conversation. It's not the form. So I don't wanna be too wedded to a format. That says, rate my attitude on the scale of one to five. I wanted to work with people to come up with something that's genuinely helpful. And I feel like, again, personal experience, most employee reviews are gonna go into the dentist. On both sides. On both sides. And so often they're not about professional growth and improvement there. And I think if we wed ourselves to a form, it's just not gonna work. Yeah. I wasn't looking at some sort of a form, but more of a process. Because I think it's good, at least having discussions. I think you're doing a great job. Some people don't tell their employees that they're doing a great job. Or, hey, we would like to see and have some, I'm not saying a form, but have some sort of formal process that at least there's a check-in. And the way to ensure that is when I have a review, you have the right to say to me, Tom, we want you to be doing these. Are you doing these? Right. Because I saw the thing on progressing discipline. I understand that. But I'm a big believer in, sometimes it's really good to have an annual review to say, hey, you're doing a great job. People don't hear that amount. Yeah. But so to say performance reviews will be generally conducted annually. Where is that? Page 18, second letter. Yeah, question. There's a lot of form in disciplinary action. How do you still are able to break people up? And how does that work? Yeah, so I think credit on the form, a better way to do a review is to have a conversation with the input and to talk about my observations, their observations, the observations of some other people depending on the employee and what their duties are, kind of document that conversation. Positive, negative, and different. I think that's the way to do it. I just think, you know, I just think forms that say, you know, break this category and scale one to five is just not the right way to go. I guess my question is that documentation is legal binding material for dismissal that if in fact we did that. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And sometimes you get the question in government about dismissal and some people will say in government that it's impossible to dismiss a bad employee. And the answer is, whether you're a police officer, whether you're a town manager, whether you're a bookkeeper or a teacher, it's the same process you documented with all the person accountable. Anything else you want to do, how we're touching to talk? Yes, age 20, which is time off from work. The reason I want to make sure I have a couple more weeks before I ask you to adopt if it's just as comfortable as that. A lot of employees have sort of individual agreements. And so I wrote this to think in a way he's fair to new hires, but also to honor the agreements. And so I've told everyone, just double check your own pace up and make sure I'm not messing things up. Part of it is why I've wrote that clause where employees hire before July 1st, 2013 at more time because it got that time right now. So I don't feel like I want to take away some of this time. And I think the overall cruel policies, putting a cap of 240 hours is still a really generous cap. It's what most towns seem to have in that range. And then the other piece I want to raise is the next page, this personal base. So this is a complete addition. What I said to employees of that the old handbook and the big love that employees have is that some of the time off that the town gets is not consistent with their peers. And that's rubs in the wrong way, sometimes makes recruiting a challenge. So I'm proposing a clause that full-time employees get a personal day. Doesn't carry forward. It's a user, a loser, one per year kind of day. Most towns seem to have that. Some of it have more than one depending on your tenure, but I think one is pretty fair. I think of it as the birthday day off. Is that in practice at all, though? No. So this would be an additional day off if they don't have it now? Yes. And then holidays. So there was a conversation about Martin Luther King. So currently the town employees don't get Martin Luther King or Veterans Day. Is that correct, Veterans Day, right? Veterans Day is in November 11. Gosh, I'm struggling to remember. There was somebody that they traded for the day after Thanksgiving. So there's not, I think for years, there was a pretty standard list of federal holidays, which most states and towns went by. There's not exactly a standard list anymore. The standard number I could have come up with was the same number here, which I believe is 12, 11. Four of us, that's 11. So the federal government has ended Juneteenth. The state, through their, I think, the strong employee unions has had Bennington Battle Day for years, which people would love. And at one point, I entertained an idea where people said, well, why don't we have 12 holidays, choose 11? And the town will be open, but you get to choose between Martin Luther King or Bennington Battle Day. But that's complex. And then public works employees, if they're called in on holidays, are getting a couple of works employees get the holiday off with pay, just like office employees, but if they're called in, that's all over time. So in theory, if those public works employees took off Martin Luther King Day, but we had a snowstorm, that's double time and a half for the entire crew. So it's also a bit of a record-keeping nightmare. That's pretty generous. So I think our list is as close to standard as there is. And none of these would be floating? None of these would be floating. Some towns that have different personal days are open the day after Thanksgiving, or open for a half day, and that gets added to a personal day. But the way I wrote it, that each thing I want Luther King Day is we're open, but we don't have foot traffic. I think the public pursuance that we're closed. There's no bank, there's no post office. And that was part of the argument for Bennington Battle Day, which was great to come into the office with no one's there, because you just clear your message to ask them. But I think in the end, I think it's a decent list. Sort of Bennington Battle would be even better. Yeah, I mean, poor is the law. So I think that's a standard list. It is an enhancement over what people have today. And was it, on which days would the offices be closed? On all those holidays, so if the holiday is on a Saturday, we'd be closed for Friday before, if it's on a Sunday, we'd be closed the Monday after. OK. Tom, I wanted to ask you, if this was typical to other town's employment policies was six months of probation? Yeah. That's typical? Yeah. Yes, it's sometimes 12. Do you think that's too short? Or I think it's too long. Too long? Yeah, I've worked a lot of places, it's usually 90. The reason I actually was thinking about 12, the reason I thought six was appropriate is because especially for public works, it's a different job in the summer than the winter. In fact, I considered putting 12 for public works, but I didn't want to segregate and have different employees doing a few different periods. I'm open to discussion and change on that, for sure. I'm not arguing if you thought it was too long. I think generally speaking, if you have someone who's not working out, it's usually pretty obvious, but quick. Yeah. So yeah, you have to make a fair point. I'm not opposed to change. Go ahead. Michael. Emergency clothes and weather conditions. In this day and age, as much as I know, I would never want to endanger any employees come to work. But as we learned during COVID, people could work, you know, there are probably some employees that could do their work for most. I don't know how possible that is. And it's just a money saving versus just say, you know, like the day before we know, we're going to get a two foot snowstorm, say, bring your laptop home and, you know, you're authorized to work from home. Yeah, and we do that now. You do that. Yeah, we've done that now. We've done it in the past. Go ahead. Storm so bad this winter that. Was this. Just that one day. The governor. There's a number of us who work to live close by. So I'm opposed to staying at the office. There's also a number of employees. 40 minute commutes. So they should go home before the roads get. So we just, just kind of resorted out. I'm talking about the big snowstorm. We all know we, we all hear on the weather report they, they say like the world's coming to an end. You could still conduct business in those days. And you can still. Promote. We learned that. Yeah. Also. This is not wanting to backtrack, but only the girls. Please forgive me if this was covered. This is only earn. So. We're just to say no one is front of any amount of lead when they start. I feel like that's one of them. Yes and no. And so there's. Both are covered when we get to the page. What page is that on again? So. 21. There's also some provision to give me a little flexibility. And then, and I'll give you an example. There's, there's a recruit now who has a family. So the person would be. Coming to Vermont. You know, you know, as children has childcare obligations, if you're going to hire that person. You got to somehow give them some flexibility on day one, which just won't work for them. That's just sometimes what it takes. And similarly, you know, I've hired people who say, you know, I want to start the job September 1st, but you know, one, I've got a vacation planned already or two, I've got a surgery or something. You've got to. Yeah. I think it's a good idea to put a basic as much as possible. And in the past, because the policy has been so old, it's been kind of each person. Has their own. Negotiable deal. Yeah. I think I appreciate this for, I guess, I mean, I think it's the, I think it's tough either way, because I would both want to advocate for consistency and think that this one dip of a reality that realistically, I think. There's reasons, folks, they want to take a day or two days off before their first two months on the job like that. And perhaps the first one day also. And I've had hires say to me, hey, your offer of 75. Give me 70, but give me more time off during the year. Yeah. And so sometimes it's beautiful method. All right. Some edits that don't need to take up our time verbally. So I'll just email those to you. And then I've got a couple of things I wanted to put other quick things. Of course, I want to find it. So there was a bill that. Our local representatives bill about paid family medical leave. Looks like it's not going to, not going to make it through. And really, I had a, this came through in fully conversations, especially at the library, which tends to hire. Young folks with families and. But they talked a lot about some of the challenges. So I wrote in here. Our own scale down version of it. And it's two weeks of paid. Paid family leave time in the event of birth of a child's birth of a child or death. So it's not the full 12 weeks. It's something that wouldn't be used very often. And, you know, I'm, I'm past that stage in life. But I remember not that many years ago where, you know, you get that stage in life and. You're generally broke. Sleep deprived and having a little bit of paid time off would have been a really big deal. So I feel like I wrote that. Partially at their request, but I maybe I naturally sympathize with it because I'm still young enough to remember clearly. So I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. And I'm curious if we looked into the cost of just offering short-term leave as a benefit. Or is it so. Not it's not going to the challenges. It's not used very often. It's used really rarely. For that reason, it is not cost effective. I had to leave for my children. Yeah. Essentially. Short-term paid leave. I think that's a good thing. Yeah. So there should be at least two weeks of that. I feel like it's a, it's a start. I know we, as employees, we have an option to buy that. I know that through one of the. You know, we get our benefits meeting and we have the opportunity to take it ourselves. And if I was planning to have a family, we'd better do it. I'm done. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. We had looked into that. Maybe from a cost perspective, it's better to just offer it on a case in case and not to the polls. I thought start here. It's been a pretty open topic with the legislature for quite a number of years now. And I feel like it gets a little. Scrawling in the metham. So maybe they'll. Pre read our policy in a year or two. Maybe 2026. And that's in the family. We section. The piece I wrote in. I think I found a way to pay for it. Is the vision. So in doing the math. Right. And I wrote these sections very broadly. I think we're part of the health insurance package in the town. So that every fall when the rates come out. So there's no vision or dental now. And. What days round, sorry. 32. So in doing the math. If we provide the vision and dental plans to just employees. To give a rough, rough number of vision plan. Is about $8 a month. And dental is about 40. So if the vision and dental was just provided to employees. You know, 12 to 15,000. Some of that's paid by. That's everyone. And then I would propose that if employees want to add a spouse or spouse and children. They would pay the premium differences. And we can just do that through payroll. So this would just be employee coverage. And then looking back, one of the earlier changes I made is that. People who have left the town. If you leave and you've got vacation, we owe you that. And, you know, you might have 10 weeks vacation. We pay you every week for 10 weeks. And then you know, if employees still stayed on the benefit plans. And even a crude additional time is if they were working. And I work in. Yeah. The leave balances. And so I think employee benefits are employee benefits. And you're not an employee. So the benefit sees when your employment sees this. And that, that in the last five years. You know, you know, you know, you're not an employee. So I think, you know, I hate to use sports analogies, but I'll use it. You know, keep the money on the field. I think we can. I think we can afford this as part of that. Let me ask you, and I'm not familiar with the intricacies of. Regular health plans, some of the regular health plans don't they include like. Oh, you know, some of them include some dental and or. Absolutely not. But maybe. So do you think you're paying. One of the Obamacare changes was that pediatric. I don't know the pediatric dental is covered. It's one of the mandatory items of coverage. That certainly doesn't mean it's free. It's just mean that, you know, you give your, you give your blue cross blue shield card or MVP and you know, it's part of your deductible or whatever claim you have. Right. The, I think the beauty of the dental for employees is that. There's not a lot of plans to choose from. It's no one delta dental, you know, three options, but. They, there's orthodontic coverage for them. It's like a thousand bucks and it's a thousand bucks. Per person per life. So it's not, and if you leave New England double dental and come back in 10 years, trust me, they know you spent a thousand. But it's something I've heard that a lot from employees. And something I heard from employees. Maybe surprising to me is that. A lot of adults have more than it needs. Yeah. And so that's something that. Think of everything in here that this is what people want the most. I think if they, I think if you, if you came back and you said, you know, we didn't like the holidays proposal, we'd like to. Stay open one more day. I would agree with this. It comes to the point of diminishing. How many holidays can. And sometimes you, I think you could do with. Floating holidays schedule if you believe in. Celebrating this or that holiday. Put that language in. Right. Christmas. That if you have a different religious holiday. Which I think is really important. And then we just talked about a few things. That didn't make it in here. And part of it is. We have an hour in the mouth. Part of it is. They're just long simmering issues. The biggest one. Is public works and on call pay. And an on call policy. So what they're all told. You're part of the road crew and. You're on call 24 or seven in the winter. And summer is different, but you're on call. You're essentially on call all the time to the winter. Sometimes have a specific on call policy where. You know, the crew is subdivided and those people get paid for being on call. And. I think with the increases we've given staff, we don't need that. That we're really competitive in terms of that. Nothing I've said to our crew is. We operated during COVID. With half of you at home. And so we can have a policy. That says half of you can be on call. During the winter, you know, pick your weeks and trade off. And that benefits you all because you know that unless there's a big blizzard or a huge ice storm. For a week, you can go home and relax in front of the beer and not worry about having to come in. And I've also said, you know, you're a crew of seven. You want to go together and figure that out. And work out a policy and come to me. And it's just resulted in. Bickering. And I finally said to him 10 times over. And I said, you know, I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. You know, I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. I'm not going to be on call. You know what I'm saying? I'm telling you I'm only said to him 10 times over. This is a pretty basic thing that benefits you all. I want you to work it out. I want you to come together as a crew and figure it out for yourselves because there's an obvious answer that benefits everyone here. And maybe the seven of you and not all seven are going to vote for the same thing, but certainly four or five. And you would all have additional time. a benefit to you. That's one issue that we haven't resolved. The other thing I didn't put in here is work from home. So one of our employees before I started was allowed to work from home a couple days a week after COVID. I didn't know that until recently. So I found out and I said, well, you know, I like having you here, but if it was really important to you, I'm okay with it. So Friday she's home. She's usually reachable. She's in town. The challenge is that, you know, Karen's one of them. Some people are front lines and they can't work from home routinely because they've got to deal with the customers. And so, and you know, it's not like highway people can work from home. And I sort of view myself as work from home as an emergency situation your job is to be here, you're paid by the town. And so I'm struggling to write a policy that treats people with equity. Are there other people who just in general have acquired or are interested in being able to work from home? I mean, in theory planning and zoning can do it when we're fully staffed. We could switch off with two people. Someone's got to be here to answer questions. But not just feasibly. I mean, are people interested in asking actively about it? Like, is there a need to have a conversation to think about putting in there or is there not really? And it was working the way it's working. So I think it's generally working okay. I think I think a few people would take advantage of it. They had some additional opportunity to do it. And I think we could we could work that out as our organization. But you know, the folks right here, it's really possible. Maybe, you know, Karen has this slightly different correction. I think Deanna, for instance, could put in some hours once. Yeah, Deanna could work from home certain, you know, she had a project. I remember when I did, you know, we use water books, we use these really archaic paper books to read water meters. And every four years, you have to redo them. And it's a it's a heck of a process. I did it actually during COVID. So I did it all from home. And it was fine. So if she was doing a big project like that, she could do that from home. And sometimes there's a benefit if you're not interacting. Yeah. And you know, the phones can be directed to your house now, as you might have said, work remotely. But to Tom's point, I can't, I can't do a marriage license from home. And I can't open the wallet from home. And, you know, so I think, I think the quality of having it in writing is important, but recognizing that it's just not possible for some of us. So maybe Pam and Deanna are an entity in one of them, but they can't both do it. And the course off is just different. It's just a different thing. I mean, you need a little more time with me before they ask me some of these questions. And so all of it will be subjects to improve the supervisor. And I think a part of the conversation, I think it sounds like you're going, you're approaching it. Sounds like you're approaching it really well. And I don't have any questions about that. But when we talk about equity, I think it's important to remember just part of the conversation, equity doesn't mean everyone's getting the exact same thing. Equity means everyone's getting what they need and then also what works best for the town as a whole. So I think it's okay if, if there are different needs and everyone's jobs are getting done, I think it's okay if it's causing trouble and issues in the office, obviously it needs to be addressed, but just as part of that conversation, you know, it's, it's, it's good to keep that in mind. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. And I just wanted to say that in animal reviews, which is, I don't think it has to be the policy, but I will say as a new employee, two separate organizations who did not get annual reviews, I was promised in the timeline, I just want to say, and I think you would do this anyway. I think the wording is here inside, I would encourage, I know an employee has a right to request them within a year, I would hope there was a proactive engagement with said employee prior to year, because I will just say that's one of the like power differential things where I have personally felt like at certain times that I can be like, Hey, so I'm supposed to get a review, why aren't you getting on that? So just to the extent that can be a positive proactive, I think the language in the policy is appropriate. Okay. So I don't, I think that's more practice on it, but I just appreciated any acknowledgment that some employees may more be more comfortable being their own advocate in a situation like that. And some may not, and it just varies. I have one separate, if I can go off topic. Well, I'll just follow up on that one in particular. I do think I agree with about the being about the conversation. But I also think having that conversation documented is an important factor, because, you know, you get away from that, and then people's stories can change. And I think it is important for the employee to say, we agree that I did a great job. It's right here in writing. And then you can move forward. Yeah, I agree. Mike, if it was just done, there's a reference early on about the travel and training policy. I do know the archaic manual, we're not sure if you have a formal professional development policy with amounts of funding. And I know it's something you've provided to employees in the past. Do you feel like having a separate policy outside of just a better approach? Or do we envision, you know, I'm thinking, I mean, this was more youth than the town, but like, being able to go get licenses, being able to go back to school, master's, particularly things relevant to what page are you on. I'm on 12, inexpensive reimbursement. I may have missed it if you identified it elsewhere. I was wondering if there was a professional development policy. Because I know that was archaically sounding the old one. And it says the town has a formal travel and training policy. I don't know if that's a separate policy or if that type of policy is what would cover professional development for staff. But I know it's something we funded in the past, so I just wasn't sure. I didn't see it among the like DAP and dental. I think the travel and training is more about reimbursement for the rules. But so there's no formal policy that says we will provide you a certain amount of professional development. What are your thoughts on that as a benefit? The town and each one are different. Does each one focus on licenses? Yeah. I'd like to think about that a little bit. I don't have a great answer for your fan. I will say as well to put on my cards and say the person who advocated for creating a professional development policy at my current org. I'm going to say like, I know there's trainings I want to do that are not things I personally can fund. And what do you think are pertinent to and enhance my job performance? So I think it can be modest. I'm going to say ours is $1,000 for a play for a year and maybe it's less than that or goals over because also I know some are larger people more infrequently and vice versa. I know it's another cost. It's more. Again, I felt like some was happening in practice anyway. I want to say we have like $2,000 here or something is what's currently in the handbook, which I know might not be in practice, but I think it's interesting that I'm not going to talk about it. There was a kid. Good. Page 23 talking about bereavement, Lee. Yes. There was just a weird that says an employee's spouse, child's grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling and the parents. What does that mean? Is that like your sibling and their, like a half sibling and their parent? It's the second half of the sentence. So sibling, parent, grandparent, children or sibling. Oh, siblings twice. Just repeat. Oh, yeah. Let me look at that. You're right. They're just repeating. Okay. Sounds like what is that part? A lot of siblings in this family. Yes. A sibling, but with a different parent. So it should say spouse, child, grandparent, parent, grandchild or sibling. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Good call. Oh, there's grandparents a second time. Yeah. There's two grandparents. No, it's correct. So that sibling, so the second one. So it's, you might, maybe better if it's two sentences. So an employee's own spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling period or, and or the parents, grandparents, children or siblings of the employee's spouse. Oh. So they're, they're. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I got it. It's just written, very. Yeah. If it was, you put the employee's spouse at the beginning of it, you know, when they were talking about it. Still not from one of very Tennessee events, but it's water, Tennessee. And then you had, it was a joke. Are they like evil water? I got it. Good call. That can definitely be true. Yeah. Any other issues? Yeah, I'm like, you actually have a clock in clock out for lunch time. Informal, but, but new payroll systems. Most, which we're looking at, we've actually got a demo on a few days, I believe, or is it next week? So modern, modern payroll systems for our employees. Yeah. I mean, you, you don't always do the clock in clock out for lunch. It automatically says, you know, you're, you're here for, you know, eight and a half hours, you're okay. And I know we've sometimes had that problem, people would work through lunch and they would, I think they would leave early, as a result and stuff like that. It was always a hard decision. Oh, listen, I just wanted to say thank you. I would say personally, this is something I hope we have had since I've been on the slide for it. So just having an actual graph to be really going to discuss in this way. So thank you for all the work and thank you for doing outreach with employees and other things. I hope that it will be well received. So Danny's going to send me some changes. I'll incorporate some of these things. Okay. And I'm good with the 90 days. I'll throw that in there. Awesome. Thank you. And hopefully we can have a final in two weeks. I just wanted to do, though, was this comment. Long overdue. Thank you for doing it. Is, um, I guess I'm sorry. I'm the one who's like, don't check it out. Uh, if, if the three, I didn't, I should look before I speak, if it's a three month probationary period, are you having a sit down formal discussion at the end of that three month? Because if it is sure, I think it's, it would be important to have that formally in case you would like to extend it to six. Um, I'm in favor of six or three, but, but I think it's a, it would be prudent to be, to have a really formal check in if it's three, in case you're just not sure and you need another three month. I think the reality is that if things are going well three months, there's probably not a formal check in. It probably just happens. But yeah, I can, I can write it to three months and say that it can be extended. I'm using, I'm doing the same way I'm using my anecdotal experience because I've had an employee that at three months, our probationary period is three months and we weren't ready to let them go, but it wasn't going well. And, you know, if it had been six months, it just would have given us a little more. So may or may not ever happen. Just something to think about. Yeah. I don't think it could be three or six. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it would be very... Yeah, right. We love it there. And no, I think, I think it's fine. I just... I think, I think a good way could be 90 days with the option to extend another 90. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think beyond that, it's, right, then make a decision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because you're essentially giving someone a second chance at that point. Right. And that's why I was making it like a formal because you want to outline, here's what's not working. We want you here. We want you to be successful. Here are the ways to become successful. Chris, that's a good strategy, but with employment law, it's a lot easier to terminate someone within a probationary period than it is in the way I have to probation. So I'm not sure. You know, I was leaning to the six months, I could be okay with the 90 days with the potential extension. It was a good strategy to point it out. The benefit of the 90 days is that you have a opportunity to address what points need to improve rather than you get to the six months and it's like, see, I think we've reached the end of our agenda. Do I have a motion? Motion to adjourn. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? We are adjourned. The chair and the board for adding five agenda items and adding the four agenda items. Well, what I forgot because I got excited about the morning is the planning for the next meeting. Oh, right. Sorry. Can I just email you? Is it illegal if I say them out loud right now? We can reverse that decision and re-open. Off the record, we discussed Harry coming on the next Okay, we wanted to revisit the charter ideas, things that we might want to have. Yes. Handbook approval was possibly the next one. Well, he doesn't need to, I just jotted it down. Planning commission, but Karen, I'll follow up with you next Monday. I didn't know that one of those guys might not be able to be here. So library? Library or anyone back on number two is tonight. We can take off three appraisals and we'll probably have gravel supply. We'll take off three appraisals and gravel supply. Trade policy is going to be the first reading in June. So we can either move it onto there now or just leave it back down.