 Do we have any additions? I don't hear of any. Reviews minutes of October 17th here in front of us. Look good to me. I just saw one little thing, and it's tiny little thing. It's just a typo, and I don't usually catch those. I usually just read right by them. Chair Gardner is in control of the meeting at 6.31 PM. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I need to bring it up. I also, I didn't have a last name for Chris from all the media from last time. Yeah. Well, that's fine, what you did. Last name of the question mark. Perfect. If we don't know his name, it'll be quite a further investigation. So I move to approve the minutes with that slight change. Second. I'll second it. Judith seconded it first. Judith moved it. Oh, you moved it. Oh, sorry. Oh, so John, John seconded it for you. Your call. We'll give it to John, because I can't see him. Could you see whoever controls that computer? Could you get rid of the meeting being recorded? I'm sorry? Can you get rid of the meeting being recorded sign? Just click, got it. Oh, you can see me, right? Now we can. You can't see my video? No, we can see it now. We can see it now. Be careful, we have horses. Watch out. That's a nice picture. I like it. And a greenery. Oh, that's what that is. Right, 1919. You remember that. Started by a group of four farmers or eight farmers, right? Isn't that the agenda that says that? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The meeting minutes of the 17th are approved. Public comment. We have the public right here. I'm here on another agenda item, but I can do it now. No, if you're going to speak to a specific item, let's wait for that. You're good. Perfect. Comments, if I may? Sure. All right. And I'll make it brief. I'm wondering if you folks, the select board, have, whether you folks have considered including the inclusion declaration in the town meeting warning? Yeah. I'm familiar with the inclusion declaration. OK. So we've talked about it. We've talked about we just haven't gone over the meeting warning specifically, which we usually don't do at this early date. But we have discussed it. It's been my thought that it's not all that meaningful if five select board members discuss it for 10 minutes and then pass something. If we're going to pass it, I'd like to see a more inclusive process so that townspeople really know what we're doing. I don't expect there to be any objections. I just want it to be a more widely anchored decision. And Paul emailed me and suggested it be a town meeting item. And we have a history of occasionally as a select board by our own motion putting things on the town meeting warning, which seems like a good idea to me. Could we get a little more background by the inclusion declaration specifically what you said the last name is on the phone? OK. Paul, do you want to give both of those? Sure. My last name, Earl Bown, is spelled B-R-L-B-A-U-M. And it's easy for me to give you a background on the inclusion declaration. It's I think it's three short sentences, which I'll be glad to read to you. And it's a declaration that many towns in the state have adopted, many others are considering adoption. So if you'd like, I'd be glad to read to you the three sentences. Sure. Go for it. Town of Blank condemns racism and welcomes all persons, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, age or disability, and 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 of our actions, policies, and operating procedures reflect this commitment. The town of Blank has and will continue to be a place where individuals can live freely and express their opinions. Is sexual orientation on there? I heard sex, gender, gender expression. I didn't hear sexual orientation. Is that? I'm so glad that you asked that question, because I was going to suggest that we as a town, if we adopt this, amend it to include sexual orientation, which is quite different than gender expression. Thank you for that. Yes. And the organization that is pushing this has recently announced that half the towns in Vermont have adopted it. Well, maybe next time, Amy, we have a full. I think it's a full board consideration. Well, what do we think? Well, we don't do the warning yet. Yeah, my suggestion was rather than be an early. I mean, if we were facing some crisis that we really needed to take a stand on, then I'd say, yeah, let's go ahead and do it quickly as a select board. But I think it's better to have a more broadly anchored discussion of it, put it before the voters, and vote in town meeting day. How long has the, because this is the first I've heard of this, I'm just curious how long the board has been considering this. We haven't been. OK. OK, maybe we've been, I'm just wondering. Maybe I've been using language referring to it in a way that wasn't clear, because we have been talking about Susanna Davis and the diversity, equity, inclusion work for the town. And this is, maybe it's not part of the same package, but it was close enough in my mind that I thought we were talking about it. Yeah, we weren't really talking about that specific. But maybe we can bring up at our next meeting when Amy's here. I do appreciate bringing up. And I'm not sure. I don't know if it's something that, well, it's something we should talk about as a full board. But I'm not sure if there needs to be a crisis or an emergency before we have or feel comfortable deciding whether to adopt a statement that Paul just recited with that amendment, including sexual orientation. I think making a decision on that might be supportive and empowering to people in our community that, so. So you're saying don't wait to tell me. That's my thought. But I think maybe we should have Amy here have the full board for the discussion. So that's just, I do appreciate you bringing up. And this is the first time I've heard the full statement. And maybe we can put it on the agenda for next week. OK, we can. Yeah, all right. Next time I won't be here probably. I'll be in transit. Well, that's all right. I mean, we're not the only thing that we would do is decide we're going to pass as a select board. We would wait until you were here anyway. Yeah, OK. Or put it on a town warning as discussion at the town meeting. So that's really our decision. OK, well, thank you, Paul. Thank you, folks, for considering this. Yeah, thank you for bringing it to our attention. Perfect. So we're done with that. And VLCT town fair update. I didn't have time to read your email today. No, no, I can talk about it. Do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? Well, this is essentially part of it. And kind of Carl and I communicated a little bit over email about this because addressing diversity inclusion was one of the sessions that I attended and really left there with more of a big question. What does that look like for East Montpelier? And that's what I told Carl. I think that it just that's really kind of it was an interesting talk and it was interesting to hear what other towns are doing. But the real takeaway from it was what they told most of us was you need to figure out what this looks like in your town and how your town wants to address this because all of the towns are unique and different. So it kind of led into this. I forwarded the diversity inclusion statement to Carl and asked him if he was aware of this and what his thoughts were and how he thought we should proceed. And that's when I told him I really left that talk though with hearing some great things done in other towns really unclear as to what that would look like for East Montpelier. And I know we've talked about that. And then, I think Paul is not the only townsperson that's reached out to me about this. Yeah, ironically enough I was contacted by another president last week as well about it. So definitely it's on people's minds. So, and then another big one for me was just a session I attended on employee recruitment and retention. Nothing necessarily to brand you specifically now it was more spinning lots of things in my head. Mostly as it relates to the road crew in the future when we need to start recruiting there. Some very unique ideas that I'll need to get my own head around some before we have a broader conversation about it. But it was definitely interesting. And then really for Michelle and I at Town Fair we were networking, we spent a lot of time in the vendor area. We were telling Carl about this because as you all know, we're looking at banks. We spent quite a bit of time with a number of banks. So it was a very good... I personally found Town Fair to be quite useful but I'm brand new so maybe I got more out of it than a seasoned town administrator would, but... Which is fine. Yeah. So I'll let Carl, Carl has... Yeah, yeah. So I was there for the first day and then I visited just briefly for the Town Fair the second day. And my time was at a roads meeting that had a lot of good information about maintaining roads. And my suggestion, I talked it over with Gina. She wants to review the tape of it and then get together the two road commissioners and Guthrie and talk about what we heard from the agency of transportation in terms of gravel budget, how much you should be putting on, when you should be putting on more equipment that we don't have that might be useful to maintaining the roads and not hurting the backs of the road crew and so on. Some things that could help us maintain our roads better and just check in with Guthrie and see what he thinks about it and see if we think we want to propose any expenditures based on that or any different policies. Or considerations for the town of The Rodge as well. Let's go and look at that project. Right, right. So that was a useful discussion and I look forward to talking about it more. That sounds good. Why don't we go and do that? When do you want to do that? I can talk to Guthrie and we just need to get some time on the calendar. Okay, be good. I'll be State the 21st to the 1st and then otherwise available. I'll be out for a while myself. Okay. From, what is that? To the 21st, right. I'm leaving the 16th to the 21st. Okay, okay. Maybe sometime in December. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'll be gone to 7th to the 14th. So in this memo to you, I put some information about the annual meetings of VIRB, the unemployment insurance arm of VLCT, passive the other insurance arm of VLCT and VLCT itself and everybody's in good shape economically and they've hired more people. They've increased their staff by five at VLCT as a whole, primarily with grant funded positions so that our fees don't pay for those additional staff members. And one of the new programs I have with an additional staffer is to help procure a state and I think the emphasis is on federal funding. Sarah Macy is a staffer who does that. So we were introduced to her and they've got a new executive director as of February of last year, but because this is our first in-person event like this since the pandemic started, this is our first opportunity for a lot of us to meet him and he wants to visit select boards. I think it'd be a good idea for us to extend an invitation to come in and just get to know us a little better and for us to get to know him. And then we have the every other year process of approving the VLCT municipal policy. That's the legislative agenda that is good for the upcoming biennium. And in the past, we have been involved in some disagreements over some of the things that have been proposed for that. And there was nothing that I thought was too egregious in the policy that was proposed this time. I do have the complete draft policy here with me as well as all the reports, if you wanna take a look at that afterwards and the PDF also contains a link to the municipal policy on the website. The only, there were a number of things that I and some other people raised some questions about but we decided not to push them in terms of asking for a vote to remove them at this point. And I documented in here the one that probably received the most pushback. This was a provision that came into the policy at the time that we first had the general permit for stormwater on pound roads. That was a new requirement that scared a lot of us and we didn't know what it was going to mean for us. And the VLCT took the position that we should use the money from the transportation fund that we had been allocating to our town roads to pay for stormwater measures. But it now seems like there's a pretty blurry line at best between stormwater measures on town roads and just good road maintenance policies. So some of us really questioned having that in there. Maybe they'll take it out next time and maybe we'll need to do it on the floor next time. I don't know. Hmm. As part of the general permit, are there maintenance provisions like yearly maintenance or is that why they wanted a separate project for a separation for stormwater maintenance versus regular? Well, there's new provisions in terms of having to have stone lined ditches and things like that. It's work that towns weren't doing before. And judging from the seminar that I went to on road maintenance, it sounds like from a fiscal point of view, it makes sense to be doing that work to keep the roads from washing away. And it keeps the water cleaner. Yeah, so good quality construction is hand in hand with mitigation of the runoff. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So what's blurry is what you're saying. Yeah. So we'll see how that works out. Yeah. So generally things are being run on an even keel and improving in terms of getting more staff on. There's maybe an alarming amount of turnover, but that's probably not unusual for organizations in the past few years. I mean, their municipal policy is not a hard to pass document that you have to follow. I mean, how does it impact versus us? Our legislators, legislative lobbyists take it to the state house and use it to guide their. Oh, I see. Yeah, okay. And VLCT has a fair amount of clout in some things. Well, they, yeah, legislators have to have something to go off of. So that's something that they do. Yeah. So it is, well, we'll see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if a bill doesn't come up regarding this, then maybe it won't be. Doesn't mean, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So do y'all want to get to the Ted Brady in here? Have them just meet and greet 10, 15 minutes on an agenda sometime next? Sure. A few months. I mean, if we have a short agenda, fill her, so to speak. Yeah. Maybe in February, when we don't have a lot to do between having put our town meeting stuff together and waiting for town meeting. We can. I mean, we're gonna be pretty busy in December, right? Exactly. In January too. January is always busy. Yeah. I mean, after the town report thing gets done before town meeting. Yeah. We have some time. Sure. Okay. And then connected to the diversity, equity and inclusion. So Susanna Davis, I believe was on that panel. I was not at that panel, but I did make connection with her over the summer. And now we're having this discussion again. I've reached out to her again and thought I'd see about what she might want to come to this like board and talk to us about. So probably for next meeting, I'll be able to propose something and have her come in and visit with us if you want. I tried to connect with her, but I kind of turned around. I was speaking to someone else and when I turned around, she was gone. And then I happened to walk out to my car and I saw her getting into our car, believing I had to go grab something from my car and she was, she was. Yeah. So I think she had to head out pretty quickly. Yeah. I appreciate it. I spoke. Okay. So it sounds like you folks got a lot out of the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. So anything else on the town fair? I'm sure we move on to the next. I'm done. Okay. So, well, thank you. Sure. The next item is County Road Project Update. Discuss. Haven't been on County Road. It is beautiful, very smooth and lovely drive. So Pike completed the paving last week. Ironically enough, the center lines were, I asked Guthrie, because I got a picture of them. We, Guthrie and I had just spoken about how to get someone out to draw the, to paint the center lines on the road. And he sent me a, texted me a picture and said, they must have had time on their hands because they were there painting. They were literally following Pike there, that final day of paving. Oh, okay. Painting the center line. So the center line is there. Pike will return on next Monday, the 14th. And that is when they will do the shoulder work. They will finish all of that. And then the R Road crew was working to, had they been working since Friday to, people where the pavement is, that there's a bit of a gap for people's driveways. So they've been going and trying to bring that to grade. Right. And Guthrie said they expect to be done with that by midday tomorrow. Oh, okay. There's a little bit like that on Cummings Road in the new apron there. Did he say? He didn't mention that specifically as it relates to the R Road crew. I'm not sure if that may fall under pikes because that's what the shoulder work part of their process. So he didn't specifically mention that as it relates to the R Road crew's work. Also, what did you think, Judith? You were right behind me coming in. I thought coming in from the transition from East Montpelier to Montpelier, there's not that big cutoff anymore, but it is still kind of whoop, don't. Well, did you need two pavements? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really appreciate it that much. And the apron onto Cummings, I thought was pretty smooth. I think they did a good job. Yeah. So was that an asphalt thing where the two joints come together? I don't know. But they're not quite done, right? They're coming back. Oh, they're just coming back to do shoulder work. Right. All the pavements done. So usually that's it. Yeah. So maybe it'll be, it's sort of like that place on Center Road where the cover has sunk. Yeah. Except this is reverse speed bump. Yeah. Yeah, so maybe we accept it as a reverse speed bump. Yeah. I anticipate speeding being next summer's complaint. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's why I was gonna, I suggest a few years ago to adopt the rough road policy. But it didn't go over very well. And one resident took me aside and they were really angry that I did too. That was like, oh, okay. And the road form at that point was not appreciative of that. So, but you know, rough road policy would slow down people. Putting it out there. I've gotten quite a few compliments. Everyone thinks the guardrails are beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Have you ever really heard any complaints? Nope. Except for, which is what the road crew is working on, the, you know, trying to get the driveways back up to connect them with the new paint road. So what's this bullet? Discuss resident request for temporary road closure to celebrate project completion. So I think that is what Mr. Larry Gerber is here. Oh, okay. He does ask, is a potential celebration for the road. So I will pass the floor to Larry since he's joined us. Okay. So there's some place I should be to curtain? Here. The camera was swivel. Yeah, wherever we're coming. Welcome to the... Yeah. Great. I'm Larry Gilbert. I live on County Road. Wonderful. Smooth. Too fast. County Road. So I'm here to ask you to close the road again. Oh, that's a possible. Because we haven't had it closed enough this year. So my proposal to you is that County Road be closed between from the compost company to Templeton Road on this coming Sunday, the 13th from nine to noon, just three hours. And the reason we would do that is so people can go out and enjoy this incredible new infrastructure that we've created and invested in here at a slow speed. So we would invite people to come out with bicycles and roller blades and walk and baby joggers and just have four miles of beautiful, beautiful black top to kick off the winter season. So an opportunity for us to build community at a slow speed. So that's my ask of you. Exactly how that occurs. I leave to those of you who know how to do this. I think it would be easy. You just use the same detour signs and road closed signs that were in place several weeks ago in the same places. I could have a team of volunteers who, if you put them out there Friday night, we could drag them into place at nine a.m. on Friday and on Sunday morning at noon, drag them off the side of the road. On Monday morning, got three or somebody could go and pick them up. But however, the mechanics of it are not my daily work, but the idea is to just have an opportunity for us as a community to say, hey, look at this amazing thing we have. It's probably the smoothest road in all of Vermont right now. So, and it won't be always. So. Have you talked with anyone else, your neighbors or anyone about it and how interested are other people? And if it were to be closed, would there be three people on it or would there be, you know, 50? Just wondering. So I don't know the answer to that question. Everybody I have talked to, and I've talked to a lot of people in the past week since I talked to Gina here at the offices. Everybody is supportive. I've gotten a lot of emails from people saying, that's a great idea. Let's do that. That'd be super cool. Nobody has said no, but I was kind of a select and biased audience. You know, my friends are probably gonna be supportive of something like that. So I can't tell you. I did, at Carl's suggestion, I did have a conversation. I did, had an email conversation with Burr Morse saying, hey Burr, I'm concerned about Morse Farm and the impact this might have on you. What do you think? And he goes, yeah, it doesn't sound like a big deal Sunday morning, nine to 12, that's not our peak time. Go for it, it sounds like a cool event. That's what he said. So, that's my ask. Okay. Could you talk about the specific stretch of the road that you're suggesting this for? Why you're suggesting for that? The new back top. That's what I'm suggesting. The new black top. Some jump from compost to Templeton. Right. Because the lower part of that seems steeper, less likely to be enjoyed by people at a slow speed. I'm wondering whether it makes sense to constrict it a little bit. Well, I mean, I suppose you could, the advantage of doing it the way I've suggested in my opinion is that that was the detour that was in place for months that people are used to already. And so it wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. You could chop it up in different ways, I suppose in Barnes Road or, I don't know if I could actually watch Carl, but... Or Center Road. I'm sorry? Or Center Road. Center Road to where? To, could go to Templeton. Well, that is where it would go. The detour would go up Center Road to Templeton. You shot it right above Center Road. That's a suggestion. Whether they'd go to Templeton. And they detour around Center Road. So how many people would we get? I don't know. I guarantee you that for the next five days, I will work my tail off to make sure it's all a lot of people. I think the folks at Union River Outdoors would be incredibly supportive. We get a lot of bikers out there. But just speculation, last night, they had tens of thousands of people out on the streets of one street in Dubai. I know it's not the same thing, but they close a major thoroughfare in Dubai of all places. First time they've ever done it. Tens of thousands of bicyclists out there having a party. I'm all for it, and I wish I was gonna be around on Sunday. I'm sorry? I wish I was gonna be around on Sunday. Well, it's definitely, well, it's good for a community when you do things like that. I mean, that's basically, we've lost a lot of that in East Montpellier. We used to have Rally Day, which was a nice community event. So I think it'd be a nice thing to do. It doesn't really put people too far out. That's the only thing you would worry about is that through traffic on that road, from Maple Corner down through. Yeah, I would communicate to Cal as I communicate with the assistant count, because obviously, there would be communication on this. I mean, this will have to hit front porch forum. I mean, I'm certainly gonna get some calls. Yeah, you'll get pushed back. You saw the post on front porch forum about how it was mismanaged. Yeah, my only hesitation is that is, it's kind of gone to bed right now, and this is going to create a resurgence of this. There's a reason why I've been viewed on front porch forum, because inevitably when I post, the blasting kind of begins again. So it's, my view was everybody saw it getting paved, I let it be, so I've been viewed intentionally, because it's kept things at bay. But you know, on something like this, it's like, what can you say that's opposing this? It's three hours. This gentleman, it's a community thing. I know it's like, what's wrong with it? Yeah, my only thinking, and it's funny, I just whispered to Gina that the black top made me think of wanting to go out on a roller skate on it. Like as a kid, like you want to be on this. That's what I told Gathory. But I was wondering in terms of the weight to minimize potential hazard, so that even though we had a detour before, some people still went by past the detour, and I would not want some kids on whatever, skates or skateboarder bikes, and somebody who's determined to give, to a maple corner, any way they can. So there needs to be, if it were to happen, it needs to be monitored. That's a really good point. It needs to be monitored so that nobody. Well, the signage probably ought to be a little sturner than the one before. My intention there would be to put together a team of volunteers. I mean, I can do that to man the barricades on each end to answer questions and direct people. So there'd be somebody there. Direct people around at all times, the entire three hours would always be somebody at each end, plus a group of people who would act as monitors along the road, because it would be open to local traffic too, coming out of, if you live on County Road, you got to get to stores or something. But people would be there to say, hey, please go slow, there's people on the instructions to the pedestrians, et cetera, would be look, this is not a closed road. It's just a very limited traffic road. So proceed at your own risk. But I think we can manage that. What about just in terms of to address Carl's issue regarding the steepness from Cummings down, like maybe have it start from just north of Cummings, does that make sense? Oh, just don't have that section open from the center road up? Yeah, so put up the barricades just beyond Cummings. But if somebody was doing through traffic, they would get up to that point and then they'd have to turn around and go down and up and around. That doesn't work. It works a lot better above center road. Yeah. Maybe I'm not clear. You're saying put it above Cummings Road? Above, meaning between Cummings and Morse. Yeah, like on the Morse side. So someone can take Cummings Road. If they got it. Yeah, someone can take Cummings Road. But then if they're going north, where would they go? They'd go on North Street. They'd come out on the north. Well, you can cut it around. You can cut, go south and then up to Cummings Road. North Street around, you can go that way. Right, but the idea is if someone's coming north and they get to center and there's a barricade there, then they can take them to around center and get to wherever they want to go. Easy cheesy, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rather than having to turn around. Turning around and backtracking feels bad to people, I think. Yeah, and I think people are used to that. Yeah. I mean, for months, people did that. So I think they can continue to do it. Thank you for mentioning that about the Americans. Because you are right. Those are regularly knocked over. And even when the road crew was replacing that culvert, when they were doing that, people drove right up to them with the road open. And they're like, and I spoke with the contractor that did the culvert work. I'm aware of how many people approached them as well while they were doing their work. Someone literally was like, I need to get there. I mean, the road's open. I was like, he's like, I didn't really know what to say to her. Well, I understand. And I sympathize. We have groceries in the car. And we need to get where we're going. But he couldn't teleport. So I mean, it was definitely an issue. Well, in Randolph, I'm in Randolph each Labor Day weekend for the New World Festival. And they shut down the main street there. And they have barricades and people at the barricades. So they occasionally let somebody in for some important reason. But they have to have a conversation with people there. And it's like volunteers from Norwich Cadets or neighborhood or something. And they also have sheriffs or some other official law enforcement car there. So that helps a lot, actually. Yeah, I'm wondering whether it might be time for us to call up the state police and say, hey, you know those hours that you're doing for us? Could you do three of those hours for us on Sunday morning? Say it's on a road just to have some presence? I mean, we can certainly ask. But the odds of that are probably, I mean, this is my only concern, though, is how much time is this now going to start taking to coordinate. So I'm happy to give phone numbers to other people. But I think we need to determine who's on point for the event and more questions and whatnot. I will call state police. We don't have any official board liaison to the state police. But if you're OK with me taking that off a gene, I'll call state police and make that request. It would be nice to keep people from going around America. I think if there's people there, though, to your point, I think that'll work. If the state police says, no, it's not a game changer. Sunday is probably a good time. That's not. Yeah, and people aren't going to work. Yeah, yeah. I think you should try it myself. But I'm a little more risk-taker than some. I think it'll be a fun community event. Yeah, I mean, why not? Yeah, and you had said, well, this is the idea. I'll leave it to you. But if this isn't really, we don't really have the staffing to make it all happen, other than to perhaps provide the listing in French court forum and work with Guthrie. But in terms of the volunteers and communicating other than front porch forum, to the extent you already have a connection with, have begun to network this with people, I would encourage you to continue to do that. I'm happy to take full responsibility for that. I'm also happy to take responsibility for the phone calls. I mean, if you want to list me as the point person, and I'm not acting on behalf of the town, because I'm not a town official. But you're certainly, oh, you've got to complain, call Larry. It's fine with me. Right. Well, I mean, I think it would help to discuss what we would want to put on front porch forum, because we all know what's going to happen with the response just in general to front porch forum. Well, you don't have to put it on front porch forum. You don't have to put it on front porch forum. Larry can do it. You can do that. We can pass a motion as a select board. And Larry, you can announce it to the public. Is there anything that we need? We don't need a motion, do we? No. Doesn't hurt to have one. Do we need to do anything with Guthrie to, you know? I just need to let him know he is aware of this. He and I have spoken about it. And he said his response was, I got the signs. Yeah. I'm going to back out. Just tell me when. So he was totally, totally comfortable with this, not concerned at all. Thought it was an interesting idea. I mean, I think because there might be pushback on this, we should go on the record and just say, yeah, more in favor of this. I think there's going to be pushback when my hope is that there's also some positive comments on front porch forum as well. So I wouldn't encourage your friends to respond with some positive. We're going to get so much positive from this. Speaking of, you know, even maybe encouraging, I mean, first, first, first best of all, about County Road have been a blessing to me. So I think as much as people can respond with positive support, it would be a nice counter to what we've been seeing. Because I get the positive. Just doesn't tend to make it to front porch forum. People will, you know, will call me. Even when they call with questions, someone called me last week with wine. And she was super appreciative. And, you know, just, I think people are just trying to stay away because they're trying to. So I'm hoping this maybe can create some positive. It should be positive. I mean, the only reason it wouldn't be positive is people are just thinking about themselves and it's going to take a little longer to go. But, you know, that doesn't always say a good thing about a person if that's all they're thinking of. Yeah, and it's a Sunday morning. And, you know, a community event in a way that community things are so rare now and people don't get together. We should encourage it as a town. I agree. Yeah, I agree. It's okay. So if you think emotions in order, I'll make one too. I don't know, it really matters myself. I think by consensus is fine. Okay, John, are you part of this consensus? I am. All right. Okay, good. Okay, we're on the record. All of us. Yeah, and, you know, if you need, I'm going to be around, you know, if you need anything, you know, maybe I can do some of the manning the barricades. Nice, thank you. Are you going to be selling donuts this time? I was thinking of that. You know, is there going to be a party? Yeah. You know, get some cider or, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You can do some good business there. Waiting to see what happens tonight before I sort of start it. Got it, got it. But believe me, the next few days. I think it's a good idea and I think you should go for it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for the initiative. Thank you. Yeah. No, happy to. It's a beautiful road. So now that you, once you get your feet wet, organizing this, then we can reinstate you as the chairman of the Rally Day Committee. There you go. And then we can get that going. Because that was a fun town activity. Well, so speaking of that, I guess I could hold this comment, but I won't. So my thought was that if this is successful and I'm pretty sure it will be that I'm going to come back to you and say, let's do this once a month all year. Once a month. Once a month. Every Sunday, the first Sunday of every month, boom. It's closed. This is like so common in so many places. This is not an original idea. Right. It is very common. I mean, you have a sunny day. Well, we'll see what happens. See what happens. Yeah. See what happens. We'll see what happens. I hope the weather's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's going to be a little cool. Yeah, but it's not going to rain on Sunday. Saturday's going to rain. Yeah. OK. We'll bundle up. Well, thank you for coming in. If I may make one more comment. Yeah. There's nothing to do with that. I'm a little bit surprised at the lack of ventilation in this room. So it seems like good. Maybe a fan circulating air outside is would be a good thing in a municipal building. Just a thought. Yeah. Some of us still use these as we come in to places where it's snowing. Yeah. Right. Thank you. If we had the doors open in the office today, we've been doing that a lot. We're going to have to not probably won't be able to do that soon. But it's been warm and kind of, you know what I mean? Yeah. But all right. Great. Thank you. Thank you for your consideration. OK. Goodbye. Have a good night. The next item is discuss 2023, 2024, Mack Truck Purchase Additional Search Arts. Is everyone aware that's gone up? We don't have much choice. The matter of concern to me is that Sheldon Mack is going to be closing as of 1st of January. We're not going to have a local Mack dealer. Oh, dear. That makes it a little. Yeah. That was the most surprising news of that phone call. Yeah. That is not a good thing for all of us. I mean, we have Mack trucks ourselves. A lot of people do. And it's good for the town to have a local dealer that's given us good service. Where is the nearest dealer besides this one? Albany, New York, or Manchester, New Hampshire. Oh, jeez. Not as near as well. So Mike Sheldon did tell me that Mack is looking at another location he thinks it will likely be in the White River Junction area. So but it's not yet. And it won't affect us for this purchase because he said even if that comes, it won't be open at the point that we need to take possession of our truck. Yeah. Well, we either have to pick between Albany or Manchester and Guthrie and I discussed it. Manchester makes sense because I think it's in Concord, New Hampshire, I think maybe. We're the additional components. It's somewhere in New Hampshire that we're the additional. So it makes more sense for us to get it in Manchester than it does in Albany. Well, I mean, as far as the plow frame doesn't roll in. Yeah. I think it's somewhere in New Hampshire that. Or maybe it's, I can't remember. I thought we were doing it in Warsaw. But we were doing it in Tenco where they moved out of Barrie. They moved up on the hill. I don't know where we're doing that. The plow equipment and all that. I didn't think it would be down that far. I've already spoken about this and he is aware. Yeah. So. No, it's a matter of concern. But as far as the surcharge goes, I don't know what is wheel I make choice. Yeah. I mean, Mike just asked, I don't know if you want to cancel. I was like, no, I said, I'll take it to the board. These days you can't get anything. To make sure you're still wanting to proceed with the purchase. Yeah. But I couldn't imagine there. Yeah. I just get tired of having all these purchases where they come to us and say, we're going to tap on another $3,000, another $5,000. And I understand that we don't have a lot of choice in it. But I'm wondering if we can do anything to push back. And maybe we just grumble. We say, OK, the select board was really grumpy about this. But they approved it. At the end of the day with the person I'm communicating with, he didn't even have anything to do with us. This is coming to him from Mac. So he's this is so I think Mac's response would be, you can cancel the order. Yeah. Well, the problem is if you go to a different vendor for a different brand of truck, then you're going to wait another year or whatever it is a year and half. It's the same thing. Everyone's having the problems. It isn't specific to Mac. We deal with it all the time. We deal with parts, all the stuff. Yeah. What's the delivery time for this truck now? It gets to January. Yeah, they're going to build in January, deliver in February. So it will be a 2024, by the way, and on a 2023 anymore because it's getting built in January. So Mike was like, I don't know that. I mean, it's a newer model year. But he was very apologetic. Because he's, again, this is out of his control. Right. So this memo was sent to him as well. Yeah. So yeah, these are. And, yes, John, the timing has most definitely shifted for this. I mean, the only thing you can do is say we go to a different truck, different vendor, different brand, and they'll put it off another year. So I don't see the way of any choice. So this is what it is. Anybody else has any ideas? I don't have any myself. No, I think we should just all mutter quietly under our breath. Yeah. So I guess we need a motion to approve the additional expenditure. So moved. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it. Do you need more specific items in that? Yeah, she didn't put it in the item. OK. OK. The next thing on our agenda is the town treasurer report. Anything new on this? No. I mean, we're finally catching up at least. This is a September report. Michelle is going to start working on October. As you all know, a lot of this delay has been due to delays in having the bank statements available to us. So she's just been playing catch up. And unfortunately, we are still experiencing. We have one today, some issues with the bank. So yeah, remote deposit suddenly crashed today. And it's tax payment time. So that was ideal to have another check. So it's sitting on her desk that she could not remote deposit. So today was an incredibly frustrating afternoon for Michelle. So but I hopefully will have some bank information to provide you. We have met with banks next meeting. So yeah, we have met with three local banks. So these issues are becoming this is, I mean, this was kind of crazy today that we were completely locked out from being able to deposit. So in fact, Michelle even was locked out from the bank temporarily. She couldn't even log in. Something went wrong with her token. Oh, jeez. So yeah, it's kind of, it's very surprising to make the issues that we're having. So I kept her calm today. So she's still working on getting financial reports. And right now, she and I both are trying to kind of put our heads together. I'm working on trying to build budget reports and some of this as well. So yeah, nothing excessively earth-shattering in here. OK. Standard report. Well, I look forward to hearing a report about the local banks. Yes. In our options. Me too. We haven't gotten anything back from them yet, but we did have three very good meetings. Oh, nice. OK. Well, that's, I'm looking forward to the conversation. I know Carl and I both have talked about local banks, and this, that, and everything else. It's a few years ago, and it didn't really go anywhere for one reason or another. But I think this is a good time to open that conversation. One thing that's very interesting that we found out is we pay about $133 every month or so in fees. The banks we met with were quite surprised at the fee as soon as they got our, because we provided our statement, because that's when you work with banks. It's the easiest way for them to see what you have. And they were all commenting. It was very surprising when the third one looked at us. Like, where came fees? Because we're a municipality, they found that very odd. So, and there were some interesting already, much higher interest rates. I think we'll also be looking at just an overall improvement for the town when we do move forward. Right. Good. I look forward to bringing that to you next meeting. That sounds great. Good. OK, so that takes care of your town treasury reports? Yes. OK. So the next item is discussed emails for select board members. So Microsoft has a pretty economical solution, it turns out, that can provide emails. It's a Microsoft basic. It's a business basic. And what I like about the Microsoft option is your emails will look just like the rest of us. With these, it'll be at esnotpillierbt.org, which I think is kind of nice, that we'll have that consistency. So I propose that we set up emails for each of you. And using your one option was, do we set them up as just a generic, but I like the idea of using your names. So if you all are agreeable to that. And then as people come and go on the select board, of course, we'll have to change these out. But that's not a big deal. The only cost to that, the licenses will stay the same. The only cost is really for RV text time to switch out the names. So John, to get some information on a Google solution, which I haven't really, I looked at it briefly. It appeared to be similar in cost. They had the same type of thing with Google Workspace. But I thought you guys would probably want me to pursue the Microsoft option with RV text since it keeps a consistent email address look for the town. Yeah, yeah. So if you all agree with that, then I will get RV tech working on that and communicate back with you once everything is set up and how you access it and all that kind of fun stuff. Excellent. Good. Sounds good to me. Thank you. Perfect. You have any comment on that, John? No, I think it's fine, one way or the other, using Microsoft or Google is pretty much the same cost. Google used to be free, but this year, they started charging. So it's pretty much the same. I mean, we had RVVT.org. So ours were all the same. So if you do them all the same, then it works better. Good, perfect. OK. All right, look forward to that happening. The next item is going to take a while. I'm glad we're slightly ahead of the time. We have a multi, multi-page. I could have just given you the numbers and not given you all of this, but I pulled out these quotes. I pulled over these quotes. So to give you a little background, Office Environment is the first company we reached out to, because honestly, they're the only full service office furniture company that serves this area. I found a couple others, or at least one other, that appeared to be one. But when I reached out, I got a kickback of the email address because they're no longer valid. Oh, jeez. So they're no longer working. And Office Environments does have the state of Vermont contract as well. So they are kind of the only slash biggest kind of operation in town. So we had a quote from Office Environments a few months ago. The struggle to bring this to you has been trying to get a comparable quote. Two years. I was comfortable with the numbers that I saw based on my experience with Office Furniture. But we did get a quote from McGee. It's, as you see, the prices are fairly comparable. The only flaw in McGee is design is not really what we want. And it's taken us a lot to even get to this point. If they're great at office supplies, they just really struggle at designing this. Office Environments has come in. He's been here twice. The second time he came, he actually brought chairs that everybody sat in to just determine if the chairs would be comfortable, because he, which I agree with, and I've seen this in my experience with Office Furniture, it's helpful if people have an opportunity to try out the chairs, or you buy them if you can. So that was very helpful. So from an Office Furniture perspective, the only reason I've worked the chairs out, and what I provided you in the Selectful Memo, is I think it's better to kind of look apples to apples. So let's look at the furniture, and then let's look at the chairs. Office Environments chairs certainly are more expensive than the chairs. We were quoted by McGee. But we haven't seen the McGee chairs, so I can't tell you if they're a direct one-to-one. We did, due to varying body types within the office, there are two different types of chairs that we have gotten quoted, and it was the same for McGee. But we would obviously need to seize those chairs before we were to move forward. But from a furniture perspective, everyone has reviewed all these, speaking for Office Environments in particular, McGee, if we were to go that route, we'd still have quite a bit of work to do on their design, before we had something that actually was what we were requested. What they have now doesn't work. For example, there's overhead bins in the pricing structure for the town treasurer and zoning administrator or joint office, and you can't have bins with standing desks. Overhead bins, your computer equipment will slam up into the bin. So there's a lot of issues with that one if we went that route. And honestly, we have some concerns with their ability to fulfill this if we did attempt to proceed with McGee. So with the Office Environments floor plan, everyone has reviewed it in detail. Everyone is happy with it. And this is what, they were all involved in the process. So when the individuals were here for both McGee and Office Environments. So we would be looking at an investment of $16,825 to get infrastructure from Office Environments versus $18,000 with McGee. And then again, the chairs are just under 2,800 Office Environments, 1,500 with McGee. But I don't know if when we look at the chairs, chairs with McGee, that price would hold or change. I can't tell you that that's a set in stone price just yet. I would not order those chairs without seeing them first. Sure, sure. Well, it sounds like Office Environments is where we gotta go. They're definitely, they're what I am used to working with as it relates to Office Environments. So it's in their wheelhouse, it's what they do. Yeah, McGee. They outfit the state of Vermont. They pass that pricing along to us. So, you know. Yeah. Well, thank you for making the extra effort to get McGee in. We needed to have something, you know. I really could have pulled some things from my prior life to, which I knew, I was actually quite pleased. I actually expected the pricing to be a little bit higher just because I thought me coming from a bigger market with a bit more competition, that the pricing would be a little bit lower but these were actually right in line with what I've seen. So get back to us and tack on another $2,000. Yeah, okay. We already had to get it redone because we waited so long because we were just struggling to try to get a comparable quote for me to bring to you. But I mean, you know, our purchasing policy, we didn't need to, so we got to it. So it took a little effort for me to get that second to try to really match up but there were, you know, pluses and minuses on both sides there. So. Good. Well, it sounds like you've done a thorough process of figuring out what needs to be here, where it should go, work with all the staff members who will be affected by this and I'm all for going forward. So I moved to approve the quote from office environments to purchase the new office furniture, including the chairs. Well, one thing I want to discuss is, where's the money in our budget? Well, ARPA could technically cover this. Oh, ARPA? Oh, really? Oh, this is absolutely, town office improvements are absolutely covered by ARPA. So this is stuff that we still have to figure out, Michelle and I, how the budget all lines up. Yeah, because I was looking at the outside of the office the other day or Sunday night, whenever I came down. Oh, this morning actually, I came down to the payroll before anyone was in here. Goes a lot quicker. And I said, oh, the paint is peeling off here, there and everywhere. And I was just working at my own house today, I might do have to do some maintenance, but. There's more, and there's a capital improvement committee meeting coming up next week. Yes, next week now. So that's definitely, I'm trying to understand where all of these types of things are budgeted. Yeah. Well, no, we've been putting some money in there. Exactly. And I'm not quibbling over the money. I just was curious, you know. It's like, oh, where do we have that money? Yeah, we've got this all. How much money are we putting away? I don't know on the top of my head for improvements to the building, because we have land in there for maintenance, right? Yes, we do. It wasn't really, it was like 3,000 years or something. It's not that much, but we haven't had much of it either. No, there hasn't. Well, questions that are going to come up at the CIC meeting will be, do you want to continue to put the same amount of money away? You want to add money to it? And primarily, I think they want to discuss the, you know, building or improving that office when we are another. But I think that aside from all that, I think that we need to, maybe we should allocate a little bit more money so older buildings aren't getting any younger and set aside an additional money. I'm just trying to think what I'm going to tell the CIC group when we get together next week about what our plans are. Well, I think one of the things we've got to figure out is how much money is in that budget right now, what we spent, what we, you know, what's there. And that'll give us a good idea. And if this office first is going to come out of our money, of course, that's not going to plead our fund that we already have. Right? Yeah. We'll figure it out as we move along, but it may not be ready for your CIC meeting. Well, I think with the CIC, I mean, I asked a lot of questions in the last meeting to try to understand where some of these replacements are budgeted. I mean, I haven't brought up the computer equipment, like the server. I'm not talking computers. I'm talking about the big dollar items, things like the server. We have to replace that. And there seems to be gaps that is not really on a radar asked about the building because there was a plan. There was a budgeted expenditure last year. That was one of the auditor questions for this building. Nothing was spent, you know? So I don't know that there is a grand plan anywhere for maintaining. No, there's not a grand plan. I mean, I've been involved with this process since before we had anything for the capital plan. There wasn't a capital plan. Yeah. And then we started the capital plan and we just threw something, a figure in there. There's no plan for maintenance or anything. It's just that we just came up with a figure. Now we did spend some money on the heating system, didn't we? No, the, what was it called, the heat pump. Yeah, the heat pumps were all installed. And that was, that came out of that capital line. I haven't looked at where that came from. I believe that's about three percent. But anyway, there was no grand plan. Yeah. Don't waste your time looking. Well, there's more that needs to be done. Yeah. You know, like even in this office, Seth and I spoke about this previous time. I mean, the carpet needs to be replaced. Yes. The walls inside and outside need to be painted. Yes. Yes. We all decided to put a, we as the collective office team decided we needed to put a pin in that, all of that for right now. Yes. People are uncomfortable at their desks. Yeah. We need to get furniture. Absolutely. That is going to make everyone's daily life better. Yeah. The walls being perfectly painted will be great long term. Right. That's not really affecting us in a day to day to day. So let's address the immediate issue, which is furniture. Yep. And then we'll do all the rest of this out later. No, no. I'm more than, I'm more than understand what your concern is and the priority that you've given to what you needed to do. I just was curious about where the money is coming from. Yeah. And that is honestly something Michelle and I still need to get our heads around. Yeah. How all of this is managed and how the funds, we didn't get a lot of clarity on that. Yeah. We're still trying to figure some of these things out. Okay. So would it make sense to add to the motion language to the effect that we will revisit the question of where in the budget the money will come from in a later meeting? Yeah. I think that may, I would actually appreciate that because that is something as Michelle and I take a look at this and figure this out. Yeah. We will come to the board because we may seek your guidance in some respects on some of this. So, you know this, well, I mean you've had expenditures and things come up in the past. So, when you've had to do things, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so for right now though, I'd like to approve the office furniture expenditure so you can get going on. Yeah. That motion has been made. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Please say aye. Aye. Okay. Sounds good. So, when would that happen? So, I wrote in here six to eight weeks. He told us four to six. So, yeah, so call it. I mean, I think it'll be more eight weeks. I mean it's just. Couple months. Yeah, and then we have to figure out the logistics too. We haven't dug into the details of what do we do with all of this furniture. Right. When all of this comes in. Right. So, some of this, I don't know if if Vermont surplus would be interested. Did some of this furniture is probably not even in the condition to send Vermont surplus on the shore? We'll figure that out. So, that we have to figure out. Right. Okay. So, are you good with the furniture thing? Okay. Everyone else's? Yes. Okay. So, let's move on to the town office hours. As I see, this is. So, this is really me trying to determine the appetite of the select board for any potential change to the hours in the office. Where this has really stemmed from is while it sounds wonderful that Friday is only a three hour work day, when we have people commuting now, I'm the only one that lives in East Montpelier from outside of East Montpelier. When they're driving about half of the time that they're coming into the office to work, that three hours doesn't really seem like the beneficial half day that you think it is. It starts to seem like a lot of driving for a little bit of work. And not even really able to get that much done in only three hours. And it's not like even people are asking to not come in on Fridays. It's more, I'm trying to ascertain the appetite for the board for any potential change or tweak to the hours of the town office. What is the business on Friday? How often do people come to? Friday can shockingly be a busy day, ironically enough. So, Rosie and I have spoken about this. Rosie's fine with the hours as they are. We may look at some flexibility for staff and still maintaining the hours as they are. But Rosie had also been quick to point out to me that we're one of the only town offices that's actually open on Fridays. So, if people learned of different hours, it doesn't mean people's behaviors wouldn't change and they all come in on Thursday instead. I think a lot of that is just the mindset. Fridays and Mondays always seem to be the busiest day. If you go to banks, it's just, I think that's just kind of human nature. It would be odd if we closed the office on Fridays and just as many people came. We would hope that wouldn't happen. We would hope we would communicate as well. So, really, I just didn't know what your thoughts would be on this. I went and looked at other towns and definitely the hours are, they definitely vary depending on the town. We've discussed would it make more sense to have an early morning and later day. So, there's a wide range of what towns are doing today. I just didn't know if it was a dead set. We've had these hours forever. We are not going to change. Or if they're, I'm not proposing any change right now. I'm just asking if we had a collective discussion as a team, would the select board even entertain any change in the hours for the town? And to be clear, you're not talking about reducing the weekly hours worked by the town staff. Right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It'd be possibly distributed differently through the week or possibly when you get the VPN set up some more work from home. Correct, no, the work hours is now. There is no change to that whatsoever. Right. I don't have any opposition to changing things and I would be open to perhaps opening earlier because I think the first time I came to the town clerk's office, I came at eight and was surprised that it wasn't open. Yeah. So, yeah. I kind of like the way some towns have the different, you know, the early day and then maybe a late day. I think there's a lot of potential there. So, you know, people would, I agree with you, nine to five is a tough time. Yes. It's not, no one has an opportunity either on the way to or from work to really come into the town office. Right. And that's tough for some other businesses too. Yeah. God, your hours are nine to five. That's strange. Yeah. I mean, you'd get more people in the door if it was, you know, six o'clock or eight o'clock in the morning or, yeah. But I guess we just have, I mean, I'm open to it. Okay. Again, I'm not asking for to change anything today. Right. I just didn't know if it was even worth having this discussion in a more detailed level with the team or not. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that there is remote possibilities for work. We're working on that. To some extent. Yes, yeah. We haven't had very good remote capabilities. That's in your TA. So that's been a problem. That's in your TA report, that is in process. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a thought. And the only other unique thing that I would like to do is, you know, we have what we call the morning stand up Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. We're just, we gather in the room right out there. And we just check in with each other. You know, what does everybody have on their plate? You know, for example, this election is tomorrow. So, you know, what's going on? Who's kind of heads buried and, you know, maybe leave me alone today. Kind of conversation in a respectful way. But, you know, we have deadlines and if I'm quiet today, here's why. So we do those and obviously the office is open. If people come in, step away, do what we need to do. We come back when we can. But, you know, I would like this team. This is a new team. I would like to be able to have uninterrupted meetings with them, potential trainings as well. So, you know, I just wanted to let you guys know, you know, if we're going to have something like that, I would want to close the office for an hour. Yeah. For the team. I've thought about actually doing these at lunch. Maybe just getting some sandwiches from Dudley's or going to Plainfield hardware, get some sandwiches, bring them in and just have a meeting. You know, we're all trying to get to know each other. We're all trying to learn how to work together and learn our personalities. It gives us an opportunity to talk without needing to step away. Because obviously we communicate but someone comes in the door and the priority shifts immediately. So, you know, we would communicate anything like this ahead of time. I haven't determined what I would like to get on somewhat of a regular cadence of something like this. You know, whether that's what's a month, you know, we'll, again, we'll talk about this as a group. But I just wanted to let you all know that as well. So it would be very limited closures but it's important to have uninterrupted time together. Yeah. How limited it may be on occasion. I think as far as the flexibility on the hours, we just need to know, get a proposal. Oh, yeah, exactly. And then we'll just, you know. I mean, I don't even bring anything to you in the near future. It's just something I wasn't sure. Yeah, no, I can appreciate it. I mean, we discussed a little bit you and I about Michelle coming in on Friday for three hours work when she lives 45 minutes away. Yeah. It can be, we'll just see what you say. With this office, where is the staff all previously either lived in this house failure or we're just over the line in Calis? Right. We're not in that situation anymore. No. We will never be. So I think it does make you think out of the box a little bit and how the office operates. Well, sounds good. See what happens. We will let you know. Yeah. Oh, discuss town hours is done. Discussion on town management light of COVID-19. Let's see what we got here. We are still at low. Yeah. The rate has decreased from the last meeting. We're now at 71.91. Actually, all the numbers have decreased, which is at least positive from the last meeting. COVID admissions are 4.4 and percent of staffed inpatient beds by patients with confirmed COVID is 2.1%, whereas I don't have the last meeting numbers right in front of me that I know these are all lower than they were for the last meeting. And even nationally numbers are down in about 300 people a week dying in the US from COVID now. But don't read the articles on long COVID, as Carl mentioned, the last meeting. 10% right? There's something. Certainly, there's a lot of that. I think it's 10% of the people that read it somewhere. Yeah. I was like, I mean, I had COVID pretty badly. I'm glad I don't have any after effects. That I know of. But yeah, what I've... Maybe I do. What I've read is that you can get it mildly and still get long COVID. Oh, really? Yeah. And it seems to be cumulative as well. Right. Multiple people with multiple infections are having more issues than those that just had it once. Yeah. It's not uncommon to have it more than once. The latest article I read was serving to the question of studying children and the impacts there. So that was the horrifying part. Oh, okay. I'm children. Yeah. Well, it remains to be seen. We're talking about a lot of impacts in adults. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Long-term experiment. There's some concern about cardiovascular impacts to children as they develop. Because there's a lot of hard issues with COVID. Yeah, there are a lot of hard issues with COVID. Right. Yeah, who knows? It's kind of scary. Yeah. Okay, so that takes care of town management led to COVID-19, no change. We have warrants. Right? Yes. Right here. Yeah. Oh, this is the one. Oh, this is the one right here. There's, please. Yeah, that's the one. That's the one. The top. The red one is the paper one. Oh, that's mine. Yeah. Yeah. Chase and Chase were $11,000, eh? It's actually less than we expected, so. They did a good job. Well, someone had to be there. I knew what they were doing. The rec board drops safe. Do you know what that is? That's the, that's their lock box. Okay. I just think that's the term they use. Okay. The employees of the town getting office notaries. Rosie. We just is going to work on getting her, whatever. Is she going for the training? I know that the BBA held a training last week and it may offer another one. She did attend. Do you know what a scarifier is? I don't know. A scarifier? Yeah, it's something that makes rules. Yeah. And payment or a concrete. Yeah. Yeah. Figure something like that. Yeah. And what's been done in terms of town garage security? You know. Then we talked about that one time. I looked at that invoice. That was actually one of Guthrie's invoices. I'm not 100% sure what's. Okay. Don't we have a mountain here? Yeah, there is a, it was mountain. Yes. What's it called? Mountain something. It's a local company in Plainfield. Mountain View. Mountain View security. Okay. The next thing we have to do? Oh, town's administrative report. Well, just a reminder, tomorrow is election day. Yes. I'm not aware. No. And so the polls are open after the schools. Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. So we've had quite a few ballots already returned, ironically enough. I think Rosie gave me some numbers. So about 42% of registered voters have already submitted their ballots. So yeah. Dropbox? Or by mail? You, well, by mail, dropbox and walking them in. It's been a revolving door of people coming in with ballots. So really good news on that front. The one thing Rosie did mention to me just to relate to you that she said, two voters contact her with concerns about the mass mailing of ballots. They oppose that, prefer the old way where if you wanted a ballot mail to your home, you had to request the absentee ballot be mailed. They feel that if you want to vote, you should engage and request the ballot be sent to you instead of the mass mailing. So I do understand from Rosie, this will be a question that will come to the board soon and refer us to how we will proceed for the upcoming town meeting and for that vote. What was the basis for their concern? They just feel that if you, that voters should have to request their ballot. They're feeling that people should push more to engage in democracy rather than have a hint of, no, no, seriously. I mean, you've talked with them or you speculate? No, no, I was just extrapolating from what she's saying. Yeah, whereas our feeling because to support the concept of the mass mailing is that people need to be pushed to engage in democracy. Or they shouldn't be burdened to engage in democracy. Exactly, that's the flip it around. That's the same point is that we felt, and I know I strongly feel this way, is that people are busy with other things and we want them to engage and this is a way they will engage. It's proven just by the uptake that we've had since we did the mass mailings of people engaging in voting. That is fantastic. Yeah. I would not back off that. I will not personally back off on that. So they're welcome to come here and talk to us about it. Well, and it will be on the agenda. Rosie and I have to pick one to bring to the select board because there is no longer, I believe the state, I think, I don't know that you were required to mail them out, but it's basically, it's still a decision of whether we want to continue with the mass mailing. They pay for it the first time. Or if we want, yeah, or if we want to. Well, for town meeting you're talking about. Correct, yes, yes, for town meeting. For the general election, then the state pays for it, we're required to send them out. Yes, I'm sorry. Well, even now? Yeah, that was a change in 2021. And we are required to mail out. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was an option. For town meeting, I think it was an option. Oh, the town meeting was an option, option, option. Except for the things that we aren't allowed to mail out. Right, yeah, well, that's right. So we can't do those now. Like that budget for the technical center because, or no, the votes, the election for the technical center because there are some play, no, the school budget because there are some school towns that did not want to have that mailed out. Yeah, that was an exception. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I'm assuming that we would have town meeting in person this year. I hope so. Yeah. We'll have to talk about it. But yeah, being the COVID number, but maybe not, I'm just assuming that. But we'd still mail out the ballots. For the general election. And for coming if we wanted. Right. Yeah, we came. I mean, we've had fantastic participations since we started doing that. I mean, it's thrilling watching all of these come in. Hell yeah. I think we were at the last meeting and I commented to her, I said, oh, somebody just dropped off their ballot. And she was like, I said, I hear it all. It's right outside of my window. So I said, I know the sound of that box. I know it this time, other times of year, of course, it's gonna be anything. But this time of year, it's either a tax payment or a ballot. But a lot of times it's both. People are coming in and paying my taxes and they have her ballot in their hand at the same time. So it's nice to see. It's also helpful as well, just to tell you today someone came and a gentleman came in and asked, his mother was in the car and was asking about how she could vote. Recently, he moved to town. And Rosie said, oh, she could come tomorrow. Or she could come and fill out a ballot. And he was like, okay, Rosie said, wait, she's here with you. He goes, yeah, she's in the car. Her mobility is not great. Rosie said, well, I can take the ballot to her. To the car. So Rosie, Rosie was like, I can't. She can't give the ballot to him to take Rosie. And physically take the ballot out to the, and so she went to the car for this lady to complete her ballot. So it's a great opportunity for people to engage. And wonderful that people are coming to engage. I mean, the thing that's happened is, because our society has changed, people are, you know, it's not, they don't seem to take the time to engage like they did in the past. But our challenge as a town is to rise to the occasion. It's a challenge and to get people to engage. And that's what we've done. So it's a recognition that things have changed. You know, things never stay in the same place. It's just like the 200 year old statues that we deal with. We have to realize democracy involves. And we are in a position to affect that. That's, we're evolving. So it's a good thing from my perspective and some of us, it is too, so. So one thing I'll be curious to see, I haven't asked Rosie about this, but, and we've had the discussions in the past about when we accept tax payments at five o'clock. Is it mid-time? Oh boy. But mailed in ballots, or all ballots must be in the hands of the town clerk by seven p.m. tomorrow. There's, we have no choice on that. I wonder if anybody will get it in later and say, well, I mailed it before. Right, right, right, right. Well, last year, and I'll check this tomorrow with the box, I was the one that got the ballots out of the box at five o'clock, not last year, the last election. And we taped, I taped the box. Put tape over the box so no one could, I mean, they could have, you know, if you tape and put something in, but that kind of indicated you could actually put anything in the box. Same thing with the post office at five p.m. is when we collect, so I was like, between, I went to post office and like, so technically I probably got these at like five o'clock. But, but yeah, so, you know, we do our best to try to let people know that there, there isn't a deadline. And there's a sign on the box itself. Yeah. Let people know that. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. And that's when you can take home to the elementary school until seven p.m. Yeah, yeah, right. So. Huh. Okay. Okay, who's working the election tomorrow? I am. Anybody else? I don't know. No? Okay. The town office will be closed tomorrow for that because both Rosie and the municipal assistant will be up there at the school because this is training for Jess. Yeah, yeah. Her to learn this process. So, good. Okay. She will be with Rosie side by side. Good. Or performing certain tasks. She's a sign throughout the day tomorrow. Nice. Yeah. So, do you have more on your? Yeah, so. Yeah, I thought you did. I wanted to ask, as we all previously mentioned, budget, town meeting prep is coming up. Obviously, this is all new to me as both a new East Montana resident and obviously now the town administrator. So, I was wondering if there was a select board member who would kind of volunteer if I have maybe an idiot's guide question or, you know, can you tell me how's this or what's that that I could reach out to if I come up with questions as I start going through. My how to for all of this is reading old select board agendas and select board memos and trying to follow that process. But I may have a question. So, I didn't know if someone would volunteer to be my kind of my town meeting budget 101 if I have any questions. And what really what I'm looking for here is to ensure I meet your expectations and give you what you all are used to receiving. So, if I could just have someone to, you know, like I said, I can follow what's been done but at some time a question may come up. You can get all of me anytime you want to but I mean, Carl is a good resource sometimes. I am too, so. Okay. I think you have a more detailed view of the post and the budget than I do. Yeah. Okay, I'll bug you if I have a question. Anytime. Have you also found the various worksheets that Bruce has prepared for us during the budget process where I'm speaking them some, but yes. Where the unsettled posts are in yellow and the settled posts are not highlighted and you just see. That I don't know. Okay. Because the highlighting may be gone by the time I have the files. Okay. Well, basically it's the changes that we need to look at. Okay. Yeah. Okay. There are many changes in the budget. I mean, that's- Oh, there's no question. Yeah. Salaries in and of themselves is certainly going to be, which obviously that always changes but there's just other things, for example, when I re-forecast the current year, we're going to have more IT expense. We've had new computers that have, we are not new computers, but computers that have to be changed over and, you know, credentials changed and all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah. So we expect changes and just the way we've done it in the past is that we have each line item that's going to be changed presented to us and we say thumbs up, thumbs down. Oh, absolutely. Or this one's probably going to be changed but we're waiting for the rep board to come back to us with some information or whoever. So it stays highlighted for a while. Yeah. No, I'm a big fan of highlighting and big fan of commentary as well. So, yeah. So yeah, absolutely. And that works pretty well because there's so many figures sometimes for us to digest. Oh, absolutely. It's like, ooh, ooh, ooh. Yeah. You're looking at 10 pages. It's like, well. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Anytime. I'll take you on the external audit report. Again, as I was reviewing prior select board agendas and meetings, we have not heard anything back from the external auditor. So Michelle called and followed up and he told her that I had not responded to her, to his email with questions after the audit that I did on August 25th. He overlooked that email. So while she was on the phone with him, she was like, no, she responded to you and he looked like, oh. Oh. Oh. So he said that we have now been placed in the top of his primary. Oh, nice. So hopefully we have something in the next couple weeks. Cause we've actually been waiting or just a few cleanup kind of journal entries that we had noticed and kind of discussed, but he told us not to book anything until we get it. So we've been anxiously waiting for this. So I will keep you posted on that. And then just to let you all know, as we talk about remote work, one thing that I've been working with RVTech on is establishing a VPN network, which creates essentially just a more efficient way to work remotely. We've had to reconfigure the IP address for the office to do that because we were running into some issues. When they set up, when RVTech set up everything here, they specifically asked if remote connectivity was necessary and they were told no. So the structure was not enabled to easily allow for that. So we are having to make some tweaks to the configuration to allow for that. So Holland was actually here on Friday and was deploying my old desktop. So the TA used to have two computers, a desktop and a laptop. We needed a desktop to create the VP. I wanted to move to the laptop anyway, as my sole computer. We needed a desktop to be able to enable VPN. So I went ahead and moved to the laptop. I did mention my desktop for the TA and it's now downstairs. It is going to be a base for our VPN. So we're working on getting a VPN network set up. Really this becomes outside of RVTech's time to set up a net effect of no cost to the town. We were already paying for log-in subscriptions which only gave two people in the office the ability to connect in remotely. This is essentially the same cost, but it will enable us to connect up to 10 computers or 10 laptops essentially to the network for the office and really enables people to work remotely a lot more efficiently. I'm not a fan of log-in anyway because I don't like that my computer would come to life here. So anyone could be watching everything I'm doing with my computer. So I didn't realize that was how it worked until I came into the office and tested it and that freaked me out to be quite honest with you. Because I lock my computer when I leave my desk. So I was not a fan of that. So once we get this going, likely we'll end up purchasing one more laptop for the office for the one remaining person that really has the ability to work remote and that would be for the treasurer. So I just want to get this infrastructure up and running and test it, know that it works before we invest in a laptop and switch her off of the desktop onto a laptop. Which a laptop costs another laptop? Call it about, probably about 2,000. Oh yeah. Maybe a little less. We got the last ones a little less, I'm hoping, but. Yeah, where are you buying them? We bought the last ones directly from Lenovo. Ordinarily we go through RB Tech, but RB Tech, their suppliers, it was easier to go directly to Lenovo for the last ones and they were cheaper. And then we'll be tech advisors to go ahead and just get them from there. Actually they worked with us to help us do that purchase, but it was direct from Lenovo. So a couple things. One, do you have the capability of turning off the monitor on the computer? Because if you turn off the monitor, that doesn't matter if it comes to life, people won't see it unless they turn it on. That's a little less conspicuous. The other is I'm a little concerned about electronics going into the basement. Is it? That's where the server is, that's where they've always been. It's up on something. Yeah, it's up. Well, above the flood level. Oh yeah, it's up. Okay. But yeah, that's for all the network equipment. Yeah, okay. I don't think we've had much water in there though. If we have a pump down there and then I had some ditching down in the back, which I think helped a lot, I was just curious if we've had water down there. I mean, ideally, yes. I would love to not have that equipment in there. I don't honestly know where it can go. Right, yeah. Up in the main area of the building. I think that's why, but yeah, the server was, all that was already, was down there right before I got here, so. But it's not, it's not like I'm floating. Oh yeah, it's all up. Yeah, it's up either on a table and then some of it's mounted to the wall. But yeah, it's not on the floor. Yeah, okay. Good. Fine. Anything else? One new permanent application and then I have the schedule for the upcoming meetings. I don't know if this works and everyone's schedules. I know Carl and me won't be here for the next meeting. November 21st, hopefully I will be. Hopefully remote that day. I might be on a plane, but I'll have to see what time I'm gonna get back. I might be, I'll be on a train. I might be able to phone in. I don't know. Yeah. I don't have enough wifi capability. Right. Yeah. December 5th, I'll be here. 19th, I'll be here. Okay. Yep. Okay. I think we're good. Do we desire an executive session? Do we? We've got a piece of paper in front of us that looks like it, Michael. Oh yeah. We don't want to go into executive session. Yeah, it's far better. Yeah, I saw that. Okay. Yeah. I move to go into executive session under one VSA, section 313A3. We are appointing or employing or evaluating a public officer or employee. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. It's the best one. Yeah, it's perfect. Whenever you're ready. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. So we are now out of the executive session. At 8.08. At 8.08. And we need a motion. I move to prove the memorandum of understanding with the road foreman and to authorize the town select board chair decided. A second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it. Okay. Okay. What usually follows that. I move that we adjourn. Oh, very good. Do we have a second? Second. John seconds it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it.