 First up is public comment that's anything that's not on the agenda being nothing approval of the agenda. I move to approve the agenda. I will second something. That's why I just wanted to say something and then leave. Well, I think we do have somebody in the room who had a public comment if you want to do that real quick before you move to. Yeah, we can't hear them. Wait, how if I took off the mask? Maybe. Okay, go back to public comment. Okay, I'm Linda Grimes. I'm on the executive board of Chandler and I just wanted to let you know we have four new board or four new employees that are taking the place of the two employees that left. This year is the 30th year for the New World Festival and we're hoping to do things up really much better than obviously since COVID. But we have, you know, some outdoor venues. Unfortunately, the stage that we have at Far Hill was not big enough for the orchestra to come so they canceled this year in Randolph and but we will have them back next year. But it will probably be an indoor event rather than than outdoors. And that's pretty much all I need to share. So has the new, one of the new employees that's taking over for Seth, is that person doing the sound and all those? There are three people. Three? There are three Seths. Yes. That doesn't surprise me. It takes three. It's to replace Seth. That's quite true. Wow. And then we do have Shannon who is doing the accounting. But she was already there and has been for a while. But Seth was doing that so now she is doing all of that. So that leaves the other people to do all of the technical. And I'm sure they'll probably be real involved with the summary events that we have down at the Far Scales. The people that just came in, was any of that for public comment? Don't you guys are here for first Fridays? Public comment? Yep. So they're here for later stuff. Moving on to approval of the agenda. Thank you. So moved. And then a second. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Consent calendar, we have meeting minutes and warrants. I have two things on the minutes. On page two, mine 64, I talked to Trevor about this earlier. John Kaplan stated that he supports the narrow or two way traffic option. And we agreed there wasn't actually an option. That option hasn't been discussed yet seriously. That may be in the future. So it's probably more, make more sense to say that John supports a narrow or two way traffic option. And the other one, I think before we went into executive, no, it wasn't executive session. It was Board of Liquor Control that we meant to recess and not adjourn. Mine 191, page five. If we adjourned, we wouldn't have been able to come back. I'll move it. Consent calendar be approved with those few changes. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Stained motion carries. Next up is in the business items, consider adopting a validation resolution. Yep. We back in 18, there was a bond vote seeking authorization to borrow a one and a half million for the north wells and reservoir project. As we were going through the middle of the step three funding application, which is to get the money for construction. You notice we're missing a few different process elements. So two of those are pretty easily taken care of. The third is a letter from bond council. That's pretty standard when you borrow and when it certifies that we went through the statutory process and the other requirements the way that we're supposed to. Looking through the other documents, there's there are four locations listed for which notice of the bond vote was posted. Statute wants you to have five. So the easiest way to clean this up is through something called a validation resolution where we essentially say we've had no rescission vote. We went through a lengthy process. We tried to notice this in every way that we were required to. Voters approved it. So we're certifying that this is in fact the will of the town of Randolph and we're authorized to borrow the $1.5 million. Trying to find whether or not a fifth location was used to post four years ago is a detective challenge beyond that capability. So this is sort of the easiest option. Once you do this, presuming you do bond council could finalize its letter. The application is already in. So this is just kind of appending it to that. Not holding that up, but it would be helpful that I'll complete the complete the set. And then the bond council folks we've used before drafted the resolution. So that's where that language comes from. I'll move that we approve the validation resolution for the 2018 bond vote. Second. Those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Staying motion carries. So update on the north wells and reservoir project. Not too much to report beyond what's written. We are, as is mentioned here, we touched on a brief they think in April. We did open. We had the bond or the bid opening. There was one bidder Kingsbury construction out of primarily Waitsfield. It was close to $3 million. We had at one point thought this was one seven and it went to one nine. We had 2.25 million and available resources thinking we were safe there. So as you see, we're about $750,000 beyond what those resources were lined up to be meaning that. And it's probably going to stay at this price or get more expensive is what everybody's thinking. So what this means is we have to figure out how to pay for that. So we have looked into there's the potential that we can get some additional disadvantage subsidy through the drinking water state revolving fund. The challenge there is that the cycles don't kind of match up to where we are now. We have to wait to get into the next what they call intended use plan. We can get in there and we're eligible. That would be how to do that. It just queues up for a later construction season. If that's it, we have to touch base with Northern borders and VCDP on additional funding. We've begun that outreach. We've got a quest into the Northern borders folks and we'll follow up with VCDP on that. Also had an opportunity right when all of this happened. We were a couple of days before a deadline for Senator Sanders office had a congressional directed spending window that was open. This looks to be an eligible project. So we had all the information from that step three application. So we're able to put that in for the 750 that would require us to come up with a match of 150. We do have that in the water improvement reserve. So we just think of it in terms of the simplest resources on hand style equation. We could meet that, but that's obviously less than certain in terms of there's a lot of competing interest for that. So we're trying to figure out what that looks like. There was a narrow band of hope that we might be able to start later in the construction season this year. So it's closer to fall and be completed. It's a relatively simple site. There's no traffic control and there's some site control, some stormwater. I mean, it's fairly isolated tucked away. You can secure it, work with it, have a few sort of delays or variables. But it's looking more like it'll be next year. So we'll keep sort of twisting that Rubik's Cube on that, but we should be able to find that funding Cube up at a minimum worst case scenario. It might be if we can't find ways to fill the gap through other means. Grant fund, SRF subsidies, congressional earmarks, whatever it might be. Then there is the opportunity to go to the voters. There's the November election, which is kind of a big turnout. Then we can in May that we could say direct appropriation. We need more authorization, whatever it is. So we have a few different ways to maybe get there if we're on that longer cycle. So we're still moving forward. Everything's queued up. We got the construction permit today actually. We're going to be email, so we're good through 2024 in terms of the validity of that. So permitting why I sort of lined up. Funding applications are in. It's just the one bid, the shortfall. The timing was always going to be a little dicey anyway. And that was part of the feedback. So it lets us bid out a little bit earlier. Maybe we can increase the number. Maybe that helps the price. There isn't a lot of value engineering with this project. It's pretty simple. I mean, it's a tank, three wells, and a new pump building, and a fence around it. So there aren't a lot of bells and whistles you can go after as ways to eliminate them. But we'll take another look to see. But it's pretty simple. The tank's already smaller than the one that's there for a variety of logistical reasons. So we wanted to make sure we touched base. That was kind of our big planned project for the summer. And it's like it's our big planned project for the following summer. Were there any changes along the way? I think it was the time element. I mean, you figure we went to the voters in 2018. And then projects have their own sort of life cycles. This one was a little bit longer. You've got four years of pandemic supply chain issues, labor issues, suddenly that you didn't have maybe in 18, 19. That's just the passage of time so that all I think contributed to that. There were material costs. And some of them it's because there's been so much volatility and variability. It's hard to say here's an estimate we feel comfortable with as a contractor for this item when we don't know what fuel costs are going to be. We don't know if we're going to have enough people to do the job. And if we can get pipe, what's it going to cost? What's conduit going to cost if we can get it? So you have to be conservative so the numbers are probably a little on that higher end just to account for the fact that there's no real good way to... That's interesting. Yeah, so they're just trying to try to protect themselves in a bit of a buffer. Yeah. We heard that feedback. There was another entity that was interested, followed the process, came to the bid opening but never submitted a bid. And the feedback was similar in terms of they were within, I forget what it was, within $125,000 one side or the other. The same concerns about material costs, how do you estimate those? Do you have enough labor? Can you do it on the schedule? So maybe with a longer runway, if we can hold the line and do it next time, that's an absolute man, I think. We have to re-bid. Yeah, well, we'll likely have to re-bid unless the money shows up suddenly and we can still link it. We're still in the initial window for the bid to be good. But we're running out, I think we've got another two weeks. So it's that first week of June? We won't have problems maintaining our existing grant funding, I think. Shouldn't? Based on a conversation in February, it was one of those where if you run into issues knowing all the volatility, reach out to us. So part of the request to see if there's any additional grant funding is to say, hey, if we're into next summer. It's less with the VCDP. So we've got two grants. It's the 450,000 from the Northern Borders and 300 from Community Development Program. The $300,000 is less of a concern from the timeline. It's the Northern Borders money that had an end of October deadline for use in 2022. So that's the one we'll have to make sure. We've started communicating. We had that conversation in February to say, you know, where they said, hey, if you get into a jam, let us know sooner than later. So we'll look to amend that and push it out by a year would be the idea. And then the SRF monies, you know, we're in the pipeline. We're in the Nintendo news plan. We're kind of queued up and on track. That's a loan money, Dad. But that's a loan, yeah. Yep. And then the other potential sources of information, of our funding, what sort of sense of them we'll know about those? Yeah, we'll know one. We'll know the grant questions sooner than later. I think once we've closed that, we should be able to get an estimate on what disadvantage subsidy money there could be that could be applied and how that would work in a rents person. Is it incorporated into the loan? No, all the mechanics in terms of if there's a piece there that is incorporated. The Congressional Need Directed Spending Request we'll know within the next couple of months probably. They've been talking to us, asking clarifying questions. So we've at least been in the running for a little bit. And then once we sort of line that up, we can start to explore some of those other options in terms of where we need to go, what's the gap, and should we essentially bake in our own contingency on top of that. What's kind of nice about the Congressional Directed Spending Request is you've got to match it. So if you had to match it with the 150, that probably accounts for what's going to be the additional lost season increase would be the hope. In terms of increased costs. Yeah. One of the thought was these contractors who are trying to protect themselves given the volatility and prices, is it possible to write a contract that says basically specify some of these items which are particularly of concern and then they could say in their proposal what they expect those things to cost. And then if they come in under those, if their costs for those things come in less, that we could then get that reflected in our final price. We're talking about a percentage cap on... Not necessarily a cap, but if they're saying it's going to cost us this much money for the pipe we need, or we don't know what it's going to cost, but we think it's going to be between $100,000 and $200,000. We don't really know where, so we're going to, in our proposal, make it $200,000 just so that we don't sell ourselves short. But then when they actually go to buy it, it's $150,000. And we write it into the contract that they have to tell us what they've actually spent for and refund us the difference. So Larry, there's two... That cuts both ways. So you're going to be ready to pay the additional if the bid comes in higher. And the way you usually do that is you do materials plus percentage. So they order the materials and can get a certain percentage above them. And some contractors, when you set your pricing, a portion of their overhead comes from the materials. The more materials you need in a job, the higher the cost to complete the job usually. They might put materials plus 10% say in the contract and then if the market, whichever way the market goes, you share if it comes in lower, but it might cost you if it comes in higher. Right, right. And I guess that's something that we could think about. It just seems like under normal circumstances, yes, you would expect they make a certain amount of money and that's sort of normal course of business. It just seems like with this extreme volatility that if they're really pegging their price at what they think their maximum is, that maybe there's some room there for us to do something like that. But yeah, if we think that the price that they're giving us is that it could actually be more than that, then we would be taking on that risk. I guess it just depends upon how much they're trying to protect themselves given the scenario. I can tell you on a lot of cases, pricing is only good for three days right now. It's crazy. When we get estimates from the lumber yard on materials, they hold it for three... You're breaking up, Trini. When we get the estimates right now, they're only being held for three days. Volatility. That's amazing. Thanks. Any other questions on that project? Are we ready to go on to the dump truck order? I'll be exciting stuff tonight. We actually passed this one for you. This has been nuts and bolts of talent over there. So the capital improvement plan calls for us to buy to replace one of our tandem dump trucks, one of the big ones. This one is a 2013 freight liner. So it's getting close to the end of its high-end, useful life, close to that tier. So we've got two different prices for you to consider. We had anticipated in the capital improvement program that we would spend about $184,000 out of the highway reserve for these types of purchases. So in both cases, we actually get a little bit under that. In terms of the total outcome. And part of that is trade-in value. This is where this volatility of the market and the brave new world has actually worked in our favor. And we're hearing now for ATG, Viking the second one, we've got to guarantee $55,000 on the trade-in price there. It could be as much as $68,000. We're able to resell it sooner on that. So there's the potential to even lower some of the prism across that $5,000 to $10,000. Certainly by $5,000, $10,000 from there. So that leaves more money for us to apply to future purchases. So we can replace trucks on a different schedule. And one of the things we're trying to do with this, the bid price that we're recommending, which is the ATG Viking combination that would net out to about $140,000 for that updated trade-in value, also includes seven-year warranty on the components, particularly the electrical components. We're finding that right around year five, that's when those things really start to fail. And they're harder to repair, replace, can affect performance. So all of these things will be covered. And then we can get on to a slightly shorter cycle. We can gain even a little more back in trade-in value. So the other big factor was it's the type of truck. We wanted a freight liner that would expect out the other supplier, which doesn't supply chain and other issues. I have a little Western Star. It's a slightly more expensive truck, but that was the one they could deliver whereas the recommended bid has that freight liner that we're used to. What's different is the body builders, one that we haven't used in a while. We've had Viking build bodies at the last two stops I've had. The truck bodies more or less work the way you hope they will. There are things probably for Reg that he can point out to you as the mechanic has got to fix whatever happens, but they've worked well in those other applications. So Delivery Date was the big one. The more expensive one would have been at least a year out from now if we ordered it today, possibly longer. If we ordered the recommended bid, we can have that truck in town in November toward the beginning of November. So we've got a front-line, cloud truck in service for when snow starts to fly. Although given the way the weather's been lately, we probably could have used it earlier this week. And maybe in two weeks we know it's at this rate. So we're recommending it's the ATG Viking truck. It'll net out to be about $140,000 for that trade-in diet. That's paid from the capital reserve for these types of highway equipment purchases. And so we've got to knock on wood on our cheeks. We've got a good run between this, the sidewalk plow. Some of the equipment we've gone out to get has been less than what we're expecting to pay. We're just going to leave more money for us to deploy next year on without looking for new dollars. Maybe either at all or in the same way. It's good news. It's nuts and bolts, but good news. Great. Does this come with a cover? I don't know. That level of... I don't know if that's something that we would install later. Have one of... I don't know if it's part of that build. You're worth checking. Maybe cheaper. Again, I'll send John and I'll see you. Checkmate tonight. But if you need to answer questions for a Friday, I'm going to try coming back. It's okay. Okay. You want the answer to that before we vote? No. I think we ought to consider it. I'll let you know it comes in across the line. I don't think they do generally as a standard piece. I don't remember one being included, but I've got the request in. John, no respects. I'll move that we approve the tandem truck order as indicated by Trevor. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mowing bids. We've got the one for you to consider here. This is as the write-up states we are as we triage the various vacancies across departments, one of the ones that we were unable to cover. In a normal year, based on how we're built, the building and grounds department should have five employees available to it to cover mowing cemeteries, the recreation field. That's not counting the seasonal. That's at the recreation facility full-time and the other town properties such as here, the various little islands and places around town. We are down to one full-time employee plus the seasonal as we try to fill something in. As we lost one of the other employees, I can explain that to you later, but essentially the ability to work was something that they weren't able to retain one of the job requirements. So what we're trying to do to fill the hole, the two that make the most sense to contract out from a semi-finally mowing perspective are East Randolph and Randolph Center in that they're a little farther away from the other properties that the smaller mowing crew could then handle. We're still working on some of the staffing pieces so we can maintain that speed. Second contract, we've been contracting some of that work out on a weekly basis as it is. So we may come back to you for that one, but I don't have that answer right now. Those things are getting mowed, those parcels are getting mowed, so it's not like it's unintended. So we had one bit. We tried to follow the purchasing policy, certainly in intent. We couldn't hit all the timelines just because when we found out about our full shortfall and mowing season had already begun, so how many weeks behind it we wanted to be, we put one together, had the full, here's what we expect. Please bid it out as if you're going to mow weekly from about this time until the end of October. These amounts might be less because as the grass slows down, we won't need that regular cycle. But we sort of tried to give you the worst-case scenario here. And we called a couple of people and people stopped in, so in addition to just putting it out there, we tried to at least get a couple of different numbers for you to look at. We had a project with a single number, a single bidder, a local contractor named Seth Fernandez, broken down those costs for you here. I tried to break them down because the mowing season will span the two fiscal years. So we'll see some of these show up in fiscal 22, some will show up in fiscal 23. At this point I'm anticipating this is just a one-year only. How do we keep the load on the water kind of to move? We'll be more day approaching. You can see it breaks down. The total between the two cemeteries is about $34,000. I think a little more than what it was contract out before that. I don't think it's that far off. I saw that number. I just didn't wish to have written it down. And that's if we do every week from now until how we basically are pretty close to it. And so they'll panel all of the mowing. The burials, the cemetery folks most of that digging where we'll have issues will be in Randolph Center. We may have to divert other town resources. There's so much ledge up in that cemetery so that whether it's an urn internment or a full full size. Often we have to have a jackhammer and sometimes it involves using that jackhammer for the entirety of the process. And so you hammer it out, scoop up the pieces. So we have specific employees that can handle the jackhammer. And so we look to use those. Yeah, I mean this is where we are. And so, do you have systems owning another string? Well, I have Doug Graves. I do have that in my resume. The jackhammer would be a new one for me. Talk about other duties. I'm game. It's new pieces of equipment. But that could be a messy result. But yeah. So we're recommending this is what we have before us. He's got his insurance, he's got his own equipment. We do all that. He can start as early as next week and get us rolling. The way we'll pay for this is that I mentioned. So the way that department's structured right now in terms of employees, you have a supervisor which was Harold Troll. There were the two hybrid pieces. So those were about half of the year and they were shared. They're shared with highway. And then you have two sort of general laborers. So that's Mark White who's our remaining employee. But do you want to call out for doing above and beyond and trying to take more things on and so appreciate it. And then the other one had been is currently vacant and is the one that opened recently. And so we're essentially what we're going to be able to do is take the vacancy savings from that position from salary and benefits that will more than cover this. It does mean that we'll probably not fill that position through most of the year. So it may have some ripple effects and that we'll have to figure out how to do sidewalks a little differently than we have. However we spent last winter for different other reasons of availability running out a different way to use sidewalks. So we may have already solved that particular conundrum in the capacity this past winter. So we'll essentially trade that one for the other and then if we have to do additional line there'll be some vacancy savings that we'll look to tap first really from the payment benefit side and just sort of get a rough outline it should cover that if we had to do sort of the most extreme models in the grass. It never stops growing so Halloween. Did you take each time they mowed? Yeah, this is a per mow, essentially per weeks. We took the cut from the number of weeks that were in the bed and kind of multiplied that. We're actually starting a week later then because of the way that I'm feeding up the stack so this is minus 750 or whatever it worked out to be for the two. I was thinking more at the end when it might be dry or not. Yeah, well we can maybe, or if we have dry conditions in July some summers grass is burned and stops. If any other questions on the mowing contract? If not, any motions? We'll move the approval of the mowing contract. Second. Motion in the second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? No. No, that's not an option. Second. Next up is appointments to the Planning Commission. Two applicants. I think I saw Sunny still on. We've got Sheila Jacobs and Aileen London have both applied. Sheila's attended the Planning Commission meeting and comes with their reference. I understand and Sunny has met with so we'd have a full planning commission for the first time. At least in a year, I'm not sure we've been there and it might be longer than that. There are two four-year terms that are open, one expires 2025, the other 2026, so you'd be appointing one to the remainder of the unexpired term for 25, and the other, if you so choose, I should say, to the unexpired term for 2026. And this might help with some of the quorum issues and they've had, that's been one of the challenges here in recent months. I think Sunny, from not mistaken, so let me put it here, no, Eileen, one minute. She's only been here, according to her letter of interest, she's only been here since December of 2021, but her letter also reflects a substantial amount of experience in project development management and other kinds of things, and she has an MA in public administration from BU, so she's definitely got the academic and professional chops to bring to the table. If I could speak to both of them, their outstanding candidates, and Starling Dorsum, Eileen London, she's from Randolph Center, and her background is in environmental affairs and also urban affairs, social brain strength to the Planning Commission. Sheila Jacobs was a member of the Randolph Budget Committee for a number of years, a strong candidate. I think they both bring a welt to the Planning Commission. I would recommend Sheila Jacobs for the 2025 position and Eileen London for the 2026 position. Anybody have any questions on that? I'll make that motion if they both be approved to those two terms. I will second. Motion on the second on the table, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Staying motion carries. East Randolph tanker. The idea was to have at least a preliminary conversation about the replacement of the Shanker truck that's in East Randolph. This is the truck that appears in the capital improvement program for the next fiscal year, so fiscal 23, starting July 1. We put some money aside for that to be replaced from the, I think it's just called Fire Equip Reserve, it covers the vehicles, the parts of them, and other more expensive equipment they may have, and so we were anticipating that it was gonna be around $200,000, what we put in there based on some rough estimates and some other sort of, I don't call them guesses, but we were pulling from some other sources as opposed to having a specific truck specced out and costed out, as we might normally do if we were a little more certain about the replacement. Some of this was to make sure it was in there, that there was a marker held until the opposite time for some other conversation to happen and to conclude on fire equipment generally. This truck, you can see there's a listing on page six of the manager report where we took from the insurance listing all of the fleet vehicles for the three fire departments. This is the oldest of those vehicles, this is a 1988, so we're well beyond kind of 20 year useful life. I think finding drivers for it's even a challenge, this is a manual transmission if I'm not mistaken, and that's an increasingly lost skill it seems, and so it limits the number of drivers in addition to some of the other operational concerns they have, about 60% of these vehicles are more than 20 years old. So we're certainly, this is the sneak and swallow of the woodchuck kind of a moment in terms of how they've all come due, or will shortly. So the idea was just to kind of start a conversation, come tell the chief how there's been considering different options both recently and through the years from different types of trucks to use trucks at one point, if you found one in Canada a couple of years ago, for example, and so there's different ways of twisting the problem around to see how to solve it, and I think the idea was to have an initial conversation about where we're at and maybe where we wanna go and if we wanna talk equipment generally. I don't know if I've missed anything, Trini, because I think you had a conversation with Kevin as well. Yeah, we did. So even if they were to transfer one of the trucks down from Randolph Center that's there, that's outdated already also. That's a 97. So no matter what we end up deciding on firefighting fleet, those two trucks both are outdated. And the challenge we have right now is the truck that he's stand up as is not making it to the scene. So Kevin has looked at a few, he's got a spec that he's working on, but at the same time he went out and checked on the market to see if there were any good news ones out there, but also to see if some of these entities were getting in any tankers that could be used for that. He does have a lead on one that's coming in sometime in the next few months. It's what they're looking for is something very similar to the milk trucks that you see out there. They're not looking for anything fancy or anything with a whole lot of storage or extra cab space, but literally something that will just haul water to the scene. So I think the request and what they're looking for, they've narrowed it right down to the minimum of what it'll take to do the job. Give them approval to go ahead and spec it and locate one to bring back to the board to her approval to purchase. But before we have a volunteer spend hours out doing this work, wanted to make sure the board was behind the purchase. Trini, I thought we were waiting till the committee report before we made a decision on equipment. Is that not, is that change? Or have we got more information? I don't know that we can wait until the committee gets done because the committee hasn't been back together. We don't have the building assessments completed by the departments on some of the structures that had to get done to know what our risks are about. But I think this one is a pretty safe decision. If you look at the age of the fleet, your firefighting equipment is 20 years. There's a fair number of them on that list that are more than 20 years old. You can get away with an older truck. It's the tank and the other equipment that you're supposed to be keeping up updated. If you look at the fleet in East Randolph right now, all of it's outdated. And then you keep looking down through and you got two in Randolph Center, one in the village that are in that category too. So I don't know that any discussion with that committee or where we're gonna land, it's gonna change the fact that we need to replace one of these tankers. I think when you think of fleet mix two and you think of East Randolph and that application, some kind of pumper tanker where you're out there in a rural environment, carrying water, the ability to carry water, the ability to pump water because you're not gonna be able to connect to the system the way that the village would in terms of this being a safe bet in terms of if there is some future metric by which this department has these vehicles, this one has these vehicles and this one has this type of vehicles. This is probably a pretty safe match for what you're gonna want or need in East Randolph just by nature of that type of firefighting as opposed to here we have hydrants and other things that maybe change the math a little bit. I could talk it out my ear a little bit but it seems like a safe bet all things considered. Sounds like you're saying this is something we need that we're gonna matter what the final is. A 1988 fire truck makes me nervous from a variety of perspectives from the ability to roll to a call to how safe it will be on the call to, and we have anticipated spending up to $300,000 in that approved budget and capital plan. So we are thinking about it just as it fit with this larger conversation or it doesn't have to go before that's concluded. And I think we're probably at the moment where it has to go before the other conversations concluded really. This truck that they're asking to replace is the one that actually has not made it to the fires. It's been towed out of route 14 a few times. Whoa, I will move that we authorize by going ahead with the exploration of replacing the international pumper tanker with the understatement that it'll be brought back to us for further action. A motion and a second on the table. All those in favor? Bye. Bye. Bye. Opposed? Any motion carries. Letter of support for the school district. So we have Heather Lawler here with us tonight. And she's here to answer questions and present a little bit about the request of what the grant is. We included some of this information in packets but it might be good to sort of hear what the question is and what the grant's intended for. So where you are at that point. Great, hi everyone. I'm going to be the assistant superintendent of the Orange Southwest School District starting in July. And in the May 5th edition of the Herald I came across this little tiny piece right there that said that there were $10,000 grants available from the Vermont Community Foundation to support programming on equity and inclusion. And it's a tiny little piece and I pitched it and I bought it. I bet we could do something with that. So I researched it, I have a little hand though I could give you on like the program we're considering. Would that be helpful? Sure. Possibly. Yeah. Thank you. And so the thing with this grant is it's really written for towns. Like the way the grant is written is a town is supposed to like do this community program. And however, any nonprofit or other community group such as a school district or any other nonprofit, Chandler or anyone else with your support could pursue this fund. And what we would need is a letter of support. So we are considering programming that would involve not only students but the entire community welcoming in the community. Both the idea of consultant-led conversations to build empathy and consultant-led art programming to build empathy, to promote the idea of inclusion and equity. I have not spoken with Calvin yet. He's been recommended. I did have a wonderful meeting today with Safe Art. They are fabulous. I talked with her at length today. She has a vision for a project called Web of Many Voices that would include both students and adults in creating a community art installation. It's just in the concept phase but these are some of the visions we would have. And I didn't even wanna start writing the grant proposal until I spoke with all of you because as the same other thing you're talking about is a lot of work to even put in for a grant. So the first thing I would need is your consideration of support. And I drafted a very brief sort of letter of support. I took the liberty of putting it on your agenda. But it basically is three sentences and says we are ready to support the OSSD application for the Equitable and Inclusive Communities Grant. We support their plan to use the grant funding to benefit the community members of the town of Randolph. The funding will provide a series of consultant led community wide conversations and other programming, equity and inclusion. So it's not specific because I haven't applied for the grant yet or actually got contracts in place for people who would do the work if I get the grant. But I need your consideration as a town if this would benefit our community. In the grant application that I've written many grant applications so I kind of know do you have to specify whether we may work with Calvin or with Tracy? They will want a proposal of an organization. We recently got one at Braintree Elementary School where I currently am the principal for equity and we named the Clemens Family Farm as the Organization of Partnership. And we did get that $5,000 grant. So I, and I know from that experience that they got the offer for you to say we want to work with SAFAR. Like I'm much more likely to get awarded grant than if I just say we want to work with someone we have no idea who. But I was thinking to write the language that we could find other programming if it came up in a grassroots type of way. The grant would be written that they would be open to for other things that might benefit the community. Is Calvin from Vermont or? He was recommended to me by Lane Millington, our current superintendent. And he has worked with him in the past but no he is not a local from Montana. Whereas as you see the other organization is. Yeah, there in Chelsea, yeah. Yes. I have written the grant with Tracy. Excellent. For Chandler. Who I spoke with today was Ornella. Do you know Ornella? I know who she is. Yeah, she was dynamic. Tracy presented a dance work that Chandler hosted its world premiere a couple of years ago. And Tracy and I worked together on the grant that pulled that together for Chandler. Does kind of give her a leg up that she has that local connection. Although it looks like Calvin's work is quite good too. And as I said, I reached out to both of them and I have gotten no response from Calvin whereas Safe Art was highly responsive, booked a meeting with me. We have planning for them to come out at least a brain tree and do sort of a sample lesson so we can get a feel for their work before we would go district wide. So I agree with you. The local has more power and certainly more responsiveness. And so I had already made this but if I hadn't I would have put Safe Art on top. That sounds great. Sounds like a great idea. Thank you. Is there anything else you'd need from the town? At this time just a note of support and as I proceed with writing the grant I'll let you know if there's anything further. But I did read through the grant page and that's what they specifically asked for the exception. Non-profit organizations or community groups may apply with a letter of support from the Municipality. I'll move we support the grant application with a very positive, nice letter from them supported by all this one. Well seconded. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Assembly permits for the new world. This is the annual request for the public event permit for the new world festival. These have all been sent to different public safety entities and we did. You're back from Orange County and Village Fire Department. I don't think there's any change in setup, proposal. First Friday I did. First Friday? Not too much on the new world. I didn't hear back on that. So we haven't heard back on that. But we'll keep after it. But this is one of the events we've been doing for a while and it seems to have worked without too much challenge. But Michael signed the first Friday. He came in and signed it. Because there were some questions and then based on answers to those questions he came in and signed it. So that one is signed by Michael. The new world festival application looks pretty straightforward and comparable to what they've done before for a year. This is the 30th year and the layout. Yeah, this is the 30th one. And the layout looks almost identical. So I can't imagine that. Using the D and K parking lots differently. What's that? They're using the D and K parking lots. Yes. That's the only difference. Yeah, that's the only difference. Then I'll make a motion to approve time. Sure, I'll make a motion to approve. Is that one or both? I'll make a motion if we want to combine them. I'm very familiar with the first one. One at a time. One at a time? Okay. I'll move that we approve the application from Chandler for this year's new world festival. Second, Pam. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? I don't think carries. The first Fridays. Stephanie had to leave, but Peter Reed is here and can talk to some of the specifics of what they're proposing to do. Sure, I'm glad to give you a quick overview if that helps. Stay there, Peter. So the first Friday event is something that is really a bit of a grassroots effort from local merchants to try to promote a few hours of fun downtown on a Friday evening. Our intent is to do them every first Friday from June through October. And we're requesting that we be able to close Merchant's Row from Main Street to Pleasant Street between four and probably about eight, 30 or nine in the evening. Our plan is basically to have food from the local restaurants right there in the area. We're exploring the need for a liquor permit to potentially be able to have the whole Merchant's Row area be open to people carrying alcohol. And we expect to have a band and a small tent with a stage to provide some entertainment. So we have at this point, I mean, we have a bunch of the local merchants participating already. We've talked to all the other ones on Merchant's Row. And I would say everybody's in favor of the Fisher Auto Parts staff express some concern about parking for their potential customers between four and five. And we've worked out with Luke Ward, who owns Backstreet to reserve some parking spaces there for any customers of any of the Merchant's Row businesses during that four to five period to at least give them a little option to be able to park right around the corner. So that's the basic story at this point. We, again, this is sort of an effort cooperating with all the different merchants to offer something that kind of focuses on our downtown. And we hope it might expand a little bit out from there with the new art store and gallery that's gonna be up the street. And we're basically contacting all the restaurants in the area to see if they wanna offer any sort of specials or something they may wanna do afterwards. There'll be a bike ride, a running event. So it's gonna be a lot of different things coming together. And we hope it won't be too disruptive and will be entertaining and build a little business cohesiveness in our downtown. I should say that RACDC is sponsoring this from a sort of entity perspective. But really we're just providing a little bit of organization and the insurance cover and being a little bit of a coordinating effort. But really it's the individual businesses themselves that will be doing whatever they wish to do. Peter, one of the concerns I've heard is the access for the parts store. And we hear this every time we go to change access through merchants row. And they're worried about obviously getting customers for that last hour or plus, you know, till they close from four to when they close. How are people gonna find out that they can't be on merchants row and they have to park over and around back and that the business is even still open? Well, our intent is to, I mean, once if we're putting some sort of cordon across the street, it will be obvious that it's closed but we intend to have some signage there that says merchants row businesses parking available on back street and we'll try to police those spaces to make sure that other people are not parking them. So that was the plan. I went personally and discussed with Jason at the parts store what our plan was and he expressed the same concerns to me and we're trying to do whatever we can to alleviate that problem for that last hour. I would think a case could be made that this might actually bring more business to them in a way and that people that are planning on attending first Friday and need new windshield wiper blades combined into one trip. I don't think it's gonna drive business to them. I think what they're worried about is the people on their way home that we're gonna swing in there and pick up parts. How are they gonna know that they can't drive down merchants row park, run in and grab them and come back out until they're at the end of merchants row and can't go. At which point now you've got to, depending which way you're coming in, you got quite a, you know, you got to go down and if you're headed out of town, you got to circle around or you got to go railroad street and back down around. In the past, we haven't allowed it until the businesses were closed, which I think for them would be five o'clock. Right, they close at five, they confirm that to me. So yeah, I don't dispute that it would be somewhat of an inconvenience to them, but I don't know their business very well. My understanding is they're predominantly a call in and we deliver a type of service, but I don't want to, you know, downplay the fact that there will be an hour of disruption at the end of Friday. If the signage is sufficiently prominent at the end of merchants row, the parking is right there, at least from that one end, right? What is the difference between you guys starting your event at four and starting at five? Well, our aim is to make this somewhat family friendly and basically happen during the daylight hours. So that was our goal to try to aim for five o'clock where people might be still coming from work or still in the area and trying to make it kind of an end of the day thing. But the four o'clock is really to be able to set up the stage intent. We're working on how fast we can do that, but we haven't tried it yet. But I would say that they're the only business that objects. I don't know that that, again, should make a difference, but it is just the one business there. And the most of the rest of them are restaurants that are gonna be part of it. Right. So, yeah, they're the ones I would expect to. I mean, they could participate in some way if they wanted. I mean, we have a few other businesses that are not restaurants that are participating, but again, it's not necessarily a natural fit to have a downtown event and how does that fit with auto parts? Given the limited nature of the amount of time that you're asking for and given the fact that there is alternative parking, even though if I not completely alleviate their concerns, I feel like this is a reasonable plan. Could we approve the first date and then, if that goes way wrong or something, we should reconsider because you're asking for five dates, right? Right, I would be fine with that to see it. I mean, this is a new thing we're doing. I mean, we've done other events down there in the past, but I'd be fine with approving this, see how it goes. If there's significant pushback, we're glad to modify as we go forward. Well, you're gonna have to come back anyway to get felt like you're licensed. Right. Would you like a motion? Trini? Sure. First of all, I'm on the RAC-DC board, just to state that. I move that we approve the first date as applied for and then RAC-DC will have to come back for the rest of the dates. Do you have a motion and a favor? I get all those in favor. All right, all right, all right. I need a motion here, please. Thank you very much. Hope to see you all there. We'll see you there. Next up is other business. I don't have any for you. I'm into the manager's report. We did verify that a TARP system is included in the new truck. So that will be part of that. Beyond what you see listed there, we've posted the additional dates. The director's job has been posted and a variety of sites out there with the staff accountant and the economic development director and the two hybrids. We'll keep augmenting that for two more now to add between building the ground supervisor. We're just waiting to see whether or not we can, if there are different ways to solve that one, such as re-approaching one of the employees about potential return. So we are still working through that. And remarked a couple of times that I do think we should all collectively prepare ourselves a little bit for this to be a bit of a siege rather than a short term inconvenience. This is an unusual labor market. The early returns on the things that have been posted for more than a couple of weeks have not. And yet you have to sort of round up with some of the candidate capabilities and experiences. For the jobs we have, it doesn't mean that maybe we could not roll sort of for other positions, but. And so we may be in sort of a rolling triage system for a bit of time, where we look for contract help, we look to extend contract help. There are certain things that we have to say effectively. We aren't doing this or we're doing less of this. One of the ideas we may want to consider is we're finding already that we're really short in this building on bodies on Fridays. The last Friday, Kim and I ended up being sort of from desk capacity at different points. Cardi a little bit too when she was in. So we may want to take a page out of our COVID protocols and have that be kind of close to the public appointment, use the drop boxes. And that might be a good way for folks to catch up relatively unfeeded while maintaining a level of service more broadly. So we'll look to some of those ideas. The clerk's office is kind of doing that now with Emery's impending paternity leave and the van sort of trying to make sure she stays, catches up, stays up with land records, almost one day we're able to sort of keep that office staff pretty regularly for that time and get things done. So we are working through some of these things but it's going to be a little different for a bit as we try to figure out. I mean, we are in the normal places for the economic development director. I reached out to people I know at the community development and applied economics department at UVM, I think for graduate students and the graduate students, anybody who's presumably has an interest in that, and through that program for community development and the public administration pieces, so we're even going with that angle. I started cruising other municipalities' websites today with the intent to cannibalize severely, yeah. And that's sort of a new mode of conduct. That does not fit the old chiller's code. But we haven't been cannibalized a couple of times. We may have to see who's out there who's maybe ready for a new role and has some experience and capability. So we'll keep at it. I have seen more than enough of the different grants management systems. I don't see them again, it'll be okay, but we've got a long road there, thankfully we know how to navigate them. So we're out there, we're doing that. We do have those headwinds that are in the labor market. The number of positions is where we are geographically, just in terms of kind of in the in between with gas prices and for whatever I did, I did four, six, five, four, seven, a gallon. So we'll try to be creative, but it could be, we'll be able to, I had mentioned that Mark had stepped up and had taken over some projects in between. I also wanted to acknowledge that Heidi had done that with some of the full pieces, full ramp. People have sort of stepped up, even ones that maybe have an end date out there as well. So those efforts are pretty appreciated. Sends you the bread loaf report for the East Valley Community Hall earlier today. So at some point, I think Back Group wants to come and talk to you, let's believe it without the architect. It's a fairly expensive proposition based on that estimate, I wish him to see what comes next. Ted Brady, who's the executive director of the LCP has asked to come hang out with you for an evening or for at least part of the evening at one of your meetings. So we'll set him up for the June 19th meeting is what we're thinking, unless he just comes and introduce himself to those who don't know him. I think a couple of you do, he said, from his previous 10 years with the state government and with Senator Leahy for a while and U.S. E.A. Navy for a piece. Wasn't he with Congress and economic development? Yeah, most recently there. When I lived in Williston, we were also part of the same drop-off cycle for preschools, so we'll get to see them this morning. So what would you be talking to us today? Just sort of talking about where the leagues at, what they're looking to do to get any feedback on how they can be helpful to us particularly, but also from internally to a little bit of sort of what did the legislative session entail from the municipal perspective. Some of those just sort of different. This is part of the effort where he's trying to get out and meet with as many communities as possible in a period of time. Laura Collins, I don't mean more Carol, sorry, more, who was in that role before Ted did a similar thing at the beginning of her tenure. If you just try to visit, feel a little facedown and get some feedback. So we'll set that up. And then we had, we were able to get both two rivers and someone from the river management section at the Environmental Conservation Department to come out this week. And they both looked at among other places, Lower Stop Farm Road, where the rivers got that nice oxbow that is encroaching steadily on the road. And also the North Randolph Road project that we had maybe thought would be a scoping study that headed down that grant route. We were waiting for an email from them that lays out some of those options for the Lower Stop Farm Road. There isn't a quick one or a good one necessarily in terms of what they're comfortable with. One of the ideas was to maybe try to encourage the river to narrow that oxbow, but that seems like it may not be an option, so then we might be back to some sort of level, a layer of armoring, so they'll send us what's okay, a bunch of funding sources for that. Just something to keep in mind for later. And then with North Randolph Road, what we were able to actually go all the way through is we pitched them on an idea where we remove the guardrail at the base that's eroding. So the road's been narrowed to one lane. We'll build essentially a little access road down to it and be able to sort of stabilize that bank with various sizes of the rock and then be able to reset the guardrails and reel from the road as a two lane. There may be state monies that are available for some or all of it, such as the materials. The new excavator with our, okay, this was the highway department, John, helped to come up with this idea. We're probably going to read it from two rivers pitched into the DEC folks and they even issued an emergency stream alteration permit. So we can forego the scoping study that says what are we going to do, including consider closure and take those same funds from the stormwater reservoir and apply them to fix this idea. So that all happened earlier this week. So that was the other big piece. Another two areas that we do occasionally, mostly lower stock, I think, is a little more visible in that section of North Randall Road, but we do hear about both pieces and the concern as a certain level of erosion. It's obviously less aggressive on North Randall Road as the clay bank that has given way and has eaten back. Even so, back in the river, it's just, it took out some stakes that were put in last year that were a few feet off the edge. So we're going to mark the edge of our right of way and keep an eye on it as it comes forward. But we haven't forgotten those and those moving along on the conval fashions. Yep, that was something that might happen, I'm sure. North Randall Road, yes. The lower stock farm, I think we need to see what comes back, what are the options, figure out cost, figure out funding, and try to figure out what the timing is. Because one of the options, I guess, is that if that comes up far enough, it could become some sort of emergency management FEMA style, eligible type of remediation, but I think it would be preferable not to lose the road to then fix it all if we could figure out a way maybe to do something before that in that case. Just given, I mean, that's a significant connector, but it is regularly used by not just the people who live there by others, as well as some. Much as I try and separate my recreation from my public service, I get in year full every time I go to Montague from somebody about the general conditions of the roads and specifically their roads. And I'm just wondering what the paving schedule is for this summer so that I can. And the other thing I keep thinking about, and this seems to be a pretty widespread concern, and I've noticed it myself, there are a number of streets where the manholes are really either sinking or popping up or protruding. And I don't know if there's some interim measure that can be taken to mitigate those situations, but we should be, one of the things we've been out doing is we had East Bethel Road in the capital improvement program pulling from an earlier project list. So that's still in there, but what we're thinking is because the paving reserves in a healthy spot, we have so much need and we can identify some areas for some other treatments to include in that paving RFT as well, so that could be another two to four or more candidates that we put in there, whether they be whole streets or sections. But we're thinking of something more on the minimal end, your shim and overlay, much like we did with Weston, for example, or if there's something where there might be some sort of kind of lighter end mill on an overlay as sort of a, say our goal is to get all of our paving town-wide into good condition, which is sort of the general goal that you'll see with these plans. We're not sort of five years out from that based on condition, and just the number of miles. We're probably a couple of iterations of that out. So the ways that we can jump from where we are closer to good, hold the line, get into a maintenance cycle, move that over a, whether it be a 12-year period, say, or maybe we get up to that average baseline or sooner. So they've been out, they're marking those, they're measuring those up so we can put those in the bed and we're just blanking out the documents today so we should be sooner than later to be able to fully answer that question and then we'll roll in to putting that paving plan together so that we can answer that question for five years at a time, would be the goal. We'll update it annually to account for condition changes. We'll also see what prices there. If I recall, School Street and Weston were dealt with by the late summer or early fall last year or something. Yeah, paving bids went out, were awarded at Inc. in July and then so we got them, those projects were actually done in the period of September, October that they actually happened along with Fitch Hill and so the idea is that if we get out sooner than later, we can both have some competition. They think that we still might be, I think we're still a little later than we'd prefer to be so next year we'll keep trying to inch it up some more but we are two and a half months ahead over the last year. What are they talking about right now, Fadden? That was one of the places. They weren't talking about Tiger Eye Boy, right? No, and one of the more vocal complainants was actually somebody who I understand used to be in here a lot talking about Weston Street, John Joy, and he happens to be my partner in the lead this year so I finally had to tell him on the tee the other day, you know what John? You know, we're kind of here to play ball finally. I'll look into your issues but he was of course happy that Weston Street I dealt with last year but I don't recall there any, there was just a general malaise about road conditions and a couple of people particularly mentioned the condition of some of the manhole covers and the slides require. We may even have a proposal for you to consider at some point too, we, much like we did with the sweep, we'll reinvest in some equipment so that we can extend what we're capable of with our resources beyond sort of the pothole patching because we already do have a roller but we broke it as part of the patching the other day, a hose issue, but we do have some equipment that we can combine so that maybe we can do sections of repair and improve sort of the overall quality, stabilize things a little bit better and so we're still working on some other creative ways to how do we get the most out of our own resources but I think one of a much more comprehensive plan coming out of all of this but I think we'll see certainly this year there's the potential to do a little more than we were expecting and to try to spread it out, that's one of the things we try to be conscientious of too is to make sure we're getting some of the improvements as broadly based as possible. Something else that I was told again by one of the complainants is, I don't know whether this is accurate or not, that 45 feet on each side of the railroad tracks, though the railroad is responsible for the road repair, does that make any sense at all? That is not accurate. I did not think it was accurate. It sounded really far-fetched to me. I mean, I just know that right along the track on Brook Street as you drive down towards my house, the road is just falling away from the edge of the track and there's probably easily six inches deep that we just kind of navigate around. I didn't sound, it sounded pretty far-fetched to me, Trini, so. No, no. They would just as soon your road fall away. Well, they're gonna have to, I put up with them going behind my house three times a day, so I guess they can live with their potholes too. I actually love trains, they don't mind them, so. Are we working on contract with BNK on Brook Street? Reached out again, that's sort of another prompt to see if we can schedule some time to figure out the remaining scope. Hopefully we'll be able to set that up and then we can have something before you. I think the goal would be by the June meeting if we need authorization or something, and hopefully that can have a timeline and we can tell residents at what point we might be able to post something that's a little more specific in terms of what's gonna happen. If you have neighborhood meetings, I don't know if that's gonna happen. I don't know, let's hope so. Any more items, Trevor? Oh, thanks, though, can I forget any? Any motion to go through the two-step process for executive session? You reminded of the language. Yeah, so you are being asked to consider a motion to find that executive session is necessary and prudent and that premature general public knowledge would place the town at a disadvantage. I will make said motion. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now you'd consider a motion if you were so inclined to enter executive session for student to one VSA 313A1A contracts, one VSA 313A2 real estate. I will make said motion that we go into executive session for those two purposes. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Take a five minute break and we'll be back in the next session.