 All right, I have 5.30 and at least three members. So we're gonna call the meeting to order to get this thing rolling. First up is public comment. This is anything that's not currently on the agenda. I have a comment, Trini, it's Sally Penrod. Okay, go ahead, Sally. I wanted to tell everybody that whoopee, the library is going to open on July 1st. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo. I don't have particulars as to what times will be open, but we're gonna be open and it's just a big thrill. There's a lot to get worked out, even though we have a date, there's a lot going on with staff and staffing issues. So there's still a bunch up in the air, but we have a date and we're gonna be open. And then, all I had to say. Thank you. Next up is approval of the agenda. We just had the one potential amendment, which was to add the assembly permit application from the village fire department for July 3rd fireworks. So that would be, if you amended it, the natural spot would be under five I, would make it five I three, basically. Okay, entertain a motion to approve that. Tom, you're muted. Adjusted agenda. And I will second that. A motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Consent calendar. We have meeting minutes, warrants, and cemetery plots. I'll move to approve a consent calendar. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. New business. Consider adopting the. Recording in progress. I have an option to leave the meeting. No, you're stuck. Okay. You say on this point on is on tape. So yeah, I forgot to hit record before we started there. So I just, I was trying to sneak it in right there. I think before I speak now. All right. Declaration of inclusion, that would have been in the board packet. Yep. And questions from board members. Bots. I would actually like to suggest just one more addition to the resolution as it, as it reads. And that is to insert the phrase, and it could be anywhere in that first sentence. Socioeconomic class. So maybe yeah, somewhere at the end of the first. Could be anywhere in there as long as it's included. Okay. Any other comments, questions, bots? Hearing none, any motions? I'll move with the, that we approve with the included amendment that I've suggested. You guys couldn't get to it quick enough. Which one got the second? I heard Pat first, so. Okay. Motion. I was trying to help you keep the minutes Trevor. Thank you. They were quick on the draw on me there, yeah. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Those motion carries amendments to the land use regulations. I don't know, I know Josh is on. I don't know if I see sunny anywhere. So maybe Josh would be the, was not able to be here tonight. Yep. So I'll talk about that. So the planning commission myself and with some significant assistance from Jenny Carter and her wonderful law school students have been working on looking at the designated neighborhood development area program with the state of Vermont. And that program is a program that helps to create incentives for housing. And in order to qualify for that, we have to, we had to look at our land use regulations specifically, you know, through a lens of 20 criteria that the NDA requires us to meet. And there's 10 criteria between complete street guidelines and 10 criteria between building a lot pattern guidelines. And you need to score eight out of 10 in each category to qualify for the NDA program. And so once we scored ourselves, you know, we looked at where we needed to make changes. And with the help of the law school students and coordinating with Jake Hemmering from ACCD, we were able to identify some changes in the land use regulations that you can see here in your proposed, in your packet. There was one additional land use change, the first one, which is subsection 107. That was a change that the planning commission adopted. You can see there's just a slate addition of some additional language there, just to make it clear on when a permit, a zoning permit is required. But the rest of the changes, the creation of section 314 and the change to section 506 D2CI are changes that would increase that scoring of the criteria so that we would qualify for the neighborhood designation area. And so this is, you know, the planning commission, we had a public hearing last week and they were adopted or recommended that for the select board. And so now we're looking to the select board to schedule a public hearing to consider these changes. Thanks, Josh. Any comments or questions from the board on the changes that are being put forth by the planning commission? Okay, so we need to schedule the public hearing. And I don't believe we have another reason for a meeting. So does it work best to schedule this at the next select board meeting? Yeah, I think that would work, absolutely. Any opposition to that from board members? No. Okay, entertain a motion to schedule this for 5.30 on whatever day, July 8th. Bye. A motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Stained? Motion carries. Next on the agenda is the Norwich Solar Technology Sighting and I will be recusing myself from this discussion and turning it over to Larry. Good morning, Trini. All right, that's part of the agenda. Brendan, if you want, you can just tell everybody what your project is and where it's located. Oh, great. I'm sorry if I didn't start on time. I couldn't hear there for a minute. That wasn't your fault, but you're good. I was just getting up to speed here and looking at the documentation and orienting myself. So if you have comments at this point, that'd be great. Sure. So in the packet is a draft site plan for a 500 kilowatt net-meter solar array located at what's known as Zero Davis Road and it's being presented now on the screen. Zero Davis Road is approximately at the intersection of Davis and 14, kind of in between East and South Randolph. This is what is a relatively normal category of solar facility in the state of Vermont, a so-called 500 kilowatt array. It utilizes between two and a half and three acres of solar array footprint and somewhere between four and five acres of total area, including the area around the array where we manage vegetation growth so the array isn't shaded and to account for things like access and a temporary lay down during construction. So just to guide folks very briefly through this particular plan here, there are more than one existing logging or agricultural access path on the property. The specific path that will be used to access the site for the array will be determined by kind of operations and engineering but the point is that no new access path will be created. It'll be in one of the existing access paths, typically upgraded or what we call top dressed with gravel to make it able to stand up to the couple months of traffic. The couple notable features, it's a hillside property where the elevation is fairly steep by the road. So the area where the array is will not be visible from the road and Sunny from the Planning Commission was generously walked with me up on the site and the approximate location of the array itself is situated such that it's unlikely to be seen even from homes on the adjacent hill sides. We tried to represent here with, and it might be a little hard to see but there's a kind of a blue line that describes a broader area where the array, the solar panels themselves based on kind of operations and engineering might be relocated. If you think of these as Legos, right? The operations and engineering considerations might result in the relocation of those specific solar panels but within that blue box. And then there's another box which is a black line with little white squares and that's what we call our limits of disturbance. And so within that box, the solar array, we might do things like cut trees so that the solar array would not be in the shade or do other construction activities but not outside of that box. So that's a general discussion. You can see just to the right there, there's a ridge line and kind of full disclosure. I am the adjacent property owner and so that ridge line right there is mine and so no trees will be cut on that ridge line because it's outside of that black line with the white boxes. So happy to take any questions that you have. Your friend, would you tell me? I would like to ask you a question. Yeah. I'm sorry, who was that? Michael Binder and a budding landowner. Yeah, sure. Please go ahead. As I'm looking at that map, I'm realizing that the solar panels and the area of disturbance are actually on other people's properties, including ours. Now I realize that the way this map is made, you're superimposing different types of maps but for example, you have something labeled nearest property boundary 50 feet. What does that mean? And it's on that box with the white squares. Sure, so thank you for the question and happy to answer. So first of all, the property line there in the field is relatively well established with a stone wall in sections or also sections of wire fence, but the tax maps that are on the kind of available mapping data don't align properly. So there is a survey for the property and in addition, more survey work will be done during the process of developing the array. And what I can tell you is that nothing will happen off the property. How close will the disturbed area and the fence and the panels be to my property line? So there's a requirement, a setback requirement and that's where the 50 foot requirement comes from. And that is a requirement in the state, so. Is that 50 feet to the panels or 50 feet to the fence or 50 feet to the disturbed area? So it's 50 feet to the panels. How close will the fence be to the property line? So the fence is typically within 10 or 15 feet and we do not always use a fence. So this is an important question. Thank you for bringing it up. The arrays will get permitted with the ability to either use a fence or not use a fence. And then prior to construction, we have to notice the state government which option will be elected. I can tell you my preference, my personal preference is to not use a fence. And if that is a preference that you share, we'd be happy to hear it because that is an option. It is an option not to use a fence at all. I think it would be less disruptive to wildlife movement if you have no fence. I agree. And as you know, there are many, many deer in the area. For everyone else as well, the fences that are allowed for use are so-called wildlife fences. So they're designed to let wildlife pass through them with the exception of deer. So the big advantage here to not use a fence would be to allow the passage of everything else, including deer. Yeah, that's a big crossing area right there for deer. Right. So, yeah, rather have them be able to pass there rather than onto everybody's property, including ours. I'd be happy to include that preference. I'd like to ask also how you plan to manage the vegetation. Can you do it in a way that does not use herbicides? Yes, we do not use herbicides to manage vegetation on any of the projects or properties that we own or operate. Is that part of the permitting or is that something you can change if you wish? So, I don't, honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. So I could find out that answer if you like as well. The one note in addition to any other questions you might have is that as a part of this process, when it goes into the state process, you will be a formal abutter, so a party to the state permitting process, which welcomes and provides a formal opportunity for all of your input and the input of your neighbors as well. So, I apologize, I don't know the answer. If pesticides are totally not allowed or, but I can tell you that it's our practice not to use them on any of our properties. Okay, that's good. I have a question about once the project is installed and construction is over, how much activity, traffic, would there be to the solar site going forward in for as long as it's there? Sure, so there are at least two visits a year. So there's typically a spring and a fall visit and depending on the growing conditions of the property, the vegetative management would happen either once or twice a year. And this property, it doesn't appear to grow very quickly what I can tell from the growth of since the logging was done. Blackberries. Yeah, I would say. Blackberries. I would say maximum of one vegetative management a year. And so those are the activities. There's vegetative management, which is either once or twice a year and then two inspections. And the inspections are a tech in a pickup truck who spends three or four hours visually inspecting the array. Another question as dealing with installation, it is as you alluded to rather gnarly substrate there, are you gonna have to do any blasting or anything of that sort? How do you install these? That's a good question. So what we typically do is use a, what's called a driven pile type of mounting structure or racking structure. And you can't typically drive piles into ledge. We typically drill this type of site as opposed to blast. So drilling takes, on a project like this, there would be somewhere around 200 to 220 holes. And that drilling takes about three days. Okay, thank you for your answers. I appreciate it. I have a couple of questions for the select board just in the way of sort of process since this stuff is kind of new to me, but I just learned today that the Planning Commission had already discussed this project and passed on it, but I haven't been able to find any minutes of that meeting. It wasn't, as far as, well, maybe I'm not plugged in enough, but I didn't see any notice of it that this would be discussed. And just as a neighbor, I would have liked to have known more about this after that, when the discussion was taking place at the Planning Board, even before it got to you, select board for a vote. This is Josh, zoning administrator, Director of Economic Development. Actually, Brendan was on the Planning Commission meeting two months in a row, and the last meeting was just last week, and it was a public hearing, and it was warned. And so there was enough notice out there. Were any abiders noticed separately, Josh? That's not a process that's required. Well, it would have been nice to have known about it. So I understand, just to respond, not from the select board, but for me personally, I'm sorry that I didn't reach out to you directly before, if not as the developer, as your neighbor. I know we haven't met yet during the pandemic. I guess I sometimes feel like I'm saying this more than once. This is an important step, and it is a real step in the process here. But the state process that starts only after the step involves a lot of formal notice and a formal role for all abudders. So I just wanna be clear, this is the beginning, and not the middle, let alone the end of a process. Okay, thanks for that. And one that I personally, and Norse Technologies welcomes your participation in. Okay. Any other questions? I have the same question I did last time we dealt with one of these, and are there any criteria that we use to decide whether it's a preferred site or not? Yeah, and I have the same question actually. I don't believe we have any kind of a way of making that decision formally. We don't have criteria in place. So this was on a case by case basis. This has been discussed numerous times for months on end. Okay, through the planning commission where I was involved in this for well over two years. Okay, and we could have either determined preferred citing or we could have gone this path that we're currently going now where we look at everybody's individual preferred or potential location, which then we can say is either preferred or not preferred. So there was a lengthy process to get to here. Now we could have adopted something totally different, but this is the direction that we went with and we were advised to go this direction by numerous consultants. Yeah, no, I know, Perry. It still doesn't feel sort of awkward. I completely understand where you're coming from and I know the rationale and it totally makes sense. And at the same time, having to decide these on a case by case basis with, I don't know. Well, we can change that. I mean, I can tell you, I've been involved in this now for four years since two rivers out of which he showed up on the doorstep and told us what was going to happen from a state level. And we started down this path and we talked about it for level over two and a half years. Okay, this is where we ended up so that we could do them on a case by case basis. If anybody wants to change that, I'm sure we can go back and take a look at that. But this is right now, I think the best way we're looking for this. Right, and I understand that that's where we're at. And I'm not advocating that we go down a different path. I'm not sure that, I mean, I understand that there are good reasons for not doing that. I totally understand that. Oh, there was multiple reasons for not doing it. It's just hearing after hearing after hearing and you couldn't get 50 people in your room to agree upon anything. So this is where we're at. And that was the consensus of the group after we pulled in some professional advisors to tell us what to do. So, I understand that it's a state process. As the process moves forward, the way it starts is you go to the planning commission and then the select board and then they take it to where Brendan just mentioned, you know, it's now gonna be become, they'll have to do all the things according to the state regulations. So we don't write the state regulations here. So they're following the regulations. Yep, oh yeah. Could I could ask a question to that? I'm not sure if it's exactly the same issue, but what's in the back of my mind is I've been hearing about a project also in development just down just a little bit north of us on route 14 on the Gifford farm. And I don't know what the status of that is, but I just start to wonder how many projects might land in this neighborhood without, you know, what was just being described. It sounds like you look at each site individually as opposed to looking at the impact of this kind of development over time. There's been a lot happening in Randolph Center. Some of us aren't really thrilled with the amount of development happening. We moved here because it's a nice, quiet, rural neighborhood. And that's true for many people. So, you know, I'm not casting any dispersions on anything, but I just have to raise it as a concern. I think that's a legitimate concern. And it's a problem with development in general where any particular project might not seem to be having a terribly impact. But when you look at multiple projects over periods of time that add up then you start finding bigger impacts that do matter. And so your point is well taken. I think it's quite important. Larry, could I address what Perry said a few minutes ago? Please do. I don't think anyone's criticizing the work that's been done by the Planning Commission, Perry. What I'm saying is I don't have any criteria to judge this by, except subjectively at this point. I would like to see, you know, we have 10 criteria that we look at or two or five or whatever. And if there isn't any in the regulations or in the statutes that define those, I think we should have those ourselves. And then be looking at each project based on those same criteria, which we can't, because we don't have any criteria at this point. I like solar power a lot. I think that's the thing of the future. But it still has to go through a process and the process needs to be one that's supportable. No, we favor this as a approved site because of whatever or we don't want it as an approved site because of whatever. But for me, I need some criteria to judge it by. Whether it's not in the statutes, then we should be making up some. So if I may ask, Laurie, of both you and Pat, do you have any suggestions for what some of those specific criteria might be? How visible it is from other properties. And I think this one probably fits pretty well on that, but I need to look at that again. I haven't been on the property for years, but as I remember, it was fairly steep and kind of isolated. Those are conditions, those are some of the things that the planning commission does weigh in on. So, and I will share with you that the guidance, whoops, we're back on record here, got it. Okay. So anyways, this was discussed for well over two and a half years as to how we look at preferred sites. And the one thing that will toss out at you is one of the things that came up with this conversation was the community, Randolph as a whole, needed 180 acres of solar to meet its quote goals by 2050. So if you start looking at projects like Brendan and you've got three acres here and three acres there and five acres over here, it's gonna be quite a process to get to 180 acres of solar. And that was a projection that was done four years ago. So as demand keeps increasing, you could end up needing 240 to 280 acres of solar. Because those are questions I put to two rivers when they were presenting this to us. So what about the growth? Okay. I don't know what the projections are based on instead of be needing 180, but my guess is demand's going to increase faster. Okay, then we're gonna be able to put acres out there. So this has all been discussed and I just don't think this is the place to continue the discussion in this point. Yeah, Mary, when this was in front of the planning commission, what kind of process does that look like? This particular project, any of them come so far? Yeah, for this particular one. What are those? Okay, so we looked it's like, okay, so who's it gonna be visible to? Where can it be seen from? And so that seems to be the key piece of a lot of these projects is, what's it visible to? Could panels be reflecting light back against other properties down the road away from the panel? Could somebody five miles away or three miles away on the other side that he'll see something here? So those are all the things are taken into consideration. And that's how the Gifford project was put together too. So these are the most recent projects. This one here and the Gifford project. And we just all looked at the map and kind of figured out who was around it and felt that, okay, if we think this is an okay site, sure, we'll give it its blessing and then it can move to the next level which is the select board. And then it can go to the level where Brendan has to go through all the state requirements in order to make that project happen. And that's truthfully, that's where the neighbors all become involved at that point. That's where they all get to step up to the plate and raise their concerns. So the thing, the aspect of this that you focused most on was really the visibility of the site. That seems to be the priority. That was what the conversations were. Every time we'd have these conversations in the planning commission, we were trying to come up with whether we do preferred sites or no preferred sites. It was always who's gonna see it and where are they gonna see it from? Is it gonna be visible on the roadside? Is it gonna be visible or is it gonna be glaring in some neighbors' eyes? Is it gonna deter their, is it gonna take away from their view shed? Those are a lot of considerations that we're talking about for that two and a half years. And it seemed like visibility of the project was the most prevalent problem. And where are they gonna cut trees and make it more visible to somebody else's project? Right. So are somebody else's property? So I mean, we've been very conscious from the planning commission standpoint to try to, if somebody comes to the project, so far they've all taken all those things into consideration. And I think that they've, everybody who's come so far has done a good job of taking into consideration the surrounding scenic vistas, neighbors, those kinds of things. If visibility was the issue, wouldn't it make sense for us to warn a hearing where the neighbors were invited to comment on issues like that? Well, my understanding is that's part of the public process that the state dictates. By then, whether it's preferred site or not, it's already been decided though. So it's too late to have any input. If you want to retask the planning commission with this process and the rest of the board wants to do that, I'm more than happy to take it on again. But that's where it's gonna happen. I think it's up to the select board to decide the criteria. That's fine. If you want to do that, then we can work that out. And this is Brendan again, just a quick note. And I don't mean, I want to be very clear, I'm not trying to diminish in any way the importance of the preferred siting process. But I just wanted to make a note of the words that were just used that it's too late. Certainly you can, there's no going back on the preferred site process, but it's not too late during the state process for the input of the neighbors. That's actually not too late. That's specifically designed to incorporate the feedback from the neighbors. That's when it was supposed to happen. And that's what we understood when we decided to take the route we took on the planning commission level. And so there's a, I don't know if everybody has noticed or not, but there are a couple of items in the chat. And I think it'd be nice if the folks who authored those items wouldn't mind just repeating it verbally for the point of the meeting. I think that would be helpful. So Jenny Carter had one, is she still with us? Jenny, would you be willing to talk a little bit about your comment in the chat? I just saw Jenny's chats. Actually, that is true. Those are things we looked at also, Primax oils. And the wildlife corridor. And wildlife, yes. And so you can unmute. Okay. Oh, wait, there I did. I thought that was a function on your end of muting the audience unless you'd called on them. So yeah, as Barry said, those have been a couple of common concerns. And I was glad that Josh put in the chat as well about the town plan. I was just trying to look up the town plan where the land use policy G is, but that also seems like a appropriate place for you all to look. And I do always appreciate the work the planning commission has done. Cause I've been on it, but isn't it in this process? Perry, you can correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't been involved in this process and you obviously have. Aren't they two separate votes unlike a zoning amendment, which the planning commission proposes and gives to the slack board for the slack board to adopt. I was under the impression that they're two separate votes for the preferred citing. And I do think, and I too, like Pat was saying, Pat was saying, I'm a huge solar proponent. So don't get me wrong. And who I worked for does community solar. And I think the world of Norwich technologies and from what I've seen of this particular proposal, it looks like what we're looking for in a solar site, but just putting on my general policy hat that has nothing to do with this particular project. I do feel what Pat and Larry are saying about, it's hard to sort of say you approve something without at least having in your own mind some criteria to go through. And Josh may speak to what's in the town plan. That seems like a logical place to look, even if they're not formal criteria as having some informal criteria. And I would just say from a legal point of view, making a decision without generally speaking, making a decision without any criteria for which you make it, and you're gonna have different projects come before you, I would think would open you up to more liability for your decisions being arbitrary. So the planning commission, it sounds like you guys had some things that you had in mind. So maybe it's just a matter of sharing them with the select board. So they say, yep, we agree with those things you use Perry and kind of like the, in some ways that is sort of like the zoning amendment process. Yep, we agree with you and we're ready to sign off on it. But I totally understand Larry and Pat's kind of queasiness of not having something to hang their hats on as to why they're voting in favor of it or against it. Yeah, thank you, Jenny. That actually expresses what I was feeling quite nicely. And so we've heard about very clearly that the siting visually seems to be acceptable. It doesn't seem like, this seems like the kind of best case scenario in a lot of ways. It's hard to picture it being too much better than what we have here. And it sounds like ag soils were considered as well as effects on wildlife. So maybe we could hear a little more about what the planning commission found when discussing those items, Perry or Josh. You can take it, Josh. Yeah, I mean, I think this process, the meeting that they had was very similar to the last year's process with Norwich where the siting that was proposed looked at the impact on the aesthetics and scenic and natural beauty, historic significance and natural resources of the areas and looked at it from whether or not it could be viewed from I-89, state highways, any town roads and neighboring properties and looked at how it would affect in a holistic way. And I think they found when looking at it in a holistic way that the project itself did not have an adverse effect, adverse impact on any of those sort of criteria. So they talked about at least the two solar projects that they've been involved in over the last year. And those are the criteria that are listed or things to consider in policy G in the town plan underneath the land use section. So I'm not familiar with that particular section. So when the planning commission meets, it's actually sitting there with those criteria in that section in front of them and are kind of going through them on a point-by-point basis and discussing their impacts for each. Well, we didn't have a checklist. We went through this process last year, last March with another solar array. So I think everybody became more familiar with what they were supposed to be looking at. And certainly, that was come to the planning commission twice last year too. So they were really familiar with the project. And so they were familiar with the criteria also. Brendan did a really good job explaining the project. So they felt comfortable and confident that it did meet the sort of the goals that were laid out. Okay, thanks, Josh. Larry, do you mind if I offer a little additional information? No, please go ahead, Brendan. Okay, just on those points, such as the soils and those other criteria, those are specifically considered in that state certificate of public good process. And in fact, when a permit is issued, it needs to address a larger set of criteria, including those kind of intern. And so it's explicitly part of that process. And the reason they do that is because the state agencies with the professional understanding of things like wildlife and soils and historic resources are the agencies that are tasked with making those evaluations. So kind of bringing those resources to bear. And that's the intent of the process. Thank you, Brendan. That's helpful. As we're getting sort of more, as I'm wrapping my head around this a little bit more as we discuss this, it makes me really wonder sort of, if they're gonna be looking at these issues in this kind of detail in the next step, and that's not really the sort of thing that we're really tasked with thinking about at this stage of the process, that the select board, I'm just sort of, I guess I'm a little confused as to like what the intent is about the select board's role in this process. Like what value are we adding by signing off or not signing off on the preferred, on this preferred, being a preferred site? Like what, can someone help me sort of think through like what the overall rationale is of how we fit into the bigger process? Because it, under what grounds would we say, oh no, we can't possibly do this, this is a terrible idea. Well, I guess I'm happy to volunteer a shot at that. This is Brendan again. So part of it is looking at the alternative, which is what existed before the preferred signing process came into play. So this is back before 2017. In that process, the entire process was state. And I think while the preferred citing process might be kind of admittedly as I've gone through it several times, a little vague and somewhat frustrating and I know it's spurred a lot of effort on towns to try to do enhanced energy plans and other things. It certainly has achieved the goal even today in engaging folks early on the local level, as opposed to a state process that is wholly, that's begun and is kind of less formally including the town. So if the conclusion is this a little bit messy and big, but we're engaged in paying attention, I think that's kind of the intent. And certainly there are some examples where towns have made a very reasonable decision not to confer preferred citing. And it's, I haven't seen a case when that was the wrong decision. Larry, I could just add to this some, if you look at the legislation on a lot of these things, the legislature views the planning commission as kind of having the vision overall for the town when it comes to development and criteria, how to develop and all that. The select board is your governing body that has the final say basically. This process is requiring a project to go through the planning commission to do all the review and detail and interaction. And then it comes to the select board to have the final say. It's the select board that has to sign that letter along with the planning commission. So I'm looking at process. I don't know that it makes the most sense for us to have a set of criteria in our town plan that the planning commission looks at. And then the select board to have a different set of criteria that we look at to decide if we're gonna agree with the planning commission. We've appointed these people on this committee and asked them to play that role and to do all that legwork for us and whatnot. And the reason we have things structured this way is so we don't have to get into the weeds on every little thing that comes before us. So if we trust that these folks have done their due diligence and played that role, then ours is just some questioning to see if we understand what they base that decision on for that project to then give that final blessing. So I think you see that in a lot of different areas where the planning commission signs along with the select board. And I think that's what the intent is when that goes through legislative language development. Yeah, no, the training that makes a lot of sense. And it makes me think about really how we get input from other committees and commissions that go through something in detail. And then we've basically asked them a few questions to make sure we understand how they arrived at the decision that they arrived at and barring, thinking that they did something wrong or were negligent or something like that that we basically go along with that decision. And this is an analogous process. This is really what is becoming more and more clear to me. So my suggestion would be here that, you know, the select board members read this section in the town plan that the planning commission is working on because the select board approved the town plan. And so didn't to Riverside-Aquiche. So, you know, we painted a pretty broad paintbrush here to be able to get these projects to the next phase, which is where a lot of that public input is going to come from on a state level. And we're not the experts in all this stuff. So, you know, we are relying upon the state process, you know, Act 248 to kind of review this entire project. So, and we don't really want to go down a path of picking for third sites. I can tell you that right now. Larry, I would stand by what I said that I would feel much better if there was a hearing where neighbors were notified, had a chance to speak, and somebody, either the planning commission or us took that into account. Otherwise, we're just rubber stamping. I mean, that's one argument that I've heard. Well, we rubber stamp what the planning commission does. Well, if we're there, I think there's some reason we're there. And we need to be the ones that make up the criteria. We could take some of what the planning commission uses or all of them or whatever, and at what point do we trust the people that we appoint to these commissions? Like, why would we have a separate set of criteria from the planning commission and go through a full evaluation of a project that we've just asked volunteers to do? Well, this is all a new process, which I think people are just starting to learn. It may not be that good a process. I personally, like Jenny said, don't feel comfortable approving something without criteria that either allowed. Have you read the town plan? I have read it, yes. And the policy that we adopted and the criteria we adopted under this land use? I believe I've read the town plan, yes. Right, but have you looked, I think some of what's missing here, Pat, is looking at what this criteria is that the planning commission has followed in coming to their conclusion. And maybe you need to look at what that criteria is and decide if you're comfortable with that criteria. If you're not, then make some suggestions to the planning commission on changes they could make to that criteria or how the changes of what gets presented to the select board in these cases. I would repeat if the approval of a select board is needed, I think they need to have criteria to judge it by. If the criteria is the planning commission approved it, so we'll automatically approve it, we could do that. But I think we need to make up the criteria. I said this at the Gifford meeting. So are you asking us to rewrite the town plan because that's essentially what you're saying you're gonna have to do here is rewrite the town plan. Perry, I'm not talking about redoing anything. What I'm doing is saying that the step that we take is based on something and make sense and the neighbors have had a chance, they've been invited to a hearing to have input. So Pat, why don't you take a stab at drafting the criteria you think the select board should consider when we're reviewing this type of application? I would be willing to work with town staff on that. So I think what you're saying is that you're actually going to have to rewrite the town plan and you're gonna have to go through that process in order to add your criteria to this. That's just my two cents from two and a half years of reviewing this. I think you're right, Perry. It's gonna require not only a town plan amendment but somewhere we're gonna have to end up with a formal policy or document that talks about what the select board is gonna review and how it's gonna come before them and whatnot, which to me then questions why the planning commission is in there but maybe I'm missing something. I think you're gonna write back into the same weeds field that you were in two and a half to three years ago. I believe you're correct. It sounds to me like the planning commission did go through a list of criteria that they considered in terms of this site. Once in the town plan, Larry. So. This is Jenny again. I don't know if I can ask to interject. Is that okay with the chair? Jenny, please go ahead. So I did just take a quick look at the town plan and I will say I'm not sure if it really has anything that directly addresses community solar, addresses commercial and industrial solar from at least from the provision that Josh referenced. So I just wanna put that on the table because I'm not sure if the town plan really does address it but I think you're on the right track though. If the planning period sounded like you did say that the planning commission had some specific criteria it did look at and if the planning commission would just share that with the select board. It sounds like that might be what you need. Now, I think Pat's question about a public hearing is maybe a totally different one that I'll keep my nose out of but in terms of it did sound like Perry you were saying that the planning commission did use some criteria and maybe the solution here is for the planning commission to share that criteria with the select board because there isn't really too much in the town plan I don't think. So it sounded like Perry you said, I know when I was there you guys asked about or I asked about Primag soils and oh I'm drawing a blank on his name from Norwich soil, Brendan, I'm sorry Brendan. Brendan sort of showed how there weren't any Primag soils it's on a slope. Brendan did say that he had looked at the wildlife corridors maps and while they're not always complete because we've heard from the neighbors that they're dear I believe Brendan said, wildlife weren't an issue. Correct me if I'm wrong Brendan. So do you have some criteria you were looking at and that maybe you just need to share those with the select board and that could really go a long way towards resolving this issue. And that site it wasn't gonna be viewed so you looked at sort of the scenic implications and it wasn't gonna be viewed from anybody by the road and I don't know what the implications are for the neighbor. So it does seem like the planning commission did use some criteria and I just think you need to elucidate those and two rivers out of Quiche actually has a number of those criteria in there. I was just looking at that. They have criteria that they look at to decide whether or not they think a particular project is appropriate and the couple of other things I noticed they had in there in addition to the scenic was wetlands and how far it was from a river corridor. They just had a few like they had a few basic things two rivers does in their checklist when they're taking a look at our project. So I don't think you need to necessarily have anything really formal but it would be nice at the planning commission on the select board were on the same page and there. Well, I think Josh kind of explained that when we started the process and Brendan's presentation to us addressed all that criteria. So I don't think it was like, yeah, no, we didn't sit there with a checklist and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all in that. So when we felt that we'd seen what we needed to see here it's in an area that can't be seen. It's not near any streams. It's there's no wetlands in the area. You're absolutely right. Didn't seem to be there was any prime ag soils to deal with. So I think we kind of addressed that already. Is this is Brendan, am I curable? Are people hearing me? Yes. Okay, thank you. I just one just for fun for completeness. It is a mapped deer wintering area but this is a good example of what happens during the state process is there's an actual visit from Ann Ar and they look at how it functions, how the site functions actually. So they do general mapping and they'll look at the specific functionality of that area. And as we can tell from the plan a bunch of logging had been done there since the mapping took place. And then they will often put some reasonable bounds on the permit. So say for instance, if there's a permit to put solar in where there's deer wintering they'll limit the time of year that the installation can take place so that it doesn't disturb the deer wintering function. And so that's just a good example of a specific example of how the state process functions and where we take advantage of their expertise. Thank you, Brendan. Are there comments or questions? Yeah, Tom. Yeah, I was in some kind of Zoom limbo land there for a while and no one was hearing me when I tried to speak but I just wanted to address the issue that has been raised that somehow has not been subjected to sufficient public process thus far. We heard earlier that all of the planning commission meetings relative to this project were duly warned so I don't understand how that allegation can be made. And I also just wanna reinforce that the next step in this process as we've heard repeatedly tonight has a robust public engagement component to it that will impact the final decision that has been made at the state level. So I feel like we're getting mired down in a lot of sort of bureaucratic weeds here and I just wanna put that out there. I'd like to address that Tom, just I didn't say that it hadn't been the process hadn't been in public. What I was said was that the neighbors hadn't been notified of the hearing so they knew to come to it. Nobody was trying to hide it, hide it, it was a public process but nobody was trying to alert the neighborhood so that they could make their comment. But then I would put the question to Trevor and Josh, does our current public notification process for these kinds of things mandate of butters and neighbors being directly notified because I don't think that's the case. You are correct. The only time where we actually send out letters to a butters are with Development Review Board meetings. Right. Otherwise it's public notice on the website and two or three different places around town. Exactly. And the paper. And subdivision, right? The subdivision is done by the DRB. Yeah, those are all DRB processes. That's a separate process to notify the neighbors. Any application that has you, the butters list gets mailed out for every application regardless if it's conditional use site plan review or subdivision review. So any application that goes to the DRB, all of their butters are informed. So this process bypasses that because of Act 248. Harry, can you elaborate on that briefly? So that's the state requirement for these processes. This doesn't go to the DRB. The DRB doesn't approve solar and certificates of public good. That's not the DRB's role. We don't look at those processes. So when the town plan's written and the zoning documents are derived from the town plan, we're excluded. The DRB is excluded from these types of projects. That's state statute. That's part of why the legislation, Larry has the Planning Commission weighing in. The Planning Commission's role is the vision of the town and how it impacts overall, right? On what's going on and then the select board approving. So it has two different bodies that weigh in on it, but they don't, aren't required to get a local zoning permit. But I think for tonight, like the idea of do, you know, should we change our process? Should we have different criteria? Should we have a different public notice process when the planning commission's going on? Those are all good discussions, but they're not moving the issue at hand. Brendan's application is on our current process and was filed under our current process. And so I think the debate over, do we change this process in the future is a good one, but it's not really relevant to what Brendan's trying to get done here tonight. I agree. Now that I understand the process better and our role in it, I certainly feel a lot more comfortable making a decision. My only thought going forward would just be that perhaps when these come up again, that we do, you know, formally contact a butters so that they're notified of these planning commission meetings, just as a courtesy, even if we aren't required to by statute. And that's my last comment, I think. Other folks want to weigh in before we take this up for vote? This is Pat. I would just comment that whether or not I vote for this tonight, I will vote no on all future ones unless we have a process which shows that we actually considered something. I think these people doing this project are probably honorable, reputable people that you don't know in the future without criteria, what sort of projects we could end up with? Other comments? Well, I guess I can make a motion then that we'll approve the Norwich solar project to move this process along. I will second that. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. The ayes have it. Just for the record, I recuse some. Thanks for that note, Trini. All right, now that we're past this agenda item, I will pass it back to you, Trini. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you. And I appreciate the time that everybody spent discussing this and good night. Thank you very much. Thanks, Brandon. Next up is a much more positive discussion and a happy event. And that's renaming Elm Street Park to Rosalind Park. I have not heard a single soul opposed to this. So if there are any comments or questions from the board on this, I'll entertain those, otherwise we'll entertain a motion. I move that we rename the Elm Street Park in honor of Rosalind Burgess as Rosalind Park. Second that. Some, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? I'm stating it. Motion carries. What type of public event are we going to do to recognize her? This renaming or assign or unveiling the sign naming it Rosalind Park, there should be some type of a very public event. That does that. Yeah, if I may add to that or a comment on that, when the arts and culture committee moved the process of putting Paul Coulter's sculpture in the main garden there, we talked in terms of having an outdoor post COVID dedication ceremony of both the sculpture and potentially the renaming of the park. I don't know if there are any remaining funds in the funds that were raised to facilitate the installation of the sculpture. But if there are, one of the things we had talked about was making some signage both for the sculpture and for the park itself upon its renaming. And coincident with that, we had talked about potentially having a live concert and dedication ceremony in the park featuring a local band. Paul Coulter himself apparently is a musician. So those were some of the things that we kicked around back when the sculpture was installed last fall. So could we kick this back to your committee, Tom, to come up with what that looks like? Sure, or maybe we could do that in collaboration with Parks and Rec since it is now sort of an officially recognized as Rosalind's park. But our committee, the arts and culture committee meeting is next Tuesday by Zoom. I can certainly ask for this to be added to the agenda. Great. It appears in the action sheet relative to this that I saw somewhere that there was a June 8th presentation at Chandler. It's in the letter from the garden club from Sunny that there was going to be a presentation honoring Ros with this Vermont Public Places Award or honoring the garden, I should say more accurately. Does anybody know if that actually happened? Yep. It did. It did. It did. Okay, we should certainly reference that at whatever event we plan for the renaming of the park and the dedication of the sculpture as well. Cause I know that got written up in the hurl but I wasn't aware until I saw this letter that that was happening. I'll put it on the agenda for Arts and Culture next week and we'll see if we can come up with something maybe in a July timeframe. Great. Thank you. Sure. There seems to be a huge amount of support out there for this name change. Oh, absolutely. Finally take place. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So next up is a discussion on the municipal tax capacity. This was a request from Larry to add to the agenda. So I see he just went off screen. We'll let him explain what the topic was about. No, this wasn't me. What? Oh, you know what? It's cause of the label. I'm sorry. This was me. I'm sorry. The way it was worded and it threw me for a loop and I was distracted at this end too. Yeah. So, you know, there's been a lot of talk about the roads lately. Been hearing that on Facebook and from other folks that our roads need attention. And it's not like the select board is not aware of this, of course. I mean, we know that the roads need more attention. Of course the problem is that it's expensive to repay roads. And, you know, we're very fiscally prudent and we try to keep taxes level and not raise rates. And we've been doing a really good job of that over the last number of years. But there might be folks out there who would be willing to spend some money on roads if we ask them. And I'm wondering if it would be a good idea for us to engage in a process that we can work with the public and make some sort of a plan and see where people are at. And we might find that people are, you know, already at their limits. And there's not a lot of appetite for raising money, additional monies for paving roads. But we might find that people are, you know, or at least lots of people, many people, enough people would be willing to spend a little of their money to improve our roadways. But we won't know unless we ask. And one of the ways that I thought we might do this, and I'll talk about this a little bit, is there's some now some, you know, web-based software out there, which is basically it's designed for exactly this kind of process. Engaging the public, finding out what people think, working on, you know, finding consensus, finding solutions to problems which can be complicated and doing so in an efficient manner and in an inclusive way. And so one thought that I had was, was actually sort of, you know, introducing you to the software which I've come across, I don't think really is the, a good use of our time in a select board meeting. It's kind of, it is pretty involved. But, and I'm not sure just discussing it is all that helpful anyway. I think you actually need to see it and use it to get a sense of really what its effectiveness could be or how appropriate it would be for our situation. So I just kind of wanted to throw it out there, you know, sort of these, I guess this is kind of a multiple prompt sort of discussion. One is, you know, do we want to entertain any kind of discussion about whether we want to raise money for roads? If so, how do we do it and how much does that pay? And then what kind of public participation would we like to have? Is it something more traditional where we have, you know, public hearings and note takers and the select board makes a decision or do we want to have something which is maybe a little more sophisticated and, you know, and technology-based, which could do a different kind of a job? And then what does it look like when we get to the end of that process? And so I guess I would love to hear what other people think, but before I sort of see the stage here, I'll just say one possibility is to have the select board and maybe some sort of invited folks take a look at the software and sort of give it a trial run, not to make any decisions, but just to play around with it and become familiar with it over some period of time. And then we could have a discussion at a later date about whether it makes sense to move forward with it in any kind of formal way. And then the other discussion would be, you know, if we do decide that we would like to move forward with something like this, you know, how do we do it? Is it just a part of the regular budget process? Is it something that is its own item on a ballot for our next town meeting day where we could let the public weigh in? And so anyway, it is a multifaceted process of potential work. And I just thought it'd be nice for us to think about this as a group for a little bit. And that's the point of this agenda item. Okay, so one of the things I struggle with here is I'm not sure it automatically goes to raising tax rates. And I think the discussion ought to be broader more based on, let's stop, what is the need? I don't know that the Capital Budget Committee has got their hands around where the needs are and what that looks like, right? So going out to the public to talk about raising more money really should come when we know what it's for. Here's our scope of roads, here's what they need. Here's kind of what these values look like. But then I'm not really sure that's a step we ought to be taking anyway. And we ought to be looking at do we, we've heard this money is coming, this 400 and whatever, 1,000 plus whatever the county allocation is to RANDUP, where we should be going with some of this is into the preliminary engineering and permitting on these roads that are identified to get a scope of work and a budget. Because there is a lot of infrastructure grants coming for town highways and for different infrastructure in towns. So I think you're spot on with some of this Larry that we need to be positioning ourselves better for how we meet those needs. And the more shovel ready we're in, the better poised we are to try to secure some of these grants. And I would much rather be putting the effort into getting to that position than talking about raising property taxes and paying for it all on the backs of the taxpayers. And we just passed a few months ago, a delay in people having to pay their taxes and not getting fines and penalties because people can't afford their tax payments. Increasing those isn't gonna make that situation any better for them right now. So I think it's more on how do we position Randa to be ready to take advantage of this federal money we keep hearing is gonna cut loose anytime to do all these improvements and make the roads better for the users. Yeah, and you're absolutely right. And one of the things which we would have to do before we went to do any sort of public discussion would be to figure out what is our current situation? What are the facts on the ground? And we don't actually have those right now. So actually doing what I'm talking about right immediately would be premature. This would be something which would only happen some months from now at least when we have this kind of information in place. Like I know the budget committee and the capital planning committee are both working on establishing long-term plans. And so until we know what those look like we can't actually make any kind of decisions. We need to know exactly where we're at first. And so you're absolutely right. And definitely that's something that we certainly need to do. And that was actually one of my other questions not for this particular topic but just more generally was how is some of this money that we're expecting sort of panning out and what can we use it for? And boy would it be wonderful if we were able to meet a lot of our needs without having to raise additional money. And if we didn't need to go this route to try and figure out how to pay for roads which people would like to see not quite so bumpy there's certainly other play at times when we might find it useful to have a well-developed public tool for getting input from our community members. And so no matter sort of what plays out in terms of this particular set of infrastructure projects it might still be a good idea for us to take a look at this kind of software and see how we might use it for community discussion and outreach on the part of the town in the future. I think you're right on the software. I think there's many uses even if it's the planning commission meetings on solar but the other piece that plays into this Larry I think is we have three different bonds that the town has entered into that are gonna be paid off in fiscal year 26. And that's a good thing because we don't have bond payments anymore but it also opens up bonding authority that the town can manage should we find a larger highway project or some type of capital improvement that we need to look at. I think we've got a lot of tools that are coming up the key is to figure out what the scope of the projects are and what the dollar value is assigned to those. I would add that last night the capital planning committee started talking about a long-term not only repaving plan but also maintenance plan on our roads which would fit into what's being discussed. They started on it basically last night and are headed in that direction. So that would fit nicely with a longer term thought as to how to do what the roads need whether it's just maintenance or paving. Could you take back to them the discussion of whether just doing an overlay of pavement sometimes isn't the right solution. It may need to be a full rehab of that road. That was part of the discussion last night that we need to have the knowledge to put into that plan what condition the roads are actually in and that you might not wanna wait till roads totally broken down and start over. If you did some maintenance along the way it would last longer. So I think that's what the part of the discussion was last night. I see Trevor raking his head. Yes, it means really on top of this. Aren't you Trevor? Well, I think when you talk about, I mean, some of this all fits is, how do you sort of solve for this puzzle? And the first thing, especially with paving is getting a good handle on where are we from a condition standpoint? So then we can then prioritize, cost out schedule, program, all of those pieces. And so that's sort of, you know, that's step one. Same thing with the gravel roads money. Same thing when you talk about sort of the pieces that we have really talked about are the equipment and big trucks and other things that come out of that same pool of capital funds that need to be on some kind of regular schedule. Can we get into modes where we aren't borrowing maybe, but we are saving for those through increased reserves. And I just totaled up, to need reference the bonded debt service that'll retire around 2026. There's some of it's sewer. So I think we're talking if I got the number I'm trying to do a little quick math in my head. We might be talking about $120,000 at least I can see quick just from the bonded and dead in this pieces. Plus there's a few other equipment leases that'll expire either in no five or a little bit after that. So when you think of debt service capacity coming back online potentially either for direct expenditures, reserve transfers or some sort of subsequent borrowing activity. There's a pretty substantial chunk of change that's gonna become available. It's just at that point, but we'll need to be ready for that. And then bridge and culverts are another piece both on a small scale in the operating budget and then on a larger scale. So I think we've got some prep work to do to try to put all the pieces out there, lay it out and then have a plan that we can work toward and implement. But we're on the front end of that curve I'd say. And looking at that payment amount. I mean, if we just two of those bonds paying up open up $3 million worth of bonding authority. $3 million is a huge amount of money for road reclamation. And that may not be the only need out there, but I think we need to be putting a little bit more time and effort into this capital evaluation of where are assets at? What are our needs? What is the scope of these projects and what's the cost? And again, not necessarily because we need to bond for them, but like there is a lot of projects that are gonna be able to be done through grant funding if we're ready to go into construction with them. And we're not. We don't know what the scope is on some of these roads. In the bottom of Fish Hill, you put a skim coat of pavement on that, it's gonna look just the same in six to eight months. That one needs to be fully reclaimed at this point. And what is the cost estimate on that? We don't know. If a grant fund program opened up tomorrow to do roads, we would not be able to apply for it because we don't know what the scope is and we don't know what the cost estimates are. And I think we're just getting way behind by not doing something to ask that we start developing what some of these scopes look like in cost estimates. Yep, we might have to spend a few dollars on some engineering firms to help us out to do this, but this money that's coming our way would help us pay for those costs to be positioned and ready when these grant funds open up. Shouldn't be the misconception either that it's just the blacktop because when you start getting into those roads, you're gonna have to be looking at all the ditch restructuring and all that rip rack that you're gonna have to put in because most of those roads all have proximity to streams and that needs to be addressed. Right away line to right away line. Yep. Sometimes outside of it. Yeah, it's got a question for Larry. So in this software that you're referencing, does that take into account the folks that are not internet connected? I mean, are we gonna be able to pull them to here? That would definitely be one of the drawbacks is those people would need to be able to get online somehow. Yeah. You know, it wouldn't, well, I mean, so yes, it would be harder for those folks. They can go to the library and, you know. Well, there needs to be a metric for them to be easily engaged in the process. That's my point is just, if you're gonna do a software only thing, there's a lot of people in the community that are not connected to the internet, probably not gonna be connected to the internet. So you have to be able to reach out to them and you have to be able to kind of go back to the old fashioned way and maybe have a meeting at the high school or the Chandler or something and sit down and have a conversation. Well, yes, and you can easily incorporate face-to-face meetings. In fact, the references that I've read about with this, that is part of the recommended procedure would be to have face-to-face meetings where results are discussed and where you do actually get people in a physical room and talk about stuff. And the nice thing about the software is that it's structured in such a way that it really minimizes conflict. It really helps people come to agreeing on positions rather than just sniping at each other. And so kind of like the R3 process, correct? That was similar. Everybody got to throw their ideas, put them on a board, vote for what you thought you needed, prioritize what the needs were for the community. It's kind of similar to that. The software probably just tracks it. Yeah, I mean, what it does though too, is that it's especially designed with, I mean, you could use it to discuss anything, but it's specifically useful for situations where you have things which might be contentious. And most of the stuff in the R3 process, we're all kind of, we might have had slightly different priorities, but we're all basically rowing the same boat. And this software would help us out in places where it might feel like a fundamentally contentious issue, like right from the get-go, you know? So that's where it could be really helpful. And so, it would be the case that certain people would have a harder time accessing it than others, but it might still be worth doing if we were able to find, you know, novel solutions to issues that we might not have been able to uncover otherwise. Okay, well, I'd just love to see it when totally, you know, I'm a total believer in technology and a lot of things, but I also wanna make sure we're gonna go back and make sure that everybody's voices are heard because, you know, there's just a lot of people that are not software savvy. Oh, absolutely. And you know, really, you know, one of the, one of my real motivations for even being interested in this stuff is, you know, having government which is transparent and responsive and really, you know, listens to, you know, the community. And we're- Oh, for good. I'm gonna laugh about that one, okay? Because they haven't been responsive to me lately, but your cohorts heard something in the legislature over there, didn't hear it. We're not going there. I'll tell you about that one later. So yeah, we have work to do, right? And one way that we can do that work is right here at the level of the town, right? We can always do better there. So anyway, this is something that I'm personally interested in terms of, you know, engaging the public. And if this is a tool that we could use to get more people engaged in our municipal government, then I think it would be great. Is it gonna reach everybody? No. No, that's why we need a mechanism. Most people aren't gonna want to, but if we can ratchet up the level of engagement a little bit, that would make me pretty happy. On this particular case, Pat would probably agree with me. We'd probably wanna make sure that engaged, somehow we engage everybody. Larry, my concern on this and coming from over here on the East Randolph side is we don't have all the high speed internet and connections that other folks do. And so to some extent, you're reaching out to the folks that have the higher technology capacity there. My other fear is there's a whole bunch of folks that are in the agricultural community that don't touch computers. And to, you know, we need to figure out a way if we're gonna use this for setting policy and getting input before we make major decisions that those folks are at the table in an equal capacity. Yeah. And, you know, and so we hear repeatedly, you know, everything happens in the village. They don't have a rec program over here in East Randolph. They, I gotta drive all the way to the village during their hours if I wanna vote. You know, you've heard it, I've heard it, everybody's heard it. This is one more thing that's gonna pile onto that belief that some folks have, which is, oh, now it looks like we're only gonna listen to people that have computer access or can understand those things. So we just gotta manage that part of it. Yes. No, I would emphatically agree with you. I would also say that this particular software that I was looking at, if you have basically any kind of web connection, you can access it, it's all text-based. There's no graphics, there's no video. It's something which would be, you know, if you have a slow DSL connection, you'd be more than speedy enough to be able to interact with this in a seamless way. It's a very low bandwidth stuff. Some days I have no bandwidth here. Yeah, that was my point. That's my point is that some people don't have any bandwidth and don't want any bandwidth but still have an opinion. Right, right. And I agree with what you both saying and I heard you completely treating, I mean, we wanna be able to have opportunity for everybody. It's just another tool in the toolkit. Okay. This is exactly though why it's a really good example of why I included in the inclusivity resolution socio-economic class. I agree. You know, it totally goes to the inclusivity question. And I totally agree with Pari and Trini on that score. But sometimes it's not that you don't have access. It's that you don't want access, right? To the computers and the digital age. You know, I would, you go and talk with some of these folks who have lived there their whole life and they're in their 70s. They're not going to log on to a computer to be able to talk to the local folks about anything. And they may own some of the larger parcels of property in this town and pay some of the higher tax bills. You know, my dad owned plenty of property in this town and he wouldn't ever know how to, he wouldn't have been able to log on to a computer to have this conversation. And he, I can tell you, cause I did it for quite a few years and I still do. His property tax bill came in a Manila envelope. So, you know, when we look at who's supporting the operations of town government, sometimes they're not the folks you think they are and we need to figure out how to reach them too because the biggest impact is on them. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. So when we get to that point, you know, we can certainly have a conversation about how to involve everybody. Right now we've got to find out what the number is. Cause I agree with Larry. I mean, you know, there's lots of people talking about we want to fix the roads and that seems to be the hottest priority, but we don't even have a clue what that number looks like right now. What that scope is or, you know, need the scope to know which funding pots we can go after. And we're just not positioned to go after them. And then I like to give direction to Trevor to start, you know, figuring out what the scopes of these projects are. And even if it means we got to bring on some consultant help to get the scope and the budget estimates together to do that. Because if we're just sitting here unprepared, we're not going to get as much of this funding as we potentially could. Yep. I would agree with that. Anybody opposed to having Trevor work on and figuring out what these items are and a scope, even if it's with the capital budget committee to do the priority. I think it should be in conjunction with the capital budget committee. So. And I mean, somewhere the capital budget committee has got to get scopes and dollar values to help them with, right? And then they prioritize it. Right. And they don't have to make a difference. Yep. The quicker we can get the scopes and dollar values, the quicker we'll be poised to go after this grant funding. Yep. Good to me. Sounds like a plan. Do you need an official vote, Trevor, to do that or? I'm good to go. Yeah. If you're all good, I'm good. Okay. Do you have any more conversation on municipal tax capacity? Hearing none, we'll move to considering authorizing a tax anticipation note RFP. So I'm filling in for Cliff, I suppose, on this one. This is just the annual request to go out, put that request for proposals out there. This is the funding we used to bridge from, say the beginning of the fiscal year or two, those first tax installments coming in. Prior years, we used all of it, as I understand, and in some more recent years, we haven't had to use all of that capacity, but it's nice to have it if you need it. So this will just let us go out and see what we can find for lenders and rates and all that. So this is an annual solicitation that we do. I move we approve the sending of the RFP. I'll second it. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Stained? Motion carries. All right. Water shut off resumption plan. Yep, this is, we just wanted to pitch it to you and let you hear what the thought is. This is as the, anticipating that some of the COVID-related restrictions and moratoriums are set to expire, including the one related to the prohibition on water shutoffs. Sort of laying out how exactly do we get to the point where we shut somebody's water off, and then what are we gonna do to raise some awareness amongst the water and wastewater users that we're returning to that as a possibility? So you can see there's some suggested language we put in a letter that would go out with those bills. So we could make people aware that we could return to that shut off protocol. And shut off, it's one of those words. You have 37 days to pay before you become late and get charged penalties and interest. You have another 31 days from that. So you know, 69 days from the date of invoice before we get to the spot where we're contemplating shut off. And then from there, we can escalate all the way up to and through a tax sale, but we don't usually have to get to that point. What this would just provide some notice to users that the moratorium's gone and that we'll resume those practices. I think it's a relatively small number of users in any given year. But you know, this is the stick part of the carrot and stick equation. So you're okay with the generalized approach or everything you want to add. I guess that would be the feedback desired at this point. Sounds fine with me, Mark. We figured the notice would be it, rather than just suddenly send the shut off notice to, you know, send that prior notice that, hey, we're going back to these sort of older protocols. There's at least some forewarning. Any other questions or comments on the change? Any motions? I move we approve the change as suggested, as recommended. I have a question. This would be triggered by the governor's lifting the emergency, right? Yeah, it's all tied to the expiration of any moratorium put in place through the various emergency orders or any other action that might have occurred legislative or administrative, I guess. I think it's just from having attended a number of the weekly press conferences over the last several months. I think it's likely this will probably come before the end of the month, or certainly no later than 4th of July, which it looks like everything is going to be pretty much ended by then. So this is a possible. Just over 2,000 people. In just over 2,000 people, Tom, by today's numbers. Oh, really? Okay. Wow. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next up is the payment process for firefighters. So an update on the committee's work. We have the new personnel policy. I think we updated you guys three, four months ago. The challenge is on any type of compensation for whether it's pay or expense reimbursement or whatnot. The big item in there is Worker's Comp at this point. So, I don't know how much detail I went into last time on this, but if you're a volunteer fireman, the town pays Worker's Comp on your wages, but if you're injured on a fire scene, what you're eligible to receive while you're recovering is based on the amount of wages that Worker's Comp has been paid for, paid on totally. So in two of the departments, we have more than one is about 50%. The other one's closer to 60% of our volunteers working jobs on a regular basis where their wages are not covered by Worker's Comp. So this is farmers, private contractors, folks where paying that extra two to 10,000 a year for Worker's Comp is just not able to be done. So our problem is that what they would be paid if they were injured is based only on those wages that Worker's Comp is paid on. So the town pays them two to $500 a year and that's what it would be based on. So they're looking at a variety of models by which they may have some type of insurance purchase that's more like a accident insurance instead of receiving some type of an hourly wage to cover in the event they were injured to help protect some type of income for their families. This is got, we have the commissioner of financial regulation and League of Cities and Towns at the table on this discussion because it is much bigger than Randolph but we have not, we don't have a resolution at this point. We don't have a whole new procedure by which to recognize financially somehow the firefighters. So what we're asking for is to, we have I believe two firefighters from the village department that do not wanna receive an electronic payment. We're asking the board to allow this payroll to go through with the two of them receiving a check instead of an electronic payment. What's the distinction relative to Workman's Comp between the two? I'm not quite clear on that. How does the Workman's Comp issue play into the electronic deposit versus hard check? So the Worker's Comp issue is holding up the new policy manual for the fire departments and the new policy manual is the manual that says they basically have a choice between a check and a direct deposit. We're doing a different manual for the firefighters because they wanna remain as volunteers and because there was no separate full personnel policy for them, they were considered employees of the town. And the strict interpretation of that then means they have to be paid by direct deposit. So I'd like to move that we continue the board's decision to issue checks to those firefighters. How long of a period is this in effect for though? There doesn't seem to be any- So they get paid once, they get paid, Randa Center and East Randa pay once a year. Randa Village pays twice a year. So this is only for the village firefighters of which there's two. So it'll come up again in six months presumably, yeah. It potentially come up in December if we don't have a resolution yet to this, but we also have the ability if we can't get a resolution to this to remove that section of the personnel manual and move the rest of it forward, which would do this, the firefighters would like to see everything addressed in that one manual. And I understand, I get why they're kind of holding out a little bit because that's a big issue. They, whenever that tone goes off, no matter what they're doing, they drop everything and run. So how do they go on that call, whether it's into a burning building on the interstate for a call, knowing basically that their family's protected if they're injured. And unfortunately right now, we have two departments where at least half of them are not. Well, I'll go ahead and make that motion then that for this payroll period for the village department that we continue with the current policy of direct payment to those two via check. We have a motion with no second. No, Pat seconded. Pat, yeah. I thought I heard Pat seconded. It was quiet. Yeah. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next up is the public assembly event applications. We have one for the parade, one for International Make Music Day and one for the fireworks. Are we good to assume we can take all these as one or is there certain ones you'd like to single, do them one by one? I think we do them all at once. I'll have a question about the parade. Maybe with Beanville Road, closed, are we gonna have any trouble with routing traffic? That's Heidi. I don't think so. I can talk with the sheriff Scott and see if he's thought about that or if we have another route. We might be able to, because we communicate with those, I mean, it's really those impact in businesses sort of that are down closer to the Culver Project and we could reach out to them, essentially say, hey, there's a parade from XAM to from this period of time, that route's gonna be closed. So if you can essentially not schedule deliveries, pick up somehow work around that, maybe we can mitigate the need further to even be a truck headed that way and head off any of these potential issues to the extent possible. Otherwise, they might have to sit outside the parade route until it reopens and clear. Cause won't sort of the normal traveling public, well, if they come through town at that time, we'll have to just wait, right? Yeah, they'll be in the same spot. Unless they can sneak into the parade, they'll be waiting, which we don't incur. As the parade gets closer, we can make some of those announcements on Facebook and from course forum, reminding them that the road is closed. Most of the folks that travel through town anyway, know to avoid it. It's not those that we're gonna have to worry about. It's the folks that are outside of town and they're just passing through or whatnot. But I think Larry's right that if you sit near the beginning of the parade, one of your ways out is to come down and cut out Beanville to head back to Route 12 and head south out of town. And then depending where you're going, you take some of the back roads to get back around. So they won't have it this year, Larry, is basically the challenge, right? They won't have the Beanville road, but that might help us on the intersection with Beanville and 12. Yeah. We all can do is those public announcements and keep reminding people of the closure and then reaching out to those businesses that have trucks coming in on a Saturday morning. And most of them, if we reached out to them today, would let those companies know not to come Saturday morning. Yeah. Sounds good. I just was curious what the thoughts were about that. Any other questions on the three applications? If not, any motions? Yeah, I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing motion carries. We have a draft facility use and rental policy on the agenda that was sent out in advance. Any questions on that policy? Comments? Motions? I'll move that we accept the rec facility and park use policy. The motion and the second, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained motion carries. Thanks Heidi for your work on that. Thank you. And it's a lot of it was with the rec committee with Larry Davion and just engaged. It was a year process and with their help we were able to get this done. So it was a good project. Thank you for a fascinating. Great. It also builds a good foundation for adding the rest of our facilities into a structured format. Yes. And remember, now I'm gonna update our software our registration software. We can do our facility requests there too. And so I've already started the summer with the picnic shelter and it's working pretty good. So we can put all the facilities on there. It's one site and then when we start getting the online stuff, it'll be easy to manage. So it's all there in the software that I use on a daily basis. So it's gonna work out nice. Excellent. Thank you. So next up we have grants, a summers matter grant. I believe this is just us accepting the grant. Yep, last time you authorized the application and it quickly came through. So this is essentially accepting it and we'll, they've got to turn around timeline for tomorrow. So we're queued up to get it signed and get it back out the door. Nice. Pretty close to first thing tomorrow morning. I move the acceptance of the grant. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained. Motion carries. Any old business, Trevor? I don't think anything old. How about anything other? Other business, yeah. Old or other. I mean, I could go through the manager's report stuff and you can see if that's old or other, I suppose. Well, now we'll give you your own line item. The next line I wanted to put on the agenda is manager's report. All right, I feel very special. We, they've been mentioned. They've been mentioned earlier of the, some of the ARPA funds, they've updated those totals. I don't know if you remember back in May, we were thinking it would be about 453,000. That number's up to a little less than 480,000. So we gains $27,000 or so. I'm not entirely sure why other than they've, I think clarified some of the calculations based on that. There's still no word on the county funding in terms of the amounts. There's a little note on the VLCT website that they'll update that as soon as they can. It seems like maybe there's some guidance from the treasury that's changed where originally I think that money was gonna go back to this, just to the state and then somewhere back out from there. Sounds like now they're gonna go a process where it goes to the county structure that does exist back to the state and then maybe back out. And then they've also clarified some of the payment schedules. So now it looks like it's gonna be, the application window has opened. So we have 30 days from Tuesday to apply for the first round of funds, but then they're just split 50, 50. So we're talking 240 each time. The next window will be a year later, spring of 2022. And then there isn't really any change in the guidance that we reviewed last time. So it'll be one of those where we make sure that we get it, that'll be the focus. And then we'll have some time to fully digest what we may be able to use with it. Some of those guidelines we're gonna, the way they're structured, we may have to get a little creative in deployment. But we have time, funds have to be obligated by the end of calendar year 2024 and then spent by the end of calendar year 2026. So there's a little bit of a window for sure to figure these things out and see how things evolve. So it was a good update and that we suddenly had more money coming than we expected, but we still. I remember if I could ask where are those numbers coming from when you get the updates? Are they coming directly from the feds? Are they coming from the state? Where is the? They come at, I think these updates were from, if I understood the note right when I looked today, it was from Treasury, the Treasury Department that the numbers had been updated. The early US. Yeah, I think I could double check, there's a section right on the VLCT page and go and check that out. I thought those were from Treasury where the clearance, because they also link to some of the, how do we calculate your non entitlement unit funding? And then the other one, Beanville roads moving along. We're still on schedule. We can't get in the stream early, but there was a meeting on site that clarified that we can do quite a bit around the stream in preparation, which should help with the project schedule. There was a little bit of a frightening moment in that they went to begin excavating the outlet side. So that's where the other fiber optic cable had been or still is. And they found three more lines of fiber optic cable. So there was a little bit of what have we got here, but it turned out that those have long since been out of use and they were able to remove them and continue with excavation today. The other side, the remaining lines that need to be moved are just the Comcast and EC fiber lines. And once they do that, that'll clear that whole zone to excavate both ends. So they're moving along pretty well there, still on those targets. We've got a few calls about truck traffic and speed and it's been a mix of folks on the open part. One or two calls about trucks on Maple Street. And then actually some of the other calls from folks who've been coming from the South and have gone down Beanville road to have sort of disregarded the first set of signs, made it to the second set of signs and then decided it was really closed and had to turn around right there in one of the pieces of private property right nearby. Then what else? We have a pool opening. I think did Heidi jump off yet? Somewhere between the 19th and the 21st is what we've been talking about. There were some issues getting it up and running. We think they actually have turned out maybe a little better than sort of the worst case scenario looked the other day. There was a leak at, there's sort of two lines going up each side. If you remember each of those, sort of the out and the in is the easiest way to think of it. So the little jets or eyes shoot the water and chlorine back in. And so if you go up the one side that wasn't repaired a few or replaced a few years ago, it was that final jet. You turn the water on to turn the pool pump on and it came sort of shooting out of the side through the concrete. So we were able to make a small cut, get in there, see if it could be repaired, diagnose that it couldn't. So then we were able to cut and cap it. So we'll be down one jet, but because of where it is on the loop, there'll be plenty of water movement, chlorine activity. So we're gonna be able to open on time, smaller concrete patch, but we'll have to go back in in the fall and there might be a way to essentially core out and replace what we need to replace there. But this will at least get us through the season and buy us some time before we have to do that repair. So that worked out really well. And that was a really good buildings and grounds, parks and recreation and water, wastewater all came together to help patch us through this. And we even got an assist from former building and grounds personnel and highway personnel who knew how to operate the pool where Bill Morgan actually helped with some guidance on that. Claude, who normally doesn't have to leave town quickly for a family situation. So we were without his knowledge and that complicated that activity. So that was an all hands on deck as it turned out. And published the paving bids. We've updated the mask guidance internally to match the state's guidance. We have here in the building a fully vaccinated set, but we're still wearing masks. We interact with the public and other scenarios and same thing with the folks out in the field. The guidance is that essentially that anyone who's on vaccine still has to wear that mask in a vehicle and equipment in the buildings. But I think we're down to a very low number of employees without giving away too much might only be a single one at this point who's not all the way through. And then we can start to think about reopening and the target is around that July 1st to July 5th timeline. And some of that ties in to make sure we understand the guidance as it evolves as we hit the 80% threshold. And then some of it's also just tied to we've got a few people out or who will be out. Cliff will be gone in and will be gone in addition to all the other sort of variables that are in there. And it makes some sense that we can hit it when we fully know what the guidelines are and we're at full capacity. So that when we open up, we're ready to rock. I think those are the pieces I had on my note sheet here. Any questions for Trevor? We're talking about. This is for Trini and Trevor. You were talking about Fish Hill needing more than a layer of pavement, Trini, is that? How's that gonna feed into us going out for repaving bids? The bid has it as a reclaim and repave. So going down to that sub base material, essentially chewing it up and trying to do a more comprehensive job. I think the question will be when we see the bids, is there enough in that capital line on them to actually achieve that level of work? And so you have Fish Hill roads, the reclaim and repave and then the other project that was listed was Weston Street, which is a shim and overlay with about 500 feet of school street up. Basically when you make the corner by the tracks up to that first speedboat. So those are the two pieces that are in there. And we should have that for review for that July meeting based on the timing and possible award, but it'll be availability and price might dictate whether or not we can actually follow all the way through. And right now, bids are all over the place. So materials themselves are higher. Pavement has a fuel component in it, which is driving that price to some extent, but there's also so much work out there that contractors are not hungry. So they're bidding high. So we're seeing very few projects at the state level coming in even close to the estimates. So that could be an interesting bid to see where they come in at. Any other questions for Trevor? Seeing none. Next is executive session. Entertaining motion to move into, yeah. Ask a question. Do you mean to H under new business or did you skip that on purpose? We dealt with H on the one I'm looking at. Are you looking at the older agenda, Pat, where it had the wastewater agreement? Yeah, the wastewater eligible heading drive. Yeah, Monday or Tuesday, that was removed. There's some resolution to that payments in the process of being resumed. So there wasn't a need to go back and look at that agreement and do anything any different at this point. Good, thank you. Yeah. So entertain a motion to move into executive session for labor relations. So moved. Second. Second. We're gonna pick you at random because you're in stereo. We'll motion in a second to go into executive session. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So Trevor, if you could shut off the recording that would be good. Yeah. Yeah.