 Alright, welcome to Town Meeting. It's 10-0-3, so we're a little bit late, but we'll make up for it. My name's Jackson Adams. I just kicked my water bottle over. I've been Town Moderator for the last several years, and if Article 1 goes in my favor, I'll be Town Moderator once more. So, thank you very much for having me. This is the 235th annual Town Meeting in Braintree, which is pretty wild, and it's the most electrified and microphone-ed-up Town Meeting I think we've ever had. You'll notice we've got this amazing new sound system, which was purchased through a grant, and it was the brainchild of Braintree's own Larry Revit, who happens to be a brainchild. And Larry came up with the idea for this system to help people who both have difficulty hearing, help people who are on Zoom hear better, and folks who have trouble hearing hear everything that's happening in the meeting. So, if you would like to take advantage of one of the assisted listening devices, they're basically a smartphone with a little adapter. You're welcome to get set up with those, and you can actually, if you have hearing aids that support Bluetooth, you can download an app and it will pop the meeting right into your ears. So, it's pretty amazing, and I just, I really want to thank Larry for his hard work on it, and I also want to especially thank Colin Evans, who's behind me here, who spent many many hours helping to install the system, volunteering his time. So, and Daniel Burson from the SelectPort and Megato Tool also spent a tremendous amount of time here getting the system set up, which was operational, has only been operational for about the last 12 hours. It's pretty great. Which reminds you of a joke. How many Vermonters does it take to screw in a light bulb? It takes three. One to do it, and two to talk about how much better the old one was. But I think this is a great addition to our town meeting, and I think, can everybody hear me okay? It sounds really good, and I've got like a sinus thing, so I can't really hear anything. What's the name of the app? It's called Listen Everywhere. There's instructions, yeah, instructions on the table. There are some instructions sheets on the table. Before we get started, I just want to say a few thank yous. As always, the Range for Select Board does Yeoman's work throughout the year to keep our town going and to make good decisions about how we work, and I think they deserve a thank you for all their hard work. Braintree wouldn't be braintree without Jesse Brassard, our town clerk. She's humble too. Janice Russell, our town administrator, does a lot of work throughout the year. Grace Persons has been on board for a little over a year, I think, and we've done tremendous great work. And Dylan Pratt and the road crew, this has been a great episode here. I think, you know, they've really adapted, and that's really been the nature of the game. I think we all understand how horrible a year it has been for the roads throughout this area. It's not only the floods during the summer, but all winter long, they've been wrestling with either mud or frozen ruts. And not only that, for the large part of the year, they were only down to two people, Dylan and Charlie. And I think they've just done a remarkable job for keeping us in shape that we've had. Yeah, thank you. First, Paul would say that as a dam of a dirt road. That ain't what he told me. No. And thanks to everybody who brought food. I mean, we all come for the lunch, I think, at some point. So thanks everybody who brought food for the potluck, and don't forget to stick around for that afterwards. I always like to ask, who's here for whom is this their very first town meeting or brain tree town meeting? Let's say brain tree town meeting. We have a newbie, two newbies. Great. Who's been to more than five brain tree town meetings? How about more than 15? 30? 40? Okay, 50 town meetings. Who's been to 50? Thank you. Tom Cooch. The other last acknowledgement I wanted to make is to I'm going to actually read from the select board's report that Megan O'Toole submitted about two select board members who resigned this year. Keegan Hopp had served on the select board since 2017 and offered knowledgeable and informative perspective on all town issues. We appreciate the time he dedicated to brain tree and the community service and volunteers and he and his family continue to offer to the broader area within brain tree and beyond. So thank you Keegan for all your and then it would be, you know, not remarking on Charlie McMeakin's years of service to our town. You know, it's really important to acknowledge that Charlie joined the board in 2019, shortly after he retired from a long serving board member after filling a long serving board members shoes. As with other roles that Charlie has filled in our community, there are many and there are many of them. He dove headfirst into learning the workings of the town and was a careful listener and thought for contributor discussions and deliberations. Megan writes she often relied on Charlie's guidance and handling the particularly tough elements of managing people and navigating contentious matters before the board. He was always willing to assist with whatever needed doing and was particularly instrumental in setting up the funding for brain tree residents that need help eating their homes with when other assistance runs out. He often offered me and other board members encouragement when we knew we needed it most and has become more than just a colleague but a friend. We could fill many pages with the ways in which Charlie has contributed to our community but above all we know him for his kindness and his friendship. We'll miss him his steady and the supportive presence on the board as he leaves even bigger shoes to fill and once he stepped into the board he joined us. Each year we include remembrance of residents who we lost over the last year and I'm going to just list those folks who we are missing this year. Eldora Howard, Tuck Dome, William Lawrence Milner, Robert Milo Thresher, Roland Boucher, Nancy A. Swanson, Lucinda Pearl Brown. Are there other names that folks might have missed here? We'll remember them and they're in our thoughts. Last thing I want to we're gonna go do the Pledge of Allegiance and this this is an important part of our town meeting and I don't know about others read Paul Kent our own Paul Kendall's recent commentary in an online news website Beachy Tigger. I thought I would share some of what he wrote because it's really fitting I think as we move into our town meeting. Paul writes on town meeting day we begin by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to remind us of the values we share and to set the tone for our public discussion whether we were born in Vermont or our newcomers our high school or college graduates gun owners or haters libertarians progressives Republicans or Democrats the pledge reminds us of what we all hold most sacred the unity of our nation and its promise of liberty and justice for all his piece goes on to talk about the promise of equality that we're always striving for in this nation and sometimes we drift a little closer sometimes we get farther from it but he talks about the history of the pledge which is really interesting not something I really knew much about our the bones of our current pledge of allegiance actually dates to the 1890s and it's endured to this day so it's really a pretty amazing idea that we kind of share in in moments like this he ends his piece by saying when we stand aside our neighbors and our children to recite the pledge we commit ourselves to listen respectfully to the views of others and to gracefully accept the decisions of the whole assembly that is what we do on town meeting day here in Vermont and it is heartwarming to see it happen elsewhere all year long so with that I'll ask you to join me stand and join me with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and unilitial with liberty and justice for all now a few more housekeeping things then we'll get on to the orders of the day Robert's rules are the basic rules of order that we're using today for this meeting except where Vermont law takes precedent you cannot change Vermont state law but you can change Robert's rules by a two-thirds vote if you desire articles are moved and seconded by the body then restated by me before it's under consideration and debate on the article articles may only have one amendment at a time associated with them and amendments to an article likewise may only have one amendment at a time associated them if you've spoken once on a particular article you will not be recognized the second time during discussion on that article or amendment until all others have had a chance to speak and I'll hold you to it I promise you'll be allowed to speak no longer than 10 minutes and only for two times division of the house can be requested by one voter before or after a voice vote so if there's a voice vote and you're not sure how it went you can call for a division of the house it which means people will have to raise their hand or stand to show their vote and we'll count them Vermont law provides for a paper ballot on their request of seven voters again before or after a voice vote or after a division of the house debate may be cut off by a motion to call the questions and a two-thirds vote to do so so if you think it's gone the debate has gone on too long and it's time to vote you can ask to call the question and if two-thirds of the body agree with you we'll vote and stop talking all motions remarks and discussions must be addressed to the moderator so if you have a question you can address it to me and we'll figure out who's best to answer it I'll do my best to recognize you in the order that you've raised your hands and new this year is we've got some microphones and so I know it's going to be hard but if you can wait until a microphone gets to you it will help the sound system it'll help people who are maybe watching on zoom and I will ask you to state your name before you speak just so some of us know each other but there's many new faces so we'll try to get your name out before you start talking remarks must be confined to the merit of the question under no circumstances will the speaker attack or question the motives of another member the measure not the member is subject to the debate and at no time will a person be accused of giving false information or a liar or as having committed a lie instead a person might say I believe that there is strong evidence that the member is mistaken Vermont law prohibits consideration of an article articles that have not been worn that means that whatever's on our list today are the things we can talk about under other business we can bring up other topics but we can't take we can't take action binding action on those items the goal my goal as moderators to help you carry out your meeting this is your meeting it's not the select board meeting it's not the town clerk's meeting it's not the moderators meeting it's your meeting and I'm here to help you do your business so if you have a question about where we're at in the process or how Robert's rules works or what you should be doing now just raise your hand and we'll get it sorted out but that's the goal is to carry out our business in an effective way and I'm doing all I can to help you do that you can tell me if I'm ruling improperly like if I've made a decision to cut something off and not allow someone to speak you can vote to overrule what I've said which I won't take offense to at this time I just want to ask if there are any folks who are not registered to vote in brain tree in our in the audience today okay if any of the if you you as a not as not registered you can't participate but if you want to do same day voter registration you have that opportunity and in which case you could vote with your voice in town meeting does anyone want to vote same day registration right now going once okay I'm gonna next thing I'm gonna do is just read through the warning and then we'll move on to article one and get to work feel free to follow along town of brain tree warning annual town meeting Saturday March 2nd 2024 the legal voters of the town of brain tree in the county of Orange are hereby notified and warned to meet in the brain tree town hall in person in said town on Saturday March 2nd 2024 at 10 a.m. to transact the following business from the floor article one to elect a moderator for the year and soon article 2 to hear reports of the town officers for the past year article 3 shall the voters authorized the size of the cemetery commission to be reduced to three members each serving a three-year staggered term article 4 to elect all town officers as required by law a town clerk for a three-year term be a town treasurer for a three-year term see a select person for a three-year term a a select person for one year remaining of a two-year term e-lister for a three-year term f-automated for a three-year term g a delinquent tax collector for a one-year term h a first constable for a one-year term i a cemetery commissioner for a three-year term j a trustee of public funds for a one-year term article 5 shall the voters authorized total fund expenditures for operating expenses of $1,401,118 of which $1,087,228 shall be raised by taxes and 313,890 by non-tax revenues article 6 shall the town collect its real property taxes and two installments with the due dates being october 15th 2024 and march 17th 2025 article 7 shall the voters authorized the disabled veteran's property tax exemption to increase from 10,000 to 40,000 of appraised value per eligible parcel in the municipal grand list pursuant to 32 bsa section 3802 subsection 11c article 8 beginning in 2025 shall the voters authorized the annual town meeting to be held on the first tuesday in march pursuant to 17 bsa section 2640 article 9 shall the voters adopt the following declaration of inclusion the town of Grand Street condemns racism and welcomes all persons regardless of race color religion national origin sex sexual orientation gender identity and expression age disability or socioeconomic status and wants everyone to feel safe and welcome in our community as a town we formally condemn all discrimination in all its forms in all of its forms commit to fair and equal treatment of everyone in our community and will strive to ensure all of our actions policies and operating procedures reflect this commitment the town of Grand Street has been and will continue to be a place where individuals are encouraged to live freely and responsibly to express their opinions and listen to the opinions of others article 10 to transact any other business of a not of a binding nature dated at brain tree county of mornish and the state of vermont this 19th day of january 2024 signed by the brain tree select board this brings us to article one in which i will turn over the meeting to brain tree vice chair of the select board university uh jackson gave me a sketch grip i hadn't taken a picture though um so article one to elect a moderator for the year in suing i'll ask for nominations jackson and walt parmer not me okay steve seconds so then we just vote uh if there's no other nominations jesse can cast one ballot okay so do i have any other nominations phone runner yeah well she's outside somewhere i was trying to enlist my children but they're occupied and if they want to run microphones all right okay so uh where yeah so jesse if you can cast one i don't i guess that's how we do it cast one vote for jackson evans as a moderator i think that gives her the job jackson yes thank you thank you very much um that moves us to article two to the hear the hear the reports of town officers for the past year there's no voting on this um it's really just an opportunity for folks to ask questions about anything that's that are included in the reports um that have been submitted by select board auditors listers other town related functions uh it doesn't include the budget at this point i don't think that maybe about your questions are there any questions about any of the reports included in the town report hearing none um we'll thank all the folks who submitted those those due to full reports thank you very much article three shall the voters authorize the size of the cemetery commission to be reduced to three members to each serving the three years staggered term to bring this article to the floor someone would need to make a motion to um to bring this to the floor acquires a second i saw wall palmers in first a motion has been made and seconded the floor is now open for discussion on article three shall the voters authorize the size of the cemetery commission to be reduced to three members each serving a three-year term and the maker of the motion which is Linda don has the opportunity to speak first if you wish okay no comment so the floor is open for discussion no confidence factor can you explain this uh i know the board or other article or information works hard why reduce the number um who who who would like to answer that they can't find any people to stand up that's it so to Malcolm to expand on that um we currently have a five-member board and we are having trouble filling seats and it requires quite a bit of work but we feel like also historically it was a three-member board and then got moved to five and it operated well as a three-member board we have three people currently i believe chris is that correct yeah so we're we are in essence creating the board as it currently stands and not having those vacant seats that we continue to try to fill you go ahead it seems that sorry it seems that that's no reason to reduce the board we need to find two more members given the work that i think is there and that most of the people on the board do the work i i guess i don't understand the rationales bill for the cemetery commission whether they're talking cemetery yes select board yeah no i'm talking about this motion the so the the impetus for this article we were given this article by the by the chair of the cemetery commission because he thought this was a good idea so i feel like if we take the recommendation of the people that run the commission that might be i mean that's why we did this because they recommended it the commission itself we could ask the question is there anybody here want to uh join the cemetery commission you know anybody at all just raise your hand what do they do chris you want to explain that or bit to be done sometimes during the year uh answer questions concerns citizens you got spring clean up i can't hear you use the microphone can you can use the mic i can't hear you anyway there's quite a bit to be done spring clean up clean up all the leaves and limbs and whatever to come down get ahead of your morning jason's handiwork for us uh once in a while somebody passes along so you need to do a burial maybe a full burial uh cremations are quite common now stones tip over tree limbs come down any number of things so if you could find some other people five might be a good idea if you can't three's better than none but does any i have a question just um if we switch to three could we go back to five at some point yeah that's how many of the cemeteries are still open and selling lots i believe mountain views the mountain view right down the road here is the last available for lots blend bb and who takes care of that one specifically or did the three of you all work on that for burials that cemetery had been assigned to me through the years but as a whole if we had volunteer work everybody tried to show up and chip in and get it down take care of whatever the volunteer work might be and most of the time it's you know stone repeated it was two three four of us would show up and fix the stone so yeah tim colfield um what's the disadvantage just leaving at five and having two vacant seats what's the disadvantage to just leaving the commission at five and having two empty seats rather than changing it just waiting and seeing if we can come next year or some other year well i don't know that there's any in on me leave it open and see if you can find a couple people how many people are here 60 70 900 of us probably in town maybe you can find a couple i don't know one problem i could see tim and someone can correct me if procedurally this is wrong is that you have difficulty with a quorum if anyone if any member is absent and there are only three then you have difficulty making decisions so hamstrings the committee a bit in that manner other other comments what is the quorum on three member board two two if there is a three member board lr requires two members to be present but a five member board requires three so with only three active members all would have to be present at all the meetings i thought was the number that will present to make a decision other comments i want to count on your um i'm not sure how this works but i'd be willing to come on as an apprentice three board members i'll forbid something happens to one member they have a health issue and they can't make it i could step in and fill or i do a one year to see how it goes and what it's all about alternate you can be an alternate an alternate instead of keep going as a suggestion i'd be willing to all right jesse jesse uh jesse i think part of the other problem with keeping it at five is everybody has a year and they're staggered so when people are looking at it and thinking oh my gosh i have to commit to five years that's a little bit scary also so if it goes to three members it's every three years you're on for a three year period and it might not be so daunting to um get more people involved can we make it a three member board and have an alternate is that a possibility because we have an alternate i mean it's i don't think it's in statute but we can have somebody i mean cal wants to service you know as an apprentice and help i don't think anybody would turn it away anybody anybody else have anything they want to add to this i'm not really sure where this leaves us in terms of motion call the motion okay tim cofield's yeah if there's no other discussion we can we can vote on this as it as it's written right now it sounds like we're ready for that so the motion before you is article three shall the voters authorize the size of the cemetery commission to be reduced to three members each serving a three-year staggered term all those in favor of this motion please signify by saying aye opposed nay eyes have it so the motion carries thank you and cal thanks for standing up and offering a warm body article four uh to elect all of the town officers as required by law yeah folks who folks who are standing if you want to come in and fill in we've got empty we've got some front row seats we've got some seats in the back all right so this takes us to article four elect all the town officers as required by law there a second is not required for a nomination so as we go through this if you would like to nominate someone you can just state their name it doesn't require a second a second is a nice endorsement but it's not required so that brings us to article four a a town clerk for a three-year term do i have nominations do you see chest cover start lend a dome nominate chest cover start second to half are there other nominations for a town clerk for a three-year term hearing none i asked the town clerk to cast one ballot for herself thank you article four e a town treasurer for a two-year term nominations three-year term a town treasurer for a three-year term nominations nominate jessie jessie preside nice okay other nominations hearing none i'll ask the town clerk to cast one ballot for Jessica bursard article four c a select person for a three-year term nominations lou helmuth other nominations for a select person for a three-year term i decline thank you okay thank you uh other nominations for a select person for a three-year term hearing none uh some time clerk to cast one ballot for lou helmuth thank you article 4d a select person for one year remaining of a two-year term nominations i nominate leg baby other nominations for a select person for a one one year remaining of a two-year term chelsea brown other nominations for a select person for one year remaining of a two-year term hearing none and now that we have two candidates was there another nomination over there i heard rumblings you know steward the people want you fair enough we got a lot of other officers so i think there's other room for you steward um okay with two candidates we uh we have to vote by paper ballot so this will get interesting and exciting um could we hear a little bit yes yeah that's a good idea well um so yeah if each of the candidates would like to offer a little intro um i'm lynn bevy i've lived in brain tree most of my life i did leave for a short time went south to boilton but i'm back um i'm a bookkeeper for many years i have managed graduate programs and higher education around the state um it's a good time for me to serve um happy to do it and i appreciate your consideration i'm chelsea brown i know a lot of you i recognize already um i live on fen hill i've been in brain tree for about eight years now i grew up in bevel so not too far away um i own the weaver gale cafe in randolph um and i'm interested in learning a little bit more about local government and just better serving my community that i call them and apparently we got the same dressing right now okay so jesse you want to describe how how this will work i have okay me um so we'll have an entrance checklist and an exit checklist i'll run the entrance and grace will run the exit checklist so we'll just form a line you come over here you'll check in get your ballot and a pencil go quote and then you can put it in the box and check out with grace and we'll have her set up yeah yeah again what are the names of the so yep uh so lynn bevy and spelling won't count so just three best two bees okay and chelsea brown okay those are the two names we should brought a white part but um so this is a good opportunity to get a little coffee cake get some coffee use the bathroom stretch your legs and line up to both thank you and we'll um treat you mean so all right everybody get enough coffee coffee cake uh with thank you all for voting with the votes cast uh chelsea brown has been elected with 47 votes to lynn bb's 27 so thank you both for putting your hands up i mean this is we have room on the cemetery commission thank you both and thanks everybody for participating so 74 votes that's we had a good room here that's expert okay moving on article four uh article 4e a lister for a three-year term other nominations i nominate jackson okay yeah other nominations hearing no other nominations i'll ask the tim clerk to cast one ballot for jackson steward article 4f to elect an auditor for a three-year term nominations does lynn bb accept the nomination i think not i don't know i'm not good who's the current auditor who is the current auditor uh it's lynn brown or top cooch no it's it's lynn and he's resigning or he's done are there other nominations for the call in evans call in evans of sound system fame other second other nominations for an auditor for a three-year term all right hearing none i'll ask the tim clerk to cast one ballot for call in evans thank you callin article 4g a delinquent tax collector for a one-year term nominations other nominations for a delinquent tax collector for a one-year term hearing none i'll ask the tim clerk to cast one ballot for jessica bersard article 4h your first constable for a one-year term nominations i nominate steve bersard other nominations for a constable for a one-year term hearing none i'll ask the tim clerk to cast one ballot for steve bersard article 4i a cemetery commissioner for a three-year term nominations who's currently serving is this likes thank you chris currently chris are you willing to serve again no thank you but 20 years by the way thank you for 20 years i think he's accepting yeah nominations for a cemetery commissioner for a three-year term an apprenticeship one quick jessica bersard to cast one ballot for how cool article 4j the trustee of public funds for a one-year term nominations uh it's just jessica bersard this current linda delinus other nominations for a trustee of public funds for a one-year term hearing none i'll ask jessica bersard the tim clerk to cast one ballot for jessica bersard this takes us to article five which reads shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of one million four hundred one thousand one hundred and eighteen dollars of which one million eighty seven thousand two hundred twenty eight dollars shall be raised by taxes and three hundred thirteen eighty nine thousand by non-tax revenue we'll need a motion to bring this before the body so move and a second a motion has been made and seconded the floor is now open for discussion on article five shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of one million four hundred one thousand one hundred eighteen dollars of which one million eighty seven thousand two hundred twenty eight dollars shall be raised by taxes and three hundred thirteen thousand eighty nine eight eighty nine hundred by non-tax revenue that's the hardest part of this whole thing uh the uh regina you have the privilege of speaking first if you'd like as the maker of the motion otherwise we'll open the floor for discussion that's all being somebody on the board could just do an overview of the budget changes percent increase in all that hi there uh my name is lou helmuth uh i am a new member of the board not only elected to a three-year term today but um i filled the big shoes of keegan help uh when he left the board in october so i've been on the board for three months um trying to wrap my head around all of this so i'll do my best to to give you sort of my take on how i look at the budget i was involved with the building of the budget um and obviously what we try to do is remain very conservative and understanding that every increase yields a potential tax increase for each and every one of us so we look at trying to provide the town with the services that the town needs that the town has historically provided and try to do our best to make that happen as cheaply as possible because we're all taxpayers too and so the result of that as you can see is a really detailed budget you know lots and lots of line items but i look at it and say that that we there is about a five point five percent increase in expenditures and that total is about seventy eight thousand dollars of increase over last year um that's occasioned by sort of external cost increases and and when i look at the you know there are a bunch of like little you know thirty dollar increase thirty dollar decrease but the big ones that that i see are um fire department nine thousand dollar increase health insurance just because of the market out there went up twenty thousand dollars um telephone is a thousand insurance property and liability insurance and workers comp insurance went up nine thousand dollars um gravel went up twenty thousand dollars over last year's budget so all of that um equals you know those bigger increases are a hundred one thousand dollars of increases over which we had little control thirty five thousand dollars of that is road cruise salary and that's because this year in this budget we for the first time have a full cohort of a road crew which we've not had for a multitude of reasons over the past few years so that's that's a thirty five thousand dollar piece of that one hundred and one so all of that is a five point five percent increase the bulk of which you know we don't have a lot of direct control over and we've done our best at every other line item to you know hold the line definitely not you know doing anything extravagant but trying to you know get the work of the town done so that's my best shot thank you yeah good morning sherry Richardson um are you able to tell me how much town employees contribute uh to the health insurance and is that also determined um based on hours work with your part-time full-time etc i i can kind of i hate insurance and taxes i pay somebody to do all that for me but i'll try to explain it um so um it does matter if you're part-time or full-time um so there's four seven of us that are full-time not everybody is on the health insurance um and i can't tell you exactly who because there's people that were going to be on and came off and and everything but um as far as i'm not 100 sure and i i may have to clarify this at at a somewhere down the road and maybe you know i think it's um we contribute 10 percent i think i don't think it's 20 i think it's 10 percent and um we contribute and then um the deductible the first 60 percent of the deductible the town pays also so we pay 40 percent of the deductible so that's the follow-up um it and that 10 percent uh does that go up if you're if you have a two person or a family plan versus a single plan can you can you rephrase the question i don't know that i understand the question if you have more than one person on the plan does that change your meaning do we pay more than 10 percent exactly i mean i'm asking the question because in in most businesses there the employee will pay a percentage of a single plan or the employer may pick up all of the costs of a single plan when you start adding more people to your plan and go to a two person plan or a family plan the employee is responsible for the additional amount so that's what i'm asking the employee does the employee does pay more because i have a family plan and i pay the most of anybody um towards the health insurance but it's still 10 percent the percentage is a change but yeah you can you can explain it better come on percentage doesn't change at the time so it pays 10 percent the employee like pays 10 percent yeah right up yes it's finished pays the same other questions comments uh something in the back can you explain how the residential versus non-residential tax rate is calculated and why there's not that much of a difference between a non-residential and residential and can we increase the non-residential yeah jesse between jesse and i we can get to something closer to the next dimension yeah i mean residential you have to live here more than um yeah 100 i think it's 180 consecutive days you have to live here to be a resident and claim residents here you have to do that through the state of vermont you can't just come in and say i'm a resident you can't just assume that we know you're a resident you have to fill out paperwork and it to the state state downloads that to the town and that's how you get the town residential rate so anybody who does not live here gets the non-residential rate or if you don't fill out that paperwork you get the non-residential rate those rates change and i so the um the the state of vermont department of taxes sets the each town's education side of the tax rate and it's it it's different for residents versus non-residents typically the non-residential rates higher um the town doesn't we have one tax rate for for municipal taxes which is regardless of whether you're a resident or non-resident what change what changes is on the education side of it so that's that's where the difference comes in and sometimes it's actually swapped where residents pay a higher rate than non-residents every town is different the math is will make your brain melt if you try to think about it too long uh luke fischer or math whiz on the lister's board understands this stuff in and out no it's really complicated um and i you know it's different every year so what is it now yeah it's in the front on the old inside cover so so you've got um the non-residential education portion was 1.4409 the homestead was 1.4406 so three one thousandth of a penny difference currently in resident versus non-resident i hope that answers your question it's i don't it's is there a way to increase the non-residential it comes from the it comes from the taxes other questions um i don't really have a question um i guess i'm sure about a statement i don't know where other people stand in the community i i struggled with the term in service but we talked about the town of brain trade not specific to this board i think we kind of had a history of maybe some excessive spending in the town i'm not sure if people are aware if you look at the municipal tax rates in orange county but brain tree sits about second highest um we have a higher municipal tax rate than the town of redolph we have a higher municipal tax rate than the town of urfield um and pretty much every their town in our county and then that was me because we don't have a lot of municipal responsibility we don't have sidewalks that we maintain we don't have an excessive amount of um municipal buildings um i'm coming a little bit secondary that i've witnessed Keegan sitting on the board for the last ever many years you did and learned quite a bit from the sidelines um my understanding and what seems to have been to explain to him over the years was perhaps the original boosting of this high tax rate was to provide this general fund for our community which basically provides sort of some additional cash base that sits there that can be used for backup for example this year my understanding is we had two hundred thirty thousand dollars we were under budget that we didn't spend which some people say that's great we're doing a great job then why are we increasing the budget again to our taxpayers because it sounds like we're already probably bringing in more money than perhaps we actually need to we have a general fund that's going to be six hundred thousand dollars that leaves our select board with a whole lot of room to spend money on what they feel worthy and perhaps we want to put that kind of trust in our select board but recently that came down to almost the purchase of a gravel pit that had a lot of contention from various people and these meetings are hard because 40 50 70 of us sit here not many of my age demographic which i'm disappointed in but i understand with kids and families but we got to be able to stay and live here and if our tax rates just kind of keep sliding up with this idea of you know we got to keep patting what we need there's a struggle i think there's room for improvement in our budget in where we do highway maintenance this isn't personal to our highway crew at all they don't set their budget necessarily the town of workfield has 78 miles of dirt road they maintain they do that at a budget of about 16 thousand dollars a mile this can be figured by just looking at their town report from 2022 and our town report from 2022 we have 48 miles of dirt road infantry and that sorry 43 miles of dirt road infantry our cost effective comes out to about 22,000 miles or $22,000 a mile sorry excuse me $28,000 a mile to maintain that why does it cost our town so much more money to maintain our roads than surrounding towns that have the exact same general setup and our roads in good shape yes but our other towns also yes do we need a fourth road crew that's been a question i know that was a challenge for Keenan sitting on the board i'm not sure we do again workfield that's 78 miles with four people we got 48 miles 43 excuse me miles i'm questioning do we need to raise the budget this year can we sit tight and maybe start to take a look at the spending that we're doing so that my family can stay here and my kids can maybe raise their kids here because at a 0.09 budget or municipal rate that compares to 0.04 in Brookfield that's a real struggle to understand that so i don't know maybe there's a lot of explanation that we've missed over the years but i don't think so and i don't want to speak for my husband but i will say he didn't leave the board because he wanted more time for his family he left because he wasn't heard and you get like adults i'm not sure that people on the current board have a really great financial sense of how to protect us and i'm not trying to be personal i just i'm scared for our town and i'm worried and i'm afraid that we just keep eyeing our way through these meetings here for lunch i'm not here for lunch i'm here so my family can stay uh luke fisher i'm a lister and i just want to oh you're never going to keep being quiet i just want to make a small comment to adjust one of the things that you said and um just to my the best of my ability i'll try to make this short and sweet so when we compare tax rates between towns we also have to think a little bit about when that town was appraised so it's not just the tax rate it's also where the cattle appraisal sits in relation to the current market and i don't know specifically how that applies to what what you said it and maybe it does or doesn't because i don't know where those towns are city in terms of their appraisal when towns appraisals get so far out of whack with the market then the town has to re-appraise which is what we're faced with and every town but two i think in orange county so um i just wanted to make that point um if i could just um and respond to that uh Randolph is in the middle of a reappraisal currently and brookfield i'm not sure if they finished in 2022 or 2023 but they just barely finished so um i don't know what their their tax rate is now but i do know that Randolph's currently without the fire department or the police um is five cents less than ours so um yes we are more but um thank you so much we gotta buy over here um with regard to the deal i'm like with regard to the reappraisal where we were supposed to be every 10 years or so now it's saying six years we were just appraised in 2020 that brings us to 2026 but i've also heard you've read it here somewhere or i heard on the street that we were looking at starting reappraisals uh possibly this year that's where the entire state of them are no we're here yeah we're i can i'm on the border listers too and we we do our we are looking at a reappraisal in the next couple of years a new one um this so the six-year rule is a new state statute but your trigger towns are required to reappraise when they're statistical when the yearly statistical analysis shows that the appraised assessed value is lower than the sale values or it's out of whack with sale value so we finished our reappraisal right if you'll recall right as covid was happening and so we set all of our levels pre-covid and then covid happened and we've had three years of increased property sales and things selling way over assessed value so we had all these fresh numbers in 2020 2020 or 2021 and then those numbers are out of whack again so right so are we looking at a 2026 we don't know the state in the summer the state will send a reappraisal letter to all the towns that are required to reappraise which will lay out the timeline for how that reappraisal will happen when it should happen there aren't enough people in the state to do all the reappraisals that are being required so it's likely going to be several years before we actually get to a reappraisal but we are headed there other other comments questions you got one up front my understanding is that if the value goes up the tax rate should go down has that been occurring well the tax rate is based on the grand list and when if the grand list increases theoretically and you're raising a similar amount of money each year your tax rate would drop it would go down has it gone down with the reappraisal that you did in the past i don't remember where it went it stayed pretty even i mean the goal of a reappraisal shouldn't be too trapped it should you know typically a third of properties go up a third go down the third stay the same so you're you should be kind of equalized but let me ask you how much work we are from so we have to have a reappraisal on six yeah i mean we're we're you know anecdotally properties are selling for i don't know luke what's what do you think on average anywhere from 50 to 200 200 plus percent over the appraised so it's a night it's not untenable for a house that we have an appraisal on 285 thousand is selling the big fours so the houses are going for way over the appraisal but is it then is that relationship hold when they reappraise that's more value for the town or the tax go down based on that you want to it's it's it's hard you can't really predict it depends on what the budget is how much we have to spend the tax rate is a you know it's a combination of those two things grand less than that budget but the question is that we're the budget doesn't seem to go down so i'm wondering just as the lady on the other side said we're we're spending money because we think we have it because there's a tax system that encourages it really well the the changes that have been happening in the real estate market um have not affected the grand list because how appraisals have not changed since the last appraisal which was 2019 i guess so even though it's all over the place that is only going to affect it one is a new appraisal and then there's a new grand list so nobody's appraisals have changed in the town since the reappraisal unless there have been improvements to the property or subdivisions or something like that yeah so in other words the grand list has not changed drastically since the last question over here is it appropriate to ask this elect court to respond to Lindsey's comment i have a couple things but if you want to say something first you are welcome to there was a there was a question down front so lindy uh what house sells for the listers you come and look at it after the sale and no no no no no there's no that would be sales chasing which they discourage in the listers world oh another question when i sold my house i received the letter from the listers asking why it was sold for more so it probably didn't ask me specifically why it was sold for more oh so the the state wants our grand list to be in uh in black not out of black with what insane painful of what things are selling at if the sale prices get out of black with the grand list that triggers an early appraisal um and that's based on a numerical formula which i'm happy to explain another time i'm sorry i lost my train the question is um when we send sales where the reason we collect sales information the state wants to know information about each sale they want to know if it's a quote unquote good sale a good sale is between a motivated buyer and the motivated seller and it's an arm lane sale so i sell it to my kid doesn't count sell it to my neighbor it doesn't count the stress sales don't count the state sales may or may not count there's a list in our software 20 items long why we by the state will bump a sale so again there are making judgments about a reappraisal based on what they consider to be valid sales and all those things i just mentioned are what determine a valid sale so when we send you a letter usually me i'm asking so i'm asking you know did you sell it to a family member uh was it a just sale did the sell it take back a mortgage all of those things complicate our influence whether it was called the arms length sale um was there a huge amount of work done just before the sale was there two tractors and a dump truck included in the sale so all of those things influence that that one when i purchased another property in brain three the listers came and looked at it and measured it and so what was the purpose of that based on just my purchase uh there must have been yeah uh we can the um we are getting a little off topic here but there i'm not sure exactly if you want to talk if you want to call luke he's in the office Tuesday morning to be happy to dig up i don't i don't recall specifically what the reasons were but but i do think we need to get back to the budget conversation and i did want to um steve's question to the select court about uh if they wanted to respond i don't want to return to that if is there any jessie had a comment so so i did want to just um discuss a couple of things the $230,000 surplus in uh fiscal year 23 uh part of that was due to the fact that um income was no shortage of excitement today so um on the income side uh there was 143,700 extra brought in that was unanticipated we um we had a lot of uh delinquent taxes that came in a lot of interest that came in um there was a lot of uh we due to um some money that we put into cds and so on we brought in uh like eight or ten thousand dollars more than anticipated in interest and so on and um one thing that we had been doing was um because we had had four row crew members for twice some time we kept the salary in there for the four row crew members due to the fact that we were actively trying to hire more than the two row crew members so um that money was kept in there so i believe that that was um quite a bit less um you can't just raise taxes so that you can build a surplus um that $600,000 has taken quite a long time to get there when i first came in we were using tax anticipation notes we were borrowing for everything um and so on and i i feel like um that we've just done a really good job in trying to keep uh expenditures down and and so on that $600,000 didn't appear overnight it's been um adding for quite a number of years um the the amount that is suggested uh by gas fee the whatever governmental accounting blah blah blah is that you have 15 of your budget in a general fund in case of emergencies in case of flooding in case of whatever so that um so that you have that so the other thing that we've done so i can do the math quickly um so well that's not the answer right well it was 21 million so uh no it's so 210,000 of that um should kind of just be earmarked to sit there in case of emergencies and so on based on gas fee recommended recommendations um and then as we go through um the budgeting process and so on lost my trap um oh yes thank you um so we do try to take some of that money and put it back in uh to kind of keep the tax rate down and the tax rates aren't set until the summer right now the select board has 25,000 of that 600,000 set aside to go back into the income to help keep the tax rate down and so on and um that can change as we get towards um setting the tax rate in the summer i want to get other folks before anybody who hasn't spoken yet would like to would like to speak i didn't know the select board wanted to speak first oh go ahead i'll i my name's tim caulfield i was on the select board for five years chair most of the time and i i would say the select board works these numbers are built line by line by line and nobody's padding anything here we're doing at least when i was on the board and i think it's true now there's just an effort to minimize the increase each year and to try to make sure it's minimal for the town i would encourage anybody who thinks otherwise to join the select board and get on budget committee because that's that's really where the where the rubber gets the road and um if if you don't like what the select board's doing uh run for the select board and change it select board do you guys want to respond to the other playoff okay yeah i'd just like to say that with i did a little bit of research into why this tax rate is what it is for the town of branchery this is my perception on it um did you like pre um 1990s you know the the population in branchery was around 500 people and somewhere in the 90s and for about 10 or 11 years up through branchery saw a 10 per year increase in population so over that 10 or 11 years span we had over a hundred percent increase in population but we never took the time to reset the tax rate so now we have over twice as much tax money coming in that we don't need and that's when i believe maybe late 90s whenever the the capital plan was was built in the capital budget and the general fund that funds this was put together because i think the boards at the time were seeing more money than they needed and i am for saving some money so that we're not spending money when we finance a truck or any of that but i think that general fund is much more so it has more cash flow than it needs it's way overfunded um like quincy said the town of brookfield you know i'll pick on them a little bit because when you look into it their square miles are the same they're the same size as branchery okay we have a similar similar population within less than 200 people they offer the same thing that branchery offers which is dirt roads that's it there's no town pool there's no town rec center there's no recreation fields there's nothing else we offer dirt roads they offer dirt roads but when you take our budget and this year's budget if it gets voted in and you divide it by the number of miles in our dirt roads forty three we're looking at over thirty two thousand dollars a mile these two towns are apples to apples the same town theirs is sixteen thousand dollars a mile they don't have a huge general fund but they do contribute and save some money over there and i think if we looked at spending the same sixteen thousand dollars a mile in branchery that they spend per mile in brookfield that would give us a budget of about six hundred and eighty thousand dollars and we could add a hundred thousand dollars to that and put that hundred thousand dollars a year right into our general fund and still be a lot less and well a lot than we are right now does that make sense to anybody yes and he's been on the board and questions if anybody has a question i'd be happy to try answer one sandy cooch i've reported a lot of time over the years i think that mile you know cost per mile kind of thing will vary a bit on how much you have in reserve funds so you know i don't think brookfield has many many so if you're borrowing for a truck or you have never spiked in costs because of gravel or whatever that rate i think in brookfield it's going to go up and down and probably be worth stating in the real trade deal maybe the board can speak to that sorry i'm not i'm not clear about the question that you're asking of the board whether the whether the general fund is a part of the per-road calculation is that what you're asking sandy me yeah oh no i wasn't thinking about the general fund so much but i think she was asking about the effects of reserve funds play on that rate on how that the rate would change well i i hope this is an answer it would depend how much of the reserve fund is applied to this year's funding this year's budget and this year we recommended that we take $25,000 from the reserve fund and put it toward this next year's expenses from the general fund from the general fund right thank you for it and and last year i believe the budget called for a $50,000 the the town approved a $50,000 allocation from the general fund to the 24 budget so we're 25 thought we we did $25,000 less this year so i think that would then impact the the ultimate tax rate because of how much we have to fund through taxes this year versus through other this non-revenue source that you see in the article of three hundred and thirteen thousand dollars help other folks we just just so you folks know we just purchased a new truck and the cost of these trucks that we need to plow sand all gravel all the way ditch material that we're cleaning which is um went up almost a hundred thousand dollars since culver so that's just giving an idea of just how much stuff has gone up and i really feel that we have shamed uh we started with a higher uh budget than what is presented in front of you and we went back to the drawing board the ones on the community to set the budget up and shade someone off and came up with some ideas to keep the tax rate down and when Keegan was on here even when he was on it go up a little every year but not as significant as this year the equipment and stuff like that hadn't gone up like this has sent you all the way it's really crazy the amount of money they want for even if we went back to a single axle it'd be like $80,000 more than a month was back with our equipment because we just priced on in rock today so okay so i'll try to take a minute i don't know that i can answer every question because it's been a while and i made some notes but i don't know that i got it all uh i want to echo jesse's point that the surplus is not built from us raising your taxes to bring more money in to stuff into savings generally all that the majority of that money especially that $230,000 that was mentioned came from sources outside of the line item budget is that correct correct me from um it's their line items but we got more money from the state of vermont than we anticipated than they told us they were going to give us um and we also brought in $110,000 extra in delinquent taxes and another 11,000 in delinquent tax interest over what was anticipated so those were not the those were not items where we over budgeted specifically in order to put money back later i guess is what i'm trying to say there um i want to also echo what jesse said that it's not a bad idea to have a lot of this or have some money back for emergencies i know at least one town central vermont who was hit with the flood this year who had plans to build a massive facility to benefit their town and now that's gone because they spent all that money to deal with floods i also know one town in the upper valley who's proposing a 20 tax rate to their citizens because costs have gone up so much across the board so everyone is being affected by this we did our best to play in the margins to keep things as low as possible um also sometimes what this general fund allows us to do is to buy things outright rather than financing some things we also have vehicle funds and equipment funds and so on and so forth but it can help us save financing charges to the town we're going to enter a situation soon with our vehicle fund despite all of our planning that it's going to start to run dry so we've been in the past buying our equipment outright because we'd saved up enough money but like lauren said this latest truck costs us a hundred thousand dollars more than the previous so the budgeting and planning changes when you have a 40 increase in cost of a piece of equipment over the course of three years so having some money that we can help offset financing also helps us um and like lou said i will echo that also we do our best to not necessarily level fund the budget every year but to incrementalize tax increases we if you get to a position where you do not have a surplus and you lower taxes too drastically every year you'll enter sort of a yo-yo phase where taxes will drop dramatically then you run out of money to offset taxes and they'll rise dramatically and then they'll fall and they'll rise and so it becomes a difficult thing to budget for both for people personally paying taxes and for us as a town so there are a lot of considerations that go into this we do sit down and look at every line in the budget to try to get it as trim as possible and this is where we end up this year we haven't had a chance to speak yet we got one back here someone who has not spoken i want to give them a chance ellen box but i also wonder with um the increases in taxes i know in other towns that we let you split the payments not just in two but into four and sometimes that's easier i don't know if that's anything that the board has i'll i'll just say um in the town of brain tree when it went from one payment to two payments the town voted to not um collect interest until after the second payment so in the town of brain tree you can make your tax payment anytime you want you can pay a head you can pay it on march 15th you can wait until march 15th to pay your taxes we prefer that you don't but you can you can there's some people i swear they pay it before they even have their tax bill i don't we send the tax bill they're in the next day they pay the whole thing so we don't have to adjust it at all um because that is a thing if you want to come in and pay monthly you can do that too i'd like to call the question i have my hands up there to be honest i would give sure last last word then we'll call the question um i just a couple of things the the cla does not impact the budget it impacts how much individuals pay toward the budget right so it's just it's a it's a shift of the money uh this person is paying this much in taxes this person's paying that much and the cla the reappraisal happens that person's paying more maybe that person is paying a little less i have never ever in all the years that i've lived in brah i've never actually seen a reappraisal be done when the market goes down i've never seen it i'm not sure when that ever happened but i'd be interested in that um but the bottom line is first of all i just want to say i don't think anybody here suggested dramatically lowering taxes i think what i heard keegan say was um or maybe it was lindsay suggesting level funding because there was the surplus money because there is this money in the general fund and because nobody knows what's going to happen with taxes over the next year or so the reappraisal etc this is it's not just you know the cost of the truck that went up as a result of covid everybody's cost went up across the board i mean you cannot walk into shaw supermarket without dropping 200 bucks on two bags of groceries everybody um is feeling those pains um from covid and furthermore i i think it is uh it would be really disingenuous do you think that you can continue to just um uh see the reasons in taxes um and and the increase in the budgets not that some of this stuff isn't really necessary but this is a time right now where everybody personally professionally and and in the municipalities have to tighten their all those in favor of calling the question uh signified by saying i opposed okay so paper ballot okay uh paper ballot let's see we need seven other people who who else would like a paper ballot for this but this one seven people if you want a paper ballot raise your hand raise your hand to clarify what we're voting on oh yeah so sorry the question before the board uh the body is shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of one million four hundred one thousand one hundred and eighteen dollars of which one million eighty seven thousand two hundred twenty eight dollars shall be raised by taxes and three hundred and thirteen thousand eight eight hundred ninety dollars by non-tax revenue so sherry back to you you had called for a paper ballot are there other who else would like a paper ballot raise your hand now disappoint the voters jay does the verbal vote happen first and then request for the paper ballot i think a paper ballot can be requested anytime on the approval of seven other voters but i have not seen seven other hands so jackson just another question because people aren't happy with that cost could an amendment be made to reduce that total amount to be raised by taxes would that be the simplest way of addressing that if there are concerns somebody made an amendment to that it would be but we've called the question and the question is now before the board so it would have to be if if we're we're we're preparing to vote if we vote and it's voted in the affirmative someone who voted in favor of the budget could request reconsideration of the budget which would or of that article which would take us back to the start but you have to vote it in favor of it you can't be against the article yes uh actually years ago i thought you had 30 days on this is that right or no not because something was bought that shouldn't have been bought at that time and they didn't have the money for it so what what happened then that's a that's a good question i don't i mean 30 days if it weren't if it wasn't warned properly or something like that then perhaps it could be reconsidered after but in general the law says reconsideration has to happen before the next article is called on the agenda and by someone voting in the affirmative so just to get back to where we were the articles before the board we have not had enough votes for a paper ballot so we're going to we're going to vote um voting on the main motion the motion asked the body shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures of operating expenses of one million four hundred one thousand one hundred eighteen dollars of which one million eighty seven thousand two hundred twenty eight dollars shall be raised by taxes and three hundred thirteen thousand eight hundred ninety dollars by non-tax revenue voting i means you wish to pass the motion voting name means you wish to defeat it all those in favor please say i oppose say nay the eyes appear to have it and i believe the eyes have it the motion carries that brings us to article six shall the town collect its real property taxes and two installments with the due dates being october 15th 2024 and october 17th 2025 march march 17 2025 thank you jessie you need a motion to bring this before the body so uh the motion has been made and seconded the floor is now open for discussion on article six which states shall the town collect its real property taxes two installments with the due dates being october 15th 2024 and march 17 2025 uh maker the initial motion has the privilege of speaking first any discussion questions all the question all right all those in favor of calling the question say aye the question before the lord shall the shall the before the body shall the town collect its real property taxes and two installments with due dates being october 15th 2024 and october 17th march march 17 it's lunch time 2025 voting i means you wish to pass the motion voting name means you wish to defeat the motion all those in favor please say aye opposed the eyes have it we're at a crucial juncture here we have still three articles before the body but it's noon um let's power through okay okay um feel free to hop out and grab a refreshment article seven shall the voters authorize the disabled veteran's property tax exemption to increase from ten thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars of appraised value per eligible parcel in the municipal grant list pursuant to 32 vsa section 3802 subsection 11c entertain a motion to bring this before the body so what was that second all motion's made and seconded the floor is now open for discussion on article seven shall the voters authorize the disabled veteran's property tax exemption to increase from ten thousand to forty thousand dollars of appraised value per eligible parcel in the municipal grant list pursuant to 32 vsa section 308 subsection 11c luke you made the motion would you like to speak on this discussion i'll just i'll just state it's okay sorry um we had a veteran that came in and asked for this this is by state law you are required to have to give veterans and their significant others or um i don't know i think it's just spouses but um ten thousand dollars um you can give up to forty thousand dollars in this based on the state law it was a veteran that came in and asked for that and i think that's all i had to say and just just has a little bit of explanation from a lister's perspective this this basically takes currently we're taking ten thousand dollars off the basically off the appraised value of the before taxes are assessed production sorry tim callfield all staffs for clarification when i was on the select board this was basically a one one person campaign statewide there was one guy who went around and tried to get this on the ballots for all of the towns is that the case or is that not the case that is not the case this year it was an actual veteran who owns the property in the town of breakthrough that asked for that if we were to Paul Kendall if we were to approve this what would be the net effect in terms of the tax rate for the rest of us so i did we had run i can answer this when we first started when this first came up the listers ran some numbers to kind of look at what it would do if we increase the exemption to the forty thousand dollar maximum we typically have six to seven disabled veterans in brain tree who take advantage of this that would you know that would add twenty yeah it's two hundred eight right two hundred eighty thousand which reduces the taxable grant list by twenty four hundred to twenty hundred dollars it's a pretty minimal when you're when you're talking about per one hundred dollars in property value it doesn't it doesn't reduce the grant list significantly it's a route of three thousand dollar reduction i don't have a question i just have a remark if it's a disabled veteran we're speaking english here you know i think they've earned that thank you better call the question all those they were calling the questions say aye opposed so the question before the board shall the voter before the body shall the voters authorize the disabled veterans property tax exemption to increase to from ten thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars of appraised value per eligible parcel the municipal grant list pursuant to 32 vsa section 3802 subsection 11c all those in favor please say aye opposed yeah i have it thank you article eight beginning in 2025 shall the voters authorize the annual town meetings to be held on the first tuesday in march pursuant to 17 vsa section 2640 look for a motion to bring this up second steve i saw it motion has been made seconded before it's now open for discussion on article eight asking beginning in 2025 shall the voters authorize the annual town meeting to be held on the first tuesday in march pursuant to 17 vsa section 2640 limit do you want to speak or do you want to pass on comments questions discussion does anybody have any idea comparison to how many people are involved on their truth be your saturday so the numbers ended up being about the same as far as how many people show up whether it's saturday or tuesday you may have changing of some people some people can make it saturday some people can't and vice versa on a tuesday what i do see myself is that we have more voter participation when we have town meeting on a tuesday in the various especially the school budget where we have less than a hundred people that vote in a 26 million dollar school budget and um and there's just there's more people that vote if we have town meeting on the tuesday as opposed to because the voting can only happen on tuesday which is a good reminder to vote on tuesday it'll be here between nine and seven p.m. okay other discussion question uh just to get an idea would it be possible to have a show of hands how many people in this room currently would be able to attend if it was to be on tuesday next year all right show sure we just drop off show of hands if you've come to town meeting next year on tuesday i can't raise your hand if you cannot make next tuesday next year on tuesday and oh just to follow up are the schools uh still taking that day off or would that go back on their calendar to stay off the wall not to stay off the wall other other questions discussion all right doesn't take any more discussion so we can uh the question before the body is article eight which asks beginning in 2025 shall the voters authorize the annual town meeting to held on the first tuesday in march pursuant to 17 vsa section 2640 all those in favor please say aye opposed appears the eyes have it the article nine uh this is the long one i'm going to read it once and then i'll probably just refer back to it on the nature of article nine shall the voters adopt the following declaration of inclusion the town of brain tree condemns racism and welcomes all persons regardless of race color religion national origin sex sexual orientation gender identity and expression age disability or socioeconomic status wants everyone to feel safe and welcome in our community as a town we formally condemn all discrimination in all its forms commit to fair and equal treatment of everyone in our community and will strive to ensure all our actions policies and operating procedures reflect this commitment the town of brain tree has been would continue to be a place where individuals are encouraged to live freely and responsibly to express their opinions and listen to the opinions of others motion to bring this before the body so okay the motions before the body shall the voters adopt the following declaration of inclusion which i read previously which you all have in front of you uh discussion was there any particular reason for this to be brought to the board did we have any incident in which we were proving to be otherwise or yeah this is um a statewide effort that is spearheaded by a non-profit group called i believe from our declaration of inclusion dot org um and it's been underway for three years their goal is to get every town and city in Vermont to adopt this uh this statement of inclusion presently they have 135 towns of the 246 towns and cities that have adopted it in our neck of the woods it's Bethel Brookfield chelsea royalton current Randolph northfield roxbury have all adopted this over the past few years represent representatives of this group came to the select board before i was on the board and asked that we adopt that and some towns and cities boards have simply adopted it themselves at the meeting and this board chose chose to bring it to the town for consideration um i will know does that address your question um yes just the origin of of this particular thing i feel the brain tree was already uh already kind of unspokenly abided by that and i also wonder if there would be any opposition or question to or well i mean i just wonder because they're not residents of our town which they brought this to the board um they're not here today um so i do appreciate the statement but i wonder if it was actually a resident it was a resident oh that's too less than talk to us perfect um but then i wonder i'm also everybody's down the nose and actually think wow it could be here um but i wonder if there was any reason to shorten the statement to the town of brain tree has been and will continue to get things where individuals will encourage that last statement i wonder if there's possibility of that um but there i the i'll just preserve myself for other folks to speak and i'll come back as i get here please use the mics yep um my question is i don't know if this has been asked or if anyone knows the answer but is there any type of liability to the town by stating this it's it's not a binding it's not binding in any way hold on hold on i got a comment online this is the person who brought the motion so i'm gonna figure out how to work this thing okay i think you're you can go ahead Bob yes uh i asked the board to consider this oh wow computer went down i'm not kidding this is what i'm playing can we call him who's got other comments questions while we resolve our technical issue i have no idea but just restart it anyway so that was yeah that was bob that was bob krantel so it's going away other comments questions while we dwell i have one up there with me can i preserve bob just try and get bob back on here while we're while we're waiting here i did want to thank linda lubel who every year says she's not coming back to me but somehow she's here every year thank you linda anybody wants to help next next year next year on tuesday linda is always looking for help so um want to help prepare lunch somebody younger yeah i mean lind brown had a question hey grace he got lind brown okay close the question okay wait wait i got bob there you go all right bob you're back sorry the computer went dead on it so go ahead okay yes uh it did seem to die from my end um pretty much what i needed to say uh i just uh i would like to see us adopt this resolution thank you uh there's a motion to call the question all of all those in favor of calling the question say i'm all right opposed okay the question before the board before the body shall the voters adopt the following declaration of inclusion the town of redre condemns racism and welcome to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, age, disability, or socioeconomic status and wants everyone to feel safe and welcome in our community as a town we formally condemn all discrimination in all of its forms, commit to fair and equal treatment of everyone in our community, and will strive to ensure all of our actions, policies, and operating procedures reflect this commitment. The town of redre condemns and will continue to be a place where individuals are encouraged to live freely and responsibly to express their opinions and listen to the opinions of others voting i means you wish to pass the motion voting i means you wish to be defeated all those in favor please say aye opposed zaynay it appears the eyes have it the eyes have it that takes us to article 10 to transact any other business not of a mindy nature this is typically a time where people can offer interesting things that have happened to them over the course of the year what they're excited about for lunch things like that there wait for the mic and a brief follow-up article nine it's just a question of was there any particular incident in which we felt as though we were not meeting this or was it something that just everyone kind of would like to adopt in the nature is clarified to the general public there was no there was no incident that that's wonderful to know other business of a non-binding nature just every three years every three years give her health needs assessment and is really looking for input from community members so there's a survey here for surveys that you can pick up and fill out and return to gifford and your voice really does matter in trying to move forward in health care in our communities you just dropped that off the town office they'll pick it up for me what jessie said seeds and i was just going to say well i'm not willing to serve on the cemetery commission i'm willing to help out and i bet there are others too if if there's a day designated to go clean up branches from the cemeteries and the town can put it in front porch forum or facebook or somewhere i think that'd be a good turn out just to to help out in in life there's short time that's a great suggestion i think you see some other business of a non-binding nature yes yes i was going to ask you about really appraisal but we'll wait and see what the legislature does because who knows yep yeah we the town will receive a note letter the formal letter this summer which will give us a little bit more information so we'll be sure to publicize whatever that whatever we find out why is rochester hollow separated out why is rochester hollow separated out as a line item rochester hollow is part of the road is in rochester and part of that road is in rochester is not part of the town of breakthrough so we get revenue from them for what they pay us to send and maintain the road but it's about doubled in the last summer year right because we were charging we were charging that income that's money coming to us we were charging them a low rate for the sand in the past and we've now raised it to a market rate essentially get rid of that too much no i don't know about that but i really don't think it's quite enough yet lord is loving for us to charge that you know we we charge by the hour and by the yard and so we're trying to determine what's a fair rate to track you know for our trucks and with our trucks going up in price by a hundred thousand i still say that the price per hour is a little bit on the low side so we're working on that by next fall we're not going to change it just whenever you know really you can't yeah it's a money bit down the end it doesn't so we're uh wait until october it's up dimmer october and revisit it we have to do it in time to give them a moment to prepare there because it's part because our charge grows on their budget so they have to be able to do that i just ask you why it was a line yes it it's because we charge them for the services right here at their town meeting they're wondering why they pay rent that's right and they're also like asking why we're up so the ones that don't know there's actually five miles of Rochester road on this side of the mountain yet they don't come around blout sand and they don't they don't think they have you graded do they millen i think i'm not wearing graded themselves that's a long way to drive a grader thank you other other comments all right well suggesting we're all done with our business which i think it's all having no other business to conduct we will conclude this year's town meeting thank you everyone