 time and I'm gonna call the meeting to order. So we have a road crew here with us. Phil Hayek is not going to be here tonight. Mary Skinner is going to be a little late. And we have Victor and the first, do we have any amendments to the agenda? Shane wanted to amend the agenda to have a discussion of downgrading or discontinuing Colby Road or any class 4 section of Dolan Road. And also you told me to remind you to have a to discuss the COVID few things. Yeah we just wanted to clarify that employee policy thing change. Remember you came over. Yep. And I didn't say what. What year was it sir? What's that? What year the vacation time was going to be. Right. And there was a couple of those small things but I'll remember what they were but. But that's the big one. Yep. You got it right there right. You mean like fiscal year versus calendar year? Well no. You had to use up so much vacation time but it was said by July 1st. $120. But they were just wanting to make sure they lose their time. Which of course they haven't but we're just going to clarify in the policy to say $20.2. I'm sorry I thought we had resolved that when we when we met. Yeah but that's right but you said we had to change it. We had to put it. We had to put it in. Oh to make it more clear? Yeah you had to put it in writing is what you said that. Okay. Yeah all right. Well we missed that. I apologize for that. You're not losing any time. I don't want to lie. Okay. So don't worry about that. So does somebody have exactly do you have exactly what the change is that we discussed Shane? Oh might have you wrote them down on that. I don't have them in this. I have it on my other copy. Okay well he would share them with me again. I'll make sure they get. All right. Implementer. Okay. In there. That is not a change to the personnel policy. That was something that you were giving them over and above because this personnel policy will continue on for years until we make another change to it. It was something that we said in the meeting that we were going to have the people use it all up by a certain day but it was not a policy change. It was because everybody had been running over due to COVID. Right. Correct. And so it but it's not a policy. I mean because after this year it doesn't affect the personnel policy. Okay. So it's just something that you told them was going to be. Yes. Yeah. So we shouldn't change the personnel policy because that's a policy. And that is an exception. That was an exception. But if you guys want something in writing saying that. Well you can give them something in writing but I'm saying we shouldn't change the policy. No no no that's fine. I don't disagree with that at all. Okay thank you. I'm sorry about that. So you gentlemen requested a meeting and here you are and here we are. So we're ready to hear whatever you have to say. All right Jake. Our rate of pay here seems to be quite low in comparison to other places. I really don't understand why it seems like we're overlooked quite often on that. I mean I'll be 10 years here and we haven't had a pay increase in like three years and. No that's not correct. Excuse me. You've had a pay increase over here. That's a cost of living increase. That's a pay increase. Anyway. Just to be clear. Okay. I don't feel it's being unfair or anything if the help is paid at least a dollar more per hour to bring us up to power with other places. Where are you? Yeah what are your other places that you're comparing? People who know what worked for other towns and has the time they've been there in comparison to the time I've been here. Well I would say a couple things to you and this sounds like a recurring conversation I know but I'm going to say first of all it's time to consider pay increases in the fall at budget time. And I said to you gentlemen last year if you want to have a discussion about pay the time to have it is when we're developing our budget. We didn't hear a word from any of you at that time. So here we are. We prepared our budget. Public information. Budget was approved to town meeting. We're now in the fiscal year where that budget is in effect. And now six weeks into the fiscal year you're coming to us and saying you're not happy. You're timing stinks. Stinks. This isn't when we consider things like this. So you're asking us potentially if we were to do something like this that requires a special town meeting, a whole bunch of hurly burly, potentially amending tax rates, all kinds of stuff. So that's a problem. But the other thing that's a problem for me is is when we have compared our pay to other towns and we have some documentation of that we feel our compensation is right in there. So I know you'd like to get a dollar more and I understand that and I'm speaking for myself not the select board but this is the wrong time to be talking about that. We've given you gentlemen extra raises. We've given you bonuses. We've done all kinds of things in recent years in response to your request and I'm not saying we wouldn't do that again. But to come to us now six weeks into the fiscal year and ask us to consider a raise. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's a problem. So do you have documentation of this? Right. So you're just going based on what somebody tells you over the phone or in the bar at night or wherever you talk to them? Yeah, I would also just add that when we like as an employer when I'm looking at the rate of pay that I can offer someone, I also consider the benefits package as a huge part of the compensation. So not just the hourly rate but what you're getting for health insurance as well as retirement benefits, life insurance, all those things that total an entire compensation package. So it's hard to even though it's easy to say well so-and-so makes 22 an hour and I only make 21, that's not telling the whole story of how much that person is really making. So when we're thinking about how much we pay you, it's not just on the hourly rate, it's also what else are we offering as benefits to make this job meaningful and something that you're place that you're going to want to continue working at. So and Peter's right, generally when we look at salaries is at a specific time of year and I think that we can revisit this when we start to do our budgeting again in December, I guess it is, October, right? Yeah, I mean it's not that far away. But anything that we decide then wouldn't actually happen until the start of the new fiscal year. Anyway, July 1. And we do, we're very mindful of the fact that there are other jobs out there that have CDLs and you could probably get a job someplace else, maybe making some more money but there's other things to consider such as, you know, your commutes, your benefits, right? So someone may pay you more but you're not going to get the same amount of benefits that you would hear. And we do really look at when we're, when the last race that we gave you, which I think you said it was through, I don't remember the time, but we gave you a substantial increase above and beyond the cost of living adjustment. And that was because we knew we were underpaying you. We looked and we, we, we looked at all the other towns in the area that were of similar size and found out that in fact we were paying you less. And so we felt that at that time we did bring up the pay to be equivalent to what other towns were offering. So I feel like we have done a pretty good job of, you know, trying to stay competitive with other towns and making sure that you guys are not, you know, that you're on par with what other towns are, are making. Now we're looking for a new person. What's the starting rate going to be for them? It'll be based on their experience and qualifications. So we don't know, but generally we don't pay new people the highest wage, obviously. Well, that's something to consider. I mean, obviously, you're not going to look at it locked over, but if you want middle sex to be the town people want to work for, the pay is going to have to be eventually more than just even with the time you're going to have to bump it up and you're going to have to make that benefits package really attractive. I mean, Calis is still trying to find two guys. It's hard right now. So that's just another way to go. We got to look at it to get people want to stay working at this town and for a long time and have people knocking at the door from when a vacancy comes up. You know what I mean? So that's just something to consider for the future and to look at this. And that's why the guys wanted to bring it up. They do a good job and they work their butts off. And we don't disagree with any of that. And I don't mean to sound mean or hard in a way. You're not late. You're early because you're the first ones to come to us about next year. Unfortunately, we didn't really have a say on last year because we didn't have a format. And I thought we were going to get more than what we ended up getting. I thought in my short interim as road commissioner there, I believe what I said is if you want to be involved in the budget process, you should be involved in the budget process, any of you. So I'm sorry if you didn't understand that or know that. It's always been that way. Now, we're meeting with you tonight. We're happy to meet with you any time. But certainly if you're concerned about your compensation, budget time is the time to do it. I understand everything you're saying and I also understand what Shane is saying. It's a way it's a good time to be an employee and a bad time to be an employer because there's definitely a shortfall and a demand and it's potentially a problem and the town's going to have to deal with that. Believe me, we know it. I think the town's going to have to start shelling out money just to get somebody to come in here and take this job opening that's coming up. My thing is that you guys are going to have to shell out more money. Jay and I have talked about it. If you're going to shell out more for that person coming in, then we should be compensated too so that they're not making the same amount of money as us. We can't go out and pay the new person $2 an hour more than you guys are making and expect you to come to work with a smile on your face. I'm sure that would definitely not happen. I get it and that's all part of the calculation. As much as our plan is to continue to have a four-person road crew with a working foreman, if the bottom line is the budget can't support it, the budget can't support it, we might have to go back to three. Who knows? We've been no discussion about any of this, but I'm just telling you that obviously it's all in the mix. You would like to be part of that discussion. Did you just throw that out there? You're welcome to attend any select board meeting anytime. We'll recognize you as town employees if you're a town resident. You have a little different status, but if you're not, you're still a town employee, so you know it's appropriate for you to be heard. That's a lot of board meetings. I mean the other thing I would appreciate is any information you have about how people are being paid more other than the fact that they just tell you they're being paid more is I'd like to know what their pay and benefits are because that's what the cost is to the town. So you know if for instance you were to say you know what we don't we don't care about personal time, we don't care too much about holiday time, we don't care too much about health insurance, we don't care too much about uniforms or boot allowances, we just want more pay. Would you say that child opening was at Berlin? Okay so that'd be right in between the ballpark of the high and low, but Berlin the town pays all insurance, vision, dental, life disability. That's you. We're paying it all too. What's that? We're paying it all too. Except for the spouse you don't. This isn't saying they pay for the spouse either. Well that's something we have to but they offer vision and dental too. Right well that's an add on that you know, but we don't know what their plan is or did that say what their plan is? No they didn't list their plan. Yeah so that's where as Liz was saying you've got to compare apples to apples. They might be on a completely different plan. The other thing is we pay HSA and that doesn't say they pay HSA. MEHSA can pay for vision and dental. You've got to be you've got to be very careful when you start comparing these health insurance plans. But I just want to you know make it clear to you guys that we hear what you're saying and we have in the past you know really I think been very thoughtful about the pay that we're giving you and you know making it mentored to what other towns of the similar size are making. And you know we understand right now COVID has changed a lot for a lot of places right not just towns but restaurants and all kinds of places are having trouble finding work. And when you have a finding people to work and when you have a you know demand and you don't have a supply that's when things start to change and we're not quite there yet right. We haven't put out the job application yet you know we're not yet in that position where or maybe we have but we're not we're not yet in that position to suddenly start changing the amount that we're paying in until we have to or until we've decided that we have to have the fourth person. And then to into your response that wouldn't mean that your job becomes you take on a third of what you know that person who didn't that just means the town doesn't have as many services that we don't get the road graded as many times we don't get the ditching done twice we only have it once those are the things that a town when the voters are voting on a budget if they want something they'll pay for it but if they don't want it they won't pay for it and they won't get it and so that's the reality you wouldn't be doing three times more work during the winter. Well maybe the roads wouldn't get plowed as much and that's the repercussion of a town not wanting to pay but we have to go to the voters to say listen we this is why you need a fourth road person and this is how much it's going to cost and this is going to be the increase in your taxes because of it and people have to be willing to say yes I mean I know I'm willing to have good roads but I'm not the only voter and and and it's our and it's our duty to present a budget that we think is fair and responsible to our voters and be able to you know back it and say why we think this is important and if you guys come to us and say this is really important and you know that's something you listen to. Absolutely, absolutely. Jorinda, do they all have their information, this information that you shared with us? I did not give though, I gave it to Shane and Ben but I did not give it to the employees. Okay. What did you give us? The breakdown of all the what the road crew is making. I'm just thinking of something Peter, you know if you were to do if you were to suddenly decide oh I'm going to pay my road crew four dollars more an hour all the other towns road crew are going to quit and say I want to come work for middle sex and that's probably not something that road the towns want to do to each other. Watch out, we might be engaging in an antitrust violation. Be careful, all I'm saying is we've got to be careful how to say that. Okay, but I'm certainly certainly towns share share information, it's public information and we share and it's available to all of you too. What's our high and low? The list here or the other town high and low. Do you mean high and low wages? Yes, just plain wages. Wages 2164 to 26. That of course doesn't include overtime. No, that's right but all I'm saying is the overtime is a big component of what we've got. You have total back. In fact, given a bonus, they didn't give much overtime and when we did that we want to be good fair employers. But at the same time, we can't give away the ranch. But this is the time seems hard to believe because we barely started this fiscal year. But this is the time we start to think about all this stuff for next year. And we seriously start thinking about it in in October. Does that is it? Do you have any questions about that? Does it make sense to you? It doesn't really. I guess what you said is all right with me for the time being. I'm sorry, I said it again. I guess it's okay for the time being. I guess we just have to become way more involved than our budget system. We were unaware of that, I guess or overbooked or misunderstood. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if that's the case, but you know, we're happy to hear. I mean, we're hearing from you now. We'll remember and we'll listen. We're not ignoring him. And I'm going to suggest that we have in the near future probably can't be at our next meeting. But we'll have we'll have an executive session, which is a session where no members of the public are present to discuss what you've had to say to us tonight, just to keep it on the forefront of our mind. At the same time, I would suggest to all of you that if there are any parts of this that you don't understand, let's make sure you understand. And to render or I or Vic or somebody can can go through it with you. But the other thing I would suggest is if there's something that's more important to you than something else on here, and you all agree, changes can be made, you know, transfer and transfer and cost from some of these benefits to pure to pure wages. But we hear you, we want to be competitive. We want to be fair. And I know no matter what we pay, it never seems like it's enough. I get that. I was an employee a long time myself, I get it. But you need to think about where we sit and the issues that we face every day to. That's all I'm saying. The only thing I'd like to add is that I think it's been said briefly, but we have tried to make sure your wages have been going up over the past few years. And because they work quite low. And I personally don't think they're right where they should be myself. But every year, we've done something, we haven't let you a year without doing something for a raise, whether it's a two or two percent or three percent raise or or a figure amount, 50 cents or a dollar, we've done something plus the bonus stuff. And like Peter said, this is coming up towards budget time. So Shane and Vic are going to be working on budget shortly. I mean, it's coming right up. So that's the time and that's when we've always done it. And when I was a road commissioner, when we that's when we went in for the wages, didn't always get what we asked for, but you always got something. Any other questions? Well, thank you for coming. It's good to see you. These conversations are never easy. We really do appreciate the work you do on behalf of our town. You're important to us. Very important. And we try and listen carefully to what you have to say. Yes, thank you for your work, you guys. Yes, thank you. We're free to go. You're also welcome to stay. You can keep that. So you're going to have you said in the next meeting or I'm not going to say the in the future, you're going to have a executive session. I'm going to suggest to the board that we do that. We haven't decided to do it. Yes, under what under what provision of one VSA are you going to hold that person? That's not a provision. I'll get you the statue. Okay, I guess we won't. We'll have an open open and freewheeling discussion. Ask if I can be part of that, but I guess I can be part of it anyways. Well, you would be anyway. No, this is important. And you know, I feel like I feel like to a certain extent this is a recurring conversation, but we respond to these conversations in the past with various various measures. And I think we are I think change exactly right. We're going to be we're going to be challenged hiring a new member of the road crew. Yeah, I mean, you might hire them for what you're paying these guys now. Correct. And that's going to cause our feelings. Yeah, we're kind of bunched together right now. I mean, just are you aware of what people may? Yeah. Yeah. You know, speaking as a as a former employer and not with a town, I can tell you we struggle with these problems all the time, especially in tight employment times, you're trying to hire the best person you can hire. And guess what? They get more vacation than any of your current employees do and they maybe get higher wages. So what the hell do you do? You better be careful. I can tell you that you want to cause wholesale unrest, start start making decisions to pay the new people more and you're going to be in trouble. The worst thing you can have as a business or probably even here is to have unrest in your employee pay because they will take more time. I mean, I know with the state, you know, something would come up and they'd spend more time talking about it. They got so it took a lot of time amongst the employees. You know, we've done some work and we'll do some more work and you guys can help us do this work. But when we've looked at this really carefully in the past, this is just a snapshot done in the last few days in preparation for this meeting. But we literally, the last time we really looked at this, that was a couple of years ago, we went around to all the towns and got their real information and the details on their health insurance and everything else. And we went through it. And at that time, as Steve said, we came to understand that we were low and we made a good adjustment. I can't remember what it was, but and the time maybe that we need to do that again. Based on what I've seen so far, I don't think that's necessarily true. But we've got to see. And certainly the other issue we face, which didn't come up this evening is, you know, we know that private contractors pay substantially more than this as wages. Do they offer the same benefits? Probably not. Most of them know. Probably not. But the fact of the matter is, you know, if you want to drive a truck for a for an excavation contractor who works seven or eight months out of the year, you can earn a lot more on an hourly basis, no doubt, but you probably would not have these benefits and not have the sure employment. I mean, in that world, if the work stops, the job stop, that's not the case here. So and I think the guys don't know that they do know that I know they know that. And I remember we looked at the health insurance as well. And at one point we thought, well, you go with a cheaper plan, but then the guys would have to pull it out of pocket. And we just knew that wasn't fair. Like, we didn't want to say, Oh, you know, we can have a cheaper plan for you. And I don't think that's what we want to do, even in the future, like, I don't think we want to take a piece of that benefit and give it to you in your hourly rate and then expect you to be setting that money aside for your health emergency, right? That's not going to happen. So we want to be, you know, we want to be mindful of if we are going to pull something from a benefit. Like, I don't want you pulling from your retirement. You guys need your retirement, right? Like there's very little you could like pull it from that would really do probably have to come from the budget and it would have to be a budget increase. I don't want to get rid of the benefits that we have that we give you. I think there's benefits. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, you know, having to through this and then we'll stop this for tonight, but having to through this many times over the years and many different capacities. Employees under appreciate the benefits. You know, they may expect them, they may think it's just, you know, automatically included, but they don't understand the true cost of the dollar. Sure. They look at what's in their paycheck. I get it. But the only really fair way to look at it is to look at the total is to look at the total cost and to compare it, compare it that way. Yeah. You know, and I know these guys, you know, they, they talk to people on other road crews they, oh, you know, what do you, what did you get for a raise? What do you make? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's, that's normal. That's not a problem, but it's not documentation that were uncompetitive. It's not adequate, adequate for me to go based on that. But that said, this is a good warning shot across our bow and budget time is, budget time is coming. You definitely won't get it if you don't ask for it. That's right. That's right. Um, other highway department updates, Victor or Shane? We're working on bulldog road and going to go to Hortle Road, putting in collards. That's three and so far. Well, the first one was a challenge. I'm trying to learn the traffic patterns of bulldog road. The first one was on a hill in the corner. That was a little bit of a challenge. You only could do half at a time. So yeah, that's my first time doing a covert that way. So it was all right though. Their big tractor trailer don't come until nine o'clock. So that gives so six o'clock in the morning. We're getting, yeah. So that's how we did. So we've got three chains over there. And then the greatest difference is back. They actually used it today. They graded the lower part of bulldog off the new 12 just to smooth up where we've been ditching and tried to walk and roll. And like they said, they did a good job. Did we get it? Yeah, just a lot more to turn it around. You got to pick and choose your spots. But yeah, packed it pretty good because we didn't chloride it. We're ditching still and he just wanted to try it out, smooth the road up and it packed it pretty well. I was pretty impressed. So you put a little flooring on that and I think we'll be We have a highlight. You have to make sure you do that on Liz's road just before it rains. Yeah, that'd be great. The bottom part of it. That's pretty bad. The bottom part. He's gonna touch that up tomorrow. Oh good. I don't want to do a deep grading, but that would just put on there to get some fresh material on it. And he's gonna have to use that roll too. I'm sure the greater steers differently and everything else probably with that when that thing's down. It does it when it's up, the steer is different. When it's down, it doesn't, the weight pushes down so it picks the back end up. Oh, so you get more weight? You have more weight in front tires. When he picks it up, he said steering is a little, feels like you're on ice. Just the rear, what wheels are raised? Yeah, you picked that whole thing right up off the ground. Oh, the whole greater. Nice. So, and, and, and, but I noticed like tonight over my pulleys, that's, that's held quite a bit where they go from the blacked out to the, from the gravel, because he put a lot of chlorine on that. Where's that? Oh, pulleys. Look at the chloride. How does that help? Come from the grime. We're, come from the drys and on the back ends right there. That puts moisture in there. Not only does it keep the dust down, but it makes the road hold up better as well. Makes it a little bit of water and it activates it better. We have, we added a water tank to the fire truck or the old fire truck. To the town truck. That way you can lay water down ahead of the fluoride because it helps activate the fluoride and the roads will pack better. We're going to talk about the trucks. Yeah, so one of the select board meetings coming up right off, we need to go over trucks. The western side is due next July. Yeah. We order it within the next few weeks and you might have it by July or October, roughly. So it's going to have to be ordered right off. So I'm starting to get close. It's going to take a year to get it done. It's a year turnaround plus and Clark Salesman told me they were just told by our national no orders, but Clark's had ordered 15 trucks for themselves. So if we decide to go that route, we can take one of their trucks and have it built the way we want it. That's the only way we'd be able to get an international right now. I'm waiting on Mac. I've got quotes from Kenworth International and the guy was supposed to mail me a quote here from the Mac. So I'm waiting on that and Jay still was letting me get a quote on a western style. He likes the western style. I think any truck you go with all these guys I had him include a seven year warranty on it. Yeah, I said, I think you're just be crazy not to with all the electron acts, the DF system and it just causes a lot of havoc. We'll have enough money in it so you can have the real touch of truck this time. Okay. The other thing is the question came up and maybe it's a little bit early, but you can think about it is our our chloride water truck isn't pretty poor shaped. I think you can get it read inspector. There was some talk about because we get so much money in that western star western star, maybe not trade that in and make that our water truck. I mean, it's just a thought. So what's what's the what's the problem with the current truck? It's the frame. The rust. Yeah, but I mean it's the frame. It's the spring shackles and springs. The frame is actually not terrible. It's everything else that's going we just had to replace brakes on it because the brakes were all shot. But I mean, it's not inspectable. I don't believe you could try to get inspector, but I don't think it's not registered hasn't been registered since I've been here. And you just drive around. They said they haven't I don't know when the last time is registered. You have to look it up. A good deal on that. But how do you turn the western star into a take the dump body off or you can leave the body or put the tanks in the dump. You can put the tanks in the dump body and you could counter so as a spare truck in the winter too if you ever had to go down that'd be another option. But that's it. I mean, they're offering us trades right now anywhere from 55 to 65,000 on it. But that's tentatively they they have the right all these guys that are quoting have the right to re-appraise it next fall when the truck comes in. So which is understandable. So now you have how many thousands of dollars you have 30,000 just in the transmission. I'm almost 10,000. This is the you know we've so this this this again feels like a recurring conversation and you know what the problem is the problem is we say okay we're going to turn the western star into our truck and then we're maintaining maintaining that truck again and it loses an engine or transmission. I mean the idea of the idea with that fire truck was you know if all we're using forest fluoride in the roads that's very little use. Now I never knew what wasn't uh wasn't registered or inspected. I think that's probably a mistake. I don't know what's that. It also sits out in the weather all year. It sits out in the snow all winter. No no I understand. So um I mean that's another problem. You have equipment sitting in the snow instead of inside which is hard obviously you can't. That's what that's what Liz's committee is going to tell us the new quadruple-sized town garage that we need, right? All I'm all I'm all I'm saying is the concept of using that fire truck was just it doesn't get used very much. If heaven forbid it was to die completely could we put those tanks in one of the other trucks and still chloride the roads? Yes we could. So you know I know that isn't the most convenient thing to do when it can certainly be done. We just figured we'd throw that option out there if that's a direction you want to go but you have a year to think about it for more anyway. But I have to believe and maybe I'm and maybe I'm wrong who knows the market for used trucks is just crazy. I just bought a pickup truck. I've never been through such a such a fiasco in my life to buy a three quarter ton pickup truck. But anyway that's that's a whole other story for another time over a beer or something but uh if a trade-in's 55 or 65 thousand dollars we could surely buy a truck that would carry those chloride tanks for a lot less money than that. So that makes that a pretty expensive truck in my in my view but that's just right off the top of the head without looking at numbers and and thinking about it. Well it's something when it gets closer maybe we look at it. I mean this one's running for now it's got an oil leak I think it needs a new oil pan but we're using it for now anyway so by next year I don't know what shape it'll be in but we can address it anyway when the time comes. So I'm asking a question and I don't know the answer to this question but in the old days for a truck to be covered for insurance it had to be registered and inspected if you sit on the road. So if that's I don't know how we find out the answer to that without getting ourselves in trouble but if that's if that's the case we shouldn't be using that truck right now we're putting ourselves at severe risk of something more to happen. I don't know if we can. Well the only other thing we can do for right now would be take the hydroceder out until the chloride tank and they just wouldn't have the water tank in which would be fine we just mix the chloride with water. We just throw it on the freight liner for now. So how would we and I'm just thinking out loud I'm a little reluctant to call up the league of cities and towns and ask them that question because I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure what the answer would be. I'm just thinking off the top of my head you know. And maybe it is registered I don't know I don't think there's a plate on it but most things get registered for five years I believe on the municipal. Oh look I think I would have to insure and start with that. Yeah so it's definitely insurance on the schedule so but whether there's an exclusion in the policy where it's on the policy but it's not covered because it's not registered and not inspected I don't know the answer to that one. Town and middle sex on their roads because the town and middle sex on their roads I believe the answer is we own some of the roads but not all of them because and I know we went through this went through this a while back when we were looking at that old ancient road thing. I'm just talking about a lot of a lot of deeds a lot of deeds and I'm not sure what my deeds has to tell you the truth but a lot of deeds that you own to the center of the road and the town has it right away but I believe there are also roads that we own where the deans say they're to the edge of the right away. I think you're correct. But which ones and where and how. That's like you know it's kind of a it's like you know when a one of the state of Vermont puts out a they own the road and they put out a contract you're not as long as you don't leave that highway you don't have to have that your vehicles registered inside that as long as the contract is long. That would not that would not help us I don't think. Well if we're lucky enough to have it happen let's that was the case that we own the road. But I think I think most of the deeds and I don't know if you don't the answer to that Mary. I don't know the answer to that. Or Sarah do you have any. Well there's been a late movement by surveyors recently to say that roads are owned up to the up to the that say that the homeowner does not own to the center of the road. And so this is just something that actually surveyors has just started doing without any legal reason to do it. So it's caused problems actually. It's really deep dependent. I have not seen anywhere where the town actually owns a road. I have seen where the state of Vermont owns a road. Right. I think I think the case would be you know we've never really we've never really studied that but I I know when we looked at it we found deeds which said to the edge of the town right away. And how many though were that we found some of the go to the center of the road. And then a lot of them know the center of the road. You don't want these little strips of land which actually we have right now on center road. We have little strips of state owned land along center road that no one knows what to do with. So the idea is that the town has it right away that the right away is ever discontinued then the reverts to the property. Right. That doesn't answer the question about our potentially unregistered truck. I'm not so I'm not so worried about an unexpected truck as I am an unregistered truck. So can we look into that and see if in fact it is registered. Tomorrow we're going to find out what I've got registered for the last inspection that there was inspected last year. Just right now. Okay well if you look into that and then I could figure out some way to some way to get the answer to that. I could do it by tomorrow I just need to have the I just need to have a town number and then I can go into the DNV I just can't do it right now. Okay well let's let's find out the answer to that. The other thing and this is a little bit of a violation of our agenda but assuming everybody agrees why don't we talk about the throwing up of those roads while you guys are here. Dolan is a class four. Yeah wait a second how many roads are we talking about? Two roads two. We amended the agenda marriage to include a discussion of Colby Road and Dolan Road. When I was out with Ashley Andrews she would take the pictures of the connected segments on Bulldog. Dolan Road has a high risk connected segment and if it stays class four we have to fix that up to the state standards. So it needs a lot of work I took a walk up to there and there's one bolder I think without exaggerating it's three and a half four feet tall it's how far the roads wash down. Yeah. So do you throw it up into a legal trail and instead because she said we could do that but if you want to fix it up it's going to cost some money. Who is she? Ashley Andrews. I think who is that? For the state. So this is to comply with the state waste water standard. Is it still a town? That's what we're talking about. Like it's a public right of way? Yeah it'd be a town trail like some of the other trails you have legal trails. Are there any residences on that? Well we don't plow it now but as soon as you turn on it there's three two houses three houses right there three driveways as soon as you turn on it and then after that there's nothing to the top and we turn around on the other end at that house at the top. There's a house but no one lives in it at the top of there? No it's on the you get to it from the Colver Hillside. You just can't drive up it you used to be able to drive up it it used to be that good enough to drive but now you can't even drive up it. But would it affect the scree at the bottom where you turn on it? No no I don't see why we wouldn't want to be the only thing that I mean I guess it doesn't really I can't imagine this happening but it's so washed out like could there be like a flooding concern you know in terms of you know damaging something below right? Right it's washed it's going into the Colver. Right I mean and well that's the thing it's like if so you wouldn't manage that Colver that's is there a Colver right at the bottom? Yeah there is and I believe it goes underneath the driveway that say that goes up to a house. Yeah I do believe. I mean that would be my concern is that because it really is it's like a hiking trail now it's you can't even drive up it. No but it could still be used as a hiking trail if it was a trail. No I'm just talking about like if there's something weird with drainage and running that causes damage to everybody else's. I'll just I'll just finish my thought so if it's a trail we could put water bars across it we can do whatever we need to do to divert the water which we can't do when it's a road. So we can we can mitigate that problem and still have it to get a trail and we can have the least sharp mountain bike ramp on one side. Well we just remember when the leaves well then we had a problem too with the neighbor putting leaves in the um yeah in the ditch. Could she do that if it were a trail? Oh no it's a trail. Right she literally removed every leaf from her woods and put them in the road. Anyway that's that's a good one. The concern I have about Colby Road is that that property has just been purchased and to me to throw it up only to have them come back to us and say hey we want that reinstated as a town road. I mean the question I'm asking everybody to think about is does it make sense to wait a little bit and see what the proposal is for the rest of that land. Well I would say also there's a question of notice of throwing it up without letting the new owners know about it. Well we would have to go through the whole process. But there was a reason why we didn't include Colby when we did the last time I had something to do with it. Was the resident out there? No that's not why it was something else. I don't know whether we were thinking it was going to be sold I don't know. I mean to me it just feels premature when the property has just changed hands to immediately throw the road up but we haven't been plowing it for the last few years and we certainly haven't been doing much to maintain it. So it's not like we're we're expending money on it and it would just seem it's just a big process to change the way these roads are public hearings and all that kind of stuff and to do it one way in a year later have to turn around and consider flipping it back I think it would be a mistake. So if a new owner wants you to plow that road all winter long will we plow it? We plow it yep. Do we know whether they're going to actually be on the property or they're going to I have no knowledge I have no knowledge of what their points are Mary. I'm just I'm just throwing that out as a thought that doesn't make sense to do it at this point in time but well you know maybe we maybe we go ahead and throw it up. Well all the with the process that we have to go through and all the landowners are notified anyway they would have a point in time right then to come to us rather than us just waiting for them to do something I would say that we should at least start that process and if the owners don't object to it fine but if they do and they have reasons then fine we listen to them. If they but if we that's fine too that's fine too. Let's assume they don't know because we don't give them somehow they don't know if they want to then reinstate it to a class four don't they have to bring it up to our standards if we throw it up? Well we're not talking about we're talking about I believe we're talking about downgrading it to class four right right now it's class three okay yes would but if they wanted to be class three wouldn't they have to bring it up to our standards? Hold on when we threw up the other roads we turned them into their private driveways we do except for Reineke's road. We didn't maintain them as trails we totally throw them up. We threw them up completely except for Reineke. So NAP road which we had been class three you downgraded downgraded to class four right uh boldic you completely discontinued Mary you completely discontinued Reineke because of that because of that warren road was you downgraded it to class four so they still didn't have to plow it and then chase the end of chase road you completely discontinued the end of chase road because that was going straight up to it. Do you guys want me to help do you want me to put this on the next agenda or how do you want how fast you want to proceed on this? Well let's put it let's put it on the next agenda. Start the whole process. Time to think about when we decide we're going to go forward or not. Perfect, perfect. Does anybody just agree? I mean we can't take action tonight anyway so. Did it how many acres was that? The Colby? Are they planning on developing it? Looks like it. Who bought it? Do we know? I was thinking it would be really good for housing. That's what I was thinking if they bought it yeah close to 300. And then we could keep it to be a public road and then that's encouraged people to come move to middle sex. If he's doing it for development he's going to build some big apartments and stuff for people. I mean we have no idea what his plans are but I can't I can't believe somebody would buy that I don't think it's going to be turned back into a dairy farm. Let's put it that way. So do we know who bought it though? Yes. Who is it? Sarah. Is it a secret? It is Robert Napier revocable trust at St. Petersburg, Florida. It's 226 acres. He's going to develop it. Yeah. Well there's some cheap land for some low-income housing. That's what I said too. That's what I think it should be. And I think we ought to look where Ruth Hope lives there on Jenkins Road. And connect it? Connect it. Well we could be connected as a trail. That's right. Let's do it. Yeah. Agenda. Okay. Moving right along. Can I ask a quick question on the highway cruise here? I don't know if it's relevant or not but I'm still sitting on a Lafayette check and a new invoice and I need guidance on how to proceed. Good question. Is that the stop sign? That's the speed sign. The speed sign. So their point is they had to move it so I mean I think they should at least give us a break on it but they're claiming the state's at fault because the state guy told them to go ahead and do it so I contacted the state. I contacted that Jim Coda from the state a while ago and asked him about it and it was one of his employees that told Lafayette that and he was going to talk to him when we get back to me and I haven't heard back from him. So I bet you never will either. No, we won't unless you can't read on that. How big is the bill? The new one is $2,462. That was to move it. That was to move it. But we haven't paid. We haven't paid for it. I still haven't bailed off because you told me not to know until we resolved everything. So what's the problem if we paid it off? No. If you paid it all the first bill was $4,866.10 and the second one is $2,462 even. Around $15,000. No, it's about $7,000. I mean almost the cost of the signs. Who could we bail at the state? Do you have some people we could just send the bill to and see if they'll pay it? That's what I would do. I think I think you just got the right idea to call Mr. Coda. To what? To call Jim Coda from the state. Yeah, but he hasn't gotten back to it with the phone call already. He hasn't. Well, certainly we should follow up. I mean if the sign company relied on what the state told them and they did it the way the state told them to do it. I think we need to pay the bill. Yeah, I think we need to pay the bill. I think we should use this subcontractor or contractor for other things. Wait a minute. We're talking about two invoices. I think we should go ahead and pay the first invoice. Me too. I mean they installed it. We ended up not understanding how much it was going to cost to install it, so we ended up only voting $4,000 or $5,000 when we spent a lot more than that. Whatever, we should pay that bill. This one is only $4,800. And hold out, but that doesn't include the cost of the sign. But I'm not sure why we would hold out. They did the work. They had to happen. They installed the signs in an incorrect place. But they were told by the state that that's not our fault, and they don't have any documentation that they were. It was just a conversation. You know, they don't have a change order or I don't know what the proper paperwork would be. But my understanding is there's no paperwork. Is that correct? But they relied on the state of Vermont. That's their problem. I mean, I don't see why we should be responsible for that. I really don't. I didn't look at it that way. I mean the original thing, so I would recommend, and I'd like to have an emotion so it's in minutes for Gerinda that we pay the original, we pay that original invoice. I move that the town of Middlesex pay the outstanding first invoice to Lafayette. What's the rest of the name, Dorinda? Lafayette Highway Specialties. Highway Specialties in the approximate amount of $4,800. Is there a second? That was second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? How much did the signs cost? Seven. Almost eight dollars. Whoa, we really underestimated that. And did they do the signs too? No, we bought the signs. We knew the signs were going to be a We budgeted 8,000 for the signs, even though we budgeted, and we thought that we were Wow, we really underestimated that. So what is what is Lafayette's position that it's not their fault and we should pay the bill? Is that what they're saying? They did the work. We should pay it for their work. I don't know if I can get them to cut the bill, work us a little bit on it. I don't know. I mean, I can try. The deal is that they should get paid because the state's only told them to do it. That it was all right to move it in the first place. Were they the ones who prepared the signs for us in the first place? So they've already gotten 15,000 bucks, right? No, we bought the signs. We paid them to install them in the first place. So where did we buy the signs from? I think we should check with the state code. I agree. I would just call him and say, hey, whatever happened, we need to know we're getting pressure to pay the bill and we don't think we should have to pay it. But now they've been moved. So what would the state be the one to pay the bill? Is that what you're saying? Or if the state says no, we never told them that, then I'd say, yeah, that's the one to pay the bill. I just don't see why we should pay it. It's not our mistake. Me too. I was in business all those years when I made a mistake. I had to eat it. But maybe others disagree. It sounds like you disagree, Steve. Well, 2,000 bucks is good will. Sure is. I mean, that's we I'm sure the next time you have Gabriel put up, it'll cost us 2,000 bucks more. So what you're saying is what you're saying is they've got us over a barrel and we should just suck it up and pay it and don't cry. If we can't, if we can, we'll talk to Mr. Coda and say, hey, what's the issue here? Can you help us out? I mean, and I guess the other thing the other thing I would propose for the floor to think about is my first position would be we'll split it with you. 50 50 will pay half you pay half. I'm sorry. Say about that. No, I don't mean the state. I mean, because I don't think I don't think the I don't think the state's going to do anything about it. So I don't think they can. I don't think they have the funds. They don't have a budget. They're all going to laugh. I mean, I mean, if that's if that I mean, I guess the question is discretionary fund somewhere is the state willing to say to us, yes, our employee told them that in error, then I guess you go back to Lafayette and there's nothing we can do about it. We're sorry, but you know, that's it. Then we go back to Lafayette and say there's only one person you can call governor, the governor, director and what do you mean, director? The head cheese, the director of the agency of transportation and destruction where these people come out. And what's the name and someone can direct your road foreman to do that. Yeah, I don't think that's I don't think that's a fruitful use of our time. We need to we definitely I mean, whether or not we need Lafayette on our side and probably we do we certainly need the state of Vermont on our side and they got a lot bigger fish to fry than our $2,000 sign. So I guess what I would do here's what I think has this sound for the next step in this process. We try and get the state to verify that in fact they approved where the sign went the first time. All right. And if Lafayette installed it where the state told them to install it, even though it was wrong, then maybe we negotiate with Lafayette, maybe we don't. But if the state says, hell no, we never told them that was okay, then that's a little different scenario for me if they just went ahead on their own and installed it there, which I don't think is what happened. But does that make sense to you, Victor? Yeah. And then and then we'll decide. I mean, you know, it's not all the money in the world, but but we've we've fought over less before and we've had to we've had to give on things where we made mistakes. So it's worth a try. Yeah. If I was at Lafayette, I think half was pretty good pay, everything considered for that. And that's probably most of their cost or a good portion of their cost to do it. So that makes sense. You okay with that, Steve? Mary? Yeah. Liz? So let's revisit this and put it on the agenda for our next board meeting. Sarah. Okay. So we don't forget. Brenda, can you be quick? No, let's skip over because you've got the 525 one and the 545. Right. That's right. We've come back. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. So gentlemen, good evening. Hi. How are you? Beautiful day in the middle sex. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. You guys have a great evening. Oh, yes. So you wanted to update what we did. Yes, please. Okay, that would be great. So as of this morning, and it hasn't changed so far, we're at a total of 33 calls. We had 11 for July and this far in August. So those calls were a hazard spill up on 89 because of a trash truck blew an engine. Subsequently blew a whole bunch of oil up there. Car roll over Moortown, which that's mutual aid out to car accident on 89 vehicle in the median that nothing was found and we were canceled by the SP before we get out. Alarm activation, false alarm, a an accident. Somebody whether they intended to come off exit nine or not on the northbound, they didn't maybe off the ramp and ended up up on the hill. Car versus tractor trailer unit that the woman was lucky she survived. She removed two of she busted the front of three axles off the trailer dismounted two of the external tires that went from the northbound to the southbound. And it was in a RAV4 that had no front end left to it, but the the passenger compartment was intact. So she was very lucky. CO detector activation was a false alarm. We were responding capital west on their own accord called Waterbury. We didn't request them. So Waterbury showed up. So that's technically that's mutual aid in, but we didn't request them. So and then Sunday last Sunday at this past that multi car accident on 89 we got called to was actually in Waterbury. It was a mile inside Waterbury, but they called us instead of Waterbury. So we responded. And that was a bit of a mess. I was on an airplane coming back from Wyoming. As far as some stuff that's going on in the department, we have changed our stipend pay. We're now at $10 per call per hour or part there of for a call $20 for training $10 for business meeting $15 for work night, which all works out to be that $10 an hour. And fast was will remain at $10 per call, no matter how long two members have been voted on. I don't know if that was right before you guys came down last month or right after. But anyway, we have two new members on one of those works in the town and can respond during the day. We have another new applicant applicant who lives about two miles from the station. He lives in more town, but he's a lot closer than I am. This past Sunday we had our training multi town towns that were invited were Berlin, Montpelier, Moortown, Watesfield, Waterbury and Worcester. Watesfield, Waterbury and Worcester showed up. And I knew Montpelier probably wasn't going to be able to show up because they were way short on personnel. And what we did is energize the hydrant system. We used our engine to charge the hydrant system then use the top hydrant as a water fill and did tanker runs and set up the pond with our with engine one down at the bottom and then we sprayed everything back into the pond so it didn't drink the pond. We learned a couple of new things, how to set up two ponds together and run a pipe between them so you can have two trucks filling it at the simultaneously. Excuse me Jeff, when you say pond you mean those I call them swimming pools but those portable tanks. So with those two tanks we had a maximum 3500 gallon capability in those ponds a thousand up thousand gallons in our engine so that gives you a lot of play. We had four hoses out running at the same time which would be about what a structure prior would be. And once we threw our tanker in which was the fourth tanker we never ran out of water with throwing that much water so it gives us an idea of how many tankers we need to have on scene of course depending on how far away the water source is but the big thing was that all the towns that were there we worked well together we learned from each other everybody was excited about the opportunity to training and was looking forward to doing more training together. So that turned out really well. I was very pleased that I think Doug and Eric were and the other chiefs from the other towns were pleased as well. Even we didn't even bring in the Hamburg the hot dogs. We have a gas meter that's out for repair. We went to test it the work night last month and it came up with a code that even the company hadn't seen so they were trying to figure out what's wrong with it and a chain saws up for repair. So what is the what is the gas meter I'm sorry? That measures what we primarily use it for is carbon monoxide but it also oxygen hydrogen sulfide and low explosives. So I'm waiting to hear back from them the fix they gave me didn't work so I dropped that off on Thursday and they should be hearing back hopefully tomorrow as to what the status is whether or not we're going to have to buy a new one. If we have to buy a new one the Vanshan concert last week or the week before they raised $499 for us. Great. So if need be we just have that we could put that into a new gas meter. What we'd like to do is put that in to an additional gas meter so we have three and eventually we'd like to get more with the end goal to having the co-detectors for everybody so that and those the single gas meter all it does is it goes off the gas meter doesn't currently have tell the level so we can walk into a building and it may not be high enough to set the alarm off but it'll let us know there's some there or something going on the alarms going off and we walk in and it's zero and these things are so sensitive that you can stand on the door and as soon as you step your arm in it's going to show yeah and it tells that's the ones that you just hang on you or tell you you set it at a level just for it to start going off so that's that's eventually we'd like to get to that point but for right now we're we've got two we hope to get three and four and then we'll work from there but yes how much did each of those cost the little ones I think Worcester said they were like 135 dollars oh not that expensive no the the four gas meters are I think they're up to 625 right now yeah so it's and depending on what stuff you get with it yeah we have one that both of them are lithium batteries in them and we have the capability if those were to die on scene we pop those out pop triple A's regular batteries and so and then you have the recharger for that too and a bottle of gas is like 180 bucks and those last about two those we don't use them up in two years but their life cycle is about two years before the oxygen yep um any uh any updates or concerns with any of the major equipment trucks nothing that's everything seems to be running good news yeah um engine one doesn't seem to have its problem that seems to have been resolved last year uh tankers running fine engine six is running like a trooper right that thing can can put some water and that's what we were using to charge so the hydrogen system if you're unaware is an eight inch line underneath so it goes from the pond all the way up to the top of the parking lot and I think that's somewhere around a 40 foot elevation approximately um so you push in that much water out and an eight inch line up and then filling up a truck and we we started doing two tankers at once and it kind of bogged it down so we switched to doing one tanker at a time but the second tanker would be hooked up so as soon as number one gets filled that shut off number two gets started and that seemed to the flow seemed to work really well do you keep them loaded or you keep them unloaded then when you get a call you fill up no the tankers are full yeah it's just filling the other thing we we discussed with the other towns is you get to a scene whether it's a one tank or two tank deal you drop to fill a tank up and then as soon as that the pond is full then you leave you may have another thousand gallons sitting and waiting there but but to keep the flow going once you fill the pond up you leave so the next one can get in and keep the flow going and that kind of alleviates the weights field in Berlin have three thousand gallon tankers everybody else has 2000 to 1800 to 1200 yes so that's that 3000 gallons really throws a wrench in the works so if they drop 1500 and then go get full now they're kind of in the same cycle with everybody else so you're not bogging down with a 3000 gallon tanker and the other thing we did we learned is what gallons the other towns have in their tankers so that that gives us a better idea when we're when we're calling what to expect as far as water supply yeah do you have that data for water barrier and um and for what a barrier had my period they have a thousand gallons that's they they work on sitting waters oh yeah and so they they bring the thousand gallons on their truck and that's it so unless we're supplying um which we have a capability we can we can fill from our pond and run a line to them and fill them simultaneously while we're shooting water off another couple hoses um especially with engine six has the capability to do that but usually what happens is they'll use up their thousand gallons and then they'll start off on they'll use our hoses um that house on town hill road that fancy new house that burned okay so is that a does that have water there i'm sure it does so they've always had a problem with the pressure up there on town hill but on that particular fire montere called berlin of i mean berry of course and then they called waterberry and they called northfield they called east monterey they skipped berlin they skipped us so i mean that was in the middle of the night they would have gotten response from us there's nothing we can do about them not it's very normal right and and i mean we could have hooked up a hydrant and shoved it up the hill easily with one of our engines where was it why did it burn i don't know what the cause was i did i know it was in the garage the whole garage yeah they tore it down so where is that farm you know i have to tell you my son i kid you not in boston his apartment right next door he sees these girls outside the apartment and they're like screaming he's like what's wrong he's like our scooter caught on fire and the police i mean the the the fire department was there and smoke was like it was starting to burn their apartment because of the scooter battery the tesla battery no but i mean what is up with that that's a real problem don't park your tesla too close to the houseless it's uh lithium batteries have have a problem and there was a tesla that burned a house down in california you know it what the way that the battery packs are designed is instead it's not just one big model of battery they have all these little cells and if one catches on fire unless they build it such that it can't do a chain reaction then the whole thing catches on fire and a leaf i think the the numbers quoted on the leaf on the article that i saw four thousand gallons to put out a leaf fire very hot so think of your car we're talking i think teslas they were talking somewhere around seven eight thousand gallons to get a test all right fine i won't burn the house down or burn the car but i mean that's yeah but there's a real there's there's a real problem now the vaults are having problems this isn't a it seems to be you know it was computer batteries these less than my batteries are a problem it's and it's it tends to be the ones that are of lower quality makes sense right fill in that where that comes from yeah but that seems to be yeah so thank you for that i mean yeah thanks just having that that kind of report and information is very helpful to us and uh and i appreciate it it it it ultimately doesn't solve the question of whether we pursue changing the government's arrangement or not we've had no further discussions about that i would encourage you to keep thinking about that and at some point maybe we need to devote a meeting to talk about just that just that issue but in the meantime i think the kind of information you're giving us tonight and it's great to have you guys here in person but you know if you if you came i think we have it now once once a month we're supposed to meet yeah well maybe i don't know i'm just i'm just speaking for myself but i mean if you came once every other month once we get through this process if you came once every other month and then gave us some kind of a written report just like your verbal report that would be fine i mean it's it's always good to see you because then we can ask you questions that we don't things we don't understand now that we can't reach up here but what's on your agenda coming up you have some other things you're planning or so next month the cpr training for the fire department and the fastball members we have one of the new one of the new people that's that we have on the department is going to go through emt training so she's in lna right now so she'll be another fastball member the state is coming up with a a different kind of emergency response category this um so that it's uh 20 to 16 to 20 hour course cpr blood control you know quick first aid stuff but they could still be on the fastball and they respond to a call so is the state will probably get that done in the beginning of the year and then we have two people that want to take that course as well so they will be added to the fastball so how many people do you currently have active in the department we're up to 13 now i think it is that's exciting to hear about some new people that look right next door to the fire station i do have one other applicant excellent that we're checking his references yes we'll be working on his application within a month or two and you've got a woman who's coming on the lp lna or is that a man no she's a woman is that the only woman on the department no we have three so she makes three three three right and i'm an honorary member of the department of course you are anybody anybody who suits up should be an honorary member certainly or something guys i just i just want to say again i mean that you know the difference in in spirit and friendliness is very much appreciated i mean we need to we need to work together to help solve these problems and you guys you guys are in the lead but we're here to support you however this process goes i'm in gold i really i really appreciate it and i know the other board members too as well i think anybody have any other questions i just wanted to know um do you anticipate a difference oh eric do you anticipate a difference in the stipend amount that was budgeted based on the change probably want to see a difference in that yes i don't i don't know as we really figured that out we haven't figured out exact dollar i ran some rough numbers um before you voted on this to to tell the members what it would go up to so obviously for this this fiscal year it's probably going to be an increase but there again it's you know how many calls we get how many people show up we are doing the you know paying for coming to meetings and trainings and that's going to think so that's going to bump everybody up some whether it takes us above um so this year is going to be kind of a but and again knock on wood we may have some extra on vehicle maintenance because we're doing good on that we just have an unexpected service so yeah and so far there hasn't been any i mean last year was a bad year for engine one right you know look at what happened to the town truck oh yeah have you found out how you did on the fundraiser for the concert $499 he said $499 sorry i didn't hear it so that was pretty good yeah 500 yeah awesome so any other fundraising efforts no not right now just normally we had been doing the 50-50 raffles at the the band's thing concert and how much did you get from that when we would normally do it yeah um it works about six or seven hundred dollars for the year yeah from the series of probably so um but it's you know that this is quite a thing and if if they have something down at the red hem this winter i mean go to kind of knock that out last year right um we i think it was around two two three hundred dollars for the winner before that yeah just donations well now we sold the you use the you're getting the firefighters are getting paid $10 per call now $20 per training $15 to work night does that sound right it's $10 an hour or part there of an hour that's what i want to ask okay and also what did you pay before that uh five dollars for two hours or part there so how does how does that how does that compare with what water barriers currently bang it's still low right it's still for their lowest one i think it's like uh three dollars and change an hour lower yeah but it's a big step for us yeah it's a step in the right direction modify it absolutely as we be as we move forward and what we did is in the bylaws that we added that it would go up with the annual consumer price index so whatever our self-security increases so that we don't have to every year vote okay i recommend you use the consumer price index not the social security increase we're gonna we're gonna based on what i've seen in social security increases i would tell you we're going to use a government increase to right to up and so it's all about i mean does it say specifically it was uh i i don't we we said it specifically i don't remember if it was social security of the government or the consumer price index okay i seriously would recommend changing it away from social security yeah but uh that was so we don't have to revisit this every year right right right right well we know you don't do it for the money right so was that was that well received overall in the department the increase yeah i think so good everybody was in support of it and we see a i mean there are a couple people that had to work on sunday unexpectedly they were planning to be there but so well before we had to have a 75 requirement 75 percent of being in meetings and trainings to get the stipend at all yeah and so that was a driver for people to come so now people are getting paid for an hour an hour two to come so there are some boxes in the four-year downstairs for you guys and just open them i didn't really say for you thank you sorry i didn't say anything when i showed up this afternoon i i saw i saw the box they were open but i didn't know who they were for so okay we will grab them yeah so this door open so i do just have a thought for you guys to think about um our family has a summer house over in the adirondacks in the community of putnam station new york which is very similar in size to middle sex and what they do is once a year they send out a fundraising letter to every house in town and they get 10 or 12 000 dollars a year is that national is that in addition to the tax money that's going yeah that's fundraising for the fire department yeah i'm just saying i think you'd be surprised how many people would respond to that and it isn't that i mean it takes a little work to get it set up the first time but once you get it set up it's pretty easy and she has all the addresses over there that lady just okay so it's just it's just a thought just a little letter and say you know here's what we did for the town this past year as usual we're looking for new equipment new this new that and if you can make it a you know like maybe one year it's towards the air tanks on the next year so it's for a specific thing not just generally going in the pot i think you could i i would be surprised if you wouldn't get yeah i just want to make sure that they're also paying taxes on it because one thing the bandstand was well we don't want sell the 5050 tickets while we're asking for donations so i just want to make sure that it was i just want to make sure i understand your question when you say so so their taxes are supporting the fire department the extent the town supports the fire department so yes it's above and beyond that okay i just want to say that you you were okay with with that that it was essentially a double you bet okay all right you bet but i'm i just think that i would you know i i'd never really thought about it before but i got that letter our family's been given money to that fire department for 75 years every year like clockwork so it's tax deductible for them too yeah the other part and i think we talked about this but i think that they they can be successful are those coin drops but what was the reasoning because it was a state highway it's number one we technically don't have a large enough stretch in middle sex for the speed limit wise um it's and the state has been the last time we did it it was very difficult to get them to give us approval to have it because you have to have a certain length of um slower speed straight away that they allow it to set up there they're they really wanted people to shy away from well tumbridge has been doing it for years and they stop it's only a two lane road and it stops everything yeah i will tell you that when they have the fair three or four towns small towns in new york i'm familiar with and do it they do it over the fourth of july and again they it's a right in the middle of the state road right so i think you should i mean we it's not so much the matter of a state road is the speed limit so i'm just saying friends i don't know guys i'm not no i'm not trying to tell you your business and i don't have the rules but i've been i've been paying particular attention to what i see other fire departments doing to see if i found any good ideas and that letter i think is is a great idea but i think the temperature is good we've all been at the temperature we've all paid money to go and then we throw our little ticket and that is a that's a road that's higher speed they're working with a different district than we are and right it was it was a hard thing to fight up here and in the end of the day we of collecting for about five six hours net it's about $1,200 well because you were in the wrong spot that's the only place they allowed hundreds with our department that's their department it's their fire department i mean they don't want you setting up a coin drop in anything with more than a 35 mile an hour speeds on yeah yeah i think you can't put it in yes curves down here because there's not enough warning we used to have it out on group 12 right but that's a 50 mile an hour so they wouldn't let us do it there anymore right well enough said i mean i believe me let's let's let's collaborate and do what makes sense but i think the letter and and we can help you in terms of giving you mailing lists and you know whatever you need to whatever you need to do that when do they normally do that what time of year uh i would do it in december so people can in the fall when people are thinking about the taxes so i don't know about i don't know what the whether the right time you you you're in the fundraising world when you guys send out your letter yeah i mean i think in general thinking about the fall is a good time because that's when people are thinking about what their case is too okay everyone does it at that time so you could do it any other time of the year yeah but peter you probably have that letter that she were talking about you could just see the date on it or maybe you don't keep it but you know you might also want to add in it into it something like you know now's the time to change your battery and your smoke detector like some tips or something and then just say if you want to make a donation or just a one just just a one page summary a little a little safety tip would be great but you know here's some any calls we had blah blah blah um yeah we're here we're here to support your health and safety at the fall harvest dinner we would every year make basically the same exact amount for 10 years and it was like a net of like nine thousand dollars or something after everything and that was people giving big gifts all the way to five dollars yeah we had from one dollar to a hundred dollars okay anyway well thank you very much next month one of you's coming to our meeting at least okay yeah okay more welcome but what what day is it it'll be oh the same day seven o'clock that's right okay seven o'clock the third Tuesday yep very good thank you very good thank you bye guys thanks for your service as usual yeah thanks Eric so what's the third Tuesday is that yeah so it's our second meeting it's after our second meeting oh we're the first and third right okay we're back on schedule well we're back off back to the agenda right so it's the before me was the consideration of how to allocate coronavirus state and local funds which i will tie into that and say we received our first half payment so we got in just over 90 thousand dollars um last week so i need to know when if and when you're going to make a decision on what to do i don't want to open up a separate account for this if it's just going to be a pass through i have a separate account number sitting in our chart of accounts right now so it's the money came into the separately designated separately designated but i don't want to have to go back and open a money market account which is what those other accounts basically are if it's going to fly right out the door so you know i i feel like we're just to be totally honest i feel like we're between the devil and the deep blue sea because i mean we got a little cryptic note from phil saying rob had completed his review of the mo you and we were going to have it draft soon well we don't have it now as far as i know sarah we were also supposed to find out what towns would participate and we don't have that well and the reason is i think everybody well i think everybody's in pretty much the same situation we're in so that's my only concern is that i think it's likely to be a while i don't i don't see us writing writing any checks in the next uh oh like the fall of afghanistan things could change quickly but uh i don't know you're you can be a good i'm very comfortable having it having it for the time being just in the in the general right i mean it's not that it's earning i mean it's earning a little bit of interest but not a ton of interest but it wouldn't be a ton of interest that i'm what do they pay now one and a half percent or one percent or something in there i think for all the money we've got in there right now we might have made um six dollars or something that's right right right right so it doesn't pay for the bottled water right so i'll leave it sitting there and but i you know i just and they're supposed to be more coming and the next one is supposed to be you know substantially more right well i have a feeling something's going to happen but how fast it's going to happen and you know i feel like we're at the we're at the mercy of things that right now are beyond our control or beyond our knowledge so did you see that um consolidated put fiber up um all the way to the top of east hill east hill yeah they did on the Montpelier side yeah on the Montpelier side and so our friends now have fiber from now and that's and that's in direct competition with the cable which runs right up there too it's in direct competition with this right yeah well as as phil said and i've i've read and seen and whatever you know they're never gonna reach out to the last mile they're gonna they're gonna nibble around the edges but they're not going to reach the last mile but i mean we still we still haven't received a definitive word about you know we have some kind of an idea of what other things the money could be used for but i don't feel like we have a final answer to that question either and i have questions you know as i think i said before i have questions about this whole mo u thing and how it works and what happens and if if cd5 or uh inappropriately uses the money or misappropriates the money somehow or we responsible to pay it back to the feds and all those kind of questions i mean i'm not i'm not ready to go by a long stretch i can tell you so are we looking at this no that was that's later on the letters kind of a different issue yeah that's a different issue yeah okay well i just wanted to ask no no no it's a good question if i feel like moving it move it if i don't don't right okay use your okay trust your judgment all right all right we'll go from there um next question is edward jones called and it's time for the annual review on the cemetery funds would you like me to schedule him to come in and talk to you about it or how much is in that fund i mean just up the top i have 25,250 oh no it's hundreds hundred twenty yeah there's something like something up there like a back just yeah and it's um and actually it's been doing very well well as i as everything has anything to do with the market so you know i can just answer their questions i didn't know if you wanted him because we know how some people feel about this so i didn't know if you wanted to meet with him or not i don't know i mean i'm willing to do what everybody else wants to do i don't think we need to meet with them okay i'd like i guess i'd like to have him need to send us send us a little a little letter and say you know here's here's how the money's invested which we already have the documentation of that i don't recommend you know at this time for this reason i don't recommend any changes or i recommend these changes and then we can get back to them if i hate to have them come all the way here to give us a five-minute spiel i don't know how last night we brought four bullio stuff and all of that and i don't know if it's necessary because it's doing so well yeah anyway well we all we want to do is is is demonstrate when i think of our auditors that we're paying attention and yeah because we have a food issue taking appropriate action right yeah did they did they used to make presentations to the Cemetery Commission Board no yes no i think so it was the big it was the highlight of the whole year that's what i thought so are the cemetery commissioners still in a position where they can ask for that even if we don't no i don't know if you want it you are the ones overseeing the funds we don't want them making choices right absolutely right right and we're not going to make choices either we're gonna we're gonna listen to recommendations we're not going to make investments i can tell you that um what do you think what do you think the relationship we haven't come i i mean i feel that it's doing well enough just like you said everybody else that there's no you know so i don't know if it's necessary in their world a hundred thousand dollar account is not a big account no so i know it's not like we're gonna get any special treatment because we asked him to come okay well i'll see what he has to say and if he if he says i really feel comfortable you know i feel like i should come then we'll see him okay who is the person that you're dealing with uh martin uh i can't remember his last name he's out of Montpelio yeah okay no problem um and the only other thing which is just i think it needs to be addressed in general is our email issues i mean i sent out orders on august 3rd and i had one person respond to him yeah and i went ahead and nailed the checks anyways because these vendors had to be paid right so this new email situation is not working right i can't get into mine tonight i've got to get back in touch with phil oh call me back but we just haven't connected me too i mean i thought i registered but i'm not registered and i think i was one of the people who responded at least well here's no the only one was phil oh and then you called me like a few days later and because you thought we were having a meeting on that tuesday night or something and but i mean it's creating like double the work if you have to go back and here's here's what i would suggest her in the and i know this isn't what phil wants us to do but for the time being until everybody can get hooked up and get the damn thing working send it through our old emails i mean if we're meeting in person you don't need to do it but if there's something important that we need to do it just send it through the old email so everybody gets it because i i've been going in there and i have all this i mean there's just a lot of crazy stuff going on in there and i think i sorted it out but one thing that we could also do is that and phil could teach us how to do this is we can probably have him forwarded to our regular email right so that way it's going to this address that can be then tracked if we have a need for you know he was going to do it just the opposite he was going to have our old email get forwarded to the new ones but no no but i mean i mean having having the town email go to our gmail accounts right i think that meets the requirement of it's the town email that they would have access to i don't think i think what he said was because i asked him the question that by having it forwarded to our gmail account that doesn't open up our gmail account because it's going to the town account first or maybe that's a question we need to ask a little bit but it's just that it's a struggle when we have when we have two of the three members can't communicate and i die honestly for god i apologize and me too i i have it only on my phone because i don't know how to get on my computer and it's in this other inbox in my work in mail and i just haven't looked at it and i think and i think the other thing we need to do in all in all deference to phil and his efforts is whether it's rooven or somebody we need to have somebody to straighten that out so we can so it's working for everybody it's on everybody's computer the emails can be forwarded phil has the best intentions but he doesn't you know he's busy for whatever reason and he can't he can't get the stuff so you know we need to be able to communicate with each other successfully and right you know for the time being yeah but it needs to be able to get like on your computer like shane it gets it on his computer but he can't get it on his phone yeah i can't get it on anything but yeah right no one i i did manage it to get to get it set up on on i followed his directions that i got it set up on my phone and then i then i was able to get it set up on my computer and now i get it on my ipad so i get it i get it for some reason for some reason the ipad doesn't display it right but i'm not worried about that if i can get it on my computer and my phone that's good i'm not hooked up so i have it anywhere but the other right which is no it doesn't work so the other thing the other thing that can be done i know is at the very least uh the town email could kick out an email to our gmail account saying you have new email in the town of middle sex account yeah it's just hard to get in the habit to look at it all the time if you can't connect it's possible so i carry my phone all the time you know and i'll look at it for emails i got two other accounts in there and i look at it and if there's something i need to go to the computer for fine but i i got it into my computer once but i can't get back in there and i i struggled for some reason for some reason i very carefully saved how you get into rack space whatever is app dot rack space dot something about something or other and that was working fine and all of a sudden it stopped working and i just went into i just googled rack space and i got in that way and all of a sudden it popped up and said you know email address and password and boom i was in but how the hell that happened that's all i do is just go to rexspace.com and it comes up yeah right what do you how do you spell it r-a-c-k s-p-a-c-e dot com dot com yeah maybe i'll try that and see what yeah i mean we have you you could see everything i just don't know why your mail's not showing you have a mail that's like because i did that rexspace.com and i can see my email address but i can't get into the mail well whatever i i i appreciate your frustration during i think i think to some extent sarah's probably had the same issue well we've been pretty diligent about using the new one i think sarah i do yeah yeah so yeah um and i also sent you guys end of year yeah um budget status yeah in july's budget status so i don't know i know you don't have and had time to look at them but they're there we came in fortunately we got a lot of extra money we weren't expecting which kept us in budget so what was the money we were expecting well 72 thousand dollars for the highway um let's see you can look down the front yeah got extra money from state aid to highway we've got i mean definitely a lot more money than we were planning on um so that made a difference we had some grants that were never budgeted that um that we expended money for so you know we came out pretty good so with this extra money that we got in that took care of our right that took care of our over just yeah and what's not reflected in the highway number is the truck we bought outright because we put that to just a capital purchase right yeah so it's not it wasn't because originally when mark was here he had put it into um equipment purchases so we moved it out of there and put it into an asset are you done with your presentation i think so how are we coming in with hiring the new person or have we had any luck getting we are not we've been a no go on anything right now um we had to clean up some things in the accounting we're preparing for the audit so we are remaining status quo for right now i had said that i wasn't going to make any decisions until we had everything ready for the audit and go um we had one person back out on it that was interested in it um so um but we haven't re-advertised or anything like that um i will say amy is very interested in continuing i'm going forward um but i've made it clear that we've made no decision yet and so is it your thought that you would probably try and get some additional people to take a look at the job too well we weren't very successful last time no and um i thought amy wanted to step down at the end of december she made the decision when she she decided she's stepping down from let's list her okay and would like to stay on as i can forget below i'm okay for the time being no problem at all i don't have any problems with amy and as a matter of fact she went in and she dug out you know some things that you know and i have to say that um the year as she's took on through a year of doing this and so there's a lot bigger comfort level um in what she's doing she understands it more and so i think it's a good thing well i guess i guess what i would say to you is it's up to you but if things are going okay and you're comfortable why do we need to stir up a hornet's nest let's let's let's give it let's give it another month or six weeks or something we're completely open about the whole discussion and um so if i find that you know i think that should advertise i will if not is she taking up any of the stuff about managing grants or any of that kind of stuff there's no real management of grants we've come up with a very good system sarah is monitoring them we're monitoring them we now have books in two different places so there's a double check going on and i think we've just made internal changes for that is yeah that's helping out good yeah terrific that's for both stepping up maybe we're maybe we're searching for my problem for a problem that no longer exists i have to say that you know it certainly feels that way i think there was a lot of surprises at the end of the audit last year that we didn't know grants existed we didn't know certain grants certain grants existed right certain grants didn't exist so but that's been taken care of but thank you both because you both stepped up and i for one on the board maybe i speak for all of us really appreciate what you've done and also thank you wing because that represents a real turnaround for her yeah i mean if you would if you had told me i'd be saying the things i'm saying tonight two months ago i would have no way so no and um so that's great things are going well good good good anything else that's it for the treasurer okay so we did agree just just to be clear we did agree that for the time being for important items we'll send them by regular email also sarah yes okay yeah until we get everybody connected and everything and everything working though it's supposed to appointing a replacement for outgoing jess jess clark on the zoning board of adjustment action likely first of all i want to apologize for jumping ahead on this because uh i know that we didn't just didn't announce her risk you know she announced she she in email a couple weeks ago she said by the way i'm resigning and so i just kind of went took the initiative to kind of advertise for this because we have this big hearing coming up on the 25th of august and i just wanted to make sure if possible you had someone to appoint so uh that's why i kind of didn't wait to say just stepping down now we'll have that and i put it on the website i posted it and i put it on front porch form so i feel like so the good news is that i did write two two things um i twisted david asseltine's arm uh and almost got him to say yes i'll step up but then i put the note on front porch form and we got a i mean he was just being a good doobie i got a great note from stacy skadberg who's young yay um and she wrote um i write to to express my interest in serving on the zoning board of adjustment i've been a resident macy brode since 2016 and i'm a registered voter i have a law degree and my background at this point includes legal practice and insurance defense general practice here in vermont and most recently five years of justing liability claims i have an interest in land use in real estate my current occupation i'm the happy recipient of all our timber trespass cases and i'm a quick study i'd be happy to spend a resume if that would be a assistance and she is available to serve at the august 25th meeting i think she sounds great me too plus she's young did i say young i'm sorry did she work for a law firm when she says that i don't know it looks sounds like she's uh she's an she's an insurance defense how do you know she's young i've met her many times you know one of the great things about stacy skadberg oh she says she's gonna feel about this is that one time we had early voting it wasn't in 2020 but so it must have been 2018 she came in to vote absentee out to hear pregnant and she said well i'm off to the hospital i have a baby i said you stopped off and voted before yeah she was on her way was it a t-section i don't know i mean the point is the point is what a there you go there's a voter right well i mean when she says she's voting for timber something timber trespass cases it's charity's defense but anyway so and also that we have david assentine the other thing is that we're going to have another opening because it's probably likely that sarah berger will come before you as the planning commission's recommendation for an assistant zoning administrator sarah berger who's awesome is on the zba she's also young she's probably going to step off and take that position if you guys appoint her that but that's likely who the planning commission is going to recommend to you if we could find a house for her in middle sex all the better does she not have a house she's renting she really wants to buy and she's nearly left us oh man that would be tough okay so so you are recommending i'm recommending stacy okay i mean i'm sure david assentine will be fine with saying okay i'll wait for the next opening that's that's my recommendation she seems like she was her last name scadberg you speak height she's i moved the appointment of stacy scadberg to the middle sex zoning board of adjustment stevedon it's been moved in second to appoint stacy who's the last name i can't pronounce scadberg scad to the zoning board of adjustment all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed yes appointed her thank you sarah for all the work you did to find us um two people well that's very nice of you hopefully there'll be more because we're gonna have another opening so what is the big hearing on the 25th uh it is kingsbury kcos they already had already been approved for a 3000 uh square foot addition back when they had submitted their original plan to put in at 58 center road but then um the time lapsed so now they they didn't build it when they built the original the complex so now they've got to go back to the zba and say hey remember that was approved you need to re-approve it and then somebody chesty hook wants a i don't know she wants a she just wants something to that knee and crotch upon the town's right of way or was not but then 75 c to the center line said plum wants to put a house on me road and where his old house is this has been a whole thing all summer and then the source for other one is oh yes a joe home home industry used for i think a gun spitting operation on notch road i'm not the i'm not the secretary for the zba but it sure feels like it for you have four cases they i don't they have yes they do wow sarah they need to find somebody to do that well hopefully they're not all like i will not be here on my 25th you don't have to be on this weekend it's a zba zba that's why it's wonderful to hear but we don't have to go but stacy does yes good and stacy's looking forward to it she says she is okay proving the minutes of the july 20th 21 regular select board meeting action likely is there a motion second okay it's been moved in second at all in favor of the motion please say aye aye and see the stains so we've approved them considering wax request to install a 7200 volt electrical distribution line on south bare swamp near luther putnam action likely do we have a diagram or uh does luther putnam know what is this 7200 volt it looks like a big thing that's big like a big tower no no no no that's a regular high voltage yeah hard to put there for some reason i have a hard time scanning them where's luther putnam's house what road south bare swamp right he said that so i think this actually kind of goes along with the uh driveway the access permit you guys are being asked to approve which is for elizabeth colgate and raymond medina they brought this lot on south bare swamp formerly owned by mike panarchic i will miss new jersey okay so it basically looks like all of this it was a hard time but it really makes things if this is the line i'm just looking for the where the extension all right it says for elizabeth colgate right yeah so those two things go hand in hand there yeah oh here it is it's the yellow which is the new right yeah it's just this little spurt up here i don't understand what the star is though i think mary they're they're two are they the same comments they just have to be signed twice um i was just looking like that yeah i think so that's usually the format that those guys use good but it's exactly the same right we we keep what we spent we send two copies you guys sign both copies if you approve it and then i send them and they send you back do you want to look at that stew from what i can tell it looks fine to me i mean we've never had any issues watching electric co-op in our world what's this little dot this yellow dot down here is this is where they're putting it i presume that yellow is the extension see down there this little yellow dot is that where's the road cut isn't this the road cut they're talking about this is the road that's the road yeah i got that but why i don't know the answer mary okay you're the washington electric co-op expert i know that either i'm just trying to hire the general manager that's yellow by definition but please i'm going to talk about two other things what you guys are looking at that yeah let's and i'll take that thing with that their extension right here that's the only thing they're asking about okay i've been are you ready to go with this son it also says that wek is asking for mission to cut and trim trees and brush there in the road road away yeah right yeah that's i think probably a part of everyone that's they do yeah go ahead just so we don't screw up do you guys want to take a vote on this and start signing it yeah yes okay okay so is there a motion to approve that we approve um washington electric co-op's request to put in a um 7200 distribution line okay all those in favor of approving the motion for the washington electric co-op uh one pole line extension uh please say aye any opposed we've approved it so do you guys all have pens does he need to set or we all have then this is all you have you all have to sign it we're gonna buy this not the true not the same i look for one right put it back it's all right let's sharing the same isn't true for the uh road okay here this goes with it all right um i've been following what we're doing this i've been following the covid developments as i'm sure all of you have and i've thought about it quite a bit and i think we should go backwards in these for at least the next 60 days to not have in person i mean this tonight i was i was i talked to sarah this afternoon i said i'm gonna ask everybody to put a mask on when they come in here well nobody had a mask on and i ultimately decided we had pretty decent separation here but this is probably uh the worst situation i've been in all week in terms of being exposed to people who aren't me too and i'm requiring that requiring masks is one thing but my my honest to god worst fear would be that as a vaccinated person somehow i infect somebody else and i don't even know that i'm carrying the virus and as much as it's been great to see everybody in person i just think well are we required to have one person here regardless of the state's sense of the you are required to have one person here i'm going to call the secretary of state's office and see if it can be me because the the theory the concept is that the place be open that if anybody wants to come in and attend a meeting they can attend a meeting it's just that you know everybody would be virtual and i would just say if they showed up i would just say you know we're trying to hold these meetings virtually you know but because the governor hasn't given us the green light to just say all just strictly no but i think that's fine and i think we can i mean you know if we divide them up that means you're going to come once every other month or something like that and be down here with with sarah i mean i i'm perfectly comfortable sitting here six feet away or 12 feet away from sarah i'm doing and it's just having a real well i'll let's see if that passes muster i'm but i did get a call this afternoon from the central mont regional planning commission asking us how we were going to proceed and i told them that we were discussing it she said every other town she's talked to they're all discussing it this week so my my feeling is that something's going to happen well i just think you know and i've said this before to everybody but i just want to hear on the side of safety i mean to think that our select board meeting could be a many spreader or some horrible thing where people who come to our meeting are going to be so subject to you know the tracking and all the other stuff that goes along with it i just think it's a mistake so um i don't know if you're ready to make that decision now or you want to think about it or how we want to handle it but my strong recommendation is that we say if we're going to do it i would say we're going to do it for uh the months of september and october and in october we'll reveal it and see if we continue or not i'm fine with that and you're just requesting that one of us be here with sarah well sarah is going to find out if that has to be the case but it might be the case so we have to take turns i think yeah be in here that's fine but otherwise it would be on zone so would somebody like to make that motion sure i move that the september and october board meetings be held by zoom with sarah merriman our assistant uh and one person from the board being president the rest if necessary if necessary if necessary is there a second i'll second okay thank you see fallen favor the motion please say aye all right aye any opposed we're zooming again so all the more important have that email yeah but um yeah also be aware that because it's not an executive order that orders have to be signed in person yep it can't be through an okay right okay good point yeah but we can all stop in and we can stop in yeah or at least three of us three at least three yeah yeah okay so the curb cuts um sarah do you want to tell us what we need to know um i think i pretty much put them in the uh the agenda we've got two um here for the uh lori and joe mccarthy who are putting on west hill on west hill road and the other one may be yeah and they're on macy it's just and then and shane has approved these of course and then there's the one for the people who have bought my canard chicks property on on uh south bare swamp who are getting the new power line do you want us to approve them together shane has approved them all right jane shane has approved them they just need something in their minutes to show that they that they're approved and that peter signs so can i just ask you about lori and joseph mccarthy's request is that because their property fronts on both of them i think so i think they need access onto west hill road yes have they but what about macy road do they already have i don't know no there's a two access i i went with the engineer last year and and i know that shane looked at the same things ones on macy ones on macy road and so they have two they're going to have two you don't always have to have a culvert and for instance some access i mean there's a way to weigh their property one piece of part of the building for instance when i drive ways down below the road there's no culvert okay it looks like they'd be a culvert pardon they had an engineer's right there doesn't have a bit um it's uh not greener um yeah it's uh like a cane yes at the culvert yeah kind of a cane well that's an interesting question that's a question that's a football that we have fumbled many times because i've been hearing some things no we need to we need at some point we need to really look at that and decide what we're going to do because now we're making exceptions and i know all kinds of things that we shouldn't do um so is there a motion to approve those curb cuts which yes we do it one motion okay so here's the mccarthy stuff well i can't figure it out but if shane's looked at it you have yeah i'll make the motion um that the elizabeth colgate slash raymond medina permit for uh request for a permit for a curb cut on south bears swamp road be approved and also the lord glory and joseph mccarthy uh request for two curb cuts one on west hill road and another on macy road uh be approved is there a second i'll second that okay all in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye okay they've been approved so wait it's still a correspondence you have that cd fiber thing yep that's impossible so where would it go they're not said all they want like i read that and i i took it to be all they want is permission to to survey survey and i thought they wanted to store and they wanted to release yeah but they want to but they want to determine i mean we don't even know the place so this is asking permission to look into it the way i read this i thought it was i'm looking at that a little bit differently than yeah me too we're looking for a place to house and maintain this equipment yeah this is a 10 by 10 concrete pad but what i didn't understand was that requires an area up to 40 by 40 housing core electronics in a hardened structure they're they're looking for locations so they're looking for towns to give them locations to do these two things two things a 10 by 10 and a 40 by 40 yes that's the way out because it says typically it's an a 10 by 10 but sometimes it's an afford so what they're doing is looking for two things right one town might have a 10 by 10 one might have a 40 by 40 and i think we all have to have something right and we've got building right out back no well they i think they're gonna build a building i mean they're gonna put on a pad and build a building i think that's two separate things so a 10 by 10 pad with a cabinet on it was one thing and then the 40 by 40 right i agree yeah so what so one is just a it's a bigger version of the same thing though but i don't think they're gonna build it because this is that they consider your town office town hall public work garage or fire station right they're looking so they're not gonna be building it yeah they're looking for a spot on the property they want it that's right and they may do some improvements so we do we have the space behind us absolutely i don't know i think i'd offer it hold on everybody i was actually thinking of a fire station but then i was and i was gonna ask the guys but all right figure that that's not what we're saying they're saying they need a space and they're saying um please consider town properties like somewhere on our property there's a place to put a 40 by 40 structure you don't think so steve you think they want to use an already existing structure well it sounds like a town property such as your town office town hall permanently has a maintained fiber network equipment that cb fiber would pay for typically this so they're paying for the equipment typically this equipment is housed in a cabinet anchored to a 10 by 10 concrete pad in a protected bowler fence location so that that's one thing that is that's number one so that's one of these things like the foam company has yep in various places around town it's a gray cabinet right sitting on a concrete pad and then they say so that's that's thing number one uh but lost place concrete pad protectable sometimes may be suitable for a core hub structure that requires an area of up to 40 by 40 has in core electronics in a hardened structure with redundant hvac that's that's one of these little telephone company buildings our buildings aren't hard instructors they're they're looking for a place to looking for land yeah well that would not be our fire station probably it's a hard instruction but then you read this next paragraph down i'm just saying they might that might be of something it would be a this is almost 40 feet across there we go well that you know that's why our fire station our old fire station be considered a hard they might consider it i mean they say it up to up to 40 by 40 but the bottom line is the bottom line is i say let them look yeah they come and say we can use your old fire station we can tuck it into the corner of someplace who knows what they're willing to pay for it because they're willing to lease it right right right right for the fire station but all i'm saying is i don't mind having them look this is a committing right it isn't committing anything and i think that's what they're looking for i don't think they're asking us to do anything bunch of stuff from different well we have to say we have to get back to them and say we have something candidate locations okay so they want us to recommend a candidate location i said right that last paragraph yep well if we maybe we recommend a candidate location and they'll come sooner but here's the thing do they want to have a candidate location that's already like on a cable line or are they looking for something well since they want to have it um near um well they're saying public because they probably don't want to lease the space from a private person oh i can promise you don't and we're hoping that we'll just donate some land or something to put this structure on so we all agree we we don't have any problem with our looking the question is what do we want to nominate do we want to only the fire station or do we want to say come and take a look at all our buildings or what do we want to say i don't think we want to give this up if for some reason we decide we have to move our town hall we don't want some weird structure sitting there that's not a structure it's that same structure no but i'm saying my guess is that they're going to have their own little thing that they build and it's going to be the first one the building part of it is the way i take it the building part of it is they could use this town hall they could use the fire station they could use that old fire station so the building isn't going to change here's the here's the problem now we're we're going through this infrastructure study we're at least thinking about maybe building a new town hall maybe selling this property maybe not i mean i don't want to i don't want to lease out a portion of this building and then we're locked in to maintaining this building for the next 20 well i don't think you want somebody using this building anyways because they're going to come in all times right i'm not i wasn't saying this building like that i'm saying that building but that i can tell you under no stretch of anybody's imagination with that building i mean this building isn't a hardened building like with redundant what is a hardened building mean means mason rings oh like stone well i'm just i'm just saying hardened means i mean like i doesn't mean an ancient wood frame building yeah i mean maybe our current fire station and be the one that i think how about we just ignore it and have them come to us and say middle sex you seem like the perfect spot what do you have i agree well we might be okay for the first part but i'm going to look at what is a hard building they house it in a cabinet anchor to a 10 by 10 yeah see that's that's a pad out now so that would be that if they could get it in there you know that's but again but again once we do that then there's no selling this property or there's no selling where that 10 foot by 10 foot i have no idea during but i can bet it's probably a 20 year lease or who knows what i think it's free i don't think i don't want to just find out more about it that hardened structure like everything else with cv fiber it seems to be a mystery yeah that's true well it would be helpful if we had well you know what let me do this i i'm happy to do this i will call jeremy hanson yeah and i will say listen we don't really understand what we're asking for here's what we've got we want to cooperate with you but we don't want to be locked into some yeah because we're doing our own evaluating our own facility a current building has to do with computer room facilities that are designed to withstand catastrophes right right the closest would be the closest would be the new fire department i will call the end ball's hardened to resist tarnatic forces right where are you reading she's reading the internet i rest my taste i hope and hope and blow it down i'm glad do you get a little more information i'm fine with whatever okay any other correspondence okay so i have okay anything else sarah we're done just signing orders yes no i have not yet i signed it i signed him he is not okay i would i've been a little busy here three hours i'm sure i will sign him but i'm going to do it once we're here in the meeting so i have two signatures in this to do i have a not related to the town of middle sex directly issue for you the meeting i i have so many things in my calendar for meetings with regard what was what was the meeting that was on so you missed probably the conversation that chris uh christian said he wanted to do um weekly or bi-weekly check-ins um as his process is moving and if he has questions and if he doesn't want to meet he'll email and say i don't have any reasons to meet but this is just anyone who wanted to okay it really was just designed for me so the real meeting the real meeting is this month and it's on thursday and on thursday at six yep okay thank you and for you mr steve what do you think the chances are that maybe he's gonna oh god this is really should be done after we adjourn we have adjourned oh we didn't say it i said we are adjourned no you didn't we are adjourned