 Okay, so let's call the meeting to order, not Orca. Call the meeting to order. And the goal tonight is to continue our discussion and review of some proposed rules of Procedure. Oh, there's John, hey, John. Hi, everybody. How are you? I'm well, how are you doing these? Good, beautiful day, huh? It's beautiful. I'm in New York, unfortunately, so less beautiful. Yes, of course. Is that that? So we agreed to meet tonight ahead of the regular agenda to continue our discussion and looking at some proposed rules of Procedure. Does everybody have that or can you call it up? Yeah, I'm gonna sit here. You need to be in really slow opening the document. Yeah, I think that's the way it's gonna be tonight for whatever reason. Okay, should be able to see it now. There we go, thank you. So each year we adopt rules of Procedure. Things got kind of turned around last year because as soon as we were starting to meet after town meeting, COVID hit. So we had to deal with some of those issues. So we should review some rules of Procedure to guide us in our duties. I think I've checked around other towns and looked at other towns rules of Procedure. Some of the language proposed here is kind of standard language from VLCT. And some of it has been modified and suggested as adopting some different language. So the first A and B and C1 are just kind of standard. C2 kind of gets into some more ideas of sharing. And I did look in the VLCT handbook and it says occasionally a select ordinal point. Some of its numbers are a group of citizens to study and make recommendations on a particular issue. All such committees and subcommittees are subject to the open meeting law and must follow all of its notice and record keeping requirements. So do we interpret that to mean even if it's a subcommittee of two? No, I don't know because that's just, that's not a forum. Right. So my interpretation is if it's a select board appointed committee like the Rhodes committee, for instance, when they were meeting, you know, they needed to post their notices and take minutes because that was an official select board appointed committee. I agree with that. On the other hand, if we later on tonight appoint Rick and John to work with the town all culvert folks, then that's a delegation of, what's the way to say it? It's a delegation of sussing out the issue, getting all the facts organized, packaging it succinctly for a board discussion. They're not making decisions. Right, the total information gathering basically. It's information gathering and yeah. Yeah. I mean, like we, go ahead, Denise. I could see that working for that unless that ends up being some kind of a subcommittee where we, where Scott's, you know, where Scott's involved and PM and other people are involved in their meeting to discuss it. So I'd want to make sure we think about that. Well, does that involve, you know what I mean? Is there a difference for a subcommittee like you're talking about? A group that would be fleshing out ideas themselves and not, they wouldn't be bringing certain things. They would choose what to bring forward to a select board. Do they have to, does that then become a public meeting and a, you know, a delegation of authority because they're actually blocking out? Yeah, that's what we have, we have to think about that because, you know, getting, having somebody as a point person for instance to gather information and such, you know, as one select board member if I'm going to be asked to make a decision on something I'm going to want to know all the information in which to base my decision and vote and not have it filtered. But, but, but let's, let's, let's consider what do we mean by filtered? You know, over and over we've asked folks on town staff to digest the options, present the options with risks, costs, merits, and a recommendation. To me, that's, that's just good management. We've got all the information but we've also got a little spotlight on the one that somebody's put a lot of thought time into recognizing makes the most sense. Yeah, I can, I can see that. But again, as one select board member I would like to make sure that I'm well informed and have information in which to base my decision and vote. So that, so none of this means you don't have the information Denise. It does mean that, that you might be challenged to let go a little bit of asking all the detailed questions because somebody else has done all of that and sifted through the material. I mean, if we have the material we can do that offline but I personally would be elated to have Rick and John with their engineering heads and whatever sifting through, sifting through information and getting, making sure it's all there, making sure that the, you know, a lot of time in our meetings we spend time just getting down to what are you asking? What are you asking right now? And taking that out of the room, knowing what the ask is, looking through the material, it doesn't mean that we can't have the material, but, and I think that pros and cons and options with a recommendation is a really good framework for being succinct in our decision making. Doesn't, again, doesn't mean you don't have the information to sift through, but a lot of that sort of sifting is done outside and that could be done, I would expect it, it could be done with, if we had two people, it could still be done with Scott and Pam and whoever else because the whole, the whole packages in our materials, maybe summary notes are there and that we're not delegating the decision outside, we're delegating information gathering and digesting so that we can be more succinct in our, in our work at the board level. Yeah, and as we're doing that, you know, a different board member might have a question that the two people that we delegate, let's say, hadn't thought of. So I want to make sure we have opportunity for that. Denise is absolutely right that way and I agree with Sharon completely too. In a way, this imposes a discipline on all of us for all taking on different kind of specialty areas, let's say, then it, say John and I are working on transportation, it's our job to prepare the materials in advance of those meetings so that you, Sharon or Denise, you have a chance to read through that I mean, like you said, we have our, kind of our executive, you know, summary conclusions that there's enough background in there that you can say, wait a minute, what's, this is missing? And I want to hear that. You know, I know a lot about transportation, but you know what? I can't tell you the number of times that people have told me after designing a project, say that I worked on it, that I missed something, you know, or I didn't know about it. So it's a value to me, you know, I mean, I think we just have to, in preparation, if we prepare materials properly when we go and are, you know, we want to make sure your prep to be able to make that decision, whatever we're recommending is there, that you should have enough to question. There's no question. Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're really clear. Cliff or John, do you have any thoughts? Oh, I have my hand up. Oh, I couldn't see it, sorry. Yeah, it's okay. So I agree with Denise that the board needs to have all the information so they can draw their own independent conclusions, but most times we do defer to folks who are either officially or unofficially assigned. You know, historically, we've had select board members who volunteer to take on various roles. So we have select board members who volunteer to meet with staff periodically, sometimes weekly. We have select board members that are on various committees, the town hall committee, and then they report back to us. They bring the information. We have select board members or member that does our IT and then reports back as, you know, the pros and cons, either the four or five systems that we've met with RB and we looked at that. And we've, so we've, this is not a change. And I mean, so much of this, what Sharon proposed, and it's not to take away what Sharon's hard work is what we've already agreed to. It's just being more formalized, being put in writing. And, and I think that's good. I think it's how I think the BLCT thing is a good addition or something we can merge into that and merge into our conversation, certainly. But I see this as not diverting from what we've done historically, just to, it's given us a heads up to be more efficient in how we do this and then be consistent in applying these standards. So in writing is good. Yeah, I want to give Cliff an opportunity to speak too. He hasn't had a chance. Thanks, John. Well, before I say anything, Sharon had her hand up. Maybe she wanted to clarify something. Oh yeah. I just want to clarify that I, I literally started with the BLCT thing and then deepened it here and there. And where we, this particular item of assigning, you know, thematically different members of the slate board to take ownership of functionaries, if you will. That's, that's a place where I deepened. But, but John, I started with the whole, the BLCT thing that we adopted two or three, three years ago. It's been three years since we really had a very substantive conversation. So yeah, three years ago we adopted what I started with. That's it. Okay, thanks. Go ahead, Cliff. Yeah, if the intent is to formalize and writing what we currently practice, I'm okay with that. If the idea is, is that we're going to have a member of the slate board assigned to every one of the committees to sit in on and make sure things are running smoothly and whatnot. I don't think we have the bandwidth to do that. And also, I think the committees would be insulting if we took that tack. Yes, like micromanaging. Exactly. So if the intent truly is just to formalize in writing in what we currently do, then I'm fine with that. I agree with Cliff. We need the opportunity to be more efficient in how we flush out details on things, acting members of the select board can have a good idea of what kind of questions might come up from other members of the select board. There is also, I agree with Denise's point earlier that we want to make sure that the opportunity continues to exist for everyone, not just members of the select board, but any interested parties to ask questions that hadn't been asked in the information gathering phase. Yep. I mean, our meetings are public and I saw something somewhere that says, our meetings are, I forget the wording, but anyways, I think people have always appreciated and I've always heard from the public how grateful they are that we engage in a conversation with members of the public as well as the select board. So I don't think that's really important in a small town to make sure that everybody has a chance to be heard. And I think we've done that historically. So I think I would not want to see that change. What I would wanna see change is making sure that the members of the board get to ask their questions and that we have all had that. I mean, I agree with you, Denise, but I don't agree with people in the public raising their hand and participating as though they have essentially have a seat at the table. We should be digesting the issue as a board first and that could include asking somebody in the audience or as a member of the public, we know has expertise to respond to the question, but we should have a chance each as board members to ask our questions, seek clarification and more information before we flip it to the public. Yeah, and I think we try to do that most of the time. Then sometimes the conversation, after somebody from the public has spoken, then that leads to more conversation from the board to, oh, yeah, I didn't think of that kind of thing. So I think it's a good, healthy dialogue. And like I said, I think people appreciate, I've been to other meetings where the members of the public, the only time they get to speak is maybe at the beginning or the end of the meeting. And I won't say where that takes place right now, but it is not well received. I agree completely on that too. And Sharon, I get what you're saying too. And I think that having that board debate as a priority is important. And I think this varies from issue to issue. Sometimes there are things that are really, really personal to the public. And so we probably, but maybe that's where we as a board invite them more openly all through the conversation to really bring that feedback in. What we don't wanna do is deny them that voice. They have every right to it. And frankly, I wanna hear it, especially I wanna make it hear it before I make any decision. I want to, I don't want it to be an afterthought because boy, I've been many times there have, I can't count the number of times of public hearings that I didn't think about what members of the public were saying. They can bring up some really good things sometimes. We just don't have the visibility from their perspective. So I wanna respect that. I also, we also don't want to, how we have that balancing line of how we impose discipline on that process. So it doesn't, we don't end up in there for a week. You know, that's what I get where, you know, so. Yeah, that's really it. And I think my point is mostly Denise, just to be really clear, you know, if people expect a conversation and what they get is hang on, please wait until the members of the board have had a chance to ask their questions. I think it's about being clear so that people aren't surprised about how we are functioning and how this meeting is gonna work. That's really, that's really where I'm coming from is wanting to hear from people, but wanting to have a structure that people can predict and then rely on so that they're not embarrassed by, you know, thinking, oh, this is a conversation and I can just interrupt, but no, that's not how it works. Yeah, and some people are. Some people will anyway. I was gonna say some people will interrupt and interject regardless, no matter how much. Well, right, but. Yeah, so putting that out there. No, I know, but if you've got board procedures that back you up and say, I'm so glad you're here, please wait. That'll help a little bit. I think what we do is, you know, the idea is that, I mean, I've been, you know me, I've spoken up at a million meetings like this and it can be distracting because it's also, the idea is to get the whole central idea of what you're presenting out there before you dissect something into pieces because you lose that continuity of thought. And I like that how you do that, it's how we do it as a board. We do that diplomatically because we don't want to alienate the public. You know, they're there for a reason. And if they're standing up and saying something, it's usually very important to them. So we want to be respectful of that. So I guess the idea is you say, look, let's hear the argument here, let the board get their head around this. And then we, I mean, that would be my approach. It's kind of in my experience with working in with municipalities and a lot of the work that's what has been most effective because it's respectful. You know, we work for them. We're making decisions for them, but we aren't them. So we have, you know, we can't know everything that they know. So it's how we treat them is important. And, you know, nothing's more frustrating than going to a meeting as a member of the public. And I've been to plenty of them. And you feel so disrespected and that what you have to say doesn't matter that I don't want us to be that board. And I don't think we are. So I think- Yeah, nor are we talking about being. Yeah, yeah. We're talking about having a clear discipline for how we work together and how and when we invite public participation. Yeah, I mean that was clear. Yeah. Cliff or John? Go ahead, John. Oh, I don't have any comment. Go ahead, Cliff. Yeah, no. Nothing further. You talked about the organizing the structured discussion. I'm trying to recall from reading the document earlier. I think you put that in another section. Didn't you share that the board would have a chance to discuss the issue fully before opening the floor up to the public? I did. We'll deal with that when we come to it. We'll deal with that section when we come to it then. Yeah, yeah, that's another place. I mean, to go back to a point Cliff made earlier, there are places where in this document that it does go beyond what I would describe as our current practice. I think that we have here and there sometimes more than others applied some of these practices. And but my proposal is that we is that and I end up putting them in writing as part of this is a way of kind of again, creating some discipline for ourselves to shift and apply those practices more frequent, you know, all the time. Yeah, not just as, you know, the occasional one offs and yeah, to create an awareness and an intention around it that can survive more than a conversation like John keeps saying, when you put it in writing it has much more sense of real, at least for me. Well, it kind of becomes a performance standard at that point. So you're looking, you have, you say, how are we, you can look back at it easily and say, how are we doing at any point? Any meeting and say, wait a minute, we're getting away, we're drifting. So. Right, and I also wanna make sure that, you know, we have some flexibility and everything isn't so, so stiff. Yeah, we need to be flexible at the same time. You're right. So we just have to, we have to garner that balance. So for tonight at 6.30 is, I guess I thought that we would maybe start looking at this document and go through it and then maybe we can all come back with comments and language that we agree with or some suggested changes, does that make sense to everybody? When you say come back, you mean like at our next meeting, Denise? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yep, that makes sense. So really we're just reviewing tonight, we're not. Yeah, I mean, I think we're taking it in. Right, we have to review it as a group, see what we agree with, what we don't, what suggested language we might, any one of us might have to make changes. So the next one is C3. As I recall, that one comes pretty, pretty squarely out of the VLCT, but, but. You added. Okay, you probably have done the comparison, Denise. So I'll let you get one. You added or the town. Oh yeah, that's a minor add, isn't it? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know the reason why it was added. I guess that's why I'm asking. Yeah, I don't, I don't even know if I could come up with it now. I think just to be, I guess, I mean the board, I think what I was maybe aware of is that we can't speak for Judy, you know, we can't speak for the Cemetery Commission. Right, I don't think we do or have. I'm not saying that we have. So I don't, I don't know why we would, I guess I had made that a note as to, we don't really need that, but that's just my thought. Okay, so that's three. Anybody else have comments on three? Okay, four, five, four and five, I think are what we already had. Oh, excuse me. What we already had. For some reason it's without and will not is an italics. I don't think I did that, but if I did, I have no idea why. Yeah, I don't know. I don't either. I'd have to go back and look at the original one. So seven, eight and nine. I didn't see any changes there. Did you make any changes there, Sherry? I might have added that the rules have to be re-adopted annually. I can't remember. Oh, okay. I think that's a good practice. I think that's carryover language seems to be called up. Yeah, okay. I think that's pretty standard from anywhere I've ever been too. So we, you know that. It's a reminder too, if nothing else, but it's also an opportunity to address problems that you've got that you've run into over the past year. So this is a living document. Yeah, yeah. And you know, it could be amended even throughout the year if there's a need. Sure. There's that. So seven, eight, nine. I don't see any change there. Cliff, did you do a side-by-side too? Did you come up with anything that's different? In this section, I think it was all the same. I did do an analysis of the general rules that we previously had, but I don't have that in front of me. Okay. But as I recall, these are part and parcel from what we had in there before. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, agendas. This is somewhat revised. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and over the years on and off, we've tried having items on the agenda have a time limit. Sometimes that works and sometimes it just doesn't because it's an issue that board members or the public are very passionate about. So without knowing sometimes how much time somebody thinks needs to be allotted to an agenda item, I just take a guess. No, I think that's good. And I think going back to the conversation that we were having a few minutes ago by having a point person who's working with somebody who has an agenda item. And so I'm going to tie together a couple of points that have been made. So I don't think that if we appointed somebody to be a liaison to the conservation committee, I don't, in my mind, that doesn't mean that that person has to go to every meeting. It just means that if Stephanie has an agenda item coming up, she might connect with whoever her liaison is and say, hey, I really want to come to the board to talk about blah, blah. And then you just, you know, you have that dialogue to say, Stephanie, what's the ask? So that offline, each of us is able to kind of coach if you will, say, we got to make sure we know what the ask is, what materials do you have? And then you can dialogue with poor Stephanie. I'm picking her, but it could be anybody and say, how much time do we think this is going to take? And Stephanie might say, well, I'm just going to present a question and the board can, it'll take five minutes. And one of us will be like, no, this is going to take half an hour. Yeah. And so we can say, Denise, this is a half hour item and I've worked with Stephanie to get it down as tight as I think it can go. That would be really helpful. Right, it would be really helpful. And like Rick said earlier, we can like be like, no, people are going to want to know these three things. Let's bandy this around. And then you digest really here, you know, and you guys have seen me ask for this in emails before, what specifically is the ask? If you got to make the motion and have the board say, I, in five minutes, what is the motion that you're looking for? And then you backfill with materials and information to support it. So, yeah, so Denise, you're absolutely right. But I think we can get so much better at this if we actually kind of focus ourselves on getting better at it. Yeah, I agree with both of you on that. If we do this right, it can really make, you know, make for efficient use of time and make these a lot more productive. I think that, and I agree with Cliff and what you said earlier, this doesn't mean we be at every, you know, commission meeting, cemetery commission meeting or fire department meeting. The idea is that you're the, you are kind of primary contact and you're really, you know, really in that, that first connection loop for that, and then we vet and get that information organized. And if there's a need or if there's a problem or whatever it is, we make sure before it hits this select board that it's ready for that discussion. I mean, no, I like that. That really cleans up these meetings, you know, so we can actually address the agendas that we've got. And then nobody would get an email from me saying, what are you asking for? I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. And to kind of further this methodology, if you will, if Rick is the, or Cliff is the liaison to the highway department, right? He's the one who chose to be the liaison to the highway department. If I get a phone call from any particular town's person complainant or someone who's happy or someone who has an idea or a project or something, a need, I can listen because all of us are independently elected and have people in authority, we gotta remember that. We gotta remember that. Absolutely. Not delegating down our authority. We're just trying to kind of make this a more efficient, more effective select board and more helpful select board to the people we represent. So let's say Katie Karnas calls me up and says, hey, I got a concern with a tree bow that's really low or a leaning tree over the road. I'm afraid it's gonna fall on my car as I'm gonna drive under it. And what do you think? I would say that's a concern of mine too. I share that with you, but I'm not the point person on the highway. I'm gonna follow up with an email to Cliff. Yep. I would really, before we get too far down this path, you better use your time, Katie, to call Cliff and he's the guy who works directly with the real commissioner. And that would be a more efficient way to go about it. Of course, now that Katie called me at the next select board meeting, if someone forgot, I'd say, oh, how'd that go? And Cliff or Alfred would say, well, this is what's going on. So that, and I think that's what we used to do. We used to have Sila Everton be the liaison to the highway department. That's how we did it. We kind of got off track from that because we have an employee part-time acting in that capacity to some degree, but it's not really a liaison from the select board. So that's kind of my thing. Can I say something on that? I partially agree with that, but I also think what we do is we don't push them to, that person's calling us because they know us or they know they're familiar. I would say what we do. Situation like that on a treat, we email, we go right to Alfred and Toby and right to that, if I'm the representative on transportation, then I'm copied on that too. And I would pipe right into that. But the idea is to get it where it needs to go. We are all elected. We're all trying to address their needs. So we don't have to create a bureaucratic ladder for things to go through. That's clearly one of those things that just needs to go to the road foreman. It needs to go to the road commissioner. And then obviously, whoever the transportation person is, if it turns into a bigger issue, that can then come back to the board through them. That way you're actually just addressing it right at the root. We aren't just kind of creating a response ladder. I mean, I think we can, does that make sense to you? Rick, if I can chime in. And I'm not trying to make it bureaucratic and everyone's gotta go zigzagging around. What I'm trying to do is to not have any one person be the go-to for everything. If someone feels more comfortable, maybe someone just loves Rick and he thinks Rick can do everything for him. And by the way, there are people that come to me about everything, because they want me to do everything for them. And I don't like that. I'm not, that's not my job. I'm one person here. And I want the people in the town to understand that there are different, there are people with different assignments on this board. So they don't funnel anything to one person. And I don't want everything, frankly, funneled to the chair. And I want the chair to be able to say, I've run the meetings, I set the agenda. And by the way, my assignments are these primarily. I wanna listen to you, but Rick Keane or Cliff Emmons, they're the transportation and highway liaisons. And so, I'm interested, I'll make sure I circle back to them, but it's a better use of your time and my time. And then that educates the people in town. So they're like, I'm gonna call Denise tonight. I'm pissed off at that, what happened, that highway truck with the plow hitting my tree. And then somebody else would say, oh, well, you know, I called her last time. She said that she's not the right person. It's really Cliff. So that's what I want the towns folks to also get educated as to not just point everything to one person. I want to spread the pain. And I think we, oh, I'm sorry, Sharon, go ahead. Well, I just, I wanna knit together what Rick and John are saying. What I would suggest to, and go back to what Denise said earlier, how we take care of people when they make a phone call to me, John, Rick, whoever. Absolutely, you hear them. You say, thank you, your knowledge, you listen. And then you say, and I would say, because you got the call, you take ownership. Don't send, don't make people call all over the place. You say, John says, thank you so much for calling me. I totally hear you, makes me mad too. What I'm gonna do, you'll see is I'm not the point person. I'm kind of not the lead on the board on this kind of issue, Rick is. So I'm gonna let him know that you and I spoke and I will copy you on an email that I said to Rick. So it's like a really warm, supportive handover to Rick. I like this, Sharon, after hearing you and John speak, it really spoke to me well too. I think there's also, I really liked the idea of training the public too, to look at the board as a board. And not, I think they, it is a collection of people that have responsibilities. So, and yeah, I stand corrected. I'd say, I've. I don't think you stand corrected, Rick. I think the idea that we're responsive to people that call us is important. And I will still, I always get tons of times, but various different phone calls or whatever. And I, you know, sometimes I refer them to Judy or to Alfred or, you know, whatever. But I think as elected officials, people who are gonna call who they know, who they're comfortable with. So I don't think there's a correction needed. I think that's just the way, that's just the way people work. That's just how people are. And some people are gonna keep doing that. And others will be very open and say, oh, I called Rick and he was really nice. But John was the one who really, you know, engaged with me on that issue. And, you know, people are gonna react differently, but nobody's gonna be mad. They're not gonna be mad. They're gonna feel like you heard them and you supported them and they'll get it. Yeah, it's about helping them out, you know, addressing what they're, yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, that sounds very good. Roger's having dog behavior issues. Sorry. All right, so it sounds like we're, you know, we're looking, we come at it from, however we come at it based on our personalities, but I think it sounds like we're all on the same page in the end result. So that's good. Yeah, I think so. I do too. It was great. Okay, now we're on agenda two. Cliff, did you, you hadn't commented on this, did you want to? Yeah, in a sec. Hey, Gail Graham, Gail Graham disappeared, right? Gail dropped out. Yep, she may come back in. Or she was having an internet problem, I'm not sure, any rate. Yeah, I think the direction that the conversation has gone is a good approach to this. Yeah, people are gonna call who they're gonna call. We can take that tact of gently educating them about how we have organized the board. And some people will get that and other people will continue to call whoever they're used to calling. Right. And that's as it should be because it's very important that we maintain open lines of communication and people have to feel that they can go to whatever line they're most comfortable using. Mm-hmm. Okay, good. Yeah. All right, number agendas two. And I'm trying to get used to Sharon's new language, this ask language. Oh, I didn't make that up, but thank you for giving me credit for it. Who made it up? I don't know, Denise, I can't tell you how many times people would look at me and say, what is the ask? What is your ask? All right, I'm not used to that. So that's why it was like, oh, this is new. Okay. So let me just clarify on this for my own since I'm not used to dealing with this board. So when we ask to have something put on an agenda, I mean, we're providing the background material to the chair at that point or what, or is this to ever, I mean, what background materials are we looking at? And I mean, who is that? Is that just to get it on the agenda or is that for the agenda? Assuming it's going to be there. I think it can work both ways. We have Google folders set up and I would expect that each board member would be responsible in reviewing the Google folder several days or the day before or something of a meeting to see what items are in there. Oftentimes, I'll forward items to Katie and ask her to put them in the folder, but anybody can forward her an item and say, could you please put this in the folder for such and such a meeting? The only thing I'm gonna need to know is about the agenda and how much time it might take. We can put things in the folder too. Yes, absolutely. And so that'll save actually Denise, that'll save your email suite that you have to do now to see is everything in there. We can put things in the folder and then on Sunday morning or afternoon when I'm going in to see what's there, it's actually there. Well, the question is, do you need a gatekeeper there for the folder? So because the agenda, the item has to get on the agenda before it goes in the folder, correct? So I mean, you kind of wanna funnel those items through Katie or somebody to make sure that we're even gonna be talking about it. Otherwise, that can get very cluttered with things that may or may not be on the agenda. Am I wrong in that or is that? No, I mean, you're sort of, I see what you're saying. So if you happen to put something in a folder and it's not ready for the agenda for this particular Monday night, we can always move it. But I'm assuming that I would like agenda items by the Thursday prior to a select board meeting. And that would be really helpful to have. Right, so we can put agenda items on know how much time it might take. And you might send me an email, say, could you put this on? I think it might take 15 minutes, but it might be an agenda item where we get a lot of public input. So maybe it's gonna take longer. And if it's something that there's a time limit on, which a lot of times we get items at the last minute. Sure, time sensitive, yeah. And sometimes it just, sometimes it just can't be avoided. Sometimes it can if people are paying attention and doing what they're supposed to be doing, it can be avoided. Sometimes it just can't, and I get that. So it's just the nature of the beast and that's where I go back to, we have to be somewhat flexible. We can't be so rigid what we do. We're dealing with people. There also are times when people ask for an item on the agenda and it turns out it doesn't have to be Monday night. And it just takes somebody saying, and again to me that would be like the liaison person, like what is this and when do you need it? And it's either learning, oh, it's not a big pride. It doesn't have to be Monday night or also in a conversation with the person who's asking. And I'm sort of thinking somebody outside of the board. It's really not ready. You are really not gonna get a decision on Monday night from the board with the level of information that's there now. So I really wanna help you deepen that so that I can pretty much promise you that with the next meeting, the board will be ready to digest it. And then Rick could say, on Monday night I'm gonna give him a heads up. I'm gonna give him a heads up that this issue is coming. So everybody can say, oh, heard about that. Never heard about that. Really interested, Rick. Will you fill me in before the next meeting? Whatever. Yeah, because I mean, some people are gonna be okay with that and some people are gonna be, no, I wanna talk to the full board and I want them to hear from me. So then we have to, and then that's one of those kind of flexibility kind of things that we have to have. You know, if you've got somebody really strident that, no, I want the board to hear from me. And again, I go back to re-represent the people. So we have to be a little flexible. Okay, so it is six minutes to seven and we are at, I think, number D4. Yeah. Is that where you're at? Okay. And again, I have started again trying to keep a list. I did that for quite a while and I didn't think anybody seemed to pay attention to it, but I've started keeping a list again, the future agenda items. That's something we all need to do better at. Yeah. Thank you. And yeah, I did my part this week. Do we, you know, one, oh, nevermind, I was going to say that's something. And once we have done our, we're not obviously not going to get to it tonight, but once we've done our, okay, what are the kind of the categories of issues? And we've kind of delegated things to each other, to ourselves, to people, then that'll be a natural, you got to step up and get engaged in the future agenda items because you own some of them. Right, and it's been my experience that sometimes people say they're going to do something and then they don't. Every single one of us is guilty. Yeah, we've all had that. Well, I just, usually in most of the meetings, you know, we, at the very end, we always, there's always an item, you know, future agenda items. And then it's actually in the minutes and you know, that can, Katie can post it to the list right there or not that we only come up with future agenda items in a meeting, but it's a good place to just ask a question. And so, I don't know if we want to. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, Denise, going through, I mean, when we, not right now, we've got pieces to put in place, but when we're really rocking and rolling and very, you know, doing this really well, you'll have a list of agenda items. We'll all, future agenda items, we'll all have that list. We'll all see the dates. Like this is queued up for the next meeting. And Denise, that's a great chance for you to look at Rick and say, Rick, you gonna be ready? Sharon, you gonna be ready? I know you, you turned things in at the last minute. Don't do that. Like we can actually create that conversation with each other. Well, we can almost create. I mean, doing that list, I mean, you can actually almost calendar some of it from it. I mean, it really becomes, yeah, I mean, I love this idea. So. Well, and you'll notice the last several agendas there's been a list of items and our agenda fills up pretty quickly. And I would like to take, have a chance at the end of meetings to review that list and see, you know, is this really gonna be ready for this meeting? And then I can make a note by it and say, okay, Sharon said she'd have it ready. Count and honor. Okay. Yeah. All right. So the only thing I had on this number five with posting locations, we don't, the East Calis store isn't open just yet. So we've been posting at the East Calis post office. So I think that should just get changed. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only comment I had on that. Oh, that's no big deal to change that. What are we on? Run number D, B six. Six. This is where it talks about agenda items. Yeah. I didn't make any changes on that section at all. So obviously that's been out there all along that we don't change the order and yet we do it all the time. Well, and sometimes it just, if everybody kind of agreed at the beginning of a meeting, you know, that's and that, and I go back to this is, we have to have some flexibility always and not be rigid. Okay. Meetings E, right? I think by the time we get through E one, we may not even get through this one. Maybe we should use the next two minutes to just take a break. Can I turn it on the changing of the agenda item order? Sure. I agree with Denise. We need to be flexible. Yeah. We're warning something for a vote. I think we need to stay in order and we should try to ascribe like a vote. We should try to maybe not the order, but we should put a time like seven 30. We're going to vote on the purchase of, I don't know, muddy pond, you know, 50 acre muddy pond parcel by the conservation proposed by the conservation commission. That, that shouldn't just be on the agenda. If we're going to allow us ourselves to move things around, which I think I agree with Denise, we should in order to be effective and efficient when someone's sitting in our room, we need to be able to move things around. But I think on items where it requires a vote, like on a critical policy matter or critical expenditure, that should have a time. And maybe we just always have those items at eight o'clock. And then we start, and then whether we get through the front part of our agenda, we go to that. And okay, we're at the eight o'clock vote section and we go through that. And then people know to show up and then they can weigh in and that way that informs our vote. I like that John. Move an agenda item and then someone shows up thinking, oh, that's at the end, but the person who's lobbing us for the vote says, I got to go to another meeting and move everything to the front and we have the vote. And the public is like, whoa, wait a minute here. So anyway, see you up there. I will offer, and actually John, I'm glad you paused us on that because I hope that when we leave and adopt this document whenever we adopt it, that it reflects things that we actually intend to be doing. So I think that I've heard that we really need two changes on this paragraph and I am volunteering to make them or draft language for us. That in fact, we want the flexibility to reorder the agenda upon agreement at the beginning of the meeting because that's what we do. So we should have that in here. And the only question I have is whether that's allowed under the statutes, but I think that it is and I will double check that. And then the other thing is John's idea of votes being, anything we're gonna vote on being scheduled at a specific time and I will try to draft that in as well. And I think that John, we can say something like I just said and still as a practical matter decide that all votes are gonna be at eight o'clock without violating the possibility that some are at 7.30 and some are at 8.45. So let me ask a question. So we have a discussion on an item that's on the agenda and we know we need to take a vote on it. We would discuss it and take a vote later. Well, or if you schedule the vote for 7.45 that's when we take the vote is kind of, I mean, I think this is something we're gonna have to play around with and see how we do with it. But it's worth trying. It's worth investigating. Let me take a stab at some language. I think my point is I don't mean on everything that we vote on, like I accept the orders, but you know, I mean things of policy or monetary consequence, budgetary consequence. And maybe budget of a certain magnitude even. Where people might be really interested in participating. Yeah, I get it. This is kind of that. And we may screw up, Rick. We may say, oh, who cares about that? And we get our heads handed to us and that's, we should expect that. And that's how we learn. It has to be the first time. Yeah, exactly. So that's what I'm thinking. It's not on everything. Okay, so it's after 7. So you'll send us some language, Sharon. I'm gonna play around with language in that particular one. Yeah, because that's gonna be, yeah, I'll noodle on that. I'm gonna excuse myself for a couple of minutes. Does everybody wanna take a five second water break? Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, I'd like to go get my water replenished. Hi, Rose. What's your supper? Hi, I just finished eating so that I could come in here for seven. Okay. So please go take a break. Yeah, we're just gonna fill our water bottles. Be right back. Okay. There's a big pot of homemade pad thai waiting for me to eat after our meeting. Well, I hope they leave you some. I do too. Around this house, I may not have. I may just be eating the pot lid. Hello, Gail. I'm trying to get back in here. How are you doing? I'm okay. How are you? Hi, Gail. Hi, Gail. Happy spring. So I'm hoping that we may not be doing, we had agreed some time ago to have Sandra give us her treasure or delinquent tax report updates at the last meeting of every month. So I don't know, she got the agenda so I don't know if she's in the, is she in the waiting room at all, Cliff? She is not. Oh, wait, she just popped in. Okay. And Toby's there as well. Excellent. All right. There's Ms. Sandra. Look at that beautiful flower behind you. It looks like it's going to eat you. Well, audio is not connected yet, Sandra. Hang on a sec. I'm Rose. Hi, Sandra. Hi. Hi, Sandra. Am I here? Sandra's got the woman eating plant behind her. That's my artichoke. I see that. Wow. Wow. All right, is everybody, is everybody back? I'm getting a drink of water. Um, Cliff, can you call up the Treasurer's Report, please? Sure. Oh, we went fast today. Yep, we're right on schedule. Nice. Oh, there it is. And Sandra does a beautiful job giving us memos to read ahead of time, see if we have any questions. So thank you for that. It's very helpful. So it's all yours, Ms. Sandra. Take it away. So we, I still have a, the bottom line is we are in great shape. Everything is on track, both in the general government side and the highway side. Again, in a municipal situation for those of you who are joining in, our budget does not get spent equally of every month. So there are a number of, first, a number of expenditures that are made primarily in the beginning of the fiscal year, which do skew the percentages spent at any particular time. So we're in great shape of, no, we did receive the George Road Grant reimbursement. Now we received that in March. You won't see that on this report, but that came in at roughly $130,000. So highway is also in great shape. The primary source of outstanding revenues is our delinquent taxes. And they are really coming in nicely. I'm happy to say we are, let's see, down to about $63,000. And I expect another several thousand to come in before the end of this month. So we're doing very well. Are there any, that's the report really, but I don't have any, at this point, it looks good. Any questions? Does that, what does that delinquent tax rate at this point look like compared to other years? Is it higher, given the COVID situation, or is this fairly typical at this point? Well, you know, Rick, that's a great question. And we are doing better this year than we have in past years at this point in time. Wow, that's impressive. It's counterintuitive. We, at the close of the tax effort this year, we had $15,000 less in delinquent taxes than we did in prior, than we did in the year before. Interesting. So it is interesting. Stimulus checks. Anything. Perhaps. Perhaps. Any other questions? Not on that. Up next. I thought Sharon had her hand up at one point. Oh, I didn't see it. Sorry. I did. But Rick asked the question I was going to ask and Sandra answered it, so I took my hand down. Okay. Good. We are, we're doing very well. Our grant reimbursements are coming in as well as reimbursements to, for election expenditures. We just received the last reimbursement from the Secretary of State's office. So again, you're not going to see that in the February report that will, that came in in March as well. So we're doing good. Great. All right. Well, I thank you. Yeah. Anybody have any, anything else of interest to update a song with that, Sandra? I just want to underscore Denise made at the beginning, Sandra, thank you for the preparing us so well for our connections with you. Good. Thank you. Well, if you can, if there's more I can do, if you need to see it differently, let me know. But this seems to be working. Yep. And I reminded everybody that we kind of decided sometime last year to have you on at the end of the last meeting of every month to kind of do an update. It seems to work out better than trying to do it at the beginning of the month. Well, I've done some changes with our checking accounts and how I'm able to get statements. So you will get your report very early in the month within the first seven days. That will give you plenty of time to review it until we get to the last meeting of the month. And also to shoot me any questions in between then and the last meeting of the month. Yep. You know, Sandra, can I ask one more thing before you go? And that is, you know, just, you know, looking ahead, are there, are there problem places kind of in the calendar year that you, or things that you would recommend where we, I need to pay them particular attention to things that are happening in that, I mean, they kind of happen on a calendar basis. If you know what I mean. I do. Well, you know, Callis is in a remarkably good position right now, Rick. We opened this fiscal year with a general fund balance of approximately $370,000. It wasn't long ago that Callis had a deficit close to $300,000. And the select board has worked really hard to work on that and to maintain a fund balance. So at this point in time, we are, and I'm not, I'm knocking on wood, maybe here is the better place. We are pretty much able to manage all of our cash flow, which really has to do with highway expenditures in the summer. So our fiscal year ends June 30th, right? And we don't start to collect taxes until September. So during that period of time, we have a number of highway projects and often other grant projects that in addition to our monthly expenditures that we budgeted for, that our fund balance manages to cover. So for right now, as long as we maintain a fund balance at that level, which is a level recommended by our accounting firm, Sullivan & Powers, we are very stable. And we're able to do what we want to do. And Sullivan & Powers recommended that we have a fund balance to carry us over. And this also saves us from having to take out a loan in interest of our taxes and not have to pay interest. So we save the town money in that way too. Yeah, that was, I kind of inferred, that was, yeah, I conferred that from what she said. That sounds great. So we do chew into that fund balance into that instead of borrowing short-term loans and low of tax receipts. Right, and that saves the town money. We don't want to pay interest. Yeah. So we've gotten ourselves in a really good place thanks to Sandra and the select board for their due diligence. Okay, is that it? So we can move on to Toby. I see Toby's vehicle stuck in the mud. Not my car. And not Callis Rhodes, right, Toby? Oh, yes it is. As of today. It looks like Middlesex. Nope, that's Kent Hill Road. Today? Oh wow. No, not today. Okay, Toby. I'm gonna leave you folks. All right, thank you Sandra. Thank you Sandra. You're welcome. Have a good night. Bye Sandra. Bye now. So Toby, you had sent us some documents ahead of time and Sharon and I, I think both asked similar questions. So if you could just give us a run through. Capital plan and schedule of indebtedness. Are you able to call those up please? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Okay, everybody should be able to see that. So this is just a look at the capital plan with all the new stuff that we've talked about. The one addition is looking at replacing one of the graders in a couple of years. That's really the only change that's in there. The other thing that you'll notice is there are, we have extended warranty on the forest trucks that we use all the time and the dates are there. So it reminds you when you need to replace those trucks before the extended warranty expires. Toby, which column is the date? Like the date, we don't want to, I'm sorry, spoon sheet me this. How do I know when the truck is? Each truck is listed on a line. It says Western Star 10 wheel and then the expiration date is in parentheses. Oh, okay. Thank you. And then, so for instance, Toby on that one, you're looking, we're gonna be paying it off or have paid it off. And you're looking to budget 39,000 in FY23 and 24 for the replacement, is that it? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Well, wait, let's go back to building on your question, so 39,000 to replace for FY23, 24 to replace the Western Star. And the replacement cost is 195. So what we're seeing is 39,000 is kind of the beginning of shipping away at the 195. That's correct. Okay. So would that be the actual year we replace it or is that planning and saving our little savings account to replace it? Because there's three... That would be the first year you would have to make a payment on a new truck. Because we're looking at three different payments than in FY23, 24. That's correct. Plus a greater payment. Well, you're actually looking at six payments. Well, yeah. Assuming we get a new spare truck, which I know Alfred is looking for. Seven, right? Seven? No, six. Oh, six, you're right. Yep. Because we're looking at 60,000 for a used grader. No, we're looking at a new grader. Oh, we are? The current one is used. Oh, that's what that means. Okay. So do we... I have a question in here. So we have off years where we're not paying. I mean, do we just want to... Even that, we've got these service year lives that we're doing automatic retirement stay on the Western Star 10 wheeler. That's on a seven year service life. And that's a good projected life for that. We don't distribute that cost over all those seven years. I mean, for budgeting purposes, just to have an even line item. We're right. So you can only go five years on financing for town vehicles unless you go to the voters. So you can do all of this themselves and put it in your budget without having to ask the voters to approve. If you go six years, then you have to bond it. I understand. I was just thinking, if it was not so much a bond, if you were capital funding for it, we're just annually saving and then we have it now. Well, you can put more money in than you owe each year if you want to build up a reserve fund, but that's up to you. I mean, right now we're looking at, next year you should have had 104,000 and you only put 62 in. And the year following that, you're going to have to put in 175,000, which is 75,000 more you should have put in this year. Well, I'm always a big advocate of annualized reserve funds. I mean, that's your most efficient and the least costly way to budget this equipment replacement, and then plus you're gaining interest on the money. So you're, I don't know the way the rest of the board deals. I guess that'll be a discussion for a later day, but. But again, these are just planned numbers. They're not actual numbers. The only actual numbers are the 2021, which are essentially what we owe right now. And we're going to trade some trucks in. So the actual purchase price may be less by 20,000, but there's no way to know that. So these numbers reflect the worst case scenario if you didn't have anything to trade in. This is what you would expect to have as a liability for lease and or loan savings. Sure, I get that. Yeah, yeah. Toby. Toby. It's just a map to show you what the range of cost is going to be if that's... And again, the most important thing is the date that the seven year extended warranty ends that you have to plan for. That's the driving factor because we've already had an experience where we went 30 days past the extended warranty and we blew a motor and it cost us $15,000. Yeah. So you need to look at those expiration dates as a wall not to go over because you take a huge liability if anything fails on the truck at that point. Absolutely. Don has a question. I just, well, I'm looking at replacement cost on the two graders, once 300, once a hundred. I don't, can you clarify what this means? Yeah, it means that we will eventually, that we would hope to buy a brand new grader as opposed to a used one. Then what's the other 100,000 one? That would be another replacement, you know, another used replacement. So you're looking to buy, purchase down the road, a new replacement and then a good quality used one. That's correct. Both of these. Correct. I just want to point out and I'm not, this is not a disagreement with annualizing. I just want to point out that I just don't want, I agree with the budget planning process and I think this is good and healthy. I just don't want to create momentum. And I understand the insurance running out puts us in a bad state, but we should also look at what it would cost to extend an insurance plan for a year or two if we get in a financial pinch. I just worry that if we keep putting money in the bank, we feel the need to spend it, you know? You mean warranty, John, right? Well, no, I'm talking about two things. Extending warranty. I'm talking about the warranty running out, forcing us to buy another one, rather than us simply extending the warranty. Hey, do it a look around, have the mechanic check it out and say, you know, this girl's got another two years in it. Or maybe that's a bad idea because maybe we're at that critical junction where the value drops so precipitously, we take a beating. But I just, we want all that weighed out. So when I vote to buy a new truck, if that's how it comes down, that I know it's truck really needs to be replaced, not just because this is our rhythm and because we got the money and or because, wow, this thing runs great and we think this thing's gonna go another 150,000 miles but, you know, the warranty ran out. Well, maybe we can extend that warranty for five grand and that'll stave off, we get another year out of it. So I just want, I want, you know, junctures. I want opportunities to consider other options rather than constantly buying trucks no matter where we are financially as a town because there are other things outside of the highway budget and even things that be on our control like school taxes, recessions, pandemics, towns getting older, stuff like that. I just want us, and I also want us to take another look. We bought these big trucks. Our trucks are bigger than they've ever been and we were sold on the idea to do this and I'm still sold on this idea right now. That we got bigger trucks, so there's less return runs to pick up material but I've heard and we have a lot of concerns that these trucks are getting bigger and it's pressing us to widen our roads. This is a concern across town and I don't know if that's true or not but it's, and people are concerned about that and they're concerned about increased damage to trees by the wider trucks and the wings and stuff hitting. They're not wide. I just want to put all that, that's what's going through my mind. Let Alfred respond to that because he knows what he's going to tell you. So. Rick had his hand up first. Go ahead, Ray. Go ahead, Ray. I mean, I was just going to speak to this, John, a little bit. I worked with all the like 30 municipalities on this in the past and retirement life for things like plow trucks, dump trucks is five to seven years. And for a reason, there is the cost benefit of downtime, lost manpower maintenance on it when things are down and then the cost of the fix overrides and then the lost trade-in value. All those add up to giving you a negative return on value. I mean, I actually think these numbers look really good and I know it's hard to predict because you don't know, what we do know is that these trucks, even our big dumps are taking quite a beating with plow frames on them and everything. So they become decrepit in a hurry. I mean, I think Alfred would back that up and just about any road foreman around the town. So if you can extend those warranties affordably, maybe you're at get a year or two, but I think that those warranties are built around failure. Let me tell you, they don't like to lose money on extended warranties. So they tend to be at the edge. And so that said, there's a lot of people look into this across the state and across the country. That's why they have these retirement cycles. Rick, you can't generalize a gravel road town that's Chicago or Burlington, where they're not. Every road is salt. I'm talking about Addison County and gravel roads, most roads in Vermont are gravel. I was just saying that you said across country. The other thing is, and I've lost my trend of thought on this and I apologize, let me come back to it. Okay, it's almost 7.30. I know Alfred wants to speak. Does the board have any? Before I forget, I got it. Okay, go ahead. It was pointed out that we ran a truck beyond warranty and we took a licking. The reason that truck failed after warranty was, it had an inherent defect, a severely inherent, a severe defect. It was so severe that they stopped making that truck and nobody wants it. And we were lucky to get rid of it with a new motor. If that were a freight liner truck with a new motor, they would have been lining up at the door. But it was that model year, the 2012 international junk box that is anyone looks on the internet and it's the etsel of plow trucks. But John, let me just. So I just don't want that to be used as a poster child for why now we gotta always buy new trucks. And I just wanna know, Rick, you may be 120% right on the timing and all this. I just, I've only heard anecdote. I've not ever heard, I've not heard anecdote on what it costs for an additional year of insurance. If it's huge and it makes no sense economically for a town, then we obviously don't do that, but I wanna see that. If a truck clearly isn't gonna, is in bad shape and we should make sense, get rid of it, I wanna know that, I wanna see that. If the trade in price drops precipitously more than the normal trend line, if it suddenly does a massive dip after the magic year of seven, I wanna see that. And then that'll make me, it'll easily, that will result in me it being an easy vote. I just don't like anecdote and making decisions on anecdote. And I've been on this board long enough that I found that anecdote is as much wrong as it is right. And I've made a lot of bad decisions on this board, trusting anecdote. And at the end of the day, when it goes bad, where the buck stops here, and I wanna make sure that everything I do is based on the fact, these figures. That's it. Okay, so- Can I jump in here just for a minute? Just a minute, just a minute, Alfred. I just wanna put it out there that it's 730. We are only got through looking at the first document that Toby wanted to present. So Alfred, if you have a quick relevant comment that's gonna, you know. Well, normally when I speak, it's relevant to these. But anyways, to the warranty that you refer to, John, we buy the biggest warranty that you can. We buy the extended seven-year warranty. So you can't buy a 10-year warranty or an eight-year warranty. We buy the longest life warranty that you possibly can buy. So when that warranty is gone, it's best to see that the truck is gonna go because then now you're not covered for the big expenses. But I think that's a fact that you need to know. The warranty, we already buy the longest-term warranty that is available. So there are no extension plans outside the dealer plan? There's nothing out there in the world? Well, if you're gonna fish in and see what happens. So I wonder if we should reschedule. I wanna know that. That's what I'm talking about, Alfred. That may be a fact. And I'm not discounting what you're saying, but I wanna know that that is a fact. I want to know that we have looked out there and all you'll ever get is a seven-year warranty or I found a way to extend that, but it costs such a crazy amount that it makes sense. I just wanna see that and I'm happy to move forward. I just don't wanna anecdote anymore. We have looked at that and it is very expensive when you try to buy a warranty beyond the seven-year mark. Right, so show me the number. That's all. Okay, so- No need to offensive. I have no problem showing you that number when it comes time to buy a vehicle. I will certainly do that. Okay, so- Perfect, we're not there today. We're just looking at a capital. I know, I know, I'm just- Okay, so can we move? John, you make all really good points, but in order to move the agenda items along, maybe we need to schedule a time to have further discussion on this. Sharon, you had your hand back? Yes, two things. One, I think this is just an FYI. So all good points, but we don't have to hash this out tonight, right? This is just an FYI, Toby? That's correct. Okay, and then this is a good thing in my view for John and Rick to go offline with Alfred and Toby and whomever else and hash some of this out offline so that if there's, when we bring this up again, their detailed questions are answered because it's these guys who are gonna answer, Alfred, Rick, John, Toby, he's right, that's my thought. So rather than have this item as another agenda item in any near future, I would love to know that John and Rick have hashed it out with Alfred offline and they can tell us, yeah, we followed that thread to the end of it and here's what we learned or here's what Alfred learned. Somebody's gonna learn something. Okay, so can we move on to the next item that Toby had at least? Yeah, what do you wanna do? Where's Cliff? I'm waiting, Cliff's gotta call it up, so. When you wanna see next. We did the capital plan and schedule of the indebtedness. Did we do both of those? We did not talk about the indebtedness. Okay, let's give that a quick look. Okay, give me a minute. Is that a separate document? Toby, or is that in the capital plan document as well? It was a separate document. Okay. Well, just to quickly tell you what was going on. In this past year, we added the 2019 10-wheeler lease payment and that was paid out of the highway equipment fund, not the budget. So if you look at the bottom line, it says budgeted 103. Yeah. But the indebtedness was 138. So essentially you were underfunded in the budget by 34,000, which this time came out of the highway equipment fund, because there was money there. In next year, there is no money in the highway fund and you didn't budget it. And so you're gonna be short $41,000 for the lease payment on the 2019 Western Star, just so you're aware. Okay, thank you for making us aware. I'm looking at this screen to see if any board members have comment or question. Okay, next up, annual financial plan. And I know we do this every year and Rick is probably familiar with them because he's worked with towns before. So if we could have that to look at. And this rarely changes because we don't really changes. It's the amount of, this is the one with the amount of miles of class one, two and three roads, correct Toby? No, this is a document that's created by Shauna. Oh, okay. So once you guys set your budget of $846,000, I'll wait till it comes up. Oh yeah, this is the one that has class one, two and three. Right, but that just shows you what the state is gonna pay you for those mileages. Right. And then the town tax funds are gonna be $688,000. And all she does below that in expenses is just divide things up by category and still totals $853,000. It's just re-sorting all of the line items and adding some together under topics that they decide how to put together. And it's a state thing and not a town thing. So it's literally the same number you came up with for your budget. You're just signing off on the fact that that's what the number is. And that the state is using our number and not changing it. That's correct. So what we just need to do here is sign, sign. That's correct. All right, does anybody have any questions on the annual financial plan? All right, so we need a motion to approve and sign said documents. I make the motion that we approve Toby's presentation of the this is the compliance certification of compliance for town roads. Is that the one weird? Is that the time? Annual financial plan. Annual financial plan for the town roads and that Rick Keane be authorized to sign on behalf of the board. We'll second that. Okay, you ready to vote, Rick? Hi. I'm an I. Let's see who's next Sharon. Hi, Cliff. Hi. And John. Yes. All right, road and bridge standards. Well, that'd be sent to me for a signature drive to go down to Dempter dollar. No, you can just take, just go to the Google folder and print it off. And then sign and scan. Sign and scan, yep. And you're gonna have more things to sign before the night is over. Okay, so, yeah. So sign off on financial plan. Right, and then probably these other two documents as well, road and bridge standards. So that's just a copy of the road and bridge standard that you approved last year. Yeah. And I only send it to you as a reference. It doesn't need to be signed because you already signed it. It's in place. And it is the document that you're certifying in the next document, the certification of road standards. That says we have one. And you do. And it has the date that you signed it last year. And all you need to do is sign that document. And the reason for that is the state needs that in order to allow us to be eligible for grants. If we didn't have road standards, we would not be able to get grants. So Toby, how often do we have to actually update, review and formally update those road standards? I don't think that there's a time limit on it, but as state standards change, you might have to review it. So can't we say that we have reviewed it because it's here. We all had a chance to look at it. You're not telling us it needs any changes. That's correct. And then we can note in the minutes that we reviewed it on March 22nd, 2021. And Rick could put his little initials in the bottom reviewed, select board reviewed. Just so I don't even know that he has to initial it. If, I mean, I think signing off on the next document, you're saying that you have reviewed it or else you wouldn't be signing it. So can we maybe we could look at the next document and make that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See where it says February 24th. You'll note that's the date that we signed it, that other document. Yeah, I'm with you. The paper trail is there that we looked at it again. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is the, so this I need to sign off on. Well, we have to make a motion. So I'll make a motion that the select board approve the certification of compliance for town road and bridge standards and network inventory. And that we have reviewed the previous road and bridge standards and authorize Rick Keen to sign on behalf of the board. Because normally, this is a little aside, normally the full board would sign. So what I've been doing when I sign is I sign it my name and say on behalf of the select board and usually attach a copy of the page of the minutes where the motion was made because it's not really feasible for us all to try to sign some of these documents. So that's my motion. Would anybody like to second it? I'll second that. Okay, for the discussion. All right, Rick, time to vote. Aye. I'm an aye. Sharon. Oh, I almost went to Rose. Cliff. Aye. And John. Yes. All right. Very good. Thank you, Toby. These guys again, I will scan this, sign it. Do I send that back to you, Denise? Or do I go to Katie with this or? I think I'll send you an email address. You need to send it to Shauna Clifford of district six. VTrans. Okay. We want to also want to copy though in the town hall, correct? Or you- In the town office. Yeah. In the town office, I meant. Yeah. Correct. I can talk to you tomorrow about the process. Okay. We'll do that. Okay. Denise, the other thing you did ask about the inventory of our roads. Yeah. Do we have that? We do. In 2017, we did a road erosion inventory with the assistance of Central Vermont Regional Planning. We were one of the first towns to do it. Is that the one that Dan Courier helped with? He did help a little. Yeah. Central Vermont Regional Planning. Yeah, okay. That's what I'm remembering right then. Right. We have it and we're up to date and we're up to date on everything that's required by the state. Okay. Excellent. All right. Thank you so much, Toby, appreciate it. Okay. See ya. Thank you. Cliff? Just waiting. Goodbye to Toby. Oh. Okay. Alfred, I didn't get anything from you about agenda items. So I assume that you really don't have much but we do have the curb cut application from Gail Graham and I already asked you if you had gone out and checked it out and you said yes, you're ready to report to the board on it. Is there anything else quickly that you'd like to give us an update on? You mean other than the curb cut? Yeah. Yeah, I just need to just briefly ask you about green up day. They are asking to extend it for another hour. So instead of closing down at 12, they're gonna close down at one. What day in May? What day in May is green up day? It's the first, May 1st. May 1st. So the question for the board is then, I assume that you are. Are you okay with the extra hour of two men being on overtime essentially? How about I put this on for, it's not till May 1st. So we have a couple of select board meetings. I'll put this on for a quick something. Well, we're having a meeting. I think they decided on March 31st. So I was hoping to have an answer for them about that. I mean, essentially it's just two hours, two men or two hours, you know what I mean? So it's a total of three hours then? No, there's only two men and they want it. They want to extend it one hour. They usually shut down at 12. They want to go until one. Right, but the total time, it's two men, but it's usually two hours per man. Now they're looking at three hours per man. Oh no, they start at nine. We're always there at nine. So nine to 12 is the normal, but they want to make it nine to one. And I mean, I know I've been in charge of overtime all winter long and I just figured I would run it by you because it's green up. It's a little bit different than overtime in the winter. So it's a pretty quick yes or no is really all I'm looking for. Do you have two people to do this? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we do it every year. So we didn't do it last year because of COVID, but. Okay, I was absent last year too, so. That's right, you weren't sharing. So what I'm understanding is that what we're being asked for is two people from the road crew who usually staff the, support the green up effort somehow. And so really what we're approving the overtime is basically the thing. Yeah. Yeah, normally we don't because it's always been a standard set hours, but this year, it's because there's, I think Alfred's asking this time because we're adding another extra hour. Right, they wanna extend the length of time that green up is brought to the depot. So it's two hours of additional overtime over what we're used to seeing. Right. Yes. Okay, so I'm willing tonight to make the motion that we authorize a total of, is it a total of eight hours of overtime? Four, yeah, total of eight. A total of eight hours of overtime for town staff to support green up on May 1st. Yeah, that's it. Well, yeah, so far. You know, I don't, can we get a second on that motion so we can discuss it? Cause I don't agree with it. Yeah, I'll second it. Okay, further discussion? I don't think we, I think it's the road commissioner's job to decide, you know, what it takes to get the job done. This is our standard thing. This is what we do every year. And I don't want people standing at the landfill all the time to go or you're not gonna get paid. I mean, the job, man, who knows? This is just what happens. Green up will be just like a snowstorm. I agree with that too. That's another way to move this item along. No, I will approve it. I will approve it. This is Alfred's job. I don't want to do this. I'm willing to, what, am I allowed to? Do I rescind my motion? Yeah, yeah, I rescind. Yeah, me too. All right, I agree with that. Off you go. I guess I should have just made you aware instead of asked for permission. That's right, for forgiveness, not for permission. Okay, so on to the next very quick one. Town of Woodbury came to me asking if they can borrow the operator at some point this spring. They have blown their motor in theirs because it's actually the same year as ours. And they've blown their motor they're gonna be without a grater. So they asked me if they can borrow hours off and on through month season. Again, I think that's your call. If our roads are being, are okay and we don't need it. The only thing, I assume this is how it works. I don't know for sure. If something breaks, they gotta pay to fix it. They gotta pay to fix it. That's right. They're not gonna replace a motor if it's worn out, right? No, no, right. Well, it's gotta be within reason. And it's the same thing as like the mutual aid that we talked about this winter. Yeah. The effects that came up with COVID and whatnot. You just share and you work it out and we will come up with some sort of trade. They'll haul gravel for us from a couple of days or something depending on the use that they use our grater or whatever will make some sort of deal. Again, I just want you guys to be aware so that if you see our grater grading Woodbury roads you'll have an understanding as to why. Well, I think what you can do Alfred if they borrow it, shoot us an email and say, I loan the greater to Woodbury because don't forget there's broke down. So if we get any calls, we can say, oh yeah, we were aware of that and saying instead of sounding like, oh gee, I don't know. Right, right. But I think it's your call. Between the Woodbury fire department serving us and now the greater, I'd like to make a simple motion that we merge cows with Woodbury and just get done. There you go, it could be done. All right, so can we move on to Gail Graham's curve cut? Yes, I'm ready. All right, so there we go. And I held off on putting this on the agenda till Alfred had time to go and take a look at the site and see what if any recommendations he might make. Can you give us a little update Alfred? Yeah, the site distance is all fine. It's on a straight straight away and you can see for almost ever both ways. We have a culvert, a cross culvert that crosses Adamat Road that is uphill from the curve cut. So, and just because of the photography of the land it doesn't need a culvert at the curve cut. But because of our culvert being above there's going to be water running out of our culvert and it's going to interfere with their new road, their new driveway. So I'm recommending that they put a culvert in their driveway which means who's they? Who's they? They is whomever is going to build the driveway. Okay. It's just a recommendation so that their road don't get washed out by town water. Their culvert will be out of the right away. So it won't interfere with the town at all. It's just a recommendation. So it's not a requirement. Alfred, please don't take this the wrong way. But if you're going to be competing on this job. I am not competing on this job. Okay, then that's perfect. Then there's no issue. But if ever you were to, which is nothing wrong with that we just need to go in advance. That's all. I have no inclination of working on this job at all. Okay. Okay. No. Point well taken. Thank you, John. So this is, I notice on the application that it says it's for agricultural use. Okay, I can't speak to that. I mean, I didn't fill this out. I don't know why that is. So is it a driveway or is it agricultural use? Is Gail with us? Yeah, she is. I can even see her. Okay, at the, right now it is agricultural. I'm in the middle of doing surveys. The survey was done today. Ultimately there will be a house built on the other side on my property. And it gives access to that building. But I'm in the middle of trying to get permits and everything. So it's going to be eventually, it's going to first be used for agricultural and then there's going to be a house built there. Is that what I'm understanding? It's going to be both. Both. Okay, so. Ultimately when I can get a permit done, if ever, there will be a house ultimately. When you say permit ever, is that a town? When you say permit, are you talking about the curb cut? Are you talking about a town permit for the creation of an additional lot? I'm talking about a town permit. I'm talking about two different things. Permit for the development and for the house. So I'm trying to get a permit now to have a house built there. So does this change the whole process? I'm not sure. How many lots are there right now? Pardon me? I'm just, so right now there's your house, Pat, Vinnie's, is there somebody, I mean, is this? I can't understand here. I guess I'm just trying to understand. So it's the creation of another lot to build a house. Ultimately. And so how many lots have- The reason I've said agricultural is that's what it is right now. Access to, there's a lot there. A vacant lot right now that it's going. Denise, can we just maybe note, you're assuming, and I'm gonna say, I'm assuming, and that this could be a flawed assumption, but for the sake of discussion, assuming we're gonna, we otherwise are willing to approve the curb cut with Alford's recommendation. Then can't we just note in the minutes that we are asking Gail to correct it from agricultural to residential because the purpose of the curb cut is so that there can be another house. Gail, that's what I'm hearing. So what do you want me to do? I would just change it to residential right now. Yeah, I think you need to change it to residential. So do I need to resubmit this? No, I think we can, I think we can all, if that's what is really, if that's what is actually happening, then I think we can make a note and I've got the curb cut application right here. We can make a note that it is we can just change it. Well, if the board isn't willing to do that. I would suggest Gail, I'd bury these Gail, send us an email confirming that she'd like that change, but I don't know, it's already signed. We can't be changing an application. That's true. Well, Ken, can we do it this way though? If Gail sends the email when Rick is printing it off to sign it, can he make a margin note that says per select board discussion on 322 and follow up email from Gail on 324. This curb cut is actually for a residential. And then those two, again, we could have a page from the minutes as Denise said earlier, and Gail's email. So the pay, I think isn't the point for the paper trail to be really clear. Yeah. And I mean, we don't, alls we do is rent the curb cut. We don't have anything to do with a permit for a driveway. That has to go through zoning or if it's the creation of a fourth lot, then it's up to, and whether or not that has to go to zoning or DRB, that's not our call. Our authority only lies in granting the curb cut. We just, we don't wanna create problems for Gail down the road because it says agricultural and somebody finds that little tiny thing to make us think about. Yeah. And in the long run, it saves Gail happen to go back or be in violation. Can we just approve it as a residential curb cut and Gail can fill out another paper just so that it's clean? Well, we can either do it that way and have Gail just resubmit the first page. So do I have to pay another $50? No. No. No, no, no. $600, Gail. The cleanest way would actually be for Gail to submit the front page of the curb cut application and just say corrected on it. And we would use the same permit number, the same, you already paid the fee, we're not gonna charge you another fee. We put it on the agenda for next meeting really quickly just to approve it and it's done and it's done right. So are you going to email something to me? All right, I'm not clear on what you want me to do. I will send you back the application that you sent and I can scan this page. So what we're asking you to do is re-complete the application for a curb cut permit and instead of checking residential where it says new curb cut, you're gonna check whichever one it is. It's residential. Of agricultural, you meant, yeah. No, it's going from, it's not gonna be agricultural. It's gonna be residential. So it's not a big deal. And she just, can't she just mark it up and then initial it? Isn't that legal? And then just get it back to you. She could do that too. Instead of having to fill the whole thing out, I'm just saying, just to say, fill in the whole thing out again. Yeah, well, the point is that Gail needs to do it. We can't change. Oh, that's what I'm saying. She can do it. Just pretty much just mark a different check, the residential mark and then initial it. Yeah, right. So that the change is on the first page and then she doesn't have to do that whole fancy mapping that she spent a lot of time with, I'm sure. Well, that's why I said the first page, Alfred, if you've heard me. Right. Just fix the first page. You don't need to do the map all over again. And that way it's done right. We have a clear paper trail and we can approve it the next time we meet. Next week, next meeting. Okay, it's fine with me. I don't have a dog in the fight. And I don't think Gail's not gonna slow you down any, is it? It's to your benefit, Gail, to have the paper trail be correct. It really is. I understand. It's just. I know it's frustrating. I'm totally frustrated. Yeah. I'm just beginning this. So you just send me an email and tell me what to do. Okay. I'm confused at this point, okay? All right. I didn't lie about it. At this point in time, it is agricultural. Okay? So I didn't. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's not that. You just have to make sure it's correct. That's all when we. Yeah. That's only. Right, and this gets, and just say, no, this gets recorded in the land records. So that's why you want it to be right. So that if ever something comes up and they do a title search, the land records are accurate. I won't belabor this. I misunderstood, okay? Okay. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Gail. Thank you, Alfred. I had a question. Yeah, Rose. Rose has been in it forever. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't see it. On that application, I thought that it said Leonard Road. Does the application say the curb cut is actually on Adamant Road? That might be something else that needs to get corrected. What is on what? It shows it on Adamant Road. I think what Gail did is it says her mailing address. Does it say it? Okay. It's on Adamant Road. I think that part's fine. No. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying, Rose. Okay. At the top. It's up in there. It says. My address is Leonard Road, okay? Right, but where it says. Can you scroll to the cliff? Yeah. What is the distance? If you scroll down to the map, it shows it on Adamant Road. Yeah, no. Yeah, I see. I think. Yeah, no, I'm talking about at the top in the language part, not in the map, at the very top and the first page. Does it say that this is access on Adamant Road? Okay, we can't have everybody talking at once. That's related to the distance to the nearest intersection. Gail did exactly right. The nearest intersection with a town road, the nearest town road intersection is Leonard Road. And so that's what Gail measured out from Leonard Road that is exactly correct. All right, okay. I think we're, is everybody good to move on? Yeah. Okay, let's talk about, first off, thank you to Scott and Pam and Michelle and Christian and who did I miss? So we're not gonna be able to get into this in depth tonight. And I mentioned that to Scott and Pam. I had, I didn't know how much trying to put on the agenda. So we wanna keep this, this brief John asked me to put it on me, so I did. And here we are. So Cliff had Scott sent a picture that he wanted Cliff to bring up. And that will probably generate the discussion that we've only got like 15 minutes tonight. Well, and ultimately what we're aiming to do is just appoint a couple of people to deepen the issue and bring it back to us. Eventually. Yeah. So yeah, I can just give a little snippet that we at CVRPC are here to help the town in any way we can. And I invited Michelle Braun from Friends of the Winooski River who deals a lot with culverts that might have issues with aquatic organism passage, which means literally that the fish can't swim upstream through the culvert. And this particular culvert at where Kent Hill Road crosses Peak and Brook was designated as having what we call an AOP barrier or an issue. So Michelle was gonna talk a little bit about her, some funding that she might have, but she might not have. So I'm not really sure where that stands exactly, but also this is, this was 1984. Scott gave this picture where this culvert blew out because it was jammed with woody debris. You guys know this was before my time. So a lot of you folks know more about this than I do, including Christian who is actually living in Calis at the time as a kid on the school bus seeing this. So Christian can attest to this as well. And Christian's our new transportation planner. So if it looks like there would be, I'm not the transportation planner. So I don't know what funding we can maybe bring from VTrans, but that's sort of why Christian is here tonight. There may be funding available from an emergency management perspective as well. And that would be Grace Vincent at our office. And I've kind of looped her into this as well. But ultimately, for the emergency management funding it would be 25% match for final design for the culvert. So we're here just to kind of listen and support you guys. And Michelle, do you want to just talk a little bit? Wait a minute, wait a minute. I want to, John wanted this issue raised. So I want to give John board member a chance to speak because I can see this blossoming into a really long discussion and we don't have the bandwidth tonight to do that. So I'd like John to speak. I remember this issue from way back. Scott was on the board when this came up as well. So some of us have a history on this, but if John could speak. Well, no, I mean, this culvert's in need of changing. It's really undersized on the main stem there. And so the idea as Scott articulated was to save aside that larger culvert and move it to that Kent Brook, is that what it's called? Replace Kent Brook culvert with the main stem culvert. And then what are we gonna do? Put a squash culvert or footing in a bridge. I don't know what we would be doing, but we need to perform these upgrades. And it's overdue and the fish passage is important. But also we need to further protect our investment in that building, the town hall. And so I think this is something that Rick and I might wanna work on if that works for the select board. Yeah, I guess I'd like to see John and Rick working with Scott and whoever to come up with something and bring it back to the full board for discussion and questions. Like I said, we're not gonna, I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear that we weren't gonna really have time to flush this whole thing out tonight. But we obviously aren't gonna be able to do that because I could see this taking a really long time and it would be a good discussion and everybody wants to learn. The full board needs to understand and be aware of all the good things that we need to know about this. Does anybody agree? Yeah, I agree with the sentiment. And this is consistent with the organizational meeting we had earlier. And so looking to John and Rick as the guys with the background expertise to kind of flush out the issues and bring us back something that is digestible. And I would say inviting them to go so far is making a recommendation not to the exclusion Denise of leaving information out but distilling information down and saying when we follow all of our threads this is our recommendation, but here's some other options. Yeah, and they need to consult with the road commissioner. Yeah. That's what I would suggest for tonight that we anoint Rick and John to work on this with Scott and CDRPC and the road commissioner and come up with a plan or a timeframe of bringing this back to the board. That makes sense, John and Rick. Yeah, I mean, I'd wanna see what the priority in this in terms of, I mean, I don't know the history on this culvert and I don't know how much of a problem this has been, whether it's undersized and has it been a failure problem for us or is it, or relative to the other critical culverts in town that we've got this, I'm guessing this has been a very expensive project. So we have to look at what we aren't doing because we're doing this if it's not a problem. I really wanna know what the problems really are. What our risk is for the time being. And then we attack this at the right time. Well, if it's gonna take funding then we have to plan ahead and budget for that. Yeah. So I think from my perspective as one board member it would be kind of a timeline or an outline of what you're gonna, you know, meeting with the people that we talked about and coming up with, you know, having an idea of how much this is gonna cost, what the town would have to put in, what's the timeline to do it, Alfred needs to be involved to work with, you know, the road crew, what that means as far as their time commitment, if it's the road crew that does this. But I wanna give John and Scott an opportunity to quickly weigh in. John. I have nothing to weigh in, I just did. Okay. All right, Scott. Thanks, Denise. Michelle and Christian, it's very nice to meet you even though it's by Zoom. And I do hope we can get together in a more focused way on just this issue. It's actually comes out of the study for the town hall, the town hall task force put the flood status of the town hall as the number one issue before we could go ahead with fixing up the town hall. We were able to get funding for a study by Melona McBroom of this and that study really has, Rick, I hope you get a chance to take a look at it. I've got it, I've glanced at it already. I haven't gotten to read it in full details. So this issue has kind of been going dragging along since 2011. And the problem is that it's kind of fallen between the cracks a number of times. And again, thank you Denise for giving us a chance to bring this up again. It's going to take a long time and a lot of planning. And it does, it's not the normal kind of thing that Toby and Alpha are able to get grants for. And that as because of that, it's sort of fallen off of our radar. But I think with Rick on and help from CVRPC, we can put this in its proper place and have a plan hopefully getting it fixed before this happens again. And you know it's going to happen again. Thanks a lot. Look forward to the next. Thank you Scott. You're welcome. Bye-bye. Cliff, do you have any comments on this? I agree with the approach that's been outlined. Okay. So we should let the minutes reflect that John and Rick will be working on this with in cooperation and consultation with the road commissioner, Scott, CVRPC and Michelle, whose agency I already forgot. And when is he Rick? Friends of them. Friends of them when he's friend Rick. Right. And nice to meet you Christian and Michelle. Thank you so much for your help. Do you folks have any questions for us about mechanisms at this point? Do you want to just wait until we come back? I think the one question is just Denise's point earlier about timeline. And Michelle, Christian, whoever, maybe it's Scott. In your ideal world, the select board has approved an approach with a planned budget by when? And if it's right, because we obviously don't have the money this year for it. So it would have to be something if you can all make it happen to get this rolling to do, if something would have to be considered in the next fiscal year budget. And I see Michelle has a hand up. Yeah. So there are a bunch of different sources of funding depending on what the primary issue is or how we can present the primary issue, whether it's erosion, whether it's flooding, whether it's as Pam alluded to, fish passage. And Pam and I were talking about this today and what the options are. But essentially the first step has to be a feasibility and design study. And we would need to find funding for that feasibility and design study. Ideally, when Friends of the Winooski works on these projects, we try to do it at no cost to the landowner, which in this case is the municipality. If flood resilience is really the best route to go in terms of funding, then as Pam said, there is a cost share of 25% from the municipality. But initially that would just be for the feasibility and design. So it's not a ton of money. But that would be the first step. Be looking at feasibility and design possibly this year, maybe next year, and then construction in the future. So I think that's what would be good for the board to have that information to help guide our discussion and decision. Yeah, it sounds like there's little milestones along the way. So maybe that's the first thing Michelle is a, okay, one page, here's the milestones, here's our timeline, off we go, gonna go work on this with Rick and John and the team. And I would just add, just like Michelle said, it has to do with what grant program you would use. Like if it goes down the emergency management road, then that cost share is 25% and grant applications can be accepted this September for that type of funding. And then it goes to FEMA from this, like the state sends a package to FEMA January. So there's that time between September and January that you can have to put in. Well, I think part of the discussion you all have might be what is the best appropriate funding. Absolutely. And that's what we would be looking for. Yep, sounds good. And just keep in mind that you also have to show certain things for certain parts of funding. Yeah. Like, you know, that there's been past damage if it's a emergency management type of fund. If it's, we have to show that there's issues with the fish upstream and downstream. So that type of thing. Right, so we'll wait for you all to report back with what you think or what your recommendation is for the best option and what other options you might have looked at that we would want to understand. Scott. Who will be the convener of this group? Probably, well, I'll let Rick and John figure that out. Yeah, we'll now figure it out. You know, we'll just, would I want to give me a rough idea of when you want us to report back? Give us a... I don't know that we know that. I think that would be up to you to tell us. I'll try to connect with Pam and Michelle and then also with Alfred and then Toby and... Well, now you want one? Yeah. Can you include Christian too, Rick? Yeah, so I've actually put Christian on in my note. I'm making notes on what we're saying. Thank you. And then I'll give you another email to somebody else at my office. Yeah, we'll need to put a shell together of what my basic information is. I'm coming up to speed on all this, you guys, so you'll have to bear with me a little bit. Yeah, this is only Rick's second meeting. Yeah, so we can... Right, and Katie takes really good notes, Rick, so she'll have all this in a minute. That's great. I'm just making my own to do, so yeah, that's very good. Okay, are we, is everybody comfortable and know what we're doing? All right, so let's move on to... Thank you all, goodbye. Thank you, Scott. Thanks now, thanks everybody. Thank you all. Thanks, Pam. So we have a request by Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District to appoint or reappoint our delegates because they have an annual meeting coming up this week of April, and they would like us to tell them who our delegates are by today. So that's basically, this should take very little time as long as John and Bill Powell want to be reappointed. I think Bill does, but I haven't talked with them. I think we appoint him and then he can always back out. Yeah. Well, appointments carry over, but for their records, they just want us to do this. Okay. So is there any discussion or comments or? I think Katie's gonna, she needs us to spell a name or something. Oh, what Katie? I see that in the past, we've noted that they are district delegate and district delegate alternate. Is that different than Board of Supervisor? Yeah, well, it's the Board of Supervisors that's asking for us to make the delegation. But if you're right, there's a delegate and then there's the alternate, which has been Bill and John respectively. Okay. Yeah, it's a delegation of select board authority to speak on behalf of the town at the board meetings on the board of commissioners. So we would be commission, I'm a backup, what do you call it? What do you call me? Alternate commission. Alternate. And Bill is the primary commissioner. Okay, so I would make a motion to reappoint Bill Powell as our delegate. And he has just by the way been, he has served on the executive committee for quite a while and John as our alternate representative. They're called representatives. So Bill Powell as the primary representative and John Bravan as the alternate representative. I'll second that. Okay, would you like to authorize me to sign this form? Let's authorize Rick because he's signing all the other stuff tonight. Well, I don't think that matters, but. Just passing the law, passing the law. I've got the, I've got the form right here in my hand. Where? Is it different kind of form than all the other stuff that just comes in an email? Yep. I don't care. Yeah, that's, go ahead, that's fine. I mean, if you've got it right there, and that's something I don't have to download. Yeah. I mean, I'm good either way. So are you making a friendly amendment to the motion, Rick? Yeah, I'll amend that to have Denise sign that document and return it. Does that? Yep. Okay, is there a second? Second. All right, let's vote. Rick? Aye. I'm an aye. Sharon? Aye. Don? Yes. And Cliff? Aye. I'll get this right out to them because I wanted it by today. All right. I asked Rick to join us. He contacted me about use of the money that we appropriated in a warned item in 2014. And I think the documents are in the folder. They're kind of weird to look at. So I apologize for the way that they look. But it was the warned item from town meeting in 2014. And then there's the page from the minutes of town meeting 2014. And we appropriated $3,000 to be used by the Atomat Community Club. So Rick, while just calling that up, do you want to just give us a brief description of what you're looking to do? Yes. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say hi to all of you. And I will make a brief. We got that $3,000 by vote at town meeting a few years ago. It's been sitting in an escrow account ever since as we have investigated at the club what was involved in making the place accessible, which was our original intention. And first it was just to build a ramp. But it quickly got more complicated because somebody said, well, what point is a ramp if you can't get in the door? Well, what happens if we get in the door and you can't get into the second door? And if you can't get into the second door, how are you going to use the bathroom? So then the conversation quickly became well, what do we have to do to make the community club ADA accessible? And that really ran into a lot of money very, very quickly. So we tabled that and now we have a chance thanks to the Preservation Trust of Vermont. They are administering a grant program by a foundation called the 1772 Foundation. That provides funds for things that we have not been able to get grants for, specifically exterior painting and it really needs a new paint job. And sash preservation, especially on those four beautiful big windows that look out over the back of Sodom pond. So my proposal that I went to Denise with was could we use that $3,000 as matching money? The grant to the 1772 Foundation is for, their limit is asking for $10,000 and we still have some funds left over from Preservation Trust that we could apply to that and money that's in hand in our bank account. But the question is, can we readjust what this money is being used for? It was originally intended to for accessibility. And what we might do this summer is just with our available funds by a modular ramp and kind of leave it at that. And say that the community, which I'm sure will not be upset that we did the best we could for the time being and perhaps down the road, another generation might find the wherewithal to really bring the place up to ADA accessibility. So that's the question. Can we use that $3,000 that has been allocated to use that as a matching money in this grant that we are applying for? So I guess the documents that I had scanned and I thought Katie put them in the folder but maybe they're not there. The article in 2014, article 26 read, to see if the town will spend $3,000 for renovations to the Atomat Community Club to be used as a matching grant funds. The organization has been working with PTV to obtain grant funding to comply with accessibility requirements and make necessary building upgrades. They're in the folder, Denise. Yep, they're there. They're sort of, well, I'm not even gonna say where they are, they're probably in everyone's list differently. One of my questions is I have that one and I have an article 29 or article 28 that has the usual service groups and I'm, oh, it's article 26 on that one. So- Yeah, we're not usually included on the other service groups. So are these voted? Oh, these are the minutes. Okay, it's the article in the minutes. I got it. So, okay, thank you. So what is the, so isn't the question, what, well, I have two questions. One is whether we can approve and the select board something that is different or authorize something different than what the town asked for or approved, but then the question becomes, is this different when you look at the actual language? Yes, and the question that I raised with Denise is how narrow is that language? Because the money will be spent for preservation purposes and renovation purposes. Just a moment. Will it be used as matching grant, Rick? Yes. Okay. Part of a match. Okay. And the article reads and make necessary building upgrades. So this is why we're bringing the question to the board to see if the article and the use of funds match what the community center would like to do now. Yeah. My memory was that the word or the concept of accessibility was in there somewhere. So again, the question is how is what we want to do come under what that article said it was going to do? So it said another way, if the phrase to comply with accessibility requirements wasn't there, has been working with preservation, trust of Vermont and other entities to obtain grant funding and make necessary building upgrades. If that were what was voted on, we wouldn't have a problem, right? Right. Yes. Okay. So the question is... Well, and that's what we did vote on. Yeah. Right. Well, we did, but it includes Well, we did, but it included to comply with accessibility requirements. Well, and has the operative and it doesn't say comply with accessibility requirements that will make necessary building upgrade. That would be a fail in my mind. Yeah. And it doesn't say or either, it just says and. I know it says, it's an excellent question. Love the question. Yeah. Well, I just didn't want to go ahead and make this grand proposal without making sure with everybody and on the select board that I was within the correct parameters. Do you guys have other select board members? What do you, what's your thoughts on this, John? Do you guys have experience with this who've been on the board longer than I have? I don't have that much to say, you know? I mean, in my mind, it, I think it meets the test of using those funds or a grant match. I wish the wording of the article had been maybe different instead of or instead of and, but, you know, it's, it's what, seven years later. Yeah. And we're rehashing, you know, who I don't remember the discussion from town meeting. There wasn't much of one. Yeah. The minutes are pretty, I mean, the minutes just say basically that it was a, it was authorized. So in my mind, I can justify using this for what Rick is requesting for the community club. But I'd be interested to hear other people, you know, we rarely have this come up. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get it on. Yeah. And I don't, and I, and I think maybe a nuance is that we're not so much authorizing because we're, that we shouldn't do, but we're perhaps agreeing with Rick's interpretation that the spirit of the provision that the town approved is consistent with what a community club intends to do. Yeah. I think, I think I like, I like the idea of the spirit of the intent. Yeah. It's a liberal reading rather than a narrow one. Right. And then we're not approving. Do you guys agree that we're not actually approving because that makes it feel like there's a departure? Well, I think that Sandra will want to know that the select board authorized the use of the funds somehow so they can be taken out of escrow. I'm not sure how that works. I guess that would be a standard question. Is that, would that be normal? Would that be normal? Even if, well, if there, if this question weren't on the table. Well, you know, the appropriations that we do to all the service organizations, it's just voted on. And after the beginning of the new fiscal year, the office staff just issues the money to, I'm just, I'm just thinking out loud, thinking this through. They just authorized the use of those funds and send them out when there's other items in the budget for an consistent example, like the purchase of some equipment for the town. You know, we eventually authorized it and approval of the orders. Well, yes, in this case, the check was written directly after that town meeting. Okay. So the escrow account is our own. Oh, okay. So that's, that's a little different then. So yeah, I might be interested to get Cliff and Rick's comments. Yeah. I would suggest that this has already been approved by the voters. So it's not the select board's job to approve it. We're simply agreeing that the proposed use is in line with what was approved by the voters to the best of our understanding of how this is written. Yeah. I would agree with Cliff on that too. I think that makes sense. I don't think there's any motion for us to make. Good. I think that I commend you for being very conscientious and bringing it to our attention. Thank you. Okay. And I think, you know, this is a, whether we get the grant or not is another question. Yeah. Well, good luck to you. I hope you do. So, you know, if we do get the grant, we'll probably spend our own, from our own funds to get a modular ramp for this summer. Yeah. And if not, maybe we'll be back to square one. All right. Okay. Katie has a question, Denise. Oh, sorry, Katie, go ahead. Thanks. I just had a question as a member of the public. Rick, I wonder if we have disabled community members who are involved with that question at the time in 2014, if you are aware of like folks who are weighing in or a disability, you know, advocacy group and, or like how someone could provide feedback to the community club if they have feelings about the funds not being used for accessibility. Yeah. Well, it's the person who first brought this up years ago was Cindy Gardner-Moss. Morris, whose parents both had, you know, real struggle with the steps and more of a struggle every year. And I have been consulting with Cindy as we try to figure out what works best for the community. And I did have a, it was just as the pandemic broke out. So there was no real follow-up with contact at VCIL, whether they had any suggestions or whether they knew. Pugh, I'll be right here. Bye. Okay, Cliff. Not anything specific to report on town hall. We are getting some quotes for the water purification filtration system. So at some point we'll bring that forward for the board to review, waiting for the quotes to come in before we know what kind of price range that's gonna be in because that will determine how many quotes we'll have to get, if it for some reason ends up being more than $5,000. We have a new set of rules we have to follow. I don't think it'll be in that range, but we're waiting for the quotes to come in. Nothing significant to report on the IT front or anything, but for the friends of town hall, I would like to tentatively get us on the schedule for our last meeting in April as a possible date for the friends group to approach the select board with the revised management agreement and associated documents that we'd like to all put in front of you at the same time. Well, that's about it. Oh, everyone's speechless. This blown away, Cliff. Even kept Rose on and because she must've been hanging on my every word. No, I just, I wanted to give you the opportunity to go down through the friends of the hall and IT and those things. Hi, Scott. Hi, Scott. Thank you, Scott. Good to see you. Anything else under those updates, Cliff? That's all I have. Okay. I just wanted to remind folks that we have our quarterly joint meeting with East Cal, I mean, East Montpelier select board to meet with the East Montpelier fire department. This is in just for Cliff, for Rick's benefit, we try to meet quarterly with EMFD to be kept informed about what's going on, budget updates, those kinds of things, just so we have a good dialogue with them. And that meeting is Thursday and it'll be via Zoom. So once they set that up, they said they would send out the Zoom invites. Maybe that will be our last Zoom one. I don't know. We'll see with all this variant stuff going on. I don't know. Hopefully that's an evening, is it? Yes, yes, an evening. Just to fill up your calendar so you have things to look forward to. Yeah, that sounds good. My days don't look good right now. They're really busy. Okay. And then I guess I would like the board to go into executive session, if we could please, to discuss its contract. So I'm not sure exactly what the proper statutory authority is, but it falls under one BSA section 313A. Is there a second? So Mo, or did you make a motion? So it's 313A1A. Good. Second. All right. So we have to unplug Orca. Thank you so much, Katie. We'll get you back to you. I'll get back to you with when we adjourned and if we make any motions. Sounds good. Everybody. Good night. Bye Rose. Good night. Can you make a vote? Oh yes, we have to vote. Bye bye, nice to see you. Thank you. Bye Rose. Okay, let's vote, Rick. Hi. I'm an I, Cliff. Hi. Sharon. Hi. And John. Yes. Okay, bye Orca. Bye Jerome.