 I think I know everybody here, but I'm not tree warden, I'm needle. You wouldn't chair. Grab that chair, and it's super fine. I've got one right here. It's fine. Yeah, so I'll give a little bit of background on the shade tree plan and why we're doing it, and then we can talk about it. So there's been a tree warden laws for decades that the states had. And they were kind of poorly defined. It was laws about how to manage shade trees, but they didn't have any definition for what a shade tree was. And the way a lot of people, including Kallus, have been interpreting that was basically everything in the right-of-way or on town-owned properties is a shade tree, and we've got to treat it that way. That's because there were a handful of court cases in different towns that kind of established that precedent. And so when the state just recently updated the tree warden statutes, one of the real reasons was just to define shade tree to make a figure of what people are supposed to do and what they did is they said, any tree in the right-of-way or on a town-owned property that was planted by the town is a shade tree. And any tree that the town says is shade tree in their shade tree preservation plan. So they kind of left it to towns. And that's why we started working on it. And I wrote this with the Conservation Commission over the last year. Maybe it's been more than that. And I think the kind of meat of it is the definition of the shade tree, which in here it says that any tree over six inches on a town right-of-way is a shade tree. And that's kind of where we were before. So I think it's kind of maintaining the status quo in that way. You said town right-of-way, right? Yes, town highway right-of-way. And then it's four inches on town properties. So a little bit lower threshold, like on this property. So you can still mow little trees that have gotten established. But anything that's become a real tree, I guess, is something that has to go before the tree warden. And the process for cutting all or part of a shade tree is that it has to get warmed. It used to be that any shade tree had to have a hearing unless it was hazardous before it could be cut. And they made it a little bit easier in the statutes. So now it has to be warmed for 15 days. And if nobody appeals it, then you can cut it. And if it's appealed, then there's a hearing. So you don't have to have a hearing? Not unless somebody appeals it is unhappy about a tree question. So up until this past year, I had a 200-year-old maple that most of it had rotted and fallen away. And it was a little bit. Still there. Might have been greater than six inches. And that finally broke off. But that is not something you can cut either, right? It's a stump diameter, you know, it's rotten. And it wasn't a threat to any tree. It wasn't a threat. Yeah, so there's a hazard tree. If it's considered a hazard tree, then you can cut it. Then it's exempt from this. You don't need prior authorization? Not by state statute. And I think I wrote in here kind of like, if you don't know if it's a hazard tree, then it's on you to ask the tree warden. And I've got a process that I use that's kind of trying to be objective that's a forest service process for assessing what's a hazard tree. So, yeah, are you right? If there's no part of it that's going to fall on anything, then it's not a hazard tree. So that maybe would have been something. It was pretty nasty and ugly. So I'm like, the rest of it fell. But that's something we probably want to keep. So when you say it has to be worn, you would do an official notice like you did for this. I wouldn't write to any abutting landowners. And I would do a post a notice in at least two places in town. And I'd use the places we normally post. Okay, so we have this. Yeah, because it's Naval Corner Store, East Coast Post Office from Port Forum, town website. Town website and town office, so that's fine. Right. Yep. Yeah, and then if nobody has any problem with it, you have to wait 15 days and then you can cut it or prune it. It includes cutting parts of trees. But if somebody does have a problem, then there's a hearing and then the select board decides. Oh, the select board does that. Yeah, yeah, that was the other nice change is that they put it on the select board, not me. Oh, great. I use a pruning there because I mean like if you've got a flit that's kind of largely in the territory, even a landing or something on one land? Yes. You've got to do that. Yes. That's great to hear. So the road crew, the kind of biggest burden from this is probably on the road crew. And I imagine something like that. If they have a program where they're going to be pruning trees, it'd be kind of like what I imagine happening is, and they should have done this in the past, this is, it'd be kind of a batch. Like, look, we're going to prune all these trees along this side of the road, and here's what we're going to do. And you'd warn it even if it's 20 trees. So even the road commissioner has to request permission as he did for hazardous trees? Yeah, he did for trees that were, he would ask me if they were hazardous. And if they were not hazardous, then we'd have a hearing. They're greater than six inches we'd have a hearing. So it makes it a little bit easier now because of that. I guess my brain is thinking process, so you warn it. You have a hearing, who's taking minutes, and who's writing the decision and issuing it? The way the statute is written, it's the select board that has the hearing and that makes a decision if there's an appeal. Goes to the select board, and it's like a select board meeting, but it's a hearing. And then they hear whoever wants to testify about it and then make a decision. And then there's an appeal process if somebody has a problem with the select board's decision. But before when you were doing it, and it was just the road commissioner and stuff? That was the tree warden would call the hearing. Right. Yeah. And then the tree warden decided. So the tree warden doesn't make decisions like that anymore. But you made the initial decision, just not. I make the decision if it's a hazard tree or not. And I warn it, which is like just putting it up there. And then if nobody appeals, then I just kind of automatically green light it. So we're sort of the first level appeal in that way. Yes, exactly. And then does it go to environmental court? Probably. I think that's right. But I'm not. I've got them here. It probably says. I think it will go there. Yeah. Yeah. The other kind of piece of content in the shade tree preservation, the statutes require certain things to be in the shade tree preservation plan, including a plan for planting trees and maintaining trees. And what's in here, kind of the thought was that it should guide us in how we might want to go about doing that if we were to have a more organized program of planting but without tying anybody's hands. It's kind of where the text in here comes from. And then go ahead. So other have other towns? Does everybody have the same plan to adopt? No. No. So I wrote this plan. Different towns are doing different things. East Montpelier has a plan that's pretty similar to ours. There are towns that have deliberately decided not to write a plan, which means that they're left with a kind of state minimum protection, which is just planted trees that are planted by the municipality. And then there are towns that are kind of designating trees in certain areas as shade trees or specific trees, but not others. So there's a whole range of ways that people have dealt with this. And I think a lot of that, too, has to do with the type of town. It looks very different in an urban area than in a place like Calis. Neil, one of the things you just mentioned is you left the flexibility around tree planting, Yeah, that was my intent was to just be flexible. Yeah, if you did establish a program for tree planting, then what do you imagine would be the process to put something like that in place? I imagine I think we've talked about it on the conservation commission some at various times. And I think what makes sense is kind of like an ad hoc committee or something. I guess it doesn't have to be ad hoc, but if you had a project you're interested in finding a handful of people that would be either kind of the tree warden would be overseeing it, or it would be underneath the conservation commission, something like that. Yeah, a subcommittee of the conservation commission, maybe. But the way I wrote it in here, it would still need select board approval before you actually planted trees like you'd have to. It's in the right of way. Yeah, if it's in the right of way or on a town on the property. Yeah, right. And then the other piece of this is towns also adopt an ordinance, which is like the implementation of this plan, which we haven't done yet. And you adopt the plan first. The select board adopts the plan. And then afterwards we can write an ordinance that is like any other town ordinance and gets adopted in the same way, which I think means going to town meeting in front of everybody. No, I know we have a hearing. Oh, OK. Ordinance or darkness. Yeah, we adopt. This seems backwards to me, but the select board adopts the ordinance. And then residents have 45 days to argue that feedback. And I think it's going to have some, I don't know if it's, I think it's 5% of the registered voters. So it seems kind of, it's always seemed backwards to me, but that's the way it is. We still have one hearing for the town draft ordinance. Right. Yeah. Is there anything else I want to say? It won't happen if we adopt this plan, but then we don't adopt an ordinance. The plan still has teeth, because by state statute, what we defined as a shade tree in here is a shade tree. So it would, as soon as you adopted it, that would become the definition of a shade tree. And the state law is already on the books that you can't cut a shade tree without doing this warning process. So that would all be there. Honestly, I haven't given a lot of thought to the ordinance piece. And I'm not really sure what it would do, the like. The state statute lays out the penalty for a few country when you weren't allowed to. And it makes clear that the tree warden is the person who enforces the law. And I'm not sure what an ordinance is. Yeah, I don't know what would be the benefit of having an ordinance if there's already, plan is already state statute. I don't know. What the benefit would be, I guess we'd have to. Yeah, I haven't really explored it. And I need to talk to the people at the state about it or whatever, I just can't figure it out. And maybe they have a template for towns? Well, so nobody has passed a shade tree preservation plan yet, at least that I know of. I think that everybody is kind of working through this process. And there's a handful of towns that are at the stage we're at now of thinking about shade tree plans, but nobody's really. So the urban and community forestry people are trying to put together resources for this, but they haven't done anything for an ordinance yet. They've been working with some towns on the plans and have some guidance on that. So the process then is right now, we hold this hearing and we have to adopt the plan within so many days or. So many days or. I don't think there's any time limit on it, it's just that we need to have at least one public hearing and then you can adopt the plan. And I think it's pretty flexible, like that's what we could choose to amend it or hold another hearing about it or adopt it or whatever. Okay. Yeah. And you haven't gotten any written comments or anything like that. No, I haven't heard from anybody. Yes. It's terrific. Great. Done. Yeah. Does anyone have any questions about the process or the plans or? I have a couple of questions. Yeah, yeah. So on the first page, number three under designation shade trees, number two. All trees in public ways that are greater than or equal to six inches of diameter, et cetera, et cetera. Yep. So my family's case, as you know, near the forestry, with a lot of shade trees. Yes, we do. I'll go for a ride. Yes. So we hired Neil to come and help us kind of trim it out and then we hired somebody to come and pick up some of the dead trees. Yes. So I don't know if we took out anything that was four inches or six inches, but in that case, where the landowner is hiring the forestry and then somebody to come it doesn't matter who it is. It would still, it should be worn. So I think in your case, if there are more trees in there to cut, you'd kind of like identify the ones you want to cut. We'd put a flag around them so people could see them and we'd put out this warning and wait 15 days and see if anyone had any strong trees. Trees over six inches, six inches and all. Yes, right. Smaller trees, we wouldn't have to do it for. That's right. Then on page two, where it talks about planting a town hall property and showing us consultation with friends of the town hall. Since it's in the historic district, can an advisory board be involved? Yes, that's a good point. And the friends of the town hall are not really affiliated. Now they're not affiliated with voters but with select boards. So I'm wondering if they should be changed to just to decide an advisory board that the select board should be involved. Where are you, Donna? Where are you? Page two. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah? It's the kind of long paragraph toward the bottom of the page. Should we talk? How I see. So that should be not friends of the town hall but design advisory. Yeah. That's Donna's question because I don't know anything about how the design advisory board works for most part. But does somebody who's property is in the historic district have to come for the design advisory board? They want to cut, say, a mature tree in the country. So this would be consistent in ways. Right, right. And then on page three of your number six tree mazes, that very last sentence, what is it? Is that something about permitting requirements? This is, yeah, this is from the state statute quoted from the state statute. So under state law, you can prune or cut a tree if you have to because of a state or federal law. And I'm not totally sure what a permitting requirement is. I think it's like a road work that's permitted somehow through the state. Yeah, yeah. But there are some. Then on page four under number seven, tree removal, that last paragraph, I found something confusing about that sentence. Trees that do meet one of the exceptions described of maybe removed at any time by the tree ward and the deputy tree removal. Another town official, or the case of roadside trees, the road commissioner or landowner without prior approval. Is that referencing a hazard tree? Yeah, yeah, the exceptions above are the trees that pose a hazard to public safety, are affected by a disease or in-check control program. There are kind of these short list of exceptions to, so you can cut, so we can, a landowner or the road crew couldn't cut an ash tree because it's at risk of being infected by ash borers and it's inside a quarantine area that the state has. So that's one of those exceptions. And when it says another town official, who might that be? There's a lot of town officials. I mean, is a town clerk make a decision, for instance? There you go. Yeah, I guess I was thinking about town-owned properties and kind of like someone who's... Select order designate. Yeah, right, if you... Select order designate. Select order designate is the right, okay. Yeah, yeah. And that's the, that's not shade trees, we're talking about the kind of... Does it actually, sorry, you can't. We're talking about hazard trees or small trees. So like if there was a tree on this property that was hazardous and then I call the hazard, yeah, it should still need the select board's approval to get removed. Or the designee. Or a designee, yep. The, this sentence though says trees that do not meet any of the exceptions, maybe removed at any time by the tree warden, definitely tree warden, another town official which we're discussing select board or in the case of roadside trees, road commissioner or land over without prior approval. So my question is whether we really need another town official. We've got the tree warden, the deputy tree warden, the road commissioner or the road commissioner without prior approval. That prior... I think it would be the most knowledge when we get them in the branch. Oh, right. Yeah, I can see that. Denise has mentioned, we've been kicking around with the last idea of department of public works director. So... I think I was bringing out a... That would be the perfect person to be able to cut. Well, that's what I'm thinking about. Should we just say it, don't worry about it. Designee. We haven't established the position or anything yet, so that's why if we say select board or designee. Yeah, then we're covered. If we get to that point, then the select board could designate it to that DPW. And that would be appropriate. That's where my thinking was going. Yeah. Sorry. I'm talking about this, particularly designee though. I don't want the road commissioner saying that it needs to be done and then being the one to say that it needs to be done and that's all he needs. Yeah, so... You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So this is, so it's still only trees that are kind of exempt from the process. Okay. A tree that's a hazard. Okay. So this is like something came down. It's not something that's just always been there. Well, maybe we had a... Maybe if it's a Nash tree. Yeah. If it's a Nash tree. Yeah, Nash tree or, you know, I mean, honestly, like a lot of the big beautiful maples on our roadsides, if you kind of take an objective measure and say, is this a hazard tree? A lot of them are. They've got rot in the middle and they're losing big limbs. So that, yeah, there are big pretty trees that can fall under that for sure. But all I'm saying is, you're the commissioner, the only person that gets to see, to decide and then go do it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Before anybody else can even weigh in. Yeah. Does that, I mean, to me, that sounds too... We always talk about trees with rot or some, you know, they have a physical, some physical threat, but there's also trees right on the edge of right away that are clear zone threats, too. You could have a healthy tree. Yeah. Does that count as a hazard tree? No, but the kind of precedent and that legal precedent is that it's only a hazardous tree if the tree itself, if there's a risk of failure. There you go. So if it's on a blind corner or whatever, it doesn't count. So this paragraph is only about hazardous trees. We might wanna... Yeah, hazardous or diseased. We might have a protection of that or... It needs to be... It says that, but you have to read, you have to thread it together. It's like a double negative. Yeah, healthy sherry trees that are not. So let's revert that. So trees that are, we're talking about trees that are a hazard to public safety or are affected by, right, you know, or are affected by disease or insect control. Yeah, exactly. Which means, you know, that... Or need to be removed to comply with state or federal law. These are the trees that we're talking about as being the type that could be removed by somebody, including the road commissioner, a tree that has a hazard to public safety, a tree that's affected by a disease or insect control program, or one that needs to be removed to comply with state or federal law. Or one that's just down and in the way. Yeah. A hazard to public safety. Yeah. Yeah, and so that could be removed by the road commissioner. And so, I think that the question is whether, you know, that's kind of the way it is now, right? That's the way it is now. That's the way it is now. And he always asks me, because he, you know... He's good like that. He's good like that. Yeah. He always asks me to come and say if it's a hazard or not. You mean... He gets a second opinion. So yeah, but... So that case in point, everybody, minutes ago, and you went out there that ash tree, that massive ash tree, I think it was ash on Bliss Pond Road, that was like this. Oh yeah. And the roots, half the roots were like right on the bank of the pond. Yeah. And the other half was on the leaning side. So what would hold it up? Right. It's not much there. Right. And then you guys heard the road crew had it cut, Joe Bain cut it. Yeah. And it was, we didn't know, but it was hollow inside to it. Oh, was it? Yeah. So because of the lean, would that be considered a hazard tree by definition? Do you want to... You know what I mean? I do know what you mean. And the weight, it's not a little six inch it was. Yeah. So there's a number of things in the kind of protocol I've been using. There's a number of things. And a lean in itself doesn't necessarily make it a hazard tree because there are healthy trees that have grown that way to reach the light, but that are still strong. But in that case, the root impaction and definitely if there's signs of the roots lifting up, that's like a red flag. But there's a whole kind of list of defects that can lead to it being a hazard tree. So if there was a healthy tree that there was concern for, but otherwise healthy, you could still make that determination independent. Like I'm thinking of, okay, so probably you were very young. Meryl Laguerre, when he used to own that farm there on Route 14, was approached by Vermont A.C. Transportation. There was a limb that came off the massive tree. I can't remember what type it was. What was it? It was an elm. It was massive. It was in the front. It was a beautiful thing. And this limb, this bow was the diameter of most tree trunks. And it was reaching over Route 14. And AOT said, we need to cut that. It's a hazard. And he said, don't you dare over my dead body kind of thing, as this is here to say. And then it wasn't too long after. I don't think they saw a rot. But it was too long after a woman was driving home in a smaller car. And that whole thing really hit the car. Fell on her car and she wanted to permanently injure her. Crushed her, crushed the car. Yeah, and this is like early 90s. And so that was clearly a hazard. It was identified by AOT for reasons other than the tree not being unhealthy. So I just, how do we contend with that? There are situations where now there's a tree that's a big leaner. It might be used non-pillier, but every time we go by it, I'm like, ooh, just like the bliss pond tree. Right, yeah. Seems like we need to have something like that. But we can't do cutting on the 14, can we? That's not what I'm saying. Yeah. But if that were on a 10, it would be on 20. But you're right, the state highways are not part of this. Yeah. Yeah, my understanding of it is that there's a category that can contribute to this kind of score that you tally a tree to decide if it's a hazard or not, that you can kind of assign some risk for other factors. But generally it would be, and that's how you were in statute. It's neither, it's a Forest Service thing. The statute doesn't clarify. And in here I wrote like, you use some approved methodology, but there are a number of different, the International Society of Aurora Culture has one, if I'm saying that right, and then there's the Forest Service has one. So my feeling is kind of that the tree warden should have something so that they're being objective, but I didn't specify what. So if we're referencing a document that's gonna be used as a standard measure, we should have that attached to us. Yeah. So you think we should have a hard, we have to use a certain measure? I think, well, or you should have a process through which you adopt an approach every three years, because you don't, because I'm going to put on John's point, you don't wanna be accused of shopping around for the standard, even though it's a standard, like last week I used this organization standard and I like this other organization better this week, given this scenario, cause it gets me what I want. So to your point, Neil, of objectivity, if you lock a standard in for a period of time and use it without regard to the circumstances, you could always, every three years, say, you know what, that's not really serving us anymore and we're gonna use a different one. Yeah. Well, what is this called? The standard what? Standard for what? So the one that I've been using is the US Forest Service's Community Tree Risk Evaluation Method. So that's what you've been using now. Yes. So that could be documented, you could put it on the minutes for the Conservation Commission and say, hey guys. So you're saying it doesn't need to be in this plan, but that it should just be. That you have a process where you memorialize periodically. It should be documented what I'm using. So that you are not shopping. And it's dated if they update it. Yeah. The date we adopt this most current version, that should be cited, say it was, I don't know, 2009, April 1st, 2009. That's the reference. So if they then update it, we are still locked into that original cited measure. Or not, or you could say you're gonna evolve if they update it. Well, if you evolve, you're gonna be warned in the document because otherwise it's moving and the public doesn't get an opportunity to comment on it. The next iteration you could say at the federal level, we don't care about this category of trees. And we may. We might. I think you were saying that it wouldn't be in this plan at all, but that I should write it down somewhere so that I can show people that I, is that true? Well, no, I think it's incorporated by reference. Well, you say here, you could rather than locking yourself in here, you could say that on April 1 of each year, the tree warden meets the conservation commissioner and or the conservation, yeah, the cons, somewhere where it's documented, conservation commission and reports for the ensuing year which plan, which tree, but it doesn't even have to be a year, it could be every three years. And then you just, that way you have not just listed a bunch, you have picked and you've alerted everybody what the standard is. So now everybody's looking those minutes and see what I'm doing. And then you, and then you are both, you and the public are protected. You're protected because somebody wants you a different one. You could say talk to the hand baby. We locked this down on April 1, that's what I'm using. And we'll revisit it in three years and we can have a conversation then. But it would be good if it's not too long to maybe attach it so that people know what you're. What you're using it. Or put it on the website with the link or something. Yeah. Just so people don't have to hunt for it. Yeah. Yeah. Does that, and at that point too, it probably should be open-ended so that can be revised on like three-year schedule. But we'd want to make sure that if it doesn't get revisited, that that stands. Right. Until, until it's re-adopted. Re-adopted. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, come on in. We're not serving the public tonight. Oh, don't worry. Before we move on from that paragraph, one thing to consider, especially with the EAB, is that the way it is now is that the 10 officials can just do what they want, where they want to. If it's a hazard tree, we may run across the fact that suddenly when there's a tree and there's sort of an ash tree, and if you cut that tree down with my tree, you probably get a bit of a hangover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You probably get a bill. It's a significant investment. So I'm just having a courtesy of a no-run man before you show up and start getting a tree down. That's a good point. You might want a lot rather than a firewood, too. Yeah, right. I mean, it's, the wood drive would be the limit. Anyway, wait a minute. No. So, yeah. If you have a tree on your front, maybe you're moving it the right way. Do you want to maintain it with a herbicide or a insecticide? Oh, I see. Then if that's an investment you make on your part for the preservation of that tree, the way this is written is the town can cut that tree without notice. But wouldn't you want to, wouldn't you know if it's a tree that's in the town's right of way and you're going to treat it to try to save it? Wouldn't, would you notify the conservation commission or the, You wouldn't have to. Actually, the state law specifically mentions that and there's like that, it should be in here, you're right. Because we're not allowed to, if somebody is demonstrating that they're like dealing with the past on their own in a way that works or not. So you're suggesting any language about, Yeah, it's no refinement of the actions we bring out. If it's an, if it's an ash tree specifically. But it should be broader than that. Any tree, any tree, any tree, anything that they, an infested or infected tree that the landowner is treating. That's y'all. Basically, any, when they can hire tree works to come preserve this tree for hundreds, thousands of dollars. Yeah. So it doesn't know. Boy, you owe them for that. Lovely, yeah. So you're saying, so it's a half, it meets the definition of hazard. Perfect. But the landowner is working to mitigate. Okay, got it. Did you have a comment? Okay, my last one. I say page number four, tree warden services. And we're so fortunate to have you, Neil. And he does say in the event that no qualified tree warden can be recruited, et cetera, et cetera. But what are the qualifications? Qualified tree warden. Where are you now? Oh, no. Page four. Oh, I see. Yeah, I see it. I don't know. I was trying to be specifically vague. This is a paragraph that needs to be there by state statute, like saying, will we allow tree wardens from out of town? And my intent was just to say, like, we don't want to, but it's up to the select board. If there was, if nobody wanted to be a tree warden, or if only one person did, but the select board felt like, they're just not well qualified right now. Yeah, it seems like the qualification would be maybe more important than the town as the person's from. You know, I think it's better to have a qualified tree warden or a small pillar, than to have some Joe's smoke, Virginia smokes, you know, from cows stand up and say I want the tree warden, but I don't necessarily have a qualified tree warden. So another qualified tree, not necessarily the town of cows. Right, right. And it allows that, but it kind of leaves it up to the select board to decide if that's the case. Today, does that, I mean, is that involved with who's paying for that at that point? Yes. Yeah, good questions. It's like something that we have to, yeah, it'd be the select board could decide to hire somebody from out of town, or somebody who's unwilling to do it without money, or whatever. So actually, you know, I brought the statute with me for the tree preservation plans. Yep. I have a copy too. I don't see that this specific provision is required. Did I bring only a part of what I'm, or are you working from a model? You might be working from a model. I'm not working from a model. Oh, it's so it's, this is what I'm looking at. Determine the apportionment of costs for tree warden services. Provided to other municipal corporations. Shall do, so what it says, what the statute says is the plan that the Shaitree preservation plan shall, shall determine the apportionment of costs for tree warden services provided to other municipal corporations. I don't even know what that means. Like what, what is the town going to pay other towns to do their tree warden services for them? I think, so is the, how much is Calis going to set aside to pay for tree warden services from other towns? What if we, what if, what if this, this suggests said the select ward may apportion costs for, for tree warden services provided to other, the term of the apportionment of costs for tree warden services provided to other municipal. What if we just repeated that paragraph, that line of the statute in all of its, the select board shall determine, blah, blah, blah. You have the apportionment of costs for tree warden services provided to other municipal, municipal corporations. We'll stop. So, until we figure out what it means. Well, and so does that mean that if East Mountain Plain doesn't have a tree warden and they ask you to come and do some tree warden work, you have to ask the Calis Select Board whether you go, go there? No, no, it's the, it's, if Calis wants to use East Montpelier's tree warden. Well, so I did ask someone at the state about this and this is how it was explained to me is that like, if you, if there was nobody in Calis who could be a tree warden and the select board wanted to get Paul Kate, the East Montpelier tree warden to do it for us too. And he was like, yeah, I'll do it. And, you know, charge you for it. Then. Do we not already have that authority? Right, you don't already have. So the tree wardens used to have to be from, from the town. You couldn't have a tree warden from out of town. That's one of the things the statute changed. That's good because you can't find people. Now you can, right, for that reason, but if you have a shade tree plan it has to address this question of like, are you gonna pay people from out of town and how much? And I was trying to punch and say, like, well, decide if we need to. And my other question on that piece is, what if you can't find anybody from any town to do it? Can we hire, does the statute say like you can hire a tree service? I think so. You can hire anybody who's out of town, yeah. It says nothing. Meal made it say more than it's in statute says, provided to other municipal corporations. That makes sense. That's why I was asking whether or not you could hire a tree service district, something that has to do with other municipal corporations. Like you have a fire district within a town or a village within a township or a village or something like that. I think a municipal corporation is just a town or city. So I noticed you only have 15 minutes left, or is it better? Okay. One more question. Do you see this affecting current use? No, it shouldn't affect current use because I mean there's always been these regulations on roadside trees. They look more at forest or ad fields, not individual trees. Right. I mean you have to be managing and enrolled property, but I think it's okay to just not touch trees right along the road. Yeah, it could though. You were bringing in Norway's cruise plantation and I'm going for the roadside lake region. Yes. If you're coming out, you won't be cutting every tree and then potentially ask for approval from the tree warden or the point of view. That's a good point. But you wouldn't jeopardize your current use enrollment to not cut the strip of trees on the road, right? No, I mean jeopardize you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Do other people know? Yeah, any other? Do we have a deputy tree warden? Yeah, Drew Lam is. Drew Lam is great. Yeah. I have mostly around the designation of shade trees, section three, number two, and I realize the intent of the renovation plan had to start somewhere. Me personally, I'm not sure that a blanket approach to every tree and the entire right of ways, metallic houses, the best approach. You know, they weren't sort of protected before this was clarified, but they weren't really, it depends on which statue you read and which one you want to follow. And doing it this way, to me, I don't know if it meets the needs of the town's sort of vision for this, and as a private property owner, as a rotating private property from citizens of the town by doing this, you know, if we enact this, it's not much, but it's the control of the vegetation that they sort of had before and now they don't. And I wonder if you looked at any other way to sort of solve this, I'm wondering if there's a good, sort of breaking it out, sort of when we have our development zones and so maybe the villages in the, you know, whatever have one set of rules in the rural or the provincial areas have something else. I didn't know that, at least in your 10 years, tree word, how many trees are you really looking at? Is this really a problem that if we turn, we don't do anything? Are we gonna have, you know, I can't imagine that there's not many people who are going to de-vegetatize their railways. And so, you know, we're looking at 10 people over the last 10 years, and we are creating a solution to a problem that doesn't ever exist for a particular town. Yeah, so we did look at a bunch of different ways and tried to think of less like breaking up the town into zones and more along a stretch of road. What if we had, what if you had to leave a certain density of trees or kind of these more complicated ways of doing it. And we talked about also about kind of trees within a certain distance of the road being allowed to cut those, but it was kind of felt problematic no matter what we did. It was hard to apply, or it was you could find situations where people felt like uncomfortable that. So I think the approach was, yes, it's kind of a blanket thing. It doesn't stop people from cutting trees. It does obviously add a hindrance. It's like a pain in the butt to wait 15 days or whatever. But the feeling on the conservation commission at least was like, it means that there's a conversation about them. So if there's that tree that somebody really loves and another person just finds it a hassle, at least there's a chance for people to have a conversation. I think that's where we were going with it. It very easily can stop the process of cutting out a tree by somebody that doesn't like cutting the trees in the town. Uh-huh. In the pool line, right? Periodically. I think what led to a lot of the push in our towns in the commission is for, we said 10 years, is actually less about prior folks wanting to cut a tree here and there. It was more about us and our road crew coming in there and just decided they want to widen the road. That was an issue. And decided to cut the trees down. And so in the case of Adam and they went along with spray paint. Yeah. And spray painted people's trees. Can you imagine coming home and seeing all your trees spray painted? And you find that not only your trees slid to be cut, but they're going to widen the road from your house. Right. To me, I remember this was more about a check on us. And it allowed the select board to check in with our road crew, forced them to check back with us. And there was quite a tug of war. Yeah, I remember that. That's, it's really about keeping municipal government in check. That's been my understanding all along. And we didn't create it out of thin air. It's actually started in 2020 changes to the statute, right, are driving, are driving. That's not something that you said, oh, we should really do this. So here we are. Right now, it's because of the state law. Right. But that state law originally, as I understand it, when Vermont was developed, they tried to replicate Northern Europe. And there were rows with the tree, shady treeed lanes. And before road salt and pavement. And the towns planted trees, or they worked with landowners and they planted these trees. They were, it was a deliberate process. It wasn't whatever it was. Right. I thought they were called ornamental shade trees, actually. They used to be. I thought there was a term ornamental in there. There was, there was. They took it out and just kept the shade. And so that's where the change was. And that's a massive change. Because it went from trees that were deliberately planted and maintained, that we didn't want the lazy drunk in the middle of December to come out and cut a tree down because it's easier to fill the wood stove in 1890 with a town tree. But now we're, and I'm sensitive with Dan's saying too, now we're looking at every single tree that's over six inches over as being, having equivalent value to what was intentionally established as an ornamental shade tree. And I don't know how, I don't know what the solution is in terms of alternative language. Unless we went around every road and we designated with agreement of the landowner, this is the ornamental and everything in between isn't. Yeah. One of the alternatives is, and we were hinting at this earlier, this is new, you're hearing some changes. So we're not, you know, we're not gonna adopt it tonight. And you, we, when it's ready, can we adopt it for a year? See how it looks. You know, thought might be given. I'm just nicking a lot of your folks. You can shut me up, Madam Chair. But maybe if a landowner let's say, Dan said, look, I know what was intended to be here. I know what grew up in between. It looks like hell. I'd like you to cut that and I get some free time. Maybe there's a process that we add to this where on case by case, maybe if we'll notice that we can go up and down the roads and decide what stays and what doesn't. Maybe that's too much to ask. I don't know. Well, I think we need to have like some hard definition of what's a shade tree. And if we're gonna have trees that are not gonna be shade, that are gonna be cut without the notice then needs to be clear from the start that they're not shade trees. No, but I was saying, no, I agree. You have a general definition, but maybe in a road by road, we could establish which trees are in fact these shade trees and everything that falls in between those particular trees. Maybe the landowner has a process they can pursue. And then once they get that, like kind of like their current kind of shade. I think you could post a warning that was like, basically we're considering cutting all these trees along this road that are not marked with a, you know, that are we're not considering shade trees. And if nobody objected or if it was a hearing about it and the select board decided it was okay, then you'd be kind of good to go. Yeah, that's a lot of apps for somebody that don't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot of what, Dan? That's a lot of apps for somebody. For a landowner that wants to do that work now, they can just go do it. Yeah. And so. I think. Basically you're putting the man on the roadside trees ultimately on the select board to make those trees I mean, they can't and they haven't been legally allowed to do it for a long time, but I think that that's just been kind of like under the radar, you know, a lot of people didn't even realize, I'm sure tons of people have cut roadside trees without having hearing. Yeah, they don't even know that they're supposed to. They didn't even know they were supposed to. I wasn't even thinking of the statues that were the problem. That's why I actually really went to court for a property in Madison County. Yeah. It was 10 thousand dollars. The farmer cut their roadside trees and somebody didn't like it. This is where we ended up. Which was fine. But. Wait, was it a dairy farmer in Madison County? Oh, I just remember those photos. Yeah, it's becoming a mile long. Yeah. A mile. Just like it wasn't the most beautiful I've ever seen, but. But even so, let's say it's out of value in each stem. Right. Two inches in a hanger and a total of a lot of money. And we have. To court. And then they fought over it and nobody could decide the outcome. Because there was two opposing statutes. There was a highway statute that said the town highway can do whatever they want. Without anybody's opinion. And then there was the call killings interpretation of trees that said we have basically what this is. Yeah. Without the six inch category for what we've been operating on the past for about a million years. Well, since we've had better states. And it makes sense to have it appropriate for cows. And that's what I think we all support is having that state statute interpreted for what our policies are. Right. And that makes sense. Do you want to, we only have a couple more minutes. Do you want to continue and do another session? Sure. Do a read, do a maybe do a read draft. I could read draft. Lots of sets submit ideas for a plan and changes improvements. Sure. I don't know what the best is, but it feels like now it's all or nothing. That's kind of where, that's where we came to with the conservation commission was like, gosh, it's all or nothing. And I guess it should be all, but I'm totally open to other ideas. Well, maybe the, maybe you want to have a conservation commission meeting and talk about this and some of the. We have, so this is kind of the conservation commission's version. Right. Maybe you want to have a new version and run it by the conservation commission. And one last thing back in January when I first got this, I had made a note on page two and I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time about utility lines should also be considered so as to not interfere. I mean, we don't want utility line people coming in and just cutting. We don't, this doesn't affect them. They have their own set of statues. Right. And we kind of can't. No, because I know they come to us. Yeah. When they're going to do, you know, a bunch of cutting. Yeah. They have to in some situations. Right. I think they also kind of as a courtesy, even though they don't have to. WEC usually does. Yeah. They usually let us know so that it's not like, we get all these phone calls, oh my God, do you see all those trees guy? Yeah. You know, they can, they can do what they need to, to make sure the trees don't fall in their power lines and the storms and things like that. So it's kind of a. Yeah. So I don't know if anybody else has any comments. Richard. What date, Neil? Do you want to aim for to come back and do part two? We'll do it again at six o'clock? Sure. I guess if it's going to. Probably not until June, right? If we're going to do it at the conservate, if I talk about it at the conservation commission, then I don't have my calendar with me. I think we meet again in another week or something. Don't you mean like the third Wednesday? So we meet. Yeah. There's a standard we set for June 18th, which would not be the normal, normally it's the first Wednesday of the month we try to meet. Okay, you're not doing one this, I don't know if it was the first one, but you already passed. We meet, so the first meeting of the select board after June 18th is June 27th. June 27th. Does that feel too aggressive? What do you mean Saturday? Well, if it doesn't work, you can always let us know. Yeah, why don't we plan on that? Or we could just say July 11th, which gives you plenty of time. That's when we have our town, Highway 70. No, that's June 11th. That's June 11th. July 11th is a Monday. Oh, July 11th. That's close. Plenty of time between June 18th and July 11th. Let's plan on that. I'm not totally confident that I'm here, but I think July 11th. July 11th. And it'll be at 6 p.m. We'll definitely get to the conservation commission. That gives you plenty of time to work with them. Yeah. Plenty of time to come up with a new draft. And if anyone else has any comments or whatever, you know, happy to listen to them. Ideas for language change. Email me. Thanks, Neil. Yep. All right, a couple minutes for shuffling. Yeah, thanks, Neil. Let's call our regular meeting to order. Let's do that. Thanks, John. Okay. Is there any public comment on items not on the agenda? No, all the public left. Public left. Okay. Next is our consent agenda. There... Did not mention the warrants or something, right? Yeah. Being reviewed? Yeah, there's one change that I want to make on the consent agenda. I want to take off the minutes of April 25th because one of the edits that I was suggesting for whatever reason isn't here for me to kind of memorialize us what we're approving and I feel like it's an important one. So I'm taking the April 25th meeting minutes off the agenda. Is anyone else got anything on? No. Okay, everyone else good on the agenda? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Well... Part one. My question is I still didn't see the dog warrant. I put them in the folder. I looked just before I left at 5.30 and it wasn't in there. I did put them in there, but right when you were emailing me. I just wanted to see it, that's all. Yep. Why don't we, okay, why don't we circle back? So the dog is looking everything up and he doesn't see it in the folder. Maybe it's under there. I did look under there several times. The licensed dog owner, the dog owner? Yep. Is it? Yep, that's it. Now, hold on there. It's spinning. There we go. All right, did I not, I've printed it. It's usually there's a list of all the people that are there. That was in there too. Give me that one, hold on. We got that generic. Oh, you said, yeah, you put it in at 5.33, which is right after I looked. Yeah, sorry. I just got all that today. I just wanted at 5.34. Yeah. Because it's the authorization. Yep. If you can grab people's dogs and the Humane Society wasn't open when I went to look, they weren't open at all. Do we want to pull that off and make sure that we've got a clear path forward? What do you mean? Well, I'm just asking the question. Well, this is Stinkard language that we do every year. Do we know if, do you know, I told Travis and hooked him up with the woman at the Humane Society a while ago. Do you know if he's taken that course? The animal control officer course? Yeah, it's only like, it's like two hours. Can they offer it at the Humane Society? Yeah, and he has to take it. I didn't notice it often. Yeah, and at first he was a little hesitant and I said, we've got to take it. So, rather than side barring, let's pull. I'll send him an email right now. Well, no, but I wanted to pull it off. We could pull it off, but also we could, or we could just document the points that you're making that the dog warrant is something we do every year. It applies to dog owners who haven't yet paid the licensing fee, that it authorizes the animal control officer to, what's the word? Seize the dog and coordinate impound with the, for us, it's Serencil Vermont. Yeah, they have a process for drop off and stuff, but I still don't see the. Serencil Vermont Humane Society, the one that also offers the class training. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I put him in touch with that person whose name I can't remember. Right now, several, what, a couple months ago, back when there was snow on the ground, but I still don't see the list of all the delinquent dog. Is it called the animal control officer or Humane officer? I think it's animal control. It's, they'll, when I contacted her, she knew what I was talking about, and confirmed with Travis that yes, he needed to take this, and I don't know if he ever did. So, okay. Okay, why don't we, why don't we pull that off and do it? On the 23rd. On the 23rd. Yeah. And we're pulling off the April 25th minutes, and this is part one consent agenda. Is there anything else? No, I have a signature page for the... Is there a motion to approve part one of the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, I have the... You have the thing? Yeah. Okay, consent agenda part two is separate because it relates to the Vermont Community Development Program grants for ECCTs, and Denise has... I'm recusing myself. So this is for Sharon, Rick, and John. Only is there an amendment or a motion to approve consent agenda part two? So moved. John, you want a second? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, it's a ninth. Here, I'll pass this back to you. Rick is busy with the orders. Okay. We can't do Rhodes Report because Alfred's not here yet. He's coming? He's coming, right? He's coming. Okay. I've already done it, but I have to drop him off. Here, the applicants aren't here yet. My goodness. Can I have that to Rick, please? Yep. How about we skip down to appointing Select Board Liaison to work with Listers on 2023 property reappraisal? You guys good with moving on to that item that we have scheduled at 8.35? So this is the project that Jan Olson alerted us to. There's documents I believe in the folder, but mostly what I wanted to do tonight is... Are you gonna take care of this? Yeah. Okay. It's a somewhat bigger than a bread box project. We haven't done it at least since I've been on the board. About three years ago. The whole... Oh no, that's probably 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. That's when the one where they come in and they look at it. This is the whole... Every inside and outside. The whole shebang. It's a big deal. And given the real estate market, it's likely most of the state's gonna be undergoing this process, so it's a bit of a competitive sport to find somebody to do the work, et cetera. So what I would like to do is appoint somebody, as Liaison, from the board to work with Jan and just kind of, or the listeners generally, and understand, okay, what do we gotta do? What's our timeline? And then kind of take the lead for the board as on that project. So can we appoint Mark who's not here? Well, we absolutely can appoint Mark, even though he's not here. We can. I don't see him having a big... There's no rules. There's no rule that says we can't appoint Mark. And I did talk to him about it. I know he's busy, but I still feel like he's a really good candidate. Yeah. When I talked to Jan about it, because I asked him, would the state maybe be considering some kind of knowing that this has happened across the state, there's limited resources to do these appraisals, would the state, does she think the state might be considering making some changes or some concessions? Or an extension. And that's where I'm looking for an extension. And she was gonna check with somebody at PVR, I think, to find out. PVR, and they just may not be there yet. I mean, this is kind of early in the process. And they might say no now, and then realize in six weeks or six months that they just don't have a whole lot of choice. Right. Yeah, exactly. So anyways. Are you looking for a motion? I'm, unless, well, we could make a motion. Do you want to make a motion? Yeah, I'll make a motion and we, I'm sorry. Because I just performed that. Do you want me to be a second in case he's trying? I think you've got tons of road stuff. I do, I got plenty of road stuff. You do, I don't want to, yeah, I'm feeling a little defensive of your time around road work. Yeah, I'd rather have to see you. And Denise, I'm a personnel with me. I'm personnel, I'm just keeping all these bonds in the air. I don't mind being like back up. Yeah, but let's, I'm. Some of the stuff is gonna get resolved. Yeah. So I could be back up. Whatever you guys. I really like you to, I like your road stuff. Right. Yeah. That sounds good. Stay steady. Yeah, that's, that's, there's a long, half the stuff on our, you know, things we're working on is roads. So if you're, I would, I would entertain and be happy about a motion that we appoint Mark. And if he needs to back up, then, you know, Denise is expressing interest, but. Yeah, I just, and I have some history with it. So I could help Mark. Mm-hmm. But. But I want him to take the lead. I want him to take the lead. You, and you also have a lot going on. Right, but I would push him to take the lead. I'm not gonna take the lead on this. Okay. So, so do you have a motion Denise? Yes. I would move to appoint Mark as the primary lead to work with the plan of Mark Polly to be the primary liaison with the Listers for the property reappraisal. And I would back him up as needed. I'll second that. And to me, it's not just lead with the liaison, with as liaison, but it's actually like, to some extent, I think they're looking for the select board to drive this project. Yeah. To drive it. To drive it. Yeah, well, to engage, to engage, to make the phone calls, to engage somebody. Maybe we have to do an RFP. Like that's kind of all us as the contracting entity. Oh, I see. So it is, that's what I mean when I say it's kind of bigger than a bread box. I think if I was doing it, I would ask to meet with the Listers. Absolutely. That would be the first step, is to meet with the Listers, understand what's going on, why, what are the steps? I think what I'm saying is, would you be willing to amend your motion to say, to be point person liaison to the Listers and the lead on behalf of the select board on this project? Yes. Okay. So at least we have an amended emotion. An amended emotion. All of those things. And when we're needed. On behalf of the select board on this 2023 reappraisal project. Right, I mean that's kind of what. That's what we're talking about. This should be a very standardizer. I need to, right? This is done all the time. Right. So it's not like we're re- Well, that's something that has to be found out. That's what. The distinction that's in my mind, Denise, is there's like liaison to the Curtis Pond Dam where they're kind of doing most of the work. Whereas liaison here. We're done. I think there's a lot of work we are going to do. And that. Probably that needs to come back to the board for approval. Right, but somebody on the board has got to do a lot of work. And so we're packaging, not just the point person to connect with the listers or map you had around what do we got to do, but also be the lead in actually doing it. Okay, so we've got a motion clear discussion. Somebody seconded. Did somebody second it? I think it was seconded. I seconded. Yeah. All right, any other comments, discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? I guess Mark's abstaining. Yeah. Ab said, see what happens? Yeah. Okay. I thought of that we could do before alpha gets here. I'll wind up under the agenda items from May 23rd. Yeah. Under the curb cut piece. I think it would be helpful to ask the conservation commission to review our new curb cut application and approval form. What do you think? Did you put the application out there? I haven't, have I just not been seeing it? Maybe I didn't, maybe I didn't. Can you look? Okay, so and also Rick, I need your, yes, I like that idea. So work with conservation on curb cut, but also Rick, I need your help for 20 minutes on some gaps in the application itself. Great. Let's do it. Yeah. No, no, in the assessment tool. In these, why glad to. So Denise has redrafted an application to request a curb cut permit. And I drafted an assessment tool for Alfred to use when he's reviewing a curb cut for recommendation to the board. And there's pieces where I just need your brain. Yeah, I do, you tell me when. I know, there's the big question. We'll find a time. I know you will, we'll find a time. Okay. And Denise, you're gonna make sure, you know that little curb cut folder that I made? Yeah, yeah, a little bit. That'll be good if we can get that one done. And then the other thing, well, the other thing that you guys can all see the things on May 23rd, this, I have to, I haven't asked Janet yet if she can come that night. The other thing is, oh, the proposal for town hall cleaning that's all in our emails. Right. Yeah, that's gonna be next meeting. That shouldn't take over the right. Hopefully not. Okay. So why don't we just, while we wait, we literally are waiting for company and all these rest of the items. Rick, you wanna do, let's just, I'm gonna start with Rick and say, besides everything on our agenda tonight, what else is going on? Anything you need to tell us about? I'll give you just a brief on everything. First, the grants, we're still waiting for to be here or on the, for the culvert and for the east callus. There's a bridge. We're still waiting, well, the bridge we're waiting to hear on the structures grant, but they haven't been awarded yet, so we'll, that's the bridge that's broken. Right. And this is for the, this would be for the temporary repair. That's so we're waiting, applications that, same thing, we're still waiting to hear on the East Bump Hillier storm water project. East callus. Or East callus, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, that we're waiting to hear on that. And then we're also waiting to hear on, on this, they kind of covered the culvert project too. So, they already have CBRQC, we got in touch with this as soon as they have that information. It's in their court. I keep touching base to make sure, because I know they're understaffed right now. Yeah. Bonnie just said that they hired somebody, right? He did, but it'll take a little while to come up to see what she's gonna be doing. It'll be a lot to come up to see. Yeah, so, well, you know, but that's, I talked to Bonnie last week, I think, so I'll keep just pumping that. Then, can I talk to you a little bit about the signage pieces, the electric sign that I found, I've done my own research so far. Isn't that the 730? Yeah, it is, it is, but it makes sense. Do you wanna tell us about the call I got on Lightning Ridge? You mean, which one, I'm sorry on that, yeah. The WEC right away, the cable? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I talked, yeah, we can talk about that. Can you get this back on? Yeah, he's going to. There was, apparently there is a fiber cable that's going across down Lightning Ridge, and it is a Velco working in the right of way for Washington Electric, and so I contacted, she got a contact from Ron Thompson, who has underground right away out already across the road, and he was angry because somebody came out there and flagged. I don't wanna say angry. Well, he was concerned. He was asking questions. He was asking questions. I don't wanna dump angry, I'm not. He runs hardly ever angry. Yeah, and it was, he was concerned, and they had flagged the land, he didn't do anything about what's going on, so I breached it. And he's a property owner? He is. On Lightning Ridge. And his daughter. His daughter lives already across the street, and it's actually on her land. So what happened, I, Sharon, he contacted Sharon, Sharon contacted me, it's a select board. Layers on. Layers on to transportation. So I followed up with, first I went right to Washington Electric and to get details, and he gave me, Brian gave me the information on, I said, this is really Velco. He was gonna be reaching out to Velco. I haven't heard back from him yet, but I contacted Jay McDonald, the project manager on that, to find out what was going on. And he said, yeah, we are working in the right of way on that. And he hadn't been very commuting. I think he had gone and talked to Ron, but after the fact, a little bit, and I said, look, because he, apparently there's a little confusion when this project started, it was started by Du Bois Construction, and then Phil Scott sold that to Jay McDonald. So there was kind of a switch in project management, and he thought along this was done, according to him. And so, they walked in there and marked everything up. So I told him, talked to Ron, give him, it's obviously in the Washington right of way, Washington Electric right of way, and it's a utility. Okay, well, so it's legitimate for them to put this in, buy it, talk to the property owners, and he agreed, he's going to do that, you know, give them all detail, try to work with them to make sure it's located properly. And I called Ron too, and we talked. Yeah, I followed up with him, obviously. So we close that loop. Yeah, definitely, we had a long way. Was he okay now? Yeah, yeah, he was okay with it. And so, but then I made sure that Jay McDonald came and gave back to him. Yeah. I don't want to make sure that they, you know, get, and really, it's just people like, is this about communication? Yeah, that's exactly what he said. So, yeah, he was good with that. Anything, thank you for the follow up. Let him up with it right there, follow again. Okay. That's good, so thank you. Anything, so any, we're going to have, I think. Where's this Velco line going to, is it just cutting through town, is that the idea? Where it is, it's going, I'm not sure where it's going. Is it only Velco transmission line in our town? It's not, but it's done through Velco there. They're the one that are handling the application. That's Washington Electric. But it's for Washington Electric. It's in the Washington Electric right of way. I don't know what the cable is. Well, isn't it for the, ultimately, I think it's for the Fiber project. What is? I think so. Well, I don't know. I made that assumption. Oh, I found, hi, can you hear me now? Yes. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Okay, anything else that's, we're not otherwise going to hit on, when you're out for the coming? Oh, I think he didn't see. Well, he's not like, he's supposed to be here at 7.22. And it's 7, only 7.22, so we're good. We're just fine. That's, yeah, you never know. You're the charge itself. Right. Do we need an offer for the charity movement? Do we need an offer for the charity movement? I can talk about some of that. I think the truck, yeah, I mean, as far as the trucks, we have gotten a chassis date on a regular retirement truck. That's the, you know, the dump truck. And I think since September, I can't give you the exact date, but it's September, sometimes. And so now he's scheduling the dump body, the actual body that has to be put on it. So hopefully we can get that, you know, before winter hits. I have a question, we're talking about the surcharge. No, yeah. We ordered that. We ever put money down, is there a contract with a set price for where we put the money down? And that they're trying to augment to head $5,700? I'm not sure if we put money down. If we didn't put money down, I guess. Well, I have a question, you know, I do get, I get there because of the supply chain issues now. No, I understand. I mean, it's a binding contract. I agree. You know, a supply chain issue. I mean, this is what contractors for houses, they found themselves to the construction cost, and they're still obligated to do it. You said with the option of investing. Yeah, I know we have a down payment. Do we have a signed contract with them? I just have to find out how it's binding. He said that we had the option of back to go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Of course we did. But if in terms of, we have the option of back enough, there's an established contract that we have on price. Right. Can you find that out? And if there is, we wanna run it past our attorney because I don't know if they have the right to do what they're doing. If you have a contracted agreement agreed upon a mountain, there's no power clause for them. It's generous of them to back us out if there's a contract. I don't know if there is. It might have been just a handshake and we got an order list, and that's that. Yeah. But if there's a contract, or under Vermont contract law, they're bound, obligated to meet that agreed upon price. Right. Good point. And I always hear in Vermont handshakes a contract that's true. You're on the turn. I'll get that answer. And then, why not? So as far as if there's a contract, is it signed or not? And then we wanna see the paperwork that was sent in to, what was it? Who again? Cheryl Boyce? No, it was the company. Daimler? Oh, the track? Yeah. It's Western Star. Western Star. So we wanna see the paperwork for that. So if you met in the event, there was actually an established contractual arrangement where they made a commitment on their end. We get a commitment on ours. Binding contract. So. We wanna run it past our attorneys. Okay. And so May 23rd, John, did you just make a motion to authorize Rick to reach out to Joe McLean as necessary to process the said contract? If there's a contract. If there is a contract. So we're gonna have to know from Alfred if they're... Yes, I want a motion. Yes. That's a motion. Okay. For a second. Okay. Can you tell me what that was? The motion is, well, the lead into the motion is Rick finding out whether or not there's an established binding contract of whatever shape or form. If so, the motion is to run that contractual language past our council, town's council. Mm-hmm. What's his name? That's Joe McLean. Joe McLean, that's a man. Joe, sorry. Joe, Joe. Joseph, M-C-L-E-A-N. Yeah. To see whether they're, they have a lot to assess as a surcharge. The right second is it. You went to a... Any other discussion? No. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, I'll do that. Do you... Other truck, the... Wait a minute, before we move on to... So I have... I just made a note that we're gonna revisit the surcharge on May 23rd. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Because I would imagine that this is time, sometime is of the essence here. Okay. Keep going. For May 23rd. And then I want to talk about the... The Ford. I want to talk about the... This is the F600. Well, it's for an F600, yeah. The GM that we have is turned out to be a real limit of the number we authorized purchase, but we couldn't get... And he... You couldn't... He couldn't order... Ford is not taking orders for this classic dump truck right now, for the foreseeable future. This is for the truck that we... The truck he drives, it's this smaller dump truck. That we use on the county roads. Right. He's going to replace it with an F600. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We didn't approve that yet. Yes, we did. We approved it last winter. Remember, you moved it. To replace it? Yes. Yeah, it was in the meeting. You moved it. I'm losing my brain. What were the defects? I know we had... I know we had a connector issue that it was just a backlog with so many... It's been an issue after... It's been an issue after the issue. But there have been a number of issues. Okay. It's been a real limit. So it's... So we're dumping good money after banning that. So... That sounds familiar actually. Yeah, and we voted... Yeah, you moved that one too. Okay. Anyway, the status is that we were able... Alfred was able to find a town that... I mean, one of the towns backed out on one of their orders and we were able to pick that up. So he's trying to get a delivery date on that. Hopefully it's not... So that was an already established order. So an F600 isn't afforded? It is afforded. Oh, right. We'd be replacing that general order with an F600. But it's used. No, it'd be new. It'd be a new truck. So it wouldn't be... Yeah. And so... But we don't have any dates yet. He's reached out, trying to get the dates on that. He may have more information when he gets in here. And the one we're replacing is a GM? He's General Motors. Yeah, a GM, too. It's been a problem since I had it. So... Yeah. Yeah, so it's only... Do we know what the price is? No, I don't. I don't have any of us at the price of GM. There shouldn't be any of us. We haven't done it every day. I'm just giving you an update on what I know so far. We gave you that information, I think, on Thursday. Right. So it'd be interesting to know, based on the prior conversation, has he signed any paperwork on that? Well, I think he's just taken the order. I don't know. He's not signed a... Purchase and sale. Right, purchase and sale. I don't know. I think we've taken the slide. I asked him that, he said no. Based on the conversation we just had, it would be good to have him to know if there's some paperwork with his son so that... We should probably... It may be worth getting a copy of this from the end of the future on all these terms. Yeah. At every stage, just so we've got it in our record. Well, yeah, I think we'd want to. Yeah, I'm not... Yeah, I don't know. I didn't ask this question because I assume this is kind of a regular routine protocol that we get approved. So I'm not sure what he, you know, how well this is done here, so... And I mean, we don't even have a price, so... We don't yet, so... But he's trying to get that and he's trying to get them to a great date. So if it's not... If you never know, if Ford's not taking more orders, either way, is that locked in or not locked in, it'll be a lot. I mean, I don't find out this does us no good if we kept away two years from this truck. Yeah. So that's, you know, not gonna fly. Anyway... And that's a one ton, right? No, that's more than a one ton. That's at least a ton of a hand. I get that one mixed up with the pickup. It is a pick. Well, it's like a... Right, but I'm talking about the pickup that they drive around to them. Well, it's a dumb body. That it's a large pickup, but it's... Right. I call it a pickup too. Yeah, by comparison to your Western stars. Yeah, yeah. So this is just, you're giving us an update or something that we need to do or need to... No, we're still waiting for information, but I want to give you, that the good news was we actually found one because he's been handling the final one because it's all supply chain. There's serious, serious issues with that. We probably would want to shift to speed carts and permanent electrics, trying to speed alerts unless we want to just table this entirely. We need to be productive on this. I can be productive. I can give you information later for the last time. Let me do it. Okay. Yeah, so we'll get to a little page. You and I asked first where we had them and what we had. You know, we had the one on the county road or there was one on the maple corner that had a speed sign. These are signs. Those are the solar, these are fixed. So speed... Well, there, it can be moved. These, but it's pole-mounted signs. So one that is coming down the hill northbound is the... Okay, so let's call it semi-fixed because you know how I need to break this down in my little head. Well, it's a mongo unit. But it's not a wheel, so it's not a cart. Right. So give me a term that we can... So we all, we speak in the same language. So let's say pole-mounted movable. That's what you could say. Pole-mounted movable. To me they're, to me they're pole-mounted or it's a speed cart. The speed cart to me has wheels. It does. So this is a pole-mounted speed signs. Okay. And you could say, I'm movable. Okay, because there's some that are permanent potential. Well, I know that we know that our ones in Calis so far are... Our movable. They're all movable. Yeah. Okay. And so we have one, we have them where? County road? Yeah, we've got one on county road and we've got two on route 14. One from the north side of East Calis, which is the Gugela village and one on the south side where you enter the village as should be. Okay. And then we, and one of those is actually having a problem right now. And Toby's trying to get that fixed. Which one? I'm not sure. It's one of the two East Calis signs. The one coming into East Calis seems to work coming into which direction? From, oh gosh, don't ask me. Going... If you're coming from East Montpelier, is that north? Yes. Going north. Yeah. The one in East, that one coming into East Calis village seems to not work on a regular basis. So it's not. Yeah, and they're having issues, and they're trying to get that fixed. Yeah. Their work, Toby's working on that. Okay. Okay. There's an internal defect kind of thing. Not even know. I don't know anything. I just know they're having issues with it. Okay, so that's three. Is that what we have? Is three of those? No, then we have one speed cart. That's the one that we... Three pole mountains. Right. And then one speed cart, two speed carts. One speed cart, but the speed market part is very old. It's joined owned with, who was it with? Marshfield. Marshfield and Plainfield, too. Right, and... And though he said that they were able to take it, but it's near desk, don't worry. But I think that we have it now, right? Yeah, he said we've almost always had it. Right, it's in the garage, but it's old. It's like 25 to 30 years old. He said it's been there as long as it's coming in time. So that's something. If we get a mobile unit like that, we... Well, I've asked for prices on those. I haven't gotten that, but we can get one that's mobile. But I've done a bunch of other research on this because you've got mobile pole sign. I mean, I think we ought to use smaller pole mounted units. If we get a mobile unit, we use it more if we've got, if we're doing road construction work or clearing or something like that, where we need almost a speed reduction order, let's say at the bridge, while there's temporary construction, it can be used to reduce it. And you're talking about the pole mounted ones. No, I'm talking about the harness. You're moving it a lot. The speed cart. He's saying on the bus, I've heard a transition to if we were to buy another one or conceptually, those are good for projects. The speed cart. Yeah, okay. So I think with the port, you have the pole mounted portable and you've kind of got them in two categories. You've got AC power where you've got electric available and then you've got solar. And then you've got just straight battery. Battery aren't ideal because you have to change the batteries every two weeks. You've got to go and recharge it. Well, that's how we got the solar. That's right. That's the way to go. And I think, and they have pole mounted units, I've been researching that are, that I think we should look at. I mean, we can, I think so. I've looked at several manufacturers. They've come one that is, they're very good. They're really right in units and they go a little farther than just, they'll actually retrieve and store the traffic loop and data. So we'll know how many cars are going at what speed and we'll know when it's happening, you know, time of day. It's day stamp, a lot like a traffic counter. So it would give us a much bigger, better picture than traffic counters because it'll capture it over time. And it downloads, I think you have to pay extra 300 bucks for the software. And then you just, it's Bluetooth enabled. You can just pick it right up off of, with the password for that sign, you just pick the data right up onto your phone. So this could be really helpful for us in terms of, that's valuable data for us. Well, I went to Cali Road down. I went to Cali, well, that's where, yeah, I'd like to Grige and this is where, when I was, these, the pole mounted, anything pole mounted into a clear zone, it has to be on a road, it has to be on a breakaway. Right, that's what we learned. Okay, and that's standard. And usually there's a receiver in the ground and the pole basically drops into it and it's got a bolt in it. And that'll shear if it gets hit. So kind of nice because those things allow you, you can set a base in there at a number of locations. And actually just move the whole pole, take pole and sign. And it sticks up and it doesn't fill up with dirt. No, you can just make a plug for it or a cap and just, and you can put a flexor on it, whenever you want to do a carpet. And then, but the main thing is there then, you tend, I mean, you tend to take, you put these in certain places, it's like doing a traffic count. You don't put them in a curve, you don't put them near an intersection, you try to not put it within so many hundred feet of a driveway because you end up getting inaccurate data. So I think if we, you know, we could conceivably put receivers around on whatever roads we decide and then move them periodically. Now the flight bridge, I think, that's been such a problem spot. I think we actually kind of ought to have something more permanent in there because that's a long straight road and it's a school, you've got a school involved with this. And it's wide. It's a race track. And you remember when we were doing these other signs, I asked the school to help pay for one of the signs and the superintendent at the time said no. He'll probably blow us off, I'm sure. I'm sure they will do it. Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, it's like safety of the kids too, you know. I doubt that. Yeah, I don't even think we bother with this. They don't even start getting their return calls these days. Great. Consolidation. No. Yeah, the, yeah, but so, I mean, I think that certainly lightning ridges candidate for two, I'd say a few of those. I mean, generally in my work in the past with the speed signs like this, we would move them around. And there's actually, there's kind of a residual period after you position one for, say, two weeks of location. And then it has this residual effect for, you know, three months after people remember once you get the habit of seeing it, you'll already start slowing down at a certain point and then it establishes habit. So it takes a while for that to loop, you know, to kind of go back to normal. And so that's the theory of kind of moving them around. Just with one side, you can get a lot of A. Which probably takes work. We use the term on this, the agenda is lightning-ridged traffic calming. I mean, I always envision, well, I see signs are about slowing traffic, but I always think of traffic calming as actually incorporating that in the road design. Well, that's both. Yeah, the training or, you know, plantings or. Yeah, there are a lot of things you do. I mean, that would you, people driving, you're making over a hundred decisions in a second in driving on a rural road with nothing going on. I've spent so many beers I've had. Yeah, well. I've tried it about 10 a second. Well, that's why you're bringing what it does. It's processing a lot. So it turns things into white noise. Yeah. And signs turn into white noise. It's why you don't put two by sign. It's why with the lime green school signs, they only allow them in certain situations, certain places. So when you see one, you go, kids and people are in the school. Yeah, they stand out. Right. And so you, these flashing signs do a couple of things. They bring you back onto, into attention. They bring you on task, because human lives don't stay away from, they do, you go into a lot of that very quickly. All this stuff that's getting processed is pushing everything out that it doesn't need. And so those, they get your attention and they're very, very effective. So, you know, the question is you can't put them everywhere. So you, you know, what we do, I think we pick our Lightning Ridge as a candidate for one, particularly in that section, I think between Tucker and, you know, near- It's Tucker Hill. That's right. Yeah, because that, you're kind of coming down that hill. It's very tough to, it's easy to accelerate on down hills and it's very hard to decelerate, but that kind of gives a long warning for people. You've got a long run before you start getting into the big hill there at Lelys, you know, which is a real speed, it's a real race track, but it gets you, you know, bring them on task. Yeah, attention. And you'll be on it. At the Dunn's place, it actually, his cedar, his cedar head. So do you think maybe we should put the flasher on the upper stretch of the hill and then have another speed sign as a wake-up reminder? Or is that overkill? I think, I think, I mean, we can watch it and we can actually, I'd say we start with one on there and we put a couple of receivers in and we can watch, especially if we get one that where we can track some day movement data. Can we move it from? Yeah, yeah, you can. That's all the point. How much is this thing? Well, the ones I think, I'm still waiting for the races. They're about four grand for those. For that, well, these are really, they're good ones in there. These are the ones that... I thought they were, I thought we paid like 7,500. Oh yeah, I think they're about four, this one. That's great. You can have some are as low as two. 2,000 at some. Oh, that's great. But those are your really basic signs and they're not as well made. Yeah, these are pretty rugged and they shouldn't have at least, at least a 10-year battery life on them. And you can have them where you need them. You've got a solar panel on them. They have a solar panel. Yeah, and it's a high impact. You know, it's at the top. They're a little harder to move because they're, you've got a solar panel which can be rotated. It's on the, and then you're assigned below it. Cool. So, that's where, you know, that's the main thing is that we can actually see the traffic bay which is really valuable to us. Yeah. So, I think if, you know, we can, at that cost, I mean, I would think Lightning Ridge, certainly County Road in places. I mean, you've kind of got that north. I know people really fly up north of Maple Corn around the gravel road sections. Yes, they do. It's also very rural. So we have to, the thing with the, you know, traffic behavior on roads, the reason you've, you always hit me by the 80-foot percentile road, which is what they base speed on, speed level. And that, yeah. Essentially, the drivers are making all these decisions every second. And they're taking in all of this view shed and they're looking at the road, they're looking at intersections, they're looking at blind spots. And you will drive the speed that you think your body subconsciously determines what its reaction time is to be able to react if something unexpected happens within that view shed. So the more open it is, the straighter and flatter the faster you will drive. So the 80-50 percentile road, they take 100 drivers radar, non-consecutive drivers, I said they're not platoon driving together. And they do it at a non-rush hour time and the crime conditions usually been afternoon. And they'll take those speed, whatever that 85th, you know they go fastest to slowest, and whatever that 85th driver is driving, that's actually the safe driving standard or the safe driving speed for that road. And that is an internationally accepted standard. So the problem is, it might be safe for the driver, but it's not safe for the pedestrian. It might be safe for the driver, might not be safe for the bicyclist. Remember, this is a basic rule, you're absolutely right. And also, I've never agreed with this ever. I agree and there are a lot, listen to this, there are a lot of problems. What you see and what you don't see are two different things. And one of the things that drivers don't see is pedestrians. I mean, you can take downtown Bristol, right at the stop sign in the middle of downtown. It was one of the highest, it was one of VTrans's top 50 accident. There were several people killed in those crosswalks right in the middle of town. And to fight that, what they did is they put bulb outs in which constricted the width of that red works grid. Cause the road's so wide, cause they had herringbone parking on those slides. What did they put in? They put in what they call bulb outs, which are colders. They basically wind down the sidewalk right there. And they take you right to the edge of the traveled way. And what it does, not only makes the pedestrians visible to the cars, cause they're not behind our cars, but more importantly too is it takes the visible road, which is this wide, it constricts it down to this, and that slows you down. And we did, and we didn't travel still the same, but it freaks you out. Cause it kind of like what they did in Danville. What they did was we narrowed the road between Cornwall and Middlebury. We had 12 foot wide travel lanes. So the travel lane was 24 feet wide. And we added up some bite of shoulder and that several mile stretch. We knocked one foot off of the travel lane to take it to 11 feet, and it lowered it. We took traffic counts on it and lowered the speed at this average speed by like 15 miles per hour. And Ricky got, we got two minutes left on this. Okay, so I have a question. I mean, what is your proposal? I'm gonna make sure we got money in the budget. Let me first get the quads together. Yeah, why not? Okay, so what I'm hearing is there's no proposal on the table right now. Oh yeah, I'm still in improvement here. But what are some choices to make? We'll have a cheaper option. And this might be more, a little more expensive if we get something that's got traffic counting and have some basic speed. And if somebody who's watching the movie or is here has a question, they can just give you a call and they'll talk more back. Yeah, you can refer it to me. Did you, Candy, did you have a question? I just wondered what the purpose was. Like I did it, we're trying to slow track it down. But what are we doing with the data? Are we going to have a higher share of proof? If we find that in a certain section that it's speeders a lot. Proving to ourselves will probably do have or don't have no time to pay issues. So maybe there would be a reason to put, you know, put somebody there at a certain time of day. Maybe narrow the road. The thing that we found, you know, people will, they'll see one car speeding and they'll say everybody's speeding. And so I would go out and put traffic cameras out on my roads and we'd find one or two cars speeding and everybody else was below. There's some, sometimes you've got problems too. So we want to know that. Rick, do you have a date you want to go to? Let's do the next three. Are you sure? I'm going to, I should have, I should have. Okay. So, okay. So, it's going to be for moveable speed. So we're looking to put this on the 23rd. Well, I'm going to come back with you with price information only if I can gather. So, so I'm going to suggest that maybe we bump it out two meetings so you can actually crystallize, not just price, but here's a formal proposal. You've had a chance to look at the budget and make sure it fits all that kind of stuff. Maybe June, there's a lot of things. Where do we want to take this? Yeah, June, the first meeting in June, because I guess I would like, I mean, I'm a favor of doing something, but I also want to know how many are we talking? What's the real price? Can we even get them on supply chain issues? It doesn't fit in the budget. And it doesn't fit in the budget. I think we can get them. I mean, I asked about their release since manufacturing. June 13th, about the work I'm seeing about getting us, you know, kind of where are we at, budget update? If we have find, well, that's, I mean, what I have to see is where we can, do you want these come out of the transportation budget somewhere? Yeah, yeah, that's great, thank you. What do we? I mean, that's where they should come out. We can't take them out of your sign budget, the retro, we have a sign budget? No, but we might have to, we might go over in the sign budget, but it might, I think you can, I mean, the point is to look at what is in the budget, where do we have some possibilities? Where do we have some possibilities? Yeah. Okay, I want to turn now to Willa. We'll start with you. Hi, Willa. Hi. Welcome. I want to introduce myself to you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Calis. Thank you. I am going to invite the board to introduce themselves to you. And then we'll ask you to introduce yourself to us. Okay. And we'll ask you some questions about your interest in the DRV. Between you and Kennedy, who's here as an applicant for an alternate, as a, for an applicant to be a member, but as an alternate seat, we have 15 minutes allotted. Okay. Yeah, 15 minutes for this item. So don't be upset if you see me trying to kind of move us along, but John, John, I'll start with you for introductions. John. Oh, sorry, John, pretty good. Calis, look forward to live up on out of it. Singleton Road, we'll see you out of that one. What do you sell in North Calis? Sharon and Phanon, sometimes we call it South Calis. We've got a great team from out of it. Hi. And go for a look. I'm Willa Farrell, and I moved to Calis 18 months ago from Walden. And I live on Wheeler Road. Where is that? It's a couple miles south of the April quarter. Oh, yeah, I know where it is. Yeah, obviously you know where it is. Yeah, so here we go. So tell us about what interests you about the DRB, why you're here, and then we have questions that we'll ask you. Okay. Well, I've been here a little while now and I'd like to get involved in the community. So I saw in front porch forum that you were looking for a member of the DRB. When I lived in Elmore some, more than 20 years ago, I was on the planning commission and I enjoyed that opportunity. And I'm interested, I'd like to serve the community. This is the way to do it, it seems. And I think I can be measured and I spoke with Ann at her overview. I've been meeting, I haven't gotten off through the town plan, but I've been meeting the zoning regulations and the DRB's conflict of interest and procedural documents of trying to get a little familiar with the process. And I think I could contribute to the meetings and bring my perspective and join the group and contribute. Great, thank you. Any other questions? I mean, I answered a lot of the questions that we normally ask. Is familiar with a quasi-judicial process and what that means? Only, I mean, I've not experienced or been part of a quasi-judicial process. I do work in a legal context. I work with court diversion and pre-trial service programs of the Attorney General's Office. So I'm surrounded by a lot of attorneys and I'm just doing office matters with my family. So I have a sensibility, official processes with my family. I've served on boards before and I've been part of some of the processes where you decide to be in the executive session and they're not other than the executive session. Thank you. And that answers most of the questions. You've already been familiarizing yourself with the regs and the town plan and you know what the DRB's role is. And a question that we always ask is, this is callous and the DRB is looking at projects of all of our neighbors. And sometimes it can be really hard to make a decision. You want to make a decision that allows the development because you want to encourage people to move into town but at the same time you have to follow the regs. So sometimes that can be hard to do. So how would you feel if you had to do that? Well, the first document I picked up were the rules of procedures and the conflict of interest. And I thought, well actually we have a place to start because I can imagine that they're hard decisions sometimes. I always think it's important to remember that conflicts of interest are perceived are as significant and as important as actual conflicts of interest. So I think finding, you know, I think people need to be prepared to recuse themselves, maybe their conflict if there is one and decide whether it's appropriate or not to recuse them. And then I think putting conflicts of interest aside, there's many differences of opinion from the nature of what may come before the DRB. And so I think it's trying to be moderate and trying to understand where people are coming from here. I think it's really important that people feel that the process is whatever the cause or judicial process is that people feel that the process is fair, that they're heard, they're respected, that they understand the reasons the decision is made. So I think all of those factors can help when there is a conflict and disagreement. I guess my question wasn't so much the conflict of interest piece that would be about making the decision of your neighbor that it isn't the decision they want. And to me then it would be being clear about how and why the decision was made and being prepared that you will never please everyone. There'll always be, and it might be your friend or your neighbor who will disagree with your decision. But that's why it's important to base it on the right. Yeah, right, yeah. So if I'm right to follow up. Yeah, no, go ahead. Just kind of broadening on Denise's original question. So the Development Review Board, the DRB, applies our zoning standards and our zoning standards set are very good. We have some standards that are hard numbers. There's no room for variance. And then of course because there's a DRB there obviously are areas where there's range of discretion. So I guess kind of along the same bottom, along the same lines, if there's an application that's before you and you apply your range of discretion but the range of discretion is not so broad as to allow what's being proposed in the application to move forward. And would you have a problem saying no? It's easy. I know everyone can say yes and I can do that every day. But would you have a problem saying no? And if that resulted in someone's project being denied? No, I mean I wouldn't have a problem saying no. To me, it would be either the clarity of the reason or if it's not clear. Because there's sometimes nuances that would be trying to come to agreement with the board. I didn't agree with others, I would name that. And I don't, I would just say I don't have a problem saying no to people. And sometimes no means just what is presented to no. Please come back with a revised application. I know that, be careful I say this, sometimes folks on DRB's attempt to be helpful. So there's an application that says five areas that they proposed it on a project. And it doesn't fit, so that's wear a peg in a round hole kind of thing. So DRB members might feel inclined to be assistive beyond what their roles and responsibilities are by basically rewrite the application in front of the board. We'd rather than saying this is denied, go back. These are the parameters. Take a second look at them and try to come back with a project that fits these parameters and then we'll review with a new. So I think that's my opinion really important that you don't become their engineer and architect and designer that you're a review body reviews the facts that in front of you and deciding whether it comports or not with the zoning rights. I'm going to do what I promise to do, which is keep us moving. Yeah, thank you all. Thank you. So we're going to do some questions. Yeah. Well thank you. Thank you very much. Candy, Candy, did you hear all of our introductions? Do we want us to introduce ourselves? I can't listen. Why don't we take the lead and Candy the question? But can I share your secrets? You already know all the questions. Right, so you do. Well why don't you start by telling us what you're interested and what brings you here and where's your interest from the RV conference? So it was, you know, I was right for Select Board last time. And we did want to get more involved in the town. You know, coming to a few Select Board meetings and stepping out again from here and things just didn't involve me enough, right? So I think this is good stuff. They do it. Any other reason is because I think it's, I haven't really know much about it before. And I've read about it. I've heard about it. We hadn't had to do zoning since, you know, been 30 years ago. And it was on a piece of paper. Bad thing on the book, right? With a pencil and just draw our driveway and stuff. So it's very different now. So I spoke with Anne. She was just talking about the process. Talking about what I really liked what she said was they don't like to just say no to people because we like to build up our community. And I was reading the one about the architect that they're trying to sub-deny, right? Or lots or something, something right now. And they did deny it, but they said these are the reasons that come back. So they came back and they were challenged and it's ongoing now, but I just felt like that we are willing to work with our town people instead of just saying, no, I'm not gonna do this. So that's really what I like about it. And then, I don't know, after that, let's see what goes on. I like to be prepared, and I think it's a good step. I'm just seeing if I really want to be in less of a Ford seat or not. And I'm going forward a little bit harder than I did last time. There's no poor people in the community which could be, I think people say, you may have said some people, but having served on the Washington County Virgin Board, you do get to know your neighbor to not always make on-premise terms, and you have to do some hard things to make some hard decisions. But yesterday, you followed the process and you really try and let people know that you're doing it for the right reason. You're following the law or the guidelines and you're looking out for everyone's best interests. Yeah. You're going to retire me. That's not how it's fun, but... Let's see, would you cover some of this? Yeah, do you know what the DRB's role is? I mean... Yeah, it's beginning to lead a nice conversation, actually. And she's fully enjoying retirement, by the way. She said she's a pro at it. But, yes, she had explained to that, looking at it, so the zoning's, and if there's a question about it and John goes out on something that he's not comfortable with her, and that it goes, go in front of them, and they can look at it. There's a hearing, so everything's, and you're sworn in, he goes to that process and look at appeals, and yeah, I'm reading up on it. I don't know if I'm going to rise yet. Oh, come on. She said I would. So, you're kind of familiar with the regs, then? The callus, is that a reg, I think? I'm not a pro, but... But you're familiar with it. Yes, yeah. And if I'm on this board, I don't have to really get familiar with it. I don't like to go in half way. I go all in, and if I can't, then I wouldn't, I would be sitting here, right? That's one of the things I said to Ann, is that if I'm going to do something and I want to really familiarize myself with it, make sure I'm comfortable, because I go all in, sometimes too much. Do you have, or have you done this type of, like, plan-use regulation before talking to Ann? No, and this is all new. Hm? Let's see. Do you know what quasi-judicial means? And what that means? What, it was one of that questions. Yeah. It was. It was. Oh, is this, yeah, it was a little... Panic. It means that there's a very formal process. It's... It's like you're having like a judge. Yeah, you're being a judge. Yeah, so what I was saying, you're having a judge and you're having a judge, I think that's where people are in, and it's like... Right, yes. Sure. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I do. Yeah, perfect. A lot of rules, yeah. We went through all that together. That's good. Yeah, do you have any experience with any legal processes? Legal processes, other than just, you know, I mean, with the term, sitting on the diversion board following a process and following the law, that's not something there where there was any, you know, it was very specific in our roles. And then, other than my years at the Blue Cross and all the contracts and making sure hospitals and employers follow their contracts and you do them contractually, that way. Yes, but not on that journey. Okay, that's good. That's okay, that's good. Yeah, it's alright, you know what I mean? It's a learning process doing that. That's right, that's right. That's right, if there were a development that didn't, that doesn't meet one or more of those founding regulations, what would you do? If it didn't meet one or one? I guess that's one of the discussions that we need to have, right? So, as I said before, we don't plan out an item. We just make some recommendations on what we do. We make some changes in the way and then I'll come back and talk to us. And then I'll take a look at the other one. Interesting. There might be times when it's just plain old now. Yeah, yeah. It's just clear. It's clear. You should be clear. There isn't such a thing as a clear now. Yeah, well, the one that's what I'm right now, it was very clear that some of the things just were not going to work out. So we gave them an opportunity to go back and revise what they had proposed. So let's not talk about one that's in process now, right? Yeah, that's the general idea is that they're given opportunities and sometimes they'll work out, sometimes they just won't. And the final answer may be no. Could it be? Yeah. Any other questions for Candy Guys? No, no, thank you very much. Will, thank you. Thank you so much for having me to see you. I don't think I said thank you when I was telling you we needed to move along. Thank you very much. So you guys want to take, do you want to take a question? No. Okay, a motion is, I think I tried to get really clear on what we're, yeah, I make a motion that we appoint Willa Farrell as a member to the DRB to complete a three year term that ends in 2023. Do you want to vote together or separate? Let me do one. Let's do one, okay. That's my motion. Oh, one more. As a slate, just do the slate. Okay, I've heard two different things, all right. And then I make a motion that we appoint Candy Smith to serve for one year as an alternate member to complete the three year term that ends in 2023. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Just one last thing, I'm obsessive about this. We have a training module that's the video that we can fill you all in on. I'll send it to him. Denise will send it to you. I'll send you the link. You have to watch this training session. It's a prerequisite. Before you can serve on any cases. It's really easy. You're just a video to watch. Can you sign this? Yes. I think I can do that. Thank you. Thanks guys. Thank you guys for having me. You're welcome to be there. All right. Thank you. Good night. OK, who are we waiting for? East Montpelier. Yes, Larry and Paul and Ty. Got to go to the dressing room. Who are we going to do with all of these people, please? Now, I put my mask on and the room was filled right now. Sharon, are we going to go to the dressing room? I think we are going to have an outfit we need to get. Do you want to do it? Do you want to do the same thing? Sure. He's welcome to say it for you. I'm going to be the first one. So Larry. I'm going to give you just a brief history, I think, and then. Do you know everybody here? I do. You don't know. I think I've done it. This is Rick Lee. You may know Rick too. OK, go ahead. So just to show a background in my history, I've lived in East Montpelier for 40 years and on the fire, I've been in East Montpelier for over 25 years. We're only on a very city fire for 20 years. I have about 45 years of fire and EMS experience. At East Montpelier, I've worked under the capable leadership of Ty Rollin for 10 years. He was the chief. I was the deputy chief along with Toby Talbert. Paul is the assistant chief. So as you've seen and heard throughout the community, we do offer a quality service department. We offer a department that is very strong on the EMS side supporting the ambulance service in. I think all of you will probably have heard back from members and residents of Calis, East Montpelier, and the other towns that we've covered that we do provide an excellent service. In my background, I ran business in Barry City, Elbrown Incense, printing for approximately 32 years. And a very successful company. I have a business background. So working in the fire and EMS world, working with East Montpelier, I'm hoping to use the different skill sets that I have along with utilizing the skill sets of each of the men and women on the department to continue to go forward to grow the department. Working with the boards is always, in my, the way I look at it, it's a learning experience for both of us. You'll be learning from us, I'll be learning from you. As we work together to achieve the common goal of providing a safe environment for the residents of Calis, East Montpelier, and providing you with a clear and organized, orderly presentation of facts and figures and numbers. So you'll know what's going on with the department. It's an open book department. It's a volunteer organization. Any questions you have, I can answer them. If not, I've got the men behind me, Paul, Ty, Toby, we've got an officer corps there that is more than willing to step up and available at any time. Do you have any questions? Congratulations. Yeah. Just from my perspective, I know I think I missed, the only credit card me never missed was the last one in all my years on the board. And I know you tell us stuff about certain things that are happening or have happened, but my brain can only hold so much information or it'll explode. So you, for me, it seems like I wanna be able to feel comfortable in asking the same question. I forgot what that, what does this mean Larry? I forgot. And not feel like, oh, you don't remember? We told you 500 times, you know? No, I agree, I totally agree. This, the department has run relatively simply, but if you don't have the experience in fire and EMS, it can be complicated. I wanna understand. And the goal would be to prevent, to provide you with the information that you feel comfortable with it, that you understand it, and there's any question, as I say, I don't have all the answers. I probably have a lot of them, but I'm more than willing to work with the crew that I have and the people behind me, which is a strong group of people that have run the department for years. Four machine tyrol has been on the department for 32 years, 32 years. Paul has been on it for a number of years. Yeah, I mean, you have a wonderful operational area, a strong group of men and women there. And on the EMS side, we have a strong group of paramedics. I'm an advanced emergency medical technician. I do respond to a lot of calls in the area here. Are you been to my house seven times? Thank you, Larry, yeah. Well, I just want to echo what Denise said. I think, as I said, it's time on time. I just need to be spoon-fetched because Denise said her brain will explode. I feel like it all just falls out of mine. So yeah, so when we're meeting and as we meet regularly with the EMFD group and the eSense Leader Select Board, so what my personal ask is to support our decision making with the information we need right now to make the decision, even if we've heard it before because I promise you, I didn't remember. Yeah. And my head exploded. And Denise has had it explode. So thank you, that's, I know, I want to make sure we have time. I'm going to ask Rick and Jonathan to make comments, but also I want to show you kind of process the ask that you do have in front of us. Thank you. Rick, go ahead. I just want to say, yeah, thank you. And also, yeah, if you keep us as informed as you can about what you're doing and what, you know, what your plans are, we can help with, you know, the liaison, the information update community somewhat to that. So we, you know, it prepares people and the more they know, the sooner they know that easier it is for us to, you know, just bring everybody on board. Most definitely. Yeah, I thought just keep us in the loop because whatever you think that's appropriate. Very good. I appreciate that. John. Well, thank, as everyone has said, thank you. Thank you for stepping up. I'm amazed that you're staying with Larry. Well, we're working. We've got a good group. We're working together, as I said, to provide a quality service for our town. Yeah, you've done great work. We collaborated and step over the years and I've always been impressed by how thorough you are. Thank you so much. I've seen a lot of lives along the way. All of us have been in the primary movement. That's our goal. Paul, if we were going to make a presentation, that's okay. Great. Thank you Larry. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Let's see you again. I hope this is as smooth as talking to you. I thought, yes. You should be smooth. Yeah. He's smooth already. So in my department, I'll call Assistant Chief and I will go into my history for that. You've been around for a while now. Yeah. So my part is, I'm the chairman of the committee that designed the truck. And what we're asking tonight is that you needed in writing permission to have you the $66,600. So that's what we're asking you to do tonight. 66,667. That's our share. Yeah. Right, whatever the exact amount. You already did that. It wasn't our budget. It was not, it was voted, but keep going home. Yeah. So there's two things. When you get the note, it may be in a different fiscal period. There will probably be in the fiscal period 22, 23. However, the truck may not be delivered in that fiscal period. So we want to have you set it so that if the truck does get delivered in that fiscal period, 22, 23. Yeah. Yeah, we could get the money from you 30 days in advance of the delivery. Yeah, okay. Or if it's not in that fiscal period, we don't want you to run into an issue of releasing money in a different fiscal period than what it was intended to be voted on. Well, we can. Right, so what I thought as a plan is that if you took the money out of that fiscal period, this is assuming we weren't getting the truck in that period of time. In the fiscal year. In that fiscal year. The issue hinges on the fact that the voters approved the request for the upcoming fiscal year, but there's no assurance that the truck is going to arrive on the fiscal year. Right, because of the supply. So can we incorporate that, that's your question. We'd incorporate it out in that. I just don't know how that would happen. Depends on day and voices or not, I think. And whether we think that's appropriate to pay that large amount. So what if you, what if you invoice, what if you put it into your account that you have now for firefighting equipment so that the money is, has been allocated to that account? I don't think we can do that. We outweigh the warning state and the specific person, specific purpose of that request. So. We can just, we can just put it on the warrant. So we can approve this, we'll be able to understand. And we'll be able to say it's a technical administrative, technicality, we'll just, we'll not be able to do that. I took my, oh yeah. So there's no way to. We've weighed people. If it doesn't come in, there's no way to. See, there's no, there's no place, there's no place to park that money. And we can't set it aside, we haven't established. We would have to establish a reserve fund. Which we have. For that money. Well, in view. Denise, if I'm understanding these, this is the voter stuff. Reserve funds. Right. Okay. The voters have to approve a reserve fund. Or to set up a reserve fund. And we, we can't like put it in a savings account. We don't have that for it. So, and the money, the money is available from like July 1st to June 3rd, July 1st, 2022 through June 30th of 2020. So what if we made, if it didn't come in, why don't we make it, set it up as a down payment on the truck? We can pay the toying manufacturer a down payment. They invoice us. We can interact with them anyways. Absolutely. And we used our share as the down payment because we have to take that alone. And he's not a failure, they have a fund, right? Which they would be taking their share out of it. I can see that working. So, and just kind of a point of information that you've been here earlier, you referred that we ordered a truck for our highway apartment. How you did order it? And they just surcharge us $5,700. Well, we got one included, it's 38. So, it might be to our collective advantage and interest to get a contract more formalized and put a down payment to lock in in case they try to surcharge us again. So we're locked in on that price so you can barter straight at that. I don't think that they do that, do it that way. Oh, really? No, the, we're getting the chassis. And the chassis comes in. I think the surcharges are on the chassis. And I think eSpot player is using air, when the chassis comes in, they're gonna use the air portion. We're gonna pay for that chassis. Well, can we use our portion to pay for part of the chassis? I guess we have to deal with eSpot light. I think we have to deal with eSpot light. Because Sharon, you must have got an email from them. Yeah, I have an email and the board has it as well. So they've approved the eSpot player part of our request. Like this, they will, the town eSpot player will pay $133,000, $33,000 in preparation to NFP at the time of the fire engine chassis and deliver point number one. The board authorized use of up to $250,000 from the capital reserve fund for the purchase of the toy fire engine. The board expects to be provided with a popular purchase contract when finalized. And third, this is on the bond remainder fund. Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's better. So, so, but because of the way, what I'm understanding is that because of the way the fund is, is set up with eSpot player, there's different options there, is that correct? Okay. We're talking, we're talking about the building bond. We got, we got a couple of different things going on here in this request. So I'm only talking about permission on the 66,000 from the town of Dallas. And now we want to deal with that. But if you want to deal with Bruce and use your portion, but we need to do that soon. Right. And then now we'll solve the issue about what we're going to need to do it under the cap. Well, we're going to need something to show that, because the, the way the warning reads for the purchase of a fire engine truck from the eSpot player fire department. And it's a amount not to exceed 66,667. So we would need some kind of an invoice that's truck-related. We have to know when, because we have to take out a loan. So we need to make a note. We need to talk to the interim treasurer about setting up a loan, because we don't know when we need to come. When do we need to give you the money? It's the question. As soon as we take out a loan, you know, we're going to pay interest and then there's payments. So we need to know when you're looking for that money. The truck, they don't even know when the truck's coming in. It's saying, did you guys actually buy a truck or are you waiting for the truck? We're waiting. We're waiting. It's the same. We're waiting. It's the same thing. So we don't know when it's coming in. So I'm hearing two options. One, give us an invoice that we can pay based on an in-do course, right? Something that's legitimate. And the other option is that we warn it again. You should have that. And then we'll- You should have a copy of the- This is it? Yep. At the second page of that, it shows the price of the truck. I'm sure it's the price of the chassis. Okay, so it is- Let me see what you're looking at. Yeah, at the very bottom. And then what do you buy? It's the chassis's like $103,000. Something like that. Chassis, arrival, actually. I don't know which line, Paul. I don't know what that is. It's a- Which amount do you want that? Upper, one-thirteen. One-thirteen. Upon it, upon chassis, arrival times. One-thirteen. And it's not there yet. Hold on. Right? It's a long way away. And I was wondering, you know, if we go to the bank and say we're taking out a loan which is put towards this chassis and this amount. That's not an invoice, though. No, that's just how I'm showing you. This is just- I'll sign the letter. So that we need to get signed, but we don't want to sign them until we get clearance that you're going to release that money. I think I need to talk to Santa to see what we would have to do with the loan process. It is what is the bank going to want to see for us to take out this loan plus downs, so I think I need to get- Do we get a loan or a line of credit up to that amount? No, it's a loan. It's a loan. So, okay. Well, I know, though. What would the bank, I mean, we're not going to take out two loans if we're only funding the, if we're funding it in stages, if they're we're paying a share of the total amount for the chassis and then the remaining share in a second, as a second. It's probably going to be a difference. Oh. They're going to agree to pay the $133. Right. If you guys want to talk to them about using your 66. Oh, okay. Towards that. And that would utilize all the money? All the money from you guys. Oh, okay. Plus whatever balance was- But we would still need something to substantiate a down payment. Right. Yeah. Which is the conversation I didn't have with Santa. What do we have to have to show the bank that we want to take out this loan for five years? So I may need, I'll have to talk to her first and then I may need some additional information. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Or just be the down payment. Like an invoice. Like an invoice. You know, from, I'm guessing, from towing and probably writing. Yeah. Or a contract requires a down payment by a date certain. That would be fine too. Right. Right. But I need to understand better from our interim treasurer. What do we need to have to go to the bank with to ask for this amount of money? I would think that that letter is planned because it shows on that. That's the letter that we'll be signing. It might very well be. We'll be signing that as to showing the price of this overall truck and the chance. Well, I think when I saw this, I asked, it says something and it's like well, where's the signature? This is a proposal. All right, where's the signature page? But apparently- But it's probably, it maybe didn't come through. I can resend it to the whole pack. But the signature page, you people would not be signing that. No, you would. Right, right, right. But we need proof to go to the bank and say we need a loan for this amount of money. We passed it in our- So I hear you. I hear you. What I was afraid of is that if we signed that approval letter for $426,000, then we keep spinning our wheels and getting that $66,000. Sorry to prove that, but we have no say. We write it for orders. But it's not going to get to us now. You can see it's done, it hasn't been committed. I think, so what we have to do is we have to co- You follow me? I need to find- I do, good. Well, I need to find out what we have to do to go to the bank. What do we need as a town to go to the bank and ask for this loan? So that's the first step so that I can let you know what do we have to have. So tonight, are we going to get permission from you that we're going to have that money at least to us? That's what I'm hoping for. So what you're hearing is our, our eager intent to figure out a way to honor the vote from the town, give you the money you need in the timeframe you need it all legally. So that you can buy the fire truck and the hard part is in this climate, we don't know when you're going to get it which makes everything kind of weird. But it is absolutely our intent to figure out a way. I will call- There's a couple of options we've already outlined. Right. So I will call Sandra tomorrow and ask her what we need to have from fire department or truck company or whatever to take out a loan and when and also can that happen? Does that make sense? Can we delegate signing authority to you or Denise and if we get that resolved? I think what we want to delegate to Denise is just to acknowledge that she's going off to gather information. I'd rather give the information back. Yeah, so we're big ones. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. We have to speed. So we're not going to make any motion tonight. Maybe that's in the answer to your question. Well, there's no motion to be made because the money's already been approved by the voters. We just have to figure out how to get it to you. That's our job. Well, what's the authorization? We have the authorization to buy a truck, to commit funds to buy a truck or two, but we have to figure out what does it look like when there's not a truck coming right now? Right. What does it look like to be taking the loan outs is to get you money in advance, basically. So if you were to talk to, he's spot teller, that may be a better route to have you buy the chassis because I got a feeling the chassis will be coming in obviously a little long before the truck will be done. Yeah, yeah. Then how do you use the money right up as soon as you take the note? We wouldn't be notified of when that truck will be coming in, by the chassis. Okay, that might be the better option. I'm going to bruise about that. Either way, we have to have a loan. Well, either way, I need the information. Well, either way, we need the money to be dispensed, substantiated. Right, yeah. Deed. Deed. Deed voice. A simple piece of paper that says that here, Calis, we are providing you with a chassis for the East one player to buy a car and please give us one point. Right. Okay. So what's the chassis cost? I think it was $103,000. I don't think we're out of here, yeah. So the difference would be made up by, it's not clear. It says the chassis. Peaceful player is $133,000 or something. In terms of the chassis. Oh, right. Yeah. So they're not going to take up too long do they? On any money? On any money? Okay. Okay. Are they happy? Yeah. The vote for Measwell Bay was to pay for the chassis when the chassis was delivered and they were going to pay their full portion of the $133,000, $133,000, $133,000 with the estimate of chassis delivery data early in 2020, or 2023, is when the estimate and delivery data of the chassis is. All right. So that, well, I don't know. Well, but, what's on there? They've already taken that vote last week at their meeting. Oh, this level is not a feeble. They're going to take up $133,000. So you might have gone and reviewed it. Yeah, they can review it. But they can always, yeah, they can review it. Okay, I'm telling you that it's not needed. They can do a review. They can do a review. The option is how many do you want to pay for it because we don't have to do from there. There's no payment to until the delivery of the truck. So you can do 30 days prior to delivery as long as you can allocate the monies in some fashion within FY23. Right, and after the FY23, or else? And if you do that, you don't have to take a loan for a year or so. The rest of the construction of the truck to be 450 days. I think what I'm hearing Ty as a disconnect between your point and Denise's depth of knowledge about how this has to work is that allocating it in a sort of conceptual sense has been done because the voters approved it. But we don't have the money in our pocket. We have to go to the bank to borrow money for this purpose and that's got to have some basis. Right, we gotta figure out what that... You can sit for a year and not take the loan for another year. It just enclose it out just before the end of FY23. So you don't have to get approved. Right, so you don't have to pay interest for a year on that truck. Well, that's one of the things I think we need to find out. That problem's not always... If the bank... If what would be that? If when Denise connects with our interim treasurer, half a dozen new questions emerge or I assume Larry or Paul, you guys would be available for Denise to pull into a conversation. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And then I want to come back to the board with... Here's the option. Here's the two options. Right. And then I don't want to miss. So we will... Yeah, I'm not going to... Oh, does that make sense? No, hang on. If you're going to move on to the other item. No. Okay. Still on the fire truck. Okay. Yeah. Before we leave fire truck, don't let me forget to get from you guys the date that we need to have some agenda again. Keep going. Okay, the other part is, again, the permissions to take out our capital account, the fire department's capital account, the ability for us to pay our loan on 220... It's going to be between 225 and 250,000. So we're looking to get that permission to remove monthly, to pay the monthly note every month to pay for that and all that. We're looking for the permission now, even though it's going to be down the road another year toward this truck. Yeah. We just kind of get that part of it down and out of the way. So move. Yeah. Can you tell me the verbiage on that motion then? Yeah, Paula, if you were in charge of actually making the motion, what would you say the motion is? If we could have permission from the Eastmont Fire Department, Eastmont Health Select Board, to give permission to the fire department to withdraw money from our capital account to pay the note for this new fire truck. It's from the Eastmont Fire Department to the capital account. It's going to be between 225 and 250,000. So we're authorizing you to spend your money to keep that as well. Yeah, we put cash on it. Yeah. It's the same as when did Eastmont layer night come up for the auto loader? Right. We're asking permission to use that account. So we discussed the motion that's been made and seconded. Any other discussion on this motion? They will please say aye. OK, so you have an email. I have a reason, I have a choice. And you want my phone number at all? Your phone number will be held. The home number is it's 223-387-9. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. OK, Denise, what are you doing on our date? I'm going to support it and get done with it now. And then that's going to free up this week. So I'm going to make a note to see if I got enjoyed for the 23rd. I'm going to spend the month for the 23rd. It's not really. You and I are going to be meeting to talk about stuff anyway. So this is, again, 5.23. It's yours. No, it's mine. It's yours. It's yours. It's yours. OK. I'm going to make it kind of full. OK. Thank you, everybody. You guys want to, hi, you want to? There's two other items that we just need to move this forward from the rest. OK, let me just say to Jan and John, yes, sorry. I turned my brain to what I wanted to say. I didn't finish that part, in my sense. We, I'm going to just ask for a couple of minutes to say to them, we had a bunch of times early in our agenda after the tree warning wrapped up before people started arriving. So we turned our attention to what can we do with nobody here. So I think we do want to hear from you generally about the 23rd property reappraisal of that project. But know that we did, as a group, decide to make Mark Mahaly the liaison to take a leap in connecting with you and also doing the select word role of the work. These are available to support them as necessary. So in case that's all you wanted to hear from us, that's. No, it is not what I'm all I wanted. I don't need to have questions. No, that's fine. That's fine. I am going to give these guys a little extra time. It's really all I'm saying. So it's just a follow-up on the request for the capital improvements with the lighting and the taping in which we're on the second page here as I did one, I did two. Eastmont Bay are approved at their meeting through final allocation of the money that are in the bond money from the buildings built. There's $13,830. As you see in the email that they sent, that was their allocation approval of that, which recovered the two expenses of the $7,300 and that took $5,000 for the paving. Right. If I remember right, can we ask again to give that money back? Correct. To reduce the loan to bond loans. Correct. So over the years, we've used that in a number of different building projects after the facilities. This is where we discussed in the joint meeting. Correct. We didn't have a formula for this. So Ty, once this money is gone, the next time a project like this comes up, you'll be looking at creating a new capital fund or in some other way. Correct. So we have capital fund monies that are designated as building monies, and they're being saved already. This is one avenue of request, because again, these are specific items that are capital improvements, such as the pole lights, such as that additional paving through a typically black and muddy area. So it makes sense to use those funds for that. And then that item just clears itself off the table. So when you say, wait, do you mean this is my pail here? Or is it your capital reserve or is it your food capital reserve? We're in the capital reserve. It's a fire department. It's a fire department. There's allocating monies in there that are going to capital improvement projects and things. OK. Yeah. We don't need to. We don't need to create some capital reserve. That's fine. You smell fair. We have something that they're working on there as well. They have to do a major roof issue down the road and things. But we have monies that are being set aside for that as well. Any other questions from the board? Does somebody want to make a motion to approve the exemplary fire department request for 7,300 for lighting, 5,000 for paving? Both of those are not to exceed. And these are expenses from the words exemplary fire department, bond or major fund from the building of the. Well, it's actually the town of these volunteers, bond. And they're remaining about as 13, 8, 30. So moved. Is this going to be that verbiage in right now? I'm not following. Is it in that email? Is it? Yeah. It's a big fat email and it doesn't have the actual motion. So the motion is to authorize the withdrawal of the final funds from the building's, what did you call it? The building's called the bond fund held by the town of East Montpelier. This authorizes the East Montpelier fire department to use 7,300 towards new lighting and 5,000 towards solar paving. And we're moved and I second it. We can worst that too, Lisa. Yeah, I can help you with the warning, Lisa. Any other questions, discussions? OK. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Close it. Here we go. Good next time. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you for your name. Thank you for your time. No, that's all right. That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. We went and introduced ourselves on channels. This is kind of funny when you have somebody that you haven't met before, but it's nice to have people and people we haven't met before. OK. So, yeah. So you guys, go ahead. So I guess my question is what do we expect from a liaison from a select board? I don't know what you're proposing Marcos to do for us. Well, I'm going to stop you, though, because that's kind of the question. Well, that's the beginning. The beginning of it is to do the exploration of, OK, what is the project? What do we need to do? Who needs to do what? How do we move forward? It's taking that putting shape on it online and coming back and saying, OK. Here's what needs to be done. Here's eight pieces of information that we need and nobody has, so I've got to figure it out. Or Jan's going to help figure things out. And I'm saying on this, you know, and I see your browser because maybe the thing is we don't know, right? It's a blank slate. And so it's for somebody to figure out what is this project. OK. And bring it back to us and tell us what it is along the way. May I ask you to do it? Well, we've already appointed Marcos to do it. But here's what we've learned today. OK. There's no news. From our district. From our district. No news. Hopefully it's no news. Pardon? Hopefully it's no news. Never. Well, go ahead. What's the news? Loosters have to do the bulk of the work is what we learned. We have to issue an RFP. You learned from whom? Barbara Slussinger, the district advisor from PBR. OK. So I asked her what the roles were between the select board and the listors. And in terms of reappraisal and learn that it is the listors who are to initially send out a letter of interest to the group of people and then say, will you go be issuing an RFP? Are you interested in having an RFP? And we must produce the RFP. The listors produce it? The listors produce the RFP? Yes. So my request is this is also not a town clerk's responsibility, but does this town have any administrative help that can be provided to us? And we are going to be able to do this until after our grand list is issued for this year anyway. What is that? Well, I don't know. We may ask for an extension. But usually we can't set the tax rate to the other ground. I understand that. But I'm just asking. Right now, if we make it, everything will be completed by early July. But that's our routine. But we have not been able to finish inspections. We haven't been able to get all the data in. We're fairly on track. And whether we ask for an extension, we don't always have to use it. That's the other thing. But we can't start doing the search for the reappraisal until after that work is done. The grand list is issued in our grievances order and reply to and all of that. That's because of the workload. And if we had an administrative person, they could get that. Well, if we had administrative person could help us with writing the necessary letters and mailing them, getting a response and helping us set up the matrix and what kind of questions to ask. Because we have a theory on the books. We have a treasurer position. We have a treasurer system. Neither. Neither. Which is highlighted right now. So do you have a sense now of specifically like what, I heard the task, what the, but we need, we need a person at number of hours by this date for this period. Can you articulate that? I can't articulate that because I've never done it to be able to tell you. And I don't know. I was not here when things were done for, before you hired Ed in 2015. That was, was it 10 years ago that we did the, the last re-appraisal was 2015. But that wasn't an inside-outside. That wasn't, yes. That was a statistical re-appraisal. Barber confirmed we cannot do a statistical re-appraisal. This is going to have to be a full re-appraisal. So not only that, we have to educate the population what's going to happen. So the reason we can't do this is because you, you don't have to do that once after a time. You always need to. We've done it twice in a row. And that's the reason, okay. It seems to me like a full loan, coming in your house, looking under the rug, was done about like 10, 15 years ago. Was it longer than that? Yeah, we were told we had done two statistical re-appraisals in a row. Two years between 2007 and 2007. And if you have, so that means the interior of these houses have not been looked at since 2007 or before. Or before, yeah. And, and you know, we just, and how COVID is affecting that, I don't know either, that's another interesting story. But, but anyway, it was an interesting conversation today to lay out the groundwork of what needs to be done. So I appreciate that you've selected Mark to be a liaison, but I'm not excited. I happen to know Mark's not an exactly an administrative person like this. Yeah. In terms of writing things. Well, then we, I would think that doesn't VLCT have templates for this. I mean, this has got to be pretty standard. We have some templates right here. This 58 page document, which we just got today. I am attending a four hour webinar tonight. Even though I'm not going to be here for this re-appraisal. Well, I know Mark's skill is not some of the administrative stuff, but I think he doesn't have to do that. He has to tell the board what it is that needs to get done and how do we make that happen? Yeah. Maybe his skill is exactly of, okay, let's make half a dozen assumptions based on excellent information that you have. And because we have to start from somewhere, if we're going to hire an administrative person, we have to have something. We have to make some assumptions on which we're making an effort. Yeah, we have to know what skills and what they're going to work hard for. Right. So we may not, we'll know for sure what we need after it's done. And until then, we're going to all have to do the best we can. And what I take my takeaway, what I'm wrong, is that you're asking us to figure out a way for you to have some administrative support. I just wanted some clarification on what to expect, I think. Well, I think this might be a very specific administrative support that needed that we, I don't remember right now, but I don't know, it's horrible. This might be something, because it's from here to here, it's not like you're going to be doing this job for the next five years. It sounds like to me like it has a beginning and an end. So somebody who's looking maybe for some kind of part-time temporary income, we could do some kind of a contract with somebody to provide that assistance. And it doesn't have benefits, that kind of stuff, because it's a specific task. You might be able to fight someone. You can hire Toby to do it. Toby has to do this stuff. Ooh, and he's got a brain for this stuff. He does have a brain? He does RFP type stuff for the fire department? I do think that the timing would be helpful, because if the need is during the summer, I'm guessing it's not, then... Well, it's after the line. Right, so it's not really summer. It's more like sometime in September to May, during the school year, because this is also a... Is it... Does it fit in community development kind of internship? I don't know. I mean, it's something... Yeah, I mean, in other towns, we might be looking for some similar help for something like this, because everybody's doing it. If you put an ad on Frontport 4, I'm looking for someone with these types of skills just for a single job. Right, Toby's suggestion. Yeah, well, he's one. But a tone might say no. He might be... Yeah. I think we have some specific... But then he's going back to what you said a few minutes ago. What we're starting to do now is probably with the new news becomes, okay, this is the mark rolling up his sleeves, and I do think it's in his skill set too, roll up his sleeves and say, okay, we got a problem here, we got to figure out where to solve it. How do we put some shape and words on the problem so we know what solution we're looking for? How about our town lawyer too, just in terms of... I mean, this has got to be a very standardized process. I mean, I would think that you'd go right to an RFP. I mean, I have to be certain firms that you contract out to, right? I mean, they're... Well, we have a list of appraisers. We have a list of appraisers. So when we put the RFP out, do we... We have to put the RFP out, right? We do that, but then how do we... Do we have word to like an appraisal firm or do we do... let's say like Martin puts those into somebody like that or do we... The list has definite appraiser firms that are in here that I sent in the... Yeah, right. And so we have to follow, we have to probably follow that list and find if there's somebody who's interested in doing this. And we have to develop a matrix of what we want based on what is there and be able to judge when the RFP comes in. Yeah, it's just there. You have to do the process. And then the select board has to enter the contract and what Barbara has also said, strongly recommend that the town's attorney review the contract prior to signature. So I mean, there seems to be a lot of issues. I mean, not issues, but there's a lot of things. I'm thinking in that, in the selection process, I mean, the criteria, usually you want to have person performance recommendations and then you want to have samples of work. Rick, I think when you find we have qualified appraisers, this is what they do for a living. This is not building an interest. Yeah, that's not part of it. We're hoping for people to go in and see that what you should brought up, see what and understand what your role value of renovations is. You want to have a job. And it's going to be in and out. They're going to go from one house to another in 20 minutes. If that, I know I actually manage real estate contractors that do this at work. That's why I'm asking. I mean, it's not rocket science. And there's a whole long list of people. You might know some in the long list, Rick. I know all. But when we when the listeners have to draft an RFP I'm certain that we would ask our town attorney to review the RFP and all these towns are doing this. They know that. So, Jan, we hear you on the administrative help how many times a week do I say we need an administrative help Denise? Eight times a day. So, totally hear you, totally get it. If you can be thinking about yeah, what the task is, what the timeframe might be and what the you know, is it a full-time job for eight weeks? Is it a half-time job for eight weeks? That kind of stuff. So, it's got to shape. That would be helpful for us to figure out. Yeah, in the task and skills. So, then we've got to go to the budget and find money that we didn't budget for. When would it start? I mean, we're going to have to advertise for it. Well, like I said, this market is pretty tight right now. Well, we don't have to advertise what the recommendation is. You send a letter, a blanket of information, asking them to tell them. I'm talking about the administrative help. Oh, the administrative help. The bottom line is that's what I'm hearing you need from us. Is authorization and a budget to hire an administrative person? Well, I have a question. It seems to me that when Jan was saying, we had a generic letter, one-pager, FYI, in the coming year the town of Calis needs to do a top to bottom so we're sending this to a larger list than you and you have any experience in doing whatever they call it, top to bottom. They may say we're looking for anyone who might be interested during this time frame to do whatever that term is. That simple letter, when they respond they'll say, yes, this is what we've done in another town. The way I was recommended to me is we're getting ready to do a full reappraisal. And we will be issuing an RFP if you're interested in receiving it. That's all the letter has to say. They respond back to us and say, yes. We should do that sooner rather than later. I understand that. But we can do that simple letter is what we're saying right now. Well, you're talking about that. We're talking about administrative assistance. I know, but I'm just saying that it's a simple letter like Jan just said that we could only say at that time. That's great. I may have the RFP ready to go too. Well, at least you there's a thought that that would give you some indication of who might be interested but if the whole state is doing this there's going to be a lot of those letters going out and a lot of responses coming back and then if you're not ready to issue the RFP they could get taken up with other towns and nine right away. Sometimes I'm just thinking if they respond and say yes, we're interested and we've done this 500 times we might then be out of call and explore with them could you assist us in terms of the information we need to include in our RFP maybe we could pay them up. We could even ask Ed that. Or we could hire Ed to do that. We can't really hire Ed to do that. He wasn't doing that. Let me see what this webinar is tomorrow which gets all the on how and what to do and I can more answer your questions as to the time. I'll go out of work and I'll look at the appraisal first we do appraisals all the time so I write the RFP but that's I mean it's not for town lives for state projects but if you got a list of who we typically send RFPs on to I don't know if they do this type of work or is it more commercial? Well the state should provide it for them. That's how the hard part and maybe a simple matter of you know you send them that. Well I'm thinking along those lines Ed could do that. So if a phone call were made to Ed and say we're going to be doing this feeling this is coming down even what's going on in the real estate market and Ed might say yeah I'm not interested but if we say would you be willing to be hired just for the administrative task of putting together an RFP to go to other appraisers Ed might say yeah. He might but he might not because I've heard he's really super busy doing these things and he is already he does all of that as the appraisal. And the putting together an RFP is not what I imagined to be the administrative task. The administrative task that's brain work that's not administrative that is administrative I think administrative people don't have to have a brain. No no no I get that but I'm saying that's very very substantive what I would imagine that the administrative work is being the RFP that I would imagine you guys are maybe with some outside consultant input you're developing an RFP the administrative person is compiling it sending it to everybody who is interested following up maybe with a reminder cataloging who came in by the deadline you said all of that I'm not saying people don't need to everybody has to have a brain to do the work have to be organized but the substantive piece putting together the RFP is not what you're looking at I'm looking for that person who will monitor do the matrix help us with when we do our interviews because I guess we do the interviews and then we provide to you a final list of people that we think will do it and then decide who you want to be I could see VLCT getting more involved in this whole process knowing full state is going to do it and maybe having some templates some advice I could see VLCT really it's going to reference actually it's going to it's going to put all the requirements all those standards things that you have to have insurance limits I'm guessing that that's standardized we wouldn't and our administrative person wouldn't know that that's why what we'd be filling out is what's the scope of this what are we praising what's going to be how many properties so so Mark so circling back we've asked Mark to work with you guys you're asked from I just want to make sure that we catch you with some clarity what you're asking for you're making us aware that there's a different understanding of the process and that we look at that and you're asking us for some authorized administrative support which I still I don't want us to be doing that in the vacuum I think it would be really helpful for us to understand what your job duties what the duties are and what the time frame is because really all we're going to do is offer you a budget sounds kind of like a project manager basically through are you thinking like through the whole appraisal process they would manage the execution of the RFPs that they've worked with you on doing all the selection process and then they would keep the deliverables moving or do you do that you know what is this progress I think the deliverables are the responsibility of the people doing the reappraisal and they are also I think then we have to decide last time it was a combination of the solicitors and the appraisal company who did the grievances it's a totally separate separate item of grievances and it's separate from what we do every year so I mean there's you know I'm looking at Jamaica's RFP and seeing that they have so it's pretty well laid out it would be pretty standard it's this person you clearly don't have a lot of bandwidth I mean that administrator would probably go beyond the RFP would go beyond the assignment of the contact do they manage it right through to the end when you get those final deliverables because you have to keep the contractors on track to making sure that they're meeting their goals you don't just cut them loose necessarily I don't know what this kind of thing is usually it's one appraisal firm and they go out and inspect the houses they have a sheet they fill out they have a gradation and then they come back with all these deliverables usually I would just have somebody like this I would see this person making sure that that work is happening that's what we do this is like hard to get a house there's buildings is there anything else we really can tell you about? I just wanted to give you highlighted on that because I didn't know what Mark was going to do for us we've talked to Barbara about this and Denise had a question that she had asked to me assuming that we find an appraiser that cannot do this until 2025 and we maybe have already hit the .85 mark as long as we're making a good show that we are doing there will be no repercussions from the state as far as there's no penalty for that because we are making a good show of faith that we have issued an RFP and the market is such that the appraisers cannot get to us until 2025 then that is the deal at least we have shown it and that's why I felt it was important to start this now because I have a feeling we're going to hit a bad mark next year well good good it's like such a lot of money have you done a year round or have you done a year of seven months or how did was it a full rehearsal? I have only done the statistical and John we were almost we were nine months to do a statistical re-appraisal which was going inside it just was going through and around because the biggest issue isn't so much going into and around the house and looking at it it's the collection of the data that you have to put into the system to change your system and update it and so that's what also takes the second measure of time and we we were novices and here's this guy who's doing well that's where this having a good scope of work that's our work to figure out thank you guys thank you very much alright so we are yes we are we are thank you thanks Jan thanks John no more than five minutes in the executive session I'll manage there are motions going into the executive session under one DSA research in a total of seven all in favor please say aye