 Instead of the appointment of the administrator, it should say appointment of acting as on the administrator Who made the motion Bards, did you just join us? There is the minutes the minutes of the March 16th and March 30th meetings and a liquor license for the Waterbury American Legion Chris it's built Yeah to those who are on the phone When you're going to speak if you could identify yourself, please especially if you're making a motion your voices don't sound all too dissimilar from the speaker, so Let us know who you are when you talk would be helpful. We'll try to speak up any public I don't think there's any public on there is all there. I don't think so Yeah, we We we don't have any information about the number of cases Except what we get from the state's Department of Health how they are reporting it is You know up to them. It's we don't have We don't have any reporting mechanism or any means to count So we just have to tell you what we know and what you know, Barb has just told you that It's in place to enforce this it's it's a directive from the governor and you know, we're doing our best to to shut our facilities down as best as practicable and Relying on relying on the public to do the right thing They're essential, especially if it's a repair if you have someone who has this curious you let the rule changes Questions for me. I'm doing on my position seven Well, we need to get I think who's that I read your email I think I said to a one point these type times, you know, we have to mitigate that what's your opinion on that like Take a lot of action on reducing our password as much as we can so they can do what we need to do Responsibility that we can't maintain the same or more staff in the same building I believe that we need to take action with strong action too But the easiest way to do that is by looking at our class sizes overall I'm not saying class sizes of like 75 kids in class So I'm talking about going to work through the state standard. So we don't have some schools like 23 24 Now especially Right That's correct From Not I will forward to you guys the agenda But you can also get and there is the information for the zoom which is the harrowing unified union school district website The board agenda there is to join No, I don't I really don't think that you'd have to warn a meeting if more than if more than two of you Ended up on I think you would you could be clear that you're just speaking for yourself It would be hard to to warn a meeting at this point, sorry, it's too late to do that So if there were more than two of you on well, even if they're only one of you on Unless you're kind of delivering the board's recommendation, which would be voted on tonight You could only speak for yourself The meeting will be in there and muted by the chair and that one is public comment The chair will allow this will hunt you This is the first time we're going to do meaning for this so it could be Learning experience depending on how many people are Is there Anything to get your name on the list, do you know how many people you might be going up again? There's two people Mike So from what I understand from Caitlyn The board chair is that there are there are two candidates who have submitted their names anyone who's a voter in water where you can Submit their name for consideration to the board Mike Frank has done it and Scott Culver has done it and Scott sent an email that I believe all the select board got last week You know talking about his candidacy Meaning all the hardwood unified unified union school districts Make to get an H you you sd.org and you click on board and Then there will be the meeting to the Just just a question Does the board desire to make a board recommendation as far as the school director is concerned You're just going to leave it to the school board and your individual comments if you attend the meeting They can't do that You can't have an email meeting That would violate the public the open meeting law You're in a meeting now if you want to discuss it. This is the time to do it This is this is the last time the board is meeting before Wednesday and you cannot do this by email or by Even Culver Culver see you Lv er Acting zoning administrator Great, we sent I sent out to you on Saturday policy that was drafted by Joe McLean our attorney and He felt it was important given the sketchy information we had about when Steve was last Actually appointed as acting zoning administrator that it'd be best to do it again As I told you last week Dena is Going to be laid off. She's she worked last week. She's working this week from home She did issue a couple of zoning permits last week But as as we go forward through this Stay at home and the fact that she's not going to be able to review any of these Applications or work with the BRB for for Permits that are in the pipeline already It's important to have a zoning administrator and this policy makes clear that the acting zoning administrator has the full authority to issue permits Make decisions on permits make decisions that permits are complete Full authority to do this work. So our recommendation is that you would a adopt this policy That was sent out to you So it's a policy regarding the duties of the acting zoning zoning administrator and then once you adopt that policy Then I think would ask you to appoint Steve lots Beach as the acting zoning administrator The planning commission met by phone by conference call this afternoon To appoint Steve as the acting zoning administrator or to nominate him to the select board They did that this afternoon. So the process is all in place. So we need the policy adopted and then Chris maybe I could just add something This is all enabled under state statute and in the past. I've typically been appointed by the select board on a Temporary basis if you will think we as bill mentioned, we couldn't find documentation of the last appointment Which may have been more ongoing, but the state statute actually requires that the town put this policy in place just to clarify what the roles and responsibilities are for the acting zoning administrator so it's this will put us into conformance with statute and it the other thing that the planning commission recommended in their nomination is that you would appoint me on an ongoing basis. So we Don't have even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over when Dean is on vacation then I could I Could take over as acting zoning administrator So the idea of the acting zoning administrator is not that we have two people doing the same work at the same time but this is in the absence or physical absence is the way Joe put it in the policy so When when Dean is not physically present here Then I would step in other circumstances typically a vacation or you know extended leave for some other reasons Yes, it would be the appointment would be continuous until you rescinded it or until I retire Well certainly yeah, I think through the this COVID-19 pandemic. I definitely will have the capacity to do both the planning Commission is not meeting until the end of April or until the stay-at-home order is lifted and There are other projects that we have on going but I think you're right The zoning will definitely take the priority because there are our deadlines in statute about when we have to issue DRV decisions as you know Mike from being having been on the DRV and then Deadlines on issuing permits. So that will definitely be the be the priority for me to make sure we meet all those deadlines and Keep the ball rolling with any permits that do come in things have slowed down a bit, but we still have a fair amount of activity You know anxious to get permits in place as well So we'll see we have the capacity to be flexible and we work out a system here Where I can work from home most of the time and then be in the office when things need to be mailed and Coordinated with Carl or specific to that position. I got it. I got it. I got it all set good No, just just the appointment as the acting zoning administrator and it goes on until you say he's not so Chris Okay, we didn't talk about it yet, right so Excuse us will just wait until we Get to you. Okay? Thanks so Chris Katie asked for this To be on the agenda. So maybe We should allow Katie to speak first Fire is also still on the phone to be able to report what's been going on in the The weekly telephone calls that you know, this is a this is a subject that has been discussed there as well So, why don't we let Katie go first Chris? initially surprised and concerned that I hadn't heard that our newspaper alley would be ending So I was kind of worried about that so I started the discussion on the front porch forum about it to see if other people were feeling the same way and Quite a few of them were some of them reached out to me by email expressing their concern and their support to start up a new newspaper if that was something or to reach out to Tom Kearney himself and talk about what are some possible ways we can help out the paper whether it's People buying yearly subscriptions or having a cost associated with it. You buy it at a local store. However you want So there's been talk about that there's been talk about people Starting up a weekly newsletter. That's just online And I've had some contact with Gordon Miller and he's been talking with some people as well to start up something that Can be newsworthy and go community-wide I'll let Lisa talk in a second, but I was in contact with her and she does cover The Harwood school board and the Harwood sports the Valley reporter is not one of our papers and record And our only paper of record right now is the free press Times are yes. I'm sorry So there is that So my initial reaction was just concerned and I would like to know what everybody else on the board Feels about it. And if they think that a community newspaper is a necessity This is maybe a question for Lisa, but I pretty much think I know the answer assuming That your paper is not going to do Mission to all folks in one very the way it's done We had used for 15 or 20 years before the water very record was created where we have a new stand present and we have subscriptions and we have Well, it is a piece of which is the actual PDF of the paper We don't actually right now have the resources to mail the papers to every husband So we are committed to Cover your town and providing you stand present In your town and also we're very willing and able to Provide extensive online presence of renews period Do they tend to cover yours? What was we do attend to cover your town? We do attend to cover revitalize water very as we will work to continue our extended coverage of Harwood and The mainstream project and your ongoing issues including yours and that's very funny of some Organization, but if there's some there'd be some free Some are free papers and some are subscription papers, so I don't even actually know I would have to get back to you on that if our Newspaper book by which we mail the newspaper to our subscribers would allow for free distribution So I will certainly look into that. I mean, we do have the ability to provide online PMS of our entire paper Not actually have the ability and I will return to provide Free much like you are very record in the 12 years We don't have that ability because of our relationship to the post office, and it's Newspapers get When you go on our website, is there a fee to look at the news or is it available? There is no paywall. We do have we don't put all our stuff on my mind Although in the last three weeks, we have been putting pretty much everything online because it's such an unusual time Unusual situation to find ourselves. We've been updating our website gayly Probably three or four times a day. We've been treating Link to our website and Right Facebook update here. We've gone kind of 24-7 during this period Because it's so unprecedented, and I honestly don't see us going back once we've taken this lead to being so three-dimensional You see it only you'll plan to do any kind of paywall in the immediate future You know, I don't see a paywall coming. No, we couldn't Fairly expensive cost to clean the paywall Advertisers period like When all this is closed we Lost a bunch of print advertising. We have a very strong She was in support network Both donations and people Because of the vital role of the community They've been playing in how a town communicates with itself, right? But how are we possibly going to know what's going on in our town without a newspaper to communicate it? And when the water record announced it was stopping publication I was so sad for you, and we will Make sure you don't Avoid how do people know what's going on? Lisa can you just go over the space? You know every week the space in the newspaper is dependent on how many ads are in the newspaper So if you have a short week, you know, not all the stories are gonna make it and obviously it's called the ballot reporter So the valley is going to get the first take of the draw correct Thanks for that question You call the ballot reporter and You are part of our community We are based on friends, so the number of print advertising Depends determines the number of pages and what means the model we have recently adopted is roughly March 5th or 6th is that We're publishing stuff online and social media immediately and then the print issue is following us And we are committed to making sure that we are covering morning stories from water very every week because You need your community needs to know what's going on But we gave you correct the number of advertisement advertisers Determines the number of pages in the paper which determines the Of news we can print an issue which becomes The record the recording of history of how our communities come through is very difficult time Which is why we want to include you we you need a record of how you guys are surviving as well as the member of valley I think that I'm answering your question correctly right katie Yes, thank you from the last meeting and I will stay in touch with bill to make sure I know What's top of the agenda for you guys to report? Thank you This this is up for re-approval re-approval anyway Um, I sent this out. Byron has worked on this plan to update it. Uh, there were a couple of other Emails or documents that went along with it. So Byron, are you still on the line? Why don't you uh, just quickly walk us through what what this is about and what we need to do Water bearing on here would be often managing a potential upcoming disaster, which we are in one now that's a very It's not like a Material incident. We just have a damn frame with all that our power But if we needed to Go into emergency actions would define how we feel about doing that By adopting a plan every year you may use is how farmers maintain eligibility for FEMA funds And to repair any damage that occurs right now just late last week early this well today Uh, another came up from FEMA for public assistance funding, which is FEMA funds to help out With critical actions that are taken during this that they deliver disaster I don't think we have any right now or something. I we'd have to talk with Bill about Potential staffing for critical actions like roads, culverts and like that So they threw a lot more support repair funding chance any other time they would like to go They there are some changes and I'm not sure The copy that um, I want to thank Carla for sending us that out the bill to everybody On the actual document On page one dash two. There were some updates that I just made today and Those updates have to do with fire. I didn't realize you were I added roommate and your contact information in there The car would you And I sent out package the plan with the attachments last Friday and bill sent out. I think the current version today No, I I sent it out. I sent it out Saturday. Oh, um, I think that There might be some changes in the In that uh, daycare thing that you suggested barb Okay Friday The latest version you gave me So, yes And sometimes by bill shoveled up here in kristian And if you can't be here in person to sign up So maybe you do approve it in the record the uh minute record that Yeah, we can uh, we can email it to chris and he can sign it and then Send it back and then I can sign it. So I think we'll be all set there I'm happy to Uh, have you on a committee bike disaster planning? Yeah, sure. Go ahead the Senior center meals on the wheel in water, berries, a water bird medical center And anybody who might have been there also knows that waterberry health officer Uh, without the cost she was the first people that we're still I have spoken about organizing something Our needs out there that are ramping up Like for instance the meals on the wheel. Um, what they're seeing there the food shelf is their demand. Good name for fund The medical sector where the people get medical information if they need it um Was the code in 19? I guess month's worth of phone calls the Information everybody gets a copy every day of the state emergency operation Um situation report which is a constellation of everything that the state is doing And I did hear We get that somebody who is from the central department medical center is sharing that information with the doctors and nurses every week well every day Um In berlin at the hospital there So We know that the information here is good. We're trying to identify the gaps that are out here in the community And what the needs are and how to build it and so far it's been a valuable research Um And it's not terribly time intensive the uh, all the land our the the library has been We've developed a waterberry care um Form so that people who have these can get information You know that form whether it's paper or electronic And if people want to monitor services like delivering meals or picking up groceries and delivering them People get matched with the needs and so only the library has been doing that um, and that's working out Pretty well so far and bill's been on a couple of calls. I don't know if I can add those No, you hit the highlights. Thanks On that standpoint, I have a talk to Karen Nevin at RW For the potential of using that as emergency Potential emergency how they could have the businesses and she thought at this time that there are other resources with SBA small difference administration might be better fit for them that found a lot of meals on wheel maybe able to take advantage of the um The female one This is bill. Um Femal money, um Are they have they changed the rules pretty typically female Money is only able to help, um public entities They typically don't do a lot with private entities Please Thank you. Um, and just to start, uh, this is really just a Conceptual discussion. It's not I'm not going to ask for a motion tonight I want to kind of take your temperature or so to speak I'll bet pun I guess with uh, what's going on with the kovat 19, but um, I'm just looking I'm trying to think of things that That we might be able to implement that could help Employees and potentially the talent to a degree here. So I know this is a very complicated spreadsheet to look at Um, I I first thought about this about three or four weeks ago right at the very beginning of this episode And wondered, you know, if we're going to have to Consider laying people off or putting people on reduced hours. What would that mean? And I told you the first thing that I had suggested to my staff was that we were going to cut our time Um By it was it was five percent at that point This is before We got into the uh, stay at home order So we were just planning on everybody was planning on cutting back a little bit of time To try to conserve some resources Um But I thought everybody would be would be working that full 38 hours if if we were talking about 40 hour people Then the governor stayed at home order Came in place only essential services Were supposed to be actually working So we instituted some layoffs And we've had to keep some staff on and we will have to continue to keep some staff on To do work that the municipality needs to do And um as Time is going forward You know, you might have employee x Who is working maybe, you know, three days a week And needs to do his or her job and then You know It makes it difficult to do do we consider that a layoff and force them to Sign up for unemployment or do they take Sick or vacation time to make up the difference in in their hours and Initially, I was encouraging people to do that Then as I started to look at the records that we have about the sick time that people have available You know, I I don't want to put people in a position where they end up using up all their sick time When they're not sick They're just kind of staying at home for some time because they're ordered to and and we've got to reduce some hours but It's difficult for those folks because they're not working like half time or anything like that To file an unemployment claim. It's a process as Any of you who tried to file unemployment unemployment claims or had employees do it Keeping some people out of the unemployment system seems like it might be a good way to go So I just thought about well, is there a way that people can Donate sick time into a bank that other employees might be able to to use and of course If you're going to ask people to donate or give up time People who have not used a lot of sick time and have kept it in case, you know, they had a You know a serious illness and we've had employees who've had serious illnesses They need an operation or what have you and it's nice to have that sick time. So It's a combination of donate and sell if you will We do not pay out sick time at separation So if you if you resign from your job or you retire or if you get dismissed from your job If you had, you know, 100 hours of vacation time in your vacation bank, you'd get paid for your vacation time But if you're like Me and you have, you know, 960 hours of sick time, you don't get anything for that You just get thanked for not having used your sick time over the years so What I've kind of done here is to say well You don't want people to donate sick time if they don't have a lot of it to begin with So you can see if you're looking at this spreadsheet about the fourth or fifth column over Fifth column over Employee days eligible. I'd like employees To have at least 40 days of sick time before they're even considered eligible for this And the people who are highlighted in different colors there Have more than more than that time And then the next column over shows how many days that they Have to donate how many days above 40 days do they have? And then as you move To the right it it monetizes those hours at their pay rate Now I'll stop there for a second our auditors We have a report in our accounting system and our audit report shows every year What our on-the-book liability is if we had to pay sick time So if everybody gets sick all at once and everybody used all their sick time You know, it's a it's a pretty it's a pretty high number And I think right now it's 193,660 dollars of sick time That the town carries as a liability on its books So it's as I said, it's typically unlikely that you're ever going to spend down that whole liability because we don't pay it out at separation So anyway, this concept would allow people to to To get paid For 20 percent of the sick time that they that they gave up that they were going to contribute to the bank But that's capped at 2,500 dollars. That's in the brown column over to the just right of middle and you know that if if This spreadsheet assumes that everybody who has sick time enough to donate would do it I've only talked to two employees about this One frankly was an e-fight employee that was bill woodruff and I I had a very brief conversation with Carla today. So nobody even knows that this is being considered or even talked about But that that brown column would show that if everybody Donated or sold their highest amount available. It would cost the town 11,633 dollars 630 dollars and then The next column over shows the amount that would be available to donate into the bank and then it shows you what people keep And then over on the far right it gets redistributed so this this This iteration and as there's there's an infinite number of ways to do this This iteration does not just dump a whole bunch of hours into an unassigned bank that people can then just go in and Use up it actually redistributes sick hours After this whole formula goes through and adds sick hours to employees Banks and it gives every employee um Even the ones who donate it gets even those people have some of their hours redistributed back to that And then you can see over at the far right that You know, it looks like there's more sick hours available after After redistribution than there are at the beginning. So if you go way over to the left The second column in says accrued six out six hours and you can see 7,047 At the bottom if you go over to the far right the second column from the right Shows that after redistribution is 7,266 So it looks like the number of six out six hours have actually got up And and they have but what's happening is you're redistributing hours That have a high monetary value. For instance, you know My sick my my pay rate is much higher than anyone else's so You're redistributing my hours back in amongst people with lower pay. So it causes the hours to go up but You can see here that if you look at the third column from the right after redistribution the Total hours that the total value available to the employees is a hundred and seventy thousand 497 And if you add that to the 11,630 that That would have been paid out to the donors that equals 182,128 of value Compared to the 193 660 on the books right now. So The town Gets a little something out of this and that it's liability if all the sick hours are used up goes away and then The employees who give up their sick time to allow other people to use it They get a little bit of cash For for selling some of their sick time and then the other employees Have a lot more sick hours to to use and as we go forward I'm just concerned that you know, we have some people that have Few sick hours because they just recently started their jobs, uh, you know Nick nato has 80 hours of sick time right now Karen Petrovich has 139 hours Michelle Ryan has not even 40 hours um, so Those are people that are still working that we're counting on to continue to to do their jobs And if they should get sick in this situation They could be in a position where they use up all their sick time And we wouldn't want that so That's how this works. I'm going to stop talking there because You know, if this isn't anything that the board even wants to consider Then we'll we'll stop if it's something that you think is a concept that you might Want to consider we can talk about it Answer any questions that you have right now And we can come back to it later if we need to this issue before as much as i'm a big believer in having some sort of way to share sick leave I may be a little bit of polish too And it was more you would donate your annual leave that someone could use that for any purpose Uh, or some sort of debilitating disease, you know, you know None of us has seen anything like for there, but it's a reasonable comment Would you be more open to the discussion? Mike if asked what they would do first I mean, I I'm interested in this. I think this is a good idea. I'm not I mean, maybe if the percentage was lower, Mike, you'd be more agreeable to it, but I would definitely I'm interested in this discussion It is and you know, I always seem You know ways to donate to a a kind of bank But you could donate to a particular donor and I know some people Hey, you knew some People who are not good about their sick leave for whatever reason Or the reason that they needed to leave was not as justified I was left out to donate quick, you know, anyone who I knew, you know, especially if I knew the individual at all You know, because this was nationwide yeah, and and You know to be clear the The personnel policy says that you're not supposed to use sick time unless you're sick now You know when I started on this endeavor bank, I was kind of Starting off the way that that you did that, you know, we would We would simply donate time And put it into a into a universal bank if you will and then let people take it But There has been some conversation This was a couple weeks ago, but you know, there are some people who are reluctant To to say well, you know, gee whiz, you know, you've You've built up and are in that sick time Why you know, why should I get to take it from you? Even if you're willing to give it So there's there's that element I also In in this situation, I'm a little bit concerned, you know, if we weren't talking about COVID-19 And somebody came along and had cancer or something like that Sure, I mean Me for instance, if you look at my sick hours, I have 966 hours. That's as many as you can have I have taken sick time in the past But you know, I I'm sick a couple days a year maybe And I've been here long enough that you know, I've got a lot of sick time. So if I if I take Three sick days This year It takes me three months and then I'm back to what the maximum is So I could right now if I wanted to say, okay Every month that I accrue that That adds nothing to my bank Put that in a in a bank that anybody can choose from I I suppose You know, there's a few of us That could do that um, I'm concerned that people with more modest but With the ability at least the way I look at it to consider donating Um Unless they're going to get something for it. I'm not sure why they would do it. It's not It's not such a situation right now that That people have cancer or anything like that. We're just talking about this situation that we find ourselves in So I'm not trying to convince you or change your mind but from the from the perspective of Somebody who has a lot of sick time And from the perspective of somebody who has to enforce the policy It's a really hard policy to enforce If if a sick time comes up on You know an employee's time sheet They've called their their supervisor or they've called me and they say I'm I'm sick today. I'm going to take a sick day Okay, you're sick today Now the policy says that you're not supposed to take sick time Unless you're sick But there's people on this list that have been employees for a long time And they have little sick time so From the perspective of somebody who has a lot. It's like well I think we've already been paying a lot of people to to use their sick time And for somebody who wants to donate Sick time, we won't you know pay them 20 percent of the value of it that that sounds a little bit counterintuitive so Yeah, so the the budget the budget for every every department has a regular pay line in it In that regular pay line, you know for employees like the people who work in the office here You know you add up the number of hours in a year, which is 2,080 hours That's 40 hours a week times 52 weeks And you figure that people are either going to get regular pay sick pay or vacation pay or holiday pay And it doesn't matter what they take that that line item isn't any different So the there's enough money in the budget to pay Everybody to work the prescribed hours that we expect they're going to work You know, there are some people in the highway department It's a little bit of an estimating job because we never know how many Hours of overtime they're going to have in any particular year But for most of the other employees If if the line item is 75 thousand dollars It's pretty likely that it's going to be within You know a thousand bucks or so of of that 75 thousand because Almost nobody except the highway personnel works overtime So there's no piggyback out there Chris with $193,000 in it And if if everybody took all their sick time You know it's 7,000 hours of sick time for 25 people And 25 times 40 hours is Going to be way more than 7,000 hours. So there's money in the budget that It's not it's not a problem for the budget. Let's put it that way So I see that you have a cap of 25 hundred dollars. Did you say If that was going to be limited to a per year or is that lifetime of an employee in terms of how many times They could bank in themselves hours No, I I'm I'm looking at this as kind of a one-time deal mark that you know, I don't anticipate this Kind of going on and on and on forever It's just a matter of kind of redistributing what's on the books now. That was my thought anyway Yeah, um, I mean personally for me and if we're I think we we talk a lot about, you know, what what are the real numbers on what's the The whole impact of the impact on this scenario When I'm quickly reading unfortunately, my phone is 11,600 or whatever the number is So potentially made more of an opportunity for someone who sticks yet, but hey, they might need the weather You know, I think for me personally, I can make that decision pretty quickly. Say I'm going to support of this you know I wouldn't necessarily be in support of it was an annual thing that That all of them it could become compensation for someone and be a one-man compensation, but if it If it's more of a one-time thing to help someone is big and it's not a big number It's really gonna I care about it much. I I think I Can I make a comment? I agree with you mark. Sure. If you do more that's that's the As much as sometimes philosophically I may have a real looking etiquette of 11,000 dollars I don't see this being a problem But maybe I'll just one take the bill like that. We don't have enough hours for them to work You know, I'm sick with COVID or something else Lady Emily, they're sick leave toward, you know to avoid, you know putting them on other people are kind of alluded to that yeah, so so um I think this I think as far as the COVID is concerned This may help A couple of people so, you know, let's say again employee acts Is is doing an essential job And they're working, you know 33 hours Doing stuff that they have to do I can envision that employee using five hours of sick time To get up to the 38 hours that we're kind of asking everybody to at least You know to have that five percent reduction in their paid time So I could see somebody like that Using it to bridge a narrow gap as opposed to try to go through the process and claim unemployment for five or ten hours a week For the people who are laid off or the people like the highway department right now that are that are on half time now They're not going to use this so they can stay up to, you know, 38 or 40 hours They might use this If they get sick in in their 20 hour work week and they get sick They might use eight hours of sick time to pay them, you know get them up to 20 But it's not meant to get people who are working half time up to 40 might if nobody uses it the the Liability on the talents books Just You know goes down a little bit You know people the people who donate and get paid compensated for that Will will get get some cash out of it I'm suggesting that maybe We just talk about this tonight everybody who's in a situation of Being laid off has one more week to go in terms of You know in lieu of in lieu of notice, so they're getting paid so I'd like what I'd like to do is be able to To run this by the eFUD commissioners because again, I know, you know, we're two separate municipalities But from the perspective of the employees, we're kind of all We all feel like we're one organization and If if one entity the town does it And then eFUD doesn't do it. That's a little problematic. I mean at least I'd like to know going in so From my perspective, I'm not looking for a motion tonight chris The eFUD commissioners a meeting on wednesday and then Your next meeting is on the 20th, and I think we should meet on the 20th. I'll have A budget report to review at that time And then we can come back to this and if we think it's a good idea we can implement it then Does that work for everybody? Yeah So you said that you asked how many people there are in favor of this so far? I've only talked to two people One town employee and one eFUD employee Okay, so are you looking to feedback from others? Can you speak louder? Can't hear I was just asking Bill how many people he's talked to so far about it And if he's planning if we want to discuss this at a further at another meeting if he would reach out and get other people's opinions That this would affect Yeah, I might do that Um, I wanted to talk to the eFUD commissioners first and then have have their comments just like I had had yours Um, you know I'm not I'm leaning towards more having the boards decide to do it as opposed to Asking the employees if the employees don't want to participate then it just rise up on the vine and we don't we don't move forward I really don't want to get into Talking to 30 people and getting 30 different. Well, could you do this or could you do that instead? So I'm so far. I've kept it very narrow in terms of who I talk to This is mark. I mean, I agree that once you turn it up there as soon as someone thinks that they might be able to get the percentage of to increase compensation For something I feel like we're making a decision as a board on just, you know For a little bit of money. I haven't just been afraid of all of a sudden everyone starts screaming while I want 100 percent or whatever Like we're trying to do something to help I agree mark and you know when I when I picked the 20 percent um I picked the 20 percent because You know, I wanted to make it attractive enough to some people who are at even at the lower end of the pay scale But that's why I capped it at at 2500 because I also don't want it to be Something where you know, the employees say, oh gee whiz. Look at that, you know He got $10,000 out of this. I don't I don't want that to be the case. So, you know, it's 20 to make it valuable enough for some people to say yeah, I'll do it but I don't want it to be a you know big windfall for anybody else in keeping with what Mike had said I I really don't you know the I think that I think if you look at this sheet and you see the the fairly small number of people that are able to donate and the fact that Everybody in the organization will get more sick time. I think I think it's you know The people who have no skin in the game no ability to really Donate I think they'll be happy to get more sick time added to their banks whether they need it through this crisis or they'll just have it going forward but I think people will be interested in it Mike Okay Late this afternoon. I sent out a memo that Nick Nadu had prepared for me. Did everybody get it? Yeah, I got it. Okay. All right. So I I don't have to read through it Last week my inclination was you know, we were getting we were getting comments from people Some asking facilities to be closed others, you know Counting us that it was great that that facilities were open but after the governor's order and kind of the follow-ups about Really social distancing, you know last week getting the word that you know when you're in public in places like Stores and the like when you have to go in there that they're recommending masks be worn We started to get some pretty amped up people who were concerned about Facilities being open. So I ordered Nick last week to close everything He had already closed the playground facilities The tennis court and the basketball courts were open We started getting reports that That in the tennis courts The first week or so that we put the nets up It was pretty much people, you know Father and a son were playing tennis and stuff like that. Well By the middle of last week, there were you know crowds of unrelated people that were gathering there, you know 10 12 at a time So we ended up blocking their facility We've had a couple of comments from folks by email who are not happy about this I told Nick to close everything And if the select board wanted to reverse my decision that they could do that I'm not recommending that you do that. It's seemingly that As time goes on more and more of the information that we're getting is positive about this It's too bad that we have to do it, but but I think it's the right thing We have to be creative about how we close the skateboard facility up in Waterbury center We put tape up around there and you know the free spirits that our skateboarders had Pretty quickly decided that didn't apply to them So we're going to do something to make it physically impossible to use it Katie's got her hand up I would just add to that point Even though that the skate park is closed now when the state police patrol of Waterbury center, they're always Or most of the time that I see They're behind the fire station anyway, so that you just they're already there Yeah The the police you mean? Yeah, the police the police are there I did send an email to lieutenant white the other day and just asked him to make sure that you know That his troopers that are doing patrols in Waterbury Understand that our facilities are all closed and I told him that I wasn't asking them to babysit anybody or to You know to stand guard at the facilities, but if they saw anything being used that they That they would Take note of it and and ask the people to disperse So that's that's kind of where we are with the facilities right now The dock park is really an e-flat facility, but that will be closed as well if it hasn't been already I think um And then you can see from Nick's memo here that You know some things that we have already advertised and taken in cash for like spring swim lessons some of the spring programming for adults the April vacation break camp We've had to cancel those we're in the process of refunding money to those people now We are Still working to hire a summer recreation program staff and a staff of lifeguard people It's a little bit challenging. I don't know what else folks are going to find out there the same kind of categories, but You know College kids are looking for a job And if you tell them that you don't know they're you know, they're going to continue to look until they have something More solid. So we're still trying to plan it as if we're going to be open um, I think there's some degree of likelihood I I don't have a percentage But it's possible that you know that this could even extend it to the summer and if that happens We obviously won't be able to have a camp Fortunately our budgets are built such that If we don't have the camp we don't have the staff and therefore we don't need the revenue to pay the bills so You know, I think we'll end up a little bit on the losing end if we don't Have ourselves the ability to do anything Except in the pool that will be a that'll be a Positive for the budget because we never take in enough money to pay for all the pool expenses So anyway, I'll stop there and let's see if you have questions or concerns You're talking about in the rec facilities or what? No, I mean just average downtown I wouldn't say it's a ghost town, but it's not busy. That's for sure You know, there's there's a lot less traffic Um So there is there is one recommendation on this memo. It's on the first side down at the bottom So there's a big there's a continuing push from people who want to sign up for the community gardens that We allow that to happen Um, you know, there's a small expense for us to do that. Uh, we have to pay somebody to To rototill the plots We already have a lease with green mount power. We have to pay that lease Anyway, because the lease is still in place but nick is recommending that We increase fees for the community gardens From $15 a plot to 25 and that would be for a single plot And a double plot would increase from 20 dollars to 35 dollars This is not really a COVID-19 issue What he says here is these increases bring us closer to that what other towns charge Some towns charge significantly more than we do Um, and you know over time we look at all of our fees, but, uh These if we're going to do the community gardens, uh, he thinks we should increase the fees to, uh to 25 and 35 respectively for single and double plots So that would need a motion I assume this document is somewhat flexible because I know we have You know certain kind of dates in there, but I know we don't know where we're kind of heading You know, we don't have to be optimistic, but I hope this is a living document that To be changed as a matter of fact, I probably tell you Take down the take down the tennis court next take off the basketball loops because if they have things like that out there People are going to use it and it's not even One good thing I did see today Speaking of Chris is quite a good thing So the the the tennis courts are locked now like so they can't they can't put And I did uh, I did ask about I did ask about I had somebody else had something Yeah, Bill, this is Mark. Um, how many plots are there? Do we have? How many what good plots? Yeah, I don't I don't know off top of my head mark. I want to say almost like 40 maybe Yeah, I think that echo Chris's point, you know, I I have big concerns about scarcity and availability of food and I really don't think that it's a big number to Take any kind of increase in speed. That's fine That's okay Do it next year Okay, okay I know you have to make your recommendations to the school board. I could not remind Got lettered my email. The only thing I could find was within Caitlyn email Is required to be included in a discussion Yeah, I think I think that was it mark. You're right. Um, she didn't didn't she kind of His whole email text to her is there. He kind of gives his What he thinks his qualifications are for the job, right? Yeah, yeah, that's that's the one I'm talking about So it wasn't from him. It was from Caitlyn There's an email from Scott on march 25th and you are cc'd on it. I can forward it to you if you'd like Yeah, you could sometimes they'd grab my email. I'm just working for it. I remember seeing it, but To make a recommendation on the board. I mean there's two people. Um, I really do appreciate that Michael King has reached out and also attended the meeting this evening But I I'd be a little I still feel like I have enough to make a full recommendation of the board for a specific individual Yeah, I think that's the consensus mark He was really unfortunate that he didn't want to participate today. I would think he would want to that Kind of swayed my decision a little bit so We'll we'll plan another one of these for the 20th of April Yes