 Call the meeting to order at 602. They have a fairly decent amount of attendance. So we'll just make sure that. Give Teresa a minute to write down anybody's names that may be on. And if you haven't any for anybody that's in person, if you haven't done so already, just make sure either now or before you leave, just put your name on the sign in sheets. We have that minutes. Just a sound check just so to make sure you can hear me. Loud and clear, Jean. That was better than in the beginning, much better for me. I have a little hearing loss. Yeah, there was too many people talking, I think Norman. So I had a hard time hearing you too. So first on the, the agenda is to prove the agenda. Is there any amendments to the agenda this evening? Not that I'm aware of. Just need a motion to approve. Second. Okay. All in favor. And then one thing I just wanted to bring up because we will have. A couple of topics that are going to come up later on. Is we'll just kind of use the process of. When we get feedback from the audience, kind of like our public comment, you know, we'll do three to five minutes per person. Okay. So we'll just make sure everybody has chance to talk and then we can go to seconds if necessary. Is that sound fine with board? Okay. And then for anybody that's on the zoom. Just if you do have something. At any point, just use the razor hand icon and. And Teresa and I will get to you. I don't know if you don't, but. All right. So first on the agenda, we have appointment at six oh five. So I'm assuming you're. Substituting in this evening because I have different names on the agenda item. So. I don't see Bob, but I see Al. I had written Bob, but I assume that's Norman Cohen and. You're absolutely right. Bob is enjoying, if you can hear me, Bob's enjoying a vacation out in Vancouver, taking a train back. So he's on a slow ride back to Vermont. So Norman, I decided we could adequately substitute for Bob. So I'm now that's Norman. I'm sure you can. Well, good for him. I'm glad he's enjoying some time off. So I was just going to introduce the declaration and then turn it over to those two if that's all right. Yeah. You can hear me. Okay. Okay. Great. So thank you all. We're super excited to. Present the declaration of inclusion to a slack board today. It's something that we've been talking about in the equity inclusion committee for. Probably the better part of six months. And before we do this, I just wanted to really sincerely thank you all for your leadership around equity and inclusion. It's been really exciting to be a part of this committee and to be a part of supporting the town in efforts towards equity. And there's some really key parts, I think that are the successes that we've had and that you all have led like this right here, having a zoom hybrid meeting that creates more accessibility for people to be able to attend. I know we've got some folks on this meeting who are in other towns and some folks who are parents and you know, it's just this is this is the work right here. The new website policies, the conversations that we've had around racial justice and color blindness. The work that Lynn Lee and Christie are starting to do with the statewide ideal Vermont initiative. I mean, these are all just examples of your leadership. And so we're really grateful for that. And hopefully this is just another piece of that movement together. So the Declaration of Inclusion is a statement that almost half of the towns in the state have adopted at this point. And the statement reads that the town of Bethel condemns racism and welcomes all persons regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, age, income or disability and wants everyone to feel safe and welcome in our community. As a town, we formally condemn all discrimination in its forms, commit to fair and equal treatment of everyone in our community and will strive to ensure that all of our actions, policies and operating procedures reflect this commitment. The town has and will continue to be a place where individuals can live freely and express their opinions. So tonight the EIC is introducing the declaration and asking that the town adopt this declaration. I will say that we, having Gene having attended one of our meetings, we did include income as a part of the sort of general categories of folks that we really want to name as being protected in our community. And we also, we also proposed this or brought this to the planning commission because we wanted to get a sense of what the planning commission thought about how this language complements where we're going as far as our town plan. And so I also included the notes from that May planning commission meeting where unanimously the planning commission said it supported this language and would be excited to include this in the next town plan. So I thought that was really exciting to have their support. And so I'd love to introduce two fabulous people, Norm Cohen and Al Wakefield who have really been leading this effort around the state and who first proposed the declaration to us. And so take it away, guys. Well, thanks. I'll go first. I'm Al Wakefield and that's that that's Norm Cohen who will speak just, just shortly. Excuse me. I've got a cold. I'm just getting over COVID. So pardon me if I, if I do whatever I do in your ear. It's not intentional. Bob Harnish is really the, the progenitor, if you will, of this decoration. Bob and I know each other for a long time. I've lived in Vermont now over 40 years or so, former corporate executive and then owned a food service business in Rutland and then went back into something I knew something about, which was executive international executive search for a senior level head hunting for a bunch of major corporations around the world. In any event, Bob, Bob came to me now about two years ago and said the death of Breanna Taylor and what happened to George Floyd bothers me. And I've been a business guy for all these numbers of years developing my own business and not paid very much attention to the social and economic and justice element in this country. And he said, now I am. And I really want to do something about, I want to be involved in change. I want to do something that's important. Simultaneously, his cousin who's on the board of Franklin, the town of Franklin, brought to him the decoration of inclusion. And Bob did some readings. We did some talkings and Bob came back and said, here's something that I think would be important to Vermont and that I'd like to work on. And would you like to work on it with me? Bob and I put together some plans and over the last now year and a half for almost two years or so, along with Norman Cohen who subsequently joined us. We've got some 67 towns that have adopted one version of the declaration of inclusion, which Owen just just read to you. For the most part, towns, probably 80% of the towns have adopted the decoration just as we put it together. It's not a perfect decoration. Everybody has something they want to add to it. And that's okay. As long as it embodies the spirit intent, I think in the meaning of the original declaration of inclusion. The other 20% of added things, which from our perspective really improved the decoration. And from our perspective, what it says is that towns are committed to what they are agreeing to, really committed and going to do something about that. And so we've been very, very pleased that towns have gone about adopting, changing it as they see fit. And we're moving towards 100, hopefully in the next, next eight, nine months or so. Norman, as I said, got involved a couple of months after we started and Norman has his own reasons for being involved. And maybe Norman can tell you why and tell you why it's important, I think, to Vermont, to sign on to a declaration of inclusion. Norm? Thank you, Al. And thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak. I've been here 50 years. I came in 19, over 50 years in 1969 to join the U.S. Attorney's office. I'm a retired attorney now, thankfully, after 50 plus years in private practice. Now here in Rutland. And I'm. I'm just thrilled to be a part of this. Al and I have been friends for years, rebonded over things like politics and jazz. And bumped into one day he said this was what he was doing. And without a moment's hesitation, I just said, I'd like to help if I can. It just seems right. And it seems right for Vermont at this time. We need to grow. We need to draw people. And we need to lose our reputation as the lightest state in the country. And I just wanted just to correct one thing that was said earlier, 50% of the towns have not adopted 67. As Al said, we're closing in on 50% of the population. I think that's where the confusion might have come in. We're now actually at 47.9. And we're really proud of that. And there. It's just spreading sometimes on its own. Bob brought it. From his cousin in Franklin to the Pittsburgh select board. They adopted it. And the next thing we knew without anybody approaching. Brandon adopted it. And then we never spoke to Middlebury and they adopted it. So, and that's happened here and there. And I just think. It would be the be helpful. For every town to adopt it, it would be helpful for Bethel to adopt it. And not tell you how many times. In the 50 years that I have driven through breathful, either on the way to appeal here. Or some other town ran off or. Northfield or just. And I've had a couple of people who work for me. Practice law there. And of course. Been involved with various of the attorneys. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I've known that live there. And I think you would. Add to your attraction by adopting this. And I hope you do. Thank you very much. And if you have any questions. I'm sure we will try to answer them. I think, I think Norman. Yeah, you mentioned. I think Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Brandon. Rochester, Randolph. I'm talking at the top of my head, but I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. A couple of others in the net wood stock, I think comes to mind have adopted along with Rutland, Rutland town, et cetera. So towns around you have adopted, as I said, with one variation or. Or another. The rationale for the whole decoration is in our brochure. It talks to the fact that Vermont's population is getting older. The younger people are leaving. Some are coming back, but not enough. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing to do. You know, you can see the signs out saying employees needed, whether it's food service or. Whether it's super. Within the schools or whether it's garages or whatever it is. We don't have people to fill jobs here. Importantly, we don't have the number of new businesses coming here, which are necessary to help this, this, this state grow. And Bethel is going to be in competition with all those towns and towns and towns. And I think that's a good thing to do. Not to mention being a part of Vermont. You know, our vision is to. Is to make Vermont. The number one state for inclusion. For welcoming. Providing safety and security for all people. A L L and capital letters in the country. And I think we're well on our way. I don't know of any other state that's moved as far as we have on this, but to make it real, we're in a very difficult situation. And I think that's why we have to be concerned about people. We have to be concerned about people. And I think that in terms of setting forth. Policies procedures. The way we conduct ourselves. The way we welcome people. The way we appear to be concerned about people in every aspect. That separates us. From other states. That's why I'm here. I came here. Invited by two. To Vermont business. People. One who owned killing. At the time we started killing. To the fact. Another who owned a major. Real estate operation in Rutland. And that's where I came from. And I've been, I've been very, very happy. And I think we brought some, brought some income to Vermont in our, in our 40 plus years here. So I turned it back over to your own. And as Norm said, we're available to answer any questions. Thank you guys so much for your leadership. And yeah, so this is our proposal. We'd love to see Bethel adopt the declaration of inclusion. So that people know that our town is welcoming. And it's sort of an opportunity for us to bring new business, new people to the town, but also, you know, to make that statement that we are with the trend of Vermont, the trend of our country that we want to make sure this is a place that's safe for everyone regardless of their identity. So yeah, if you have any questions for us, we'd love to answer them. In the minutes, we were lucky. I also on the planning commission. So the planning commission. So we were lucky enough to meet Al, wait to meet Al and Bob before, and the minutes are in here and, and Bob had said, you know, kind of what Alan said that he feels that since the population of Vermont is aging, he thinks this declaration is a great way to show that, that Vermont is welcoming. And, you know, like Al said, a good tool to, to get people, maybe young people to either stay or to come back. And, but it was a great conversation that we had planning commission. And certainly the planning commission said they would, you know, put the wording in for the town plan. And of course it has to go through the cycle of public comment, but, but anyways, we were lucky enough to meet them earlier too. And they were lovely. And I liked that. Idea that, you know, to just, Vermont was well on me. So it was a, it was a nice idea. Well, I got a question. So if we adopt this and it's signed, what would you do with it? So that people will know it's there. I mean, until I saw my packet, I didn't know anything about the other towns. Adopting this. I know that being on the board. That I, we've talked about this, but you asked someone else in the town. They have no idea. So by sight. I guess my concern is. Nothing wrong with this, but if you're going to have this. Do something with it. And I don't know what, but. That may be a question. Wow. I mean, until I saw my packet, I didn't know anything about the other towns adopting this. I know that being on the board that I, we've talked about this. But you asked someone else in the town. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll be. Sorry. Your voices are coming through a little bit faint. So pardon me if I interrupt, but. No, we appreciate that question. It is the right question. In fact. A lot of what we suggest you do is outlined in the VT decoration of inclusion.org on our website. And it's kind of a one page where it talks about what you can do right now. It talks about what you can do in six months. And I think that's a good question. And then I'll go through it. And I think one can that, that that can be over the over subsequent years. Immediately. Certainly. And put me did this was to put it on its website. To put the decoration as a lead in several towns have done that directly on the first page of. Of their, of their website. Number one. Number two, if the. Put me as well, put some signs out. is to perhaps outline something if you have a newsletter or something that goes out on a regular base, quarterly basis or whatever to town to put it there. And as we've said to the governor who signed the Declaration of Inclusion Proclamation for the state now two years ago, designating the second week in May as Inclusion Week in Vermont, because I think inclusion is so important to Vermont's economic viability. I think that every time I open my mouth, I'd find one way of talking about that because he talks about needing people. He talks about jobs. He talks about welcoming companies. He offers incentives for people to come to Vermont. And leaning has got to be we welcome people. We want you to come here. We want you to bring your talent, your skills, bring your families and come here and work towards achieving whatever your life's personal and financial goals are. So those are a couple of things you can do right away. In addition to that, and then I will shut up, the state of Vermont through the Department of Racial Justice, I think it's called, Suzanna Davis heads it up, has developed a listing of things that towns can do. And that leads into what Vermont League of Cities and Towns has suggested. They have a toolkit that you can look at and begin to do things almost immediately. Most of these things cost absolutely nothing to do. And so it's low hanging fruit. It just makes such good sense for a moral standpoint, but certainly from an economic standpoint, which almost everybody has some level of interest in. Does that, does that help? I think so. What? Yeah, yeah. I just, I just like to add that the put outset is very true. A couple of the little things we've thought about is if you adopt a declaration to frame it and put it in the town parks office, a number of towns have done that. It doesn't cost anything. And it's right out front for people to see when they come in. I'd also like to mention and encourage you to visit our web page. The, and I'll mention something also I think is important. Most of what we say, at least in has been carefully and certainly the declaration itself carefully vetted with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and their council. So it was, they thought it was comfortable for the towns. And when I say vetted, I mean, with a microscope, took an hour and a half sometimes to get through what we did with them, but was very satisfying and very helpful. And it's just moving forward. How do you put these principles into action? You know, you take a look at some of your procedures, take a look at some of your practices. If the things in there that are no longer appropriate, review them and possibly edit them out. If things are absent that may help the cause along, you insert them. And it won't happen overnight. This is not something that's one and done either with adoption or with what we call implementation. And it's an ongoing process. You know, some of the towns who adopted may have think of things you don't think of, and vice versa. And it goes back and forth. And we've seen a little of that so far. So it's, you know, it's just another tool to improve life for your citizens and to hopefully attract more. Thank you. We have any further questions or comments by the board or not? Oh, I was just curious, what type of modifications some of the other towns have been doing? For the most part, towns have added to the, if you look at the Brattle Barrel, well, let's see, let's look at the Burlington decoration. If you look at that, and we can send that to you, certainly. It's what they've done is to add some implementation things. They've not just said we adopt, but here's what we're going to do about it. Middlebury was the first to kind of do that as well. Here's what, here's how we intend to implement. What some of the towns have done in modifying the language is to add a sexual orientation in one instance and in another instance, the town mentioned socioeconomic status, which I think is what I heard Owen getting into earlier. There have been some other suggestions which were not intended to, I think, help the cause along like adding flatlanders. I thought you're going to laugh at it, but not any of it. We thought that was not helpful. But the socioeconomic status one, I think, has some merit to it. In fact, Brattle Barrel just amended in going forward their decoration to include that. So now a lot of modifications to the marginalized, if you will, groups more towards his, what we intend to do about adopting. Well, I can't, you know, before we have to give credit to Owen and Jesse, before they purchased babes and started to affect the change in town of Bethel, we're in a totally different frame of mind. And they have been solely, not solely, but pretty much solely responsible for the changes that we've seen in regarding equity inclusion here in the town of Bethel. I know it's a serious topic. I'm on the two rivers, I'm a two rivers commissioner for town of Bethel. And Wednesday night, our meeting is completely totally dedicated to equity and inclusion. We've got speakers coming in. So it's a very important development issue for the state, not only equity inclusion, it's bringing in new people and all of that into it. So just so that we can stay on target with our meeting agenda, unless I hear anything else, do I hear a motion to accept the declaration of inclusion as written? Second. I think I'll beat you to it, Jean. All in favor? Thank you guys. Thank you so much, Al, and Norman for coming. I know you have another select board meeting, I believe, tonight that you have to attend. We're flying up to Guilford. Well, good luck with that trip. And thank you for being here. Well, thank you. I know the work, the hard work that your committee, the committee has put in, and I commend them. Every time we do this, there's something that's rewarding that comes out of it. But importantly, there's something that we learn and we learn how towns go about their business. And I must say your committee has been first class in every way that it's logically, I think, and strategically gone about bringing this to you. So thank you. It's a pleasure. It was a pleasure working with with your group. And thank you for moving head on this. I think it's very, very important to Vermont. Yeah, I can't add anything to what Al said. It's been a real of red every word. And I'm so impressed and so pleased. And you are now the 68th town. And thank you. And one other thing, if we can help, if you need to talk to us, feel free, whether it's privately, your numbers are listed on the website, or you want to do it publicly. This is not for us one and done. This we're in for the long haul. Thank you so much. All right. Good night. Tonight. Take care. Thank you. Well, we'll open up for public comment right now. So if there's anything that's not on the agenda that anybody would like to bring up now's the time to do that. I see Ellie's hand up first. You're on mute, Ellie. Okay, I'm on board. I just I just want to say that the recommending is so excited that we had and thanks for the support that we had such a successful 5k race on Saturday it went really well. We had even people from Reading, Vermont join us and and kids and and people ran with their dogs and and we had a very successful 5k and and we look forward to doing it again. And I want to say excitedly that Trail Fest on Sunday was a great it was well organized and a great event. And and most of you probably missed the highlight of the Trail Fest being that I have not been on a bicycle since I was 25. And I you missed the opportunity to see me ride an e-bike. I rode an e-bike and you like it. Oh, it was really neat. It was really neat. So so I want to just commend the people that organized the trail festival was very greatly organized and really well done. And and so we at Recreation Committee was a part of both of those things and and are excited that they were such successes. Thank you. Thanks, Ellie. Anybody else public comment? See any online anybody in person? No, we will move ahead with our agenda. Okay. Next on the agenda is a discussion regarding reclassification point for six miles of Class 3 Gilead Road currently noted by V Trans is not standard. And the talk is to move that to a trail destination. Classification. Right. So, so Brian was right. It's a Class 3. And this is not up to standard. It's that small piece past Andrew Wright. And then of course, and there's Brian's has right away and then is it Rogers who own Rogers? Somebody owns like an acre right there. Then it goes to Rochester. And there's Mr. said thank you. And so anyways, obviously, this like word has choices, right? They could downgrade it, or I say downgrade, reclassify is the proper term from a to a class for or to a trail. So the idea at this point is to reclassify that portion to a trail. It is a trail on the Rochester side. And then what would happen is when it is if the select one through that and of course, there's a hearing process, it's all outlined in statute and they have to call hearing to order and then they would go to the property to look at and then they would come back and it's a quasi judicial hearing and people can give testimony and it all laid out in statute. There'd be 30 day notices that have to be sent to all the abutters plus any mortgage holders utility holders and it's a process. But if the select board chose to after the hearing and all that to reclassify as a trail, then anyone who has legal right of access that basically divert, you know, diverts back to them. So Brian would be able to have access to his property. You could maintain it. Mr. Sedgwick, you know, Derek, the roger Andrew the Rogers. So it's no longer considered quote unquote a town highway. And the individuals that use it have the right to to maintain it or to do with it. You know, the town could pass a trail policy. But I think that you're the rights of the landowner were probably superseding that of the town. So so obviously, the select board has two options to either reclassify it as a trail or class four road. So and if the select board is going to reclassify the section that's not up to standard to a trail, then the town does not have to upgrade or maintain it. If we're going if they're going to reclassify it from the not up to standard class three to a trail, the town does not have to do anything to it because they're going to reclassify it. That's the statute. So that's one thing is the select board, you know, have to that's obviously the recommendation myself and the attorneys to downgrade it to a trail. But that's your decision because you have to make a choice of either downgrading it to a trail or class four road because when we issue the notices for the hearing, it can't be either or has to be clear on what your intent is. The other question Brian, you had wanted to know was the history of the state highway aid on the point for six miles. So I did talk to Jonathan Croft and ask him 1980 was the last time we received aid. And he sent me this chart. So basically using 1975 to 1980 is only went to 75. The town averaged $193 and 84 cents per year over those six years. So, you know, obviously it would have gone down before that. I don't he only gave me but I told you I did. So that's why I put these as two separate items. So that is the recommendation is to move is to reclassify it on this not up to standard class three, which is basically already kind of class four to a trail. And the only people that have access currently are Brian, you know, Andrew, Bev, you know, the right, right family, the Rogers and Mr. Sedgwick, I believe, but I can't say for sure because the attorney hasn't done a one owner title search yet. I could, I went to Rochester, but I don't, you know, I could be missing maybe somebody also next to Sedgwick that I'm not aware of currently. So that's the recommendation. Any discussion led board? No, I spoke with somebody this evening who went through this in the town of Stockford a few years ago. And after the town spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to establish it as a class four road and losing his access, they ended up declaring this particular section of trail. So and primary benefit was he retained his access. And it was a wooded trail that really was not anything that resembled a road as we know it. But it worked out, you know, he was able to keep it. But but there was a tremendous expense on the part of the town defending it. Jane, was it an expense? Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted, I wanted to clarify, does this still retain public access? Is it trail? Yes. Yep, it does. It still remains a public right of way. But thank you. But no one's going anywhere because it ends up on Mr Sedgwick's property and they have declared a trail I don't think you can access. Could you buy four wheeler? Brian passed Mr Sedgwick. They do. Okay, so yes, it remains a public right of way. So but the ownership base or but the maintenance of it or the say the rights to it go back to the owners of the currently have access. Brian, I'm going to suggest class four, but definitely not trail. Number one, it's you guys policy not to downgrade anything from class four. And it's kind of a statewide with the Mont League of cities and towns. And with I think Mont Betterback rules to not downgrade anything, any first class for to keep it open for the public. The town also the town doesn't have any legal trail policy written up. No, we don't. So what? So we have nothing to go by. We can write one. I mean, we have lots of policies that we still probably need to write. But the town doesn't happen. No, not one right now. It doesn't mean one can be written, but you're right. We have other trails. I believe we just don't currently have a policy for it. Also, if this is if this is brought down to a trail, then the landowners, I think I read this right, the land the land of the abutting landowners can petition the select board at a future date to have that road penned. And that means putting the gate up. And I don't believe that should happen. I would have I don't I wouldn't think that they could enter because they would restrict public right away. But like I said, we could certainly I can find it. I just want to say that the town plan, you know, that you certainly can select work and reclassify things as a trail, the select board, the town plan just says it's the policy of the town to to consider, you know, public input, and to, you know, seek public input prior to reclassifying or otherwise changing policies to rights away, which that is exactly what we're doing now and would be, you know, that policy would continue because, you know, we'd have a certainly a warrant hearing. So but what it says about trails doesn't say that anyone, you know, can I can pent it. Maybe they could petition down the road, but it doesn't mean that the select board would would do it. But anyway, the town plan also says that trails are used exclusively for recreation purposes and not intended for vehicle access. And that basically land locks the doctor's land and it keeps any emergency vehicle access to his property. He's put a lot of money into that since he's owned it and never asked the town for anything to keep that road up so he can access it with with his SUV. And also, and that's for fire protection and for ambulance, whatever. He's put the work into that road to do it. I don't think it's right. I don't think it's legal that you can basically landlock his property. Well, wouldn't be landlocked. He'd still have the right you can you retain a right of way over that road. And what you're quoting from the town plan is that a policy or recommendation, there's two different, you know, the town plan is is made up of a lot of recommendations, not necessarily, you know, are they the policy of the town? But so Mr. Sedgwick, just like you just like the Rogers all retain access and, you know, to to your property because it, you know, it ends up, you know, the rate of land ends up going back to you. Let me see. I can read the right here. Let's see. It says, although a trail is not a town highway, it is a public right of way. So it is still within the select board's control. That being said, the select board is control is subject to and may be superseded by the principal or statutory rights given an individual private right away access for their property. If the sole source of access to their land is by way of a discontinued town highway right away. So Mr. Sedgwick loses nothing. He still retains access to his road and, you know, currently, as the current state is, he doesn't even have to get a permit, you know, to work in the town's right of way. In which he's not going to get, you can't get it now as a class three. How is he going to get it for? Well, the class three would come from the town doesn't come from, you know, so if the select board doesn't, we obviously have time because by the time the lawyer goes and does the title search, we know for their views, you can certainly work on a policy regarding trails. Other towns have one. We just have not had the need to have one before. But so besides your thought on, so you want it to be a class four road because you want the town to retain ownership of the road. I believe they should. Yeah, it's a policy of the select board not to downgrade. It's a policy. I don't know how you go against policy. Well, I'm not sure it's. See this according to, I believe this is, but anyway, the once it's, once this becomes a trail, then the select board can grant permission to enclose pent roads and trails by the owners of the land during any part of the year by erecting styles, unlock gates and bars and places designated. Well, that isn't right for his right away to be gated and at the mercy of the abutting landowners. Well, it doesn't mean the select board has a lot of options. They don't exercise just because they have the right to doesn't mean they're I mean, I don't see why anybody would do that to Mr Sedgwick. I mean, I don't see why any seated select board would do that to Mr Sedgwick or or, you know, or Andrew or the Rogers for that matter. I mean, if you've had that road, it moves up everybody. I can't this like work can't buy in future boards and make a decision. It's like one's gotta go by policy. Alright, Ryan, I'm going to cut the short because we're chasing our tail here. So I think what we have to do as a as a board is establish with the five of us that if the trail is what we want to reclassify this piece of road that has been recommended by our attorney as well as the town manager to do is I know you don't like hearing it, but you've got to hear I'm trying to know, but there's the thing they don't understand Brian is there's a process. Okay, the process is this year now. The process is is the meeting is the board of the select people, right? It's our meeting. Public is welcome to join the meeting. And you're welcome to participate when acknowledged. You can't interrupt the meeting at any point in the meeting. You'll have the opportunity to speak, which you already had the opportunity to speak. And now we're starting to go around and around and around in circles here. So what I'm trying to do is make this meeting productive so that we can move forward. This is us saying when we go to the when we go to the public that we are going to class or this is our option. Now at that point, you have 30s, 45, 60 days or whatever to to petition that and the select when they hold the hearing, they're going to take testimony from you and possibly Mr. Sedgwick and the Rogers and and maybe Andrew or bev or whomever, the select board, just because this is the poll, this is what they have to make a choice tonight. Either they're going to go to class for a trail, but they also have to be open minded because when they hear your testimony or, you know, Andrew's testimony, your beds or or the Rogers or Mr. Sedgwick, they can decide at that point to say, you know what? No, we're not going to downgrade it to a trail. So just basically we need to get the legal notice out. So the legal notice is just, you know, the start of the process and you will still participate in that and you'll still have the right to offer testimony. You'll also have the right to cross examine witnesses because it's a it's a quasi judicial process. So don't it's the gate. It's not a game over here. They could listen to everybody's testimony and say, we're not going to do this. And then they could do the process again and say, but maybe then they say, you know what? After listening to everybody, this maybe should remain class four. So I don't want you to think that the doors closed. It's not. I don't know. I don't know. How about the doctor's insurance company? How's that going to be? They're going to drop his, his home owners probably because they're not going to be able to do time. You're not going to be able to get vehicles out there. So did he own it when Rochester threw up his other? Yeah, I believe so. He's owned it since 1672. Yeah. So I'm sure he took that up with Rochester as well. But Mr. Sedgwick will be notified. He we will expect, you know, he could give testimony even if he couldn't do it. He could do it via zoom. So Mr. Sedgwick will be notified and he'll be able to testify and say, Hey, this is either hardship for me or whatever. So yeah, we they're going to want to hear from him. And this is just basically us coming up with what are we going to put on the morning? So how how are we going to warn the process so that we could start the process right now? So I'd like who's talking? Jeff Yeoman. Oh, hi, Jeff. Oh, sorry, I didn't see who you were there. Just says iPhone. I I really think it's a big mistake to throw up that road because it's one of the better roads that could be fixed up in the future. If you ever needed it, there's a lot of there's a lot of other roads there in a lot worse shape, and that's in that's a pretty nice road out through there. And for the town to give that up is is I think it's pretty crazy. That's all I can say. Well, thanks. So obviously, so that's the process you could start. If you're opposed to that, then the process you could start is to reclassify it to a class four road. But either way, we all know let's not kid ourselves. That is not class three road, and it's certainly not standard. So it either needs to be downgraded to a four or to a trail. And you apply why our attorney is recommending trail versus class four. Sure. So let's see what. So let's see. That's a lot. She can't. So he so obviously have a couple choices, which is we talked about. Let me see if they find in here. I said the town in this instant, the town went through class by the right of way plus. So we've had 18 emails into phone conversations. I think that part of the reason that we talked about it was getting downgraded to a trail is the fact that it that the fact is sorry that it only accesses. I have right. We talked about right road and get it in here. So I'm trying to sort through what's what the the fact is that yes, it's an access to Mr. Sedgwick, whose property is in Rochester. And I'm not sure the situation with his access or if he participated in that being downgraded or what sort of access he had put ahead does have from Rochester side. But on our side. So we would be maintaining an access to a Rochester property. You know, the farm has access on. I'm just going to use term farm, which obviously, you know, right, Beverly and kids, you know, have access on the right. Brian has a right away, which crosses, which crosses, right? The farms property because you also have an access on Byham Road. Yep. And then there's a little square of Rogers that own like I think like a square looks like a perfect acre and in there. So I think it's probably thought process. And certainly my conversation with him is you're going to bring that if you do work on it, you retain it as a class four to what? I mean, the farm has access. He's got trackers. Brian's coming in and out. He can access through Byham or through Gilead. You got an acre there. I don't know what they're doing with that. Not my business. And Mr. Sedgwick's property is, you know, in Rochester. So, you know, so it's good. You're excuse me for a moment. Julie's aunt just passed away. I'm going to have to leave to go to the hospital. So I will bid you adieu. Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Jean. Please give our best to Julie and your family. We'll do that. Yep. Bye. Bye. Do we know why Rochester was obviously, what was the classification of the Rochester portion of it before they downgraded it to a trail? Was that a class four that they downgraded to trail? I'm not sure. It was either three or four. And then I guess what would be their rationale behind that? Well, they did a while ago. I'm saying they went to a trail rather than keeping it a four. It'd be interesting to know maybe they're wrong. Probably not. Have you been up there where we're talking about? Oh, yeah. Yeah. With your truck? Yes. We walked it with A&R. Okay. You didn't take your truck up there. Not where the Rochester road is. No, we walked our section with A&R and Chris, myself, Alan, and a gentleman from A&R. His name escapes me. But so I guess that the thought is so, yes, you can maintain it as a, I mean, obviously we have a class four road policy, which you'd have to do any maintenance to adhere to policy in the way that it's written currently to it, to allow access to the road. So, you know, I think that's a good point for. Mr Sedgwick, Rochester resident. I don't know. You know, that's my thinking in my head is. Yes, I mean, it's a trail, so Jeff makes a point in the sense that he doesn't, you know, want us to downgrade it, but at the same point. To go where? You can't go anywhere. I mean, it's a trail. But you know, once you get into Rochester, you're still a trail. It's not a lot better than on the Bethel side. And I guess. Well, we just walked it last night. And it's a lot better on the Rochester side. And the one place that is bad. Yeah, admin passable was because of Irene is because of Irene. And it would, it would probably take me half a day and I could have that road passable for on the Rochester side. Yeah. Yeah, just past Sedgwick's and so what I'm saying is if there's ever emergency and you couldn't get people out of that end of the road, it would not take much work and you could have that passable to get to the hollow road, which will down back to the town of Randolph. And what I'm saying is there's a lot more roads like the class four road over on Byham road would is a lot less would take a lot more work to upgrade. And I really don't think the town should give up a right away that could be fixed if it was ever an emergency and you had to get people out of there. All right, well, that's a good point. Thank you. And then just in case you missed some of the discussion, Jeff, there are other roads. And you just had mentioned one of them that we also need to discuss at a time of, you know, potentially reclassifying them as well. These two roads have been pushed to the front through Brian's eagerness to get something resolved. So that's kind of where we have the Gilead and the right road pieces before these other ones. But we have some other ones that we have to address as well. Even the right road, the right road is is very is a straight through road to that comes out on teach. Oh, yeah. So so that could be updated in an emergency situation too. And you know, we really ought to start thinking about that because there are times, you know, like Irene, when people are trapped up there that, you know, you can update some of this these roads and and get people out to the to the to the Harlow Road or to Tatro Hill and get them to town so they're not trapped in there for 14 days like like they were there and I read Marty. I really really think you guys should take that consideration before you start throwing up Gilead Road, especially because that that's a pretty nice road out through there. And it wouldn't take a lot of work to make it possible. OK, thank you. I have a question is, Andrew, what is the farm think about that becoming a trail versus a class four road does? Do you guys have a preference? It doesn't sound like makes much difference other than get permission to do work on the road. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't sure if you guys had a had preference to what you know, what the situation would be. So I'm just curious. So Jeff makes a point about, you know, if certainly, I mean, you've been through tropical storm Irene before. If I'm understanding you correctly from earlier, you were saying we have to we have tonight we have to designate which direction we're going to start the process. But we can't say a trail or a class four road. We have to choose one. Yes, because that was my first and try at it was I had said, well, what if we do either or and then hold the hearing and then you could make the decision based on, you know, the testimony. Is it going to be a trail or is it going to be a class four? And the town attorneys like now you have to choose either or going into it. So you can choose that it's a class four. We can wait two weeks and I can get more information to figure out exactly, you know, about the pent and address Brian's concern of if you decide to downgrade it to a trail. I sort of follow a question to that is, let's say we choose trail tonight. We go through the judicial process, but as a board decide no on trail, are we able to then just switch to class four or do we start the process over? Like we make the motion you start the process over. That's what I was. Yeah. So curious. So you have a choice. You can wait two more weeks to find a meal, you know, and I can reach out to the town attorney, make sure that you are complete, that we're all completely clear on what happens. Brian obviously has a concern about pending the road. I have sent the town plan to the town attorney. So he's aware of what our, you know, policies slash recommendations are. So we could do that. That would make it more comfortable by then Jean will be back and you'd have a full board to make a choice. I don't have problem with that. Slow more research. So even if there was some sort of natural disaster that takes place, I mean, if this road was a class four or a trail, it wouldn't make any difference with emergency work out there. I mean, FEMA's not going to pay for a class four road. No, they're not going to pay for a trail. So I mean, there is no difference on that. No, anything that you know, so that people out would be out of pocket for the town because that's not going to pay for either or because the only way they would pay for anything would be a class three exactly piece. So if you went for or a trail that wouldn't matter when it comes to that. I mean, other than you would do the right thing, you know, it's sort of back to Andrew's point of really, it becomes then is it a town's responsibility for maintenance or is it like is the landowner responsible to get permission to do upgrades versus they would be a class four, but not it's a trail that's the big difference becomes the landowner versus town's responsibility and right of ways. Right. And the statutory process, statutorily, what is the town's responsibility as a class four road? So obviously to adhere to your class four road policy, which states that you, you know, what maintenance you will do up to, you know, public good as far as what no, you don't know, there's no commitment to basically it just says planning a winter or grading in the summer. It's right that town shall not provide any summer maintenance on class four highways, except to the extent required by necessity of public good and convenience of the inhabitants of the town when staff and financial resources allow. We don't provide any same thing for class four highways, except to the extent required by the necessity of public good. And then anyone who has class four highway or road, they can do work on it. But obviously they need to have a permit to do so. And then it does say it's the policy, the select board, you know, if you're talking about regrading or classifying it, you know, class four policies, that's where Brian found it. It's right here. But it says reclassification or discontinuance will be done in accordance with 19 PSA 708. A discontinuance to a class four highway will only be made in situations where the select board determines this is where he found it. The public good necessity and convenience to the inhabitants of the town requires such action. And the town select board may require that the cost of upgrading a class. Well, that's we're not going from a four with three God knows back there. But so that's the policy he found it in. I was thinking town plan. But so that was the class four road policy. Yeah. So the town still has no, I mean, we're basically by retaining ownership of it as a class four. It's not costing us any money. We're not getting any state highway aid, but we're not now anyways. But it what it does is it retains control of the town to say what can cannot be done on that road, which is different one than when it becomes a trail. But can I ask Brian a question? Yeah. Sorry, you have your hand up. But so and I'm sorry that I missed the previous meeting. So I'm also trying to play catch up a bit. I did not mean to miss the last meeting. So one of my understandings was there was you would put the water bars in without the permission from the town. And so then the town's action was to fill the water bars in. And part of the issue is water management, right? And so and anybody can weigh in where I'm miss speaking here. But some of my understanding of going to a trail gives you that right without needing town permission, correct? Like that's that's part of this whole discussion is so I'm curious from your perspective, if that's part of the frustration you've been facing is why why fight to go to a class for if then you're still in the same boat of needing to get town permission to do the water management the way that you feel the water management should be done. Yeah, well, my biggest concern is I think if it's kept a class for that maybe something will be able to be done to manage the water that runs down the road for sick or 700 feet. But if it's if it's changed to a trail, then there's no guarantee that any update any upgrading that road is going to be able to be done for me or for the doctor for Mr. Rogers, because it's up to the abutting landowner to give permission. We know now they don't even give you they won't even give me permission to do to cut brush that's rubbing on cars on the property. So we know how that's going to go. So you're you're taking a chance. We're taking a chance as landowners of losing that of being able to keep it at least possible. So that's a question I have to ask the attorney is do if do all the trail owners have to agree about the maintenance. I will say this that town doesn't have a liability responsibility, excuse me, to maintain a roadway. If the town isn't going to discontinue it. So if you choose if you decide you're going to leave it a class four, that's fine. But then we're going up to right road. No, we're not. We're going to Gilead Road and we're going to fix. We will have to deal with the water runoff on the road right there. So to an extent how far we go, maybe just be to the crown of the hill past, you know, the beginning. I don't know, you know, we'd have to take a peek, but we're not have to install new culverts or anything, but we probably have to get, you know, either I don't but greater to keep class four status. Yes, you still we the town still has a responsibility for, you know, the water to keep the water off the road. So but I certainly am happy to, you know, last comment from the attorney was that, you know, trail law is about as clear as mud. So to quote him directly. So I certainly can find out if trails will require all landowners to agree to the maintenance because I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, just add one more thing that to, you know, stop this water from running down the road. It really isn't a big deal. It's Jeff Gilman could go in there again to you in less than a day and put some water bars in where they should be located and strategically and it will stop the water from washing the road. It's not like it's a big deal. It's not like you guys are going to have to put, you know, tons of money into it is or, you know, no, it's just a responsibility we have. We have to stop that. This water is going to be stopped. But you're going to do it without running into my fields. Yes, exactly. And I think that was the issue before was it wasn't necessarily, well, the way it's set up now is you have to get permission from the town, which normally we're going to give you permission to work in the road anyways. I mean, it's not really. Yeah. But the issue we had last time was the water bars were put in in a manner that discharged the water on to a property owner's property without permission. And that's why they were filled in. And we can't even do that as a town. I can't go dump a bunch of water on that Andrews property. I can't literally do that. I have to. But when we walked it with A&R, there were some areas where because, you know, certainly Andrew has a unique, you know, sometimes you have the stone walls and there's a couple places where there's enough room between not in the entrance to the field, but where but we walked it with A&R, but certainly not installing water bars in the middle of his entrance to the field. And we as a town cannot dump extra water on to Andrews property that he's not taking without his permission. We just can't do. I think you're wrong. No, I'm not wrong. Because I've had that conversation with the state of Vermont about us installing culverts and doing work. I can't add to storm water onto somebody else's property if they're not already taking it. Statute says it's like the board can, I don't know if I have the name. That's fine. I know that they can put they can direct water onto anybody's land that they feel necessary. Yeah, that's just that's a statue. No, I'm not. I'm just saying. The select board. I know what it is. Maybe the select board can but the individual person cannot. But we wouldn't do that. Right. We we are going to do it to us. Normally we follow through. Yeah, it's past. Yeah, whoever the property owner is, as we would like to put in a water bar to outlet onto your property. Are you good with this location? Yeah, we just work it out with people. And we've done that with culverts after I really have to get some permission for some gold. We do it now with with people. So there's no. And then you're you're going to go by there. No, we can still there's creative ways. You can cheat water. You don't have to like funnel it directly onto someone's property. You could cheat it into the wood so it's better. We could shift the lane of the road so that the road instead of dumping towards the field dumps towards the other side. I mean, you know, there's options and we can do that. Yes, it'll go through the woods and not under the field. Yeah, we is. And we had saw last year when we were out there and was pointed out by a gentleman that some of the issues that were done out there were done by recreational vehicles. So not us, not you, not section of roads there where it was all torn up and and what they had done there had taken away from the flow of normal stormwater. Yeah, because when people want to jeep, they want to go into the mud so they're spinning it up. So if you had a nice drainage system, all of a sudden somebody's decided to. So when we walked it, we figured that out. But so anyway, so that you can move on to the next issue. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead, Andrew. I'm sorry. They use the road from the end of March to November. Actually, some box trucks up in there in November. Jeez. GPS. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, that is probably we ought to put a no outlet sign. We've had to put those up a lot more in places you would think we should not have to. But people don't drive by signage. People don't know that random McNally when you say that. People like what? And so they drive by GPS. We've had over the Crossmans up on Spooner Road. These Michael and Bill are pulling people out with an old Subaru. So we finally put a no outlet sign there. We put one on Hooper Hollow and a couple other places. So there's a big blinking one at the bottom of Stowe Mountain that everybody gets stuck every time. They go right by that thing. So anyway, so it's just up to the select board. You can either say, OK, you know, let's just go to class four, or I can get more information about trails so you're clear and you can make a decision in two weeks. That's your point because you still have to move on to talk about right road. Right. So what do we want to do about about the Gillette Road one? Do we want trees to seek some extra information before making an establishment on the trail or are we good with moving towards trail? Or how would we like to do that? I think I need towards maybe getting a little more information. I'm just. OK, perfect. Exhaust everything we can. Yeah. Thank you, Christy. And then more information. That's what we're going to get. And then and then in doing more information, what were the key questions that we wanted trees to have answers for us on? I guess for me, I'd really like to from the town perspective understand the differences of trail versus. And I feel like we got there tonight, but I'd kind of like to hear the attorney's take on a bit of it of some of the scenarios like the emergency scenario. Right, exactly. I mean, I think hearing from both Brian and Jeff that, you know, and I acknowledge that I have not seen this road where we were supposed to go up on Friday. That we were going to go up on Friday. But because of I might still go up anyway, because I'm, you know, I now want to understand it visually. But yeah, I think just understanding a little bit more of what the difference is from the town perspective are trail versus class 4 and whether or not trails require all landowners to agree to maintenance. You want to know that and you want to know, OK, trail versus class 4. What about emergency situations? I think Brian's point about and I think we sort of answered it, but just hearing the attorney side again of could a future select board permit a landowner to pent the road and to what detriment right to to. I kind of agree with trees that it's very illogical, but it doesn't mean it could happen. So just because the language says it could means it could. And so we should we should explore what that means. I mean, I think also I mean. In the realm of everything that we do as a select board, right? Any select board could come in and completely reverse or change or double or anything that we do, right? So not just roads, but it could be every policy that we've done next select board to come in and cancel the you know, the policy that we just implemented this evening, you know. So I I think there's never a no. What about 100% on about the width of this trail? Brian worried about getting vehicles up there. Now, I've seen I've got some trails in my woods that are trails that you could take a firetruck all the way the other end of my woods. No problem. Yeah, it's a trail, but it is. But the trail state you could take a firetruck all the way the other end of the road. If you're so sorry, I think it's still 50 feet and you would determine that, I believe, but I'm pretty sure I feel like it's three rocks. 48. But what I'm concerned about is is is maintenance in the future when the when the abutting landowners say, no, we don't want you going two feet on our land like they don't want water on that land, which is what that kind of takes. When you're talking emergency, are you talking like a flood or whatever? We're talking about like Irene where Jeff is and Jeff and Daniel, I want to be clear about that. Hello, Daniel. That what they're saying is that, you know, if you had another Irene and but it kind of came up in a different way. Jeff's Daniel's point is at least how you get people out. So that's certainly. And also I thought you were talking about remember emergency vehicles get to Dr. Sedgwick's place to fire trucks and ambulances and whatnot. Well, sure. But I mean, at some point, even on that road, he's going to be taking a chance to live out there because. Yeah, if the if the abutting landowners say, we don't want you, we don't want to work. I think we're now in the classroom. Now you can't get a fire truck up. But I guess my and I don't know because I'm not a lawyer, but my question would be would he then have a civil suit against the landowner preventing impromptu access to this house? Possibly. Right. I don't have the answer. I just I don't see reason why not keep it class for when it's your policy. The second one's policy. Not really writing a class for. Huh? How much leeway would we have? This may be a question. How much leeway do we have in writing a trails policy? Well, the deal is that you can. We don't have a trail policy. So we're going to rewrite. We're going to write. So say that we were going to write a trail policy because it's still public right away. But the select board's control is subject to and may be superseded by their individual rights as a landowner as a landowner. But they act as a property. Unless it's a pentro, they can't in any way impede travel on this public right away. So if it needs to be fixed up so that you get up through there, they can't stop that. That's the same thing as putting up a goddamn gate. But if you have a trail. Yeah, trail. OK, you just said that you can't eat the landowner and you can't upgrade it. But you can't wash it out because that's the same thing as putting up a gate. They can't do that. So if it's washed out, someone's got to be able to fix that. It's what I'm not necessarily. Yeah, the statue just said it's well, I was washing out now. I can't get permission. It is a class three. You're not understand what I'm saying. Yeah, I don't. I don't say that. Have you have you submitted a permit? No, have you submitted a permit to the town? Then why are you saying you haven't gotten permission? The policy is submit a permit, right? Like, you haven't done it. So it's our trails. How do you know that? Have we ever denied a permit on class four road? I don't remember one. But I'm just saying you haven't done it. So don't say that we aren't going to give you permission when you haven't taken those steps, right? I mean, OK. All right, so the trail policy, anyways. So could you write one? Yes, you could certainly write a trail policy. But because our, and because it's a public right away, what the statue says is that their rights may supersede our, so I'm not sure we could write a policy till the cows come home, but we may not, the enforcement may not be there. That's what I should say. And if they let it deteriorate when we can't travel over it, haven't you done the same thing as painting the road? Well, basically, what happens is, you're giving up. Gato makes it impassable, that's what I'm saying. If you're the landowner that owns 50 feet of this road and you deteriorate quite some Sedwik and Rogers and Ryan can't get up past there to their property, you basically painted the road. You're right in a way you have, but we do that, right? Because what happens is the town, when you downgrade it to a trail, the town pretty much gives up a lot of their rights to the road. Like the statue says clearly, we do not have to maintain culverts or bridges on a trail. It's the only classification that says that clearly. So I'm just going to add, Terese, can I just add? You know, Sedwik bought that land knowing it was a Class 3 road. So I know he's not here, but he might have a problem with that. He might. He would certainly be included in the, you know, when the select board decides what they're going to do to the road. He also possibly owned the property when Rochester downgraded his road to a trail. So I'm assuming that he participated in that and didn't just hang his hat so solely on his axis and bamboo. But I don't know. But he's still a great chance for all of his properties in Rochester because I looked at the tax map. And I think some of his properties in Bethel. He pays no property tax to Bethel. Oh, no. No, ball to Rochester. OK. Could be just the way the map, you know, is. But anyways, but he certainly would have ample opportunity. We would encourage him to give us his, you know, certainly his two cents once the select board decides what they're going to do. All right. So we'll get more information on that. Yep. All right, so I will make a note. Sorry, I'm also trying to take the minutes because Julie's not here. So all right. So so you've moved on to the next one. Yep. And then the other one was there's 720 feet of class 3 road on the right road, which is basically the turn around at the farm to the current class 4 piece. Yeah. So as Brian had disagreed with our measurements last time, I'm using 720 feet as a rough estimate. So basically what we're talking about is obviously we all know the class 3 goes past the house, you know, out to, you know, where it turns off. So like the three-way, yeah. And because it's a class 3 road, there's class 3 standards last year. Well, I'm not sure if it was you, Andrew or your dad, but somebody plowed it for me. And because I can't get the truck through that little piece. And so what it makes sense for the select board to down, to reclassify that to class 4, but turn around at the farm. That way it makes sense for the town to easily turn the town truck around. But then we're not going all the way up, you know, say all the way up. We're not going all the way to the house and just turn around and, you know, turn around there. It makes it easier for the town. We can go in, easy to turn around, and go back without having to deal with that piece. How that ever was class 3 is beyond me. But so, and that seems, you know, it's not a big section. So can you get me out on this? You don't want us to downgrade that to class 3. My god, what do you want? So anyway, there's bigger legal issues here that what reclassifying from a 3 to a 4 is going to take care of. You've got a class 3 road that comes up here, and you've got a class 3 road that goes from here to here that doesn't need much work fixing up. You've got 600 feet basically in the middle that the town has allowed a business to set up a business in this town right away. And they've allowed it to go on. Andrew is the fourth generation now for the town to allow this. It's taken up three quarters of the right-of-way. Are you talking about the farm? The farm, the business, the business. It was fine with zoning. I mean, we have no issues. The business takes, their business takes place in the town in the town right away. There is no right-of-way. So I don't know how you can reclassify something. It's like selling me a car, but not giving me a car, but giving me the bill of the title. You've got to, there's no right-of-way there. It's three quarters gone. It's down to maybe 15 feet. So what I'm saying is, before you decide to reclassify that, I'd like to hold the meeting up there like we were supposed to have. And it was actually the town lawyer is the one that kind of suggested that we could go up and take, we're going to do it this spring and then. Yeah, when we do have to, I mean, it's part of the process. But as you know, because your attorney, was it Mr. Tarrant? Attorney Tarrant, whoever your lawyer is, sent the town letter, which you know. And part of it was that you're, part of the concerns that you outlined were A, we didn't plow it. So I reached an agreement with Rick. Rick plowed it for me for the winter. Then the agreement, you know, you were concerned because the town had allowed, the house was built so close to the road. That was so far prior to zoning. We couldn't, I couldn't deal with that. I mean, I have no idea. And the fact that the farm itself has, there's different zoning regulations for the farm, but the farm was in business long before Bethel had zoning. So while I understand what you're saying, it's beyond, that ship has sailed a long time ago. The only thing we need to do is reclassify this road so that the entire thing is a class four. You get mad because we either don't maintain it or you're mad because we sand it or whatever. But we need to put some clarity there. And it doesn't make any sense for the town. We don't have a truck that's small enough unless we bring one special in from the one ton to plow the section past the house up there. It just is completely illogical. So it makes sense to drown grade it to a four. The fact that the farm has existed for X amount of generations is so far beyond us. We can't do anything about that, Norwood. There's no such thing as nothing grandfathered. And it's the state statute is clear. Any obstruction put in the right of way needs to be moved. And I know your lawyer said that these buildings were historic probably before the roads were laid out. Well, that's not true whatsoever. My grandfather built those in the 40s and 50s, maybe into the 60s, built the buildings and did the addition on the house. He was a land baron. He was like Webster, like Ted Green. He was like Ray Durfee. The town didn't tell them what to do. And when he bought the land above there, he gated it and kicked everybody out. And that's the way in the town, just let him get away with this. And they've allowed this business that takes up this whole road. You can't, you know, they conduct their business in the road, there's kids, there's machinery. There's, you know. Sure, but as you just said, if he built them in the 40s, we have, there's nothing we can do in our town. And when your lawyer wrote the letter to the town, I know you weren't happy with the town attorney's response, but that's the way lawyers work. But there's nothing we can do about that now. Those buildings, their home and the garage or whatever to the right, when I'm looking straight on, here's Beverly's home and here's, we can't do anything about that. But this left board does have the right to reclassify that road from a three to a four. That's all. Your other issues have been adjudicated between your attorney and the town attorney. If you weren't happy with the town attorney's response, I, you know, I'm sorry, you'd have to speak. I don't know how to answer that for you. Well, I'm kind of hoping that we could get it resolved here somehow without the point, but I can see that it's not going to. So, and it's a clear, it's a clear statute. It's a clear, I don't know what you don't understand about the statute that any obstructions put in the right away have to be removed. So you're saying we don't need to move the house? So I guess. Well, either that or I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, my attorney, Paul, when I talked to him the first time, he said, you're either going to have to, he said he had no choice, you're either going to have to move the buildings or build a road around it. There's no, there's no, there's no other alternative. Yeah, and our attorney did not move at all. Well, because they're saying that the buildings were put there before the road was laid out. I think the road was laid out like in 1840s. I'm not sure, but I do know that you're, I don't believe that your attorney responded to our attorney once he got our response. So if he had further questions or concerns, that's above my pay graph. I would have to turn it over to the town attorney. I wouldn't even know how to respond, but since your attorney didn't, I just assumed it was a mute point and you understood our point. So it was kind of left, and maybe that's my fault, but it was left that, okay, let's have a meeting. Your lawyer suggested this, let's have a meeting, but we can't do it now to anything to the road because it was, by then it was December, November. And so we left it at that. We're going to go out and have a meeting with you select board so you can see. And as far as a turnaround at the farm, there is no turnaround at the farm. The buildings are in the town right away. And the, where you're turning around for years and years and years, you've sanded like over a hundred feet of private property down to their milkhouse. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars per year to sand us seven days a week sometimes. And just for the privilege of turning, you're rewarding him for the privilege of turning around on his property. That was- And the safety of the town crew. The most safety of the town crew, when you're backing down to your milkhouse- Hey, so we're getting, we're getting. Where is the sand coming out? The sand is coming out in front of the tires. And I have asked the current road foreman and the road foreman before that, and they all say the same thing. That for the safety of their equipment and their guys, they sand. I don't think it's thousands and thousands of dollars, but I will say in regard to your comment about understanding, I think that what our attorney was referring to was looking at the reclassification of the road. We knew that we were, that I believe our attorney was clear in that we felt there was no way we were going to ask for the rights to move a building. I think that maybe the misunderstanding was that we were gonna look at the road as far as reclassifying that three to a four. But I can certainly touch base again. I'm obviously gonna have to talk to the town attorney. I can revisit that topic I have this letter and can ask him another follow up question about the buildings, but I, you know, he was obviously clear about that was an open. I'm sure he worded it was so that the select board can take a look at the road there as it is now. And that's what I'd like to do, have the meeting up there before you decide to. Well, and it'll be part of the whole thing about taking testimony. It's gonna be the same thing. If the select board agrees to downgrade from a three to four, it's the same statutory process. Everybody will be notified. The utilities will be notified. Mortgage holders will be notified. So everybody and their mother gets notified that we're going to re, you know, downgrade that section right there. And frankly, do you own, if I'm looking at Beverly's house and then here's it, do you own right here, right beside behind that shed? Or are you even in a butter to that section of class three? Okay. I'll just, just, just pass. I was just curious. The class four, with the class four road stacks, you're not even gonna put a butter to this section. Okay. But also, if you're going to leave that road as it is, then that right away has been altered. It's been altered from three rods down to probably less than one rod. And when you alter a road, when you alter, definition of alter is a minor major change, physical change in the highway, such as a change of width, then that requires the town to do a survey of that road to find out exactly where the right-of-way is. And that's state statute. Right. And we have a survey because Alana, or Mr. Alana did yours. He didn't survey exactly where the road was. No, but we talked about it and gave a way out of where, you know, so we went through that. But I also had addressed that with the town attorney as well. So take the buildings aside and your desire to have us make them relocate their buildings. Do you care if that section of three is downgraded to four? Yes. Why? Because of the facts. Those buildings that are in the right-of-way are all tax-exempt buildings. They're firm buildings. You get no tax. You get no tax benefit off those buildings. When I've got 2,400 feet of road frontage property that someday is gonna bring in positive tax revenue for the town of Bethel and with going through a 15-foot section, and the reason you can't get a truck through there to maintain it properly because that one section has been narrowed up with buildings, and that's against the law. And I was hoping, I guess if I was... I don't have to follow up with and reread that letter. I haven't reread that letter since we sent it. So I will look at it. But as far as, yes, we all know that you've subdivided your property and wished to subdivide. So you're gonna, obviously your desire is to upgrade the class four section so that you can sell your subdivide lots. It's all fine, well and good. But that section right there for us to downgrade it aside from moving the buildings itself, I mean it was always, I'm assuming it's been narrow since you were a young man or a little boy maybe. But I guess I just don't think that little piece of class three road being downgraded to a reclassified as a four affects your long-term development goals of your property. But... Client up there to look at the property. Number one, you drive in the door and you automatically think this is dead end. You've got buildings like this and even if you think it's a town road, you say, well I'm not gonna drive by this person's house. The house is right here. And I can guarantee you if you own property past the farm, since my brother's owned it or my grandfather owned it, I can guarantee you that you would see the disadvantage of that. But you bought the property knowing the layout of the road has existed. Well, things have developed, things have changed as far as the and it could end up in a civil suit as well with a town included. For us not being able to enjoy our property, we have the legal right to enjoy our property without interference in privacy and without being harassed. As opposed to having it addressed yet to the town. So we're strained from class three to four, but so I guess my question would be for you, does the farm have any concern about us or feeling one way or another about reclassifying that from a three to a four? Just wanna make sure everybody's... Are there any other landowners on this stretch of road? No, I think the actually only a butter to where we want to reclassify from a four to a three, the actually only a butters are the farm. However, because Brian has a right of way, he becomes the other. There may be the, I'm gonna say this wrong, is it Taran or Tarant? Or Tarant, I see I totally slaughtered it, my apologies, has property in Rochester and they may have a right of way. When I went to Rochester to look, a lot of their roads don't have a 911 address, but they say like zero, whatever the road is on the Rochester side. It leads to there. So that was one of the reasons that the attorney would do a one person title search is to make sure because didn't your dad own a piece with them? And do you still, or did you? No, been split. Okay, and so they may have a right of way. So, but as far as the actual butters to this piece, strictly just the farm, but because people have a right of way, they would be notified. So that was why when I went to Rochester, look at the map and that's why we would send the attorney over there to do a one person title search. Is there a way more than you would like to... Put out, I would like to have the meeting and thing. Weren't you, you said the 26. I said, we would look to like the 14th, but because so many things have come up and now we have to have a, because we now we have to have the town attorney do a one person title search. I don't know when he's gonna, that could take him a couple of weeks. So the hearing would be part of this process again, where the select board would take testimony. They'd hear from you. They'd hear from Andrew, Bev, Whomever, maybe the other folks that, but and they would take the test one, then they'd come back and they would have take the testimony. Then they would say, okay, you know what? No, we're either gonna leave it a class three or we're going to move forward with reclassifying that section of the three. So you, there will be a meeting there at some point. I just can't give you the date certain because too many things are in the air right now as far as the attorney's schedule. Is there like a year of meeting now? You know, I'm asking just for a simple meeting for the select board to come up. So you want the select board to just, they can all certainly drive up and see it on their own. Well, what's your, what's your attorney suggested? Have a meeting up there to have the select board up there to meet and take a look at it. Yeah, and I will, like I said, just I'll reread the letter. I thought he meant to do the hearing process to possibly down or reclassify it from three to four. But I will revisit that and read it again and ask him for clarification if I have misinterpreted that. But the select board certainly can drive up to the right farm. It is class three and they can drive up and see for themselves, you know, there's the farm, there's the house, here's the, so that they could visualize if they haven't been up there. Chris and I have been up several times. But the other things I can do to go with them for instance is like three curb cuts that have been put in there without permission. The whole slope of the land has been changed. New access road has been made from the farm into the town road without permission. You've allowed him to do the ditch work on the ditch on the left-hand side. And he doesn't allow the ditch to be cleaned out or hasn't because it runs down and the culvert has been there for 80 years. He doesn't want water running through the culvert. It's been there for 80 years. So that ditch has been plugged ever since Gary Slack was in the water. All comes down from the door yard off the roofs and it comes down and every couple of years the town has to go up with 10, 15 loads of fill and grade it off. And then in another 10 years we get some heavy rain. It all washes out again because the ditches, you haven't, nobody stood up to my brother's. Nobody stood up to my grandfather. Nobody stood up to my brother. Well, I'm not gonna, you say a lot and we have allowed. You know, I can't speak for every road woman that's ever seated in the relationship that they had, certainly whether they've ditched or not we also have, you know, 80 miles of road. And if they weren't concerned about it, they weren't, it wasn't a high priority for them at the time. So I can't speak to what past, you know, road formants have done or not done. People do curb cuts. Certainly, we know when they apply for the process some people, you know, farm access is if it's just farm access that exists it's generally something we don't really look at. Not just there, we do that in other places. So, but as far as that's just a lot of consideration and I just, you know, I just can't speak to that. But that's why I could show them, I could show them if they just have a meeting up there. I can point these things out so they can see what they've allowed, what the town, not you guys, but what the town and the past has allowed to happen to that piece of property has been completely taken over by four generations without any consideration of anybody that owns land, passed it. I was hoping we could settle it, but I can see probably the court's gonna have to settle it. And if that's the way it goes, that's the way it goes. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just saying to you, I'm not saying there's no resolution. I'm just saying to you, I can't speak to it because. So for now, Teresa will be in contact with our attorney to figure out about the message that from a year ago on the meeting or not meeting or whatever that, what that means. Now I know for tonight, for us to put on the warning is do we want to move forward with reclassifying that class three section of right road in question down to a four? I guess my opinion at this point is we should probably move forward with classifying that as a class four because the only other option is to keep it as a class three, right? So if we keep it as a class three, then there's no hearing, right? So if we move to a class four, there can be a proper hearing process. We can hear from all the abutting owners and then we can make a correct decision on moving forward with class four or keeping it as a class three. Part of that will be a site visit, which is. Right. Yeah, it will be a site visit, it's testimony, it's, it also. We also need to do a survey because the road is being altered. I will. That's a town statue. I'm gonna ask. You know, I mean, changing classification to a class four. On the right road piece. On the right road piece, yes. Okay. I also need to know how many. Hold on, you're going the process. So, I'm just. Second. I just roughly, your brother's all about Bruce, I'm sorry. It's just a processing. It's a, if you're talking over somebody, then we can't. Again, it's. I'm sorry. It's, you know, everybody gets a turn. It's the only time. It's the only time. No one has ever been here. Have you, you've been able to voice your opinions, right? You'll have, you'll have proper time, everybody. So, right now, all we're doing at this point is, like we were just talking about, it makes no sense. At this point, if we say, well, we're gonna keep it to class three, then why do we even have any hearing, right? So, if we say that we want to move it to a class four, then we will conduct the proper hearing on site. We can bring, you'll have your opportunity to bring your testimony as well as the firearm would have their opportunity to, you know, to have a rebuttal on whatever you might say. And we can see the outbuildings and things like that same time when we're up there, you know. So, there's a motion on the table with Paul, and then second by Lindley, all in favor? Okay, so, so we've got that situated. And so I will ask the attorney his question about, do we need to, Brian is saying since the road has been altered, and I don't have time to sit here and read statute, take the minutes and talk this through. So, I'll find out if, since Brian feels that the road has been altered, if we have to pay for a full survey. So, I'll find out, because I don't know the answer off the top of my head. And again, Brian, I don't think anybody on the board, including myself, are playing favoritism towards any party. I think, like myself, I'm all about the formal process. So, just sticking with the formal process in a meeting format. And I think in this case, what we're trying to do is look out for the best interest of the town as a whole, as well as the property owners in question, and see what our best plan of attack for this piece of road, and like I had talked about earlier to Jeff there, that we do have some other roads in the town, that we need to look at as well. And we're trying to do, we moved your roads up first because you had some questions that you wanted to answer in a timely manner, where the other roads in question in town right now, we'll put them as a priority, but we don't have any burning questions to get it settled. So, we have shuffled around our board schedule to meet your accommodations, and don't feel that we're playing any favoritism. I will be a little defensive myself when I hear things like, like you guys let, or you guys played favor because I can tell you in seven years that I've been here, I've never once probably even had a discussion with the right firm. I've been down to the, you know, I probably have had more discussions with you than I've had with them. So, I guess if I was playing favoritism, it's probably a little more to you than them, right? But, so what, I take it, I take a defense when we hear things like, you allowed this, or you allowed that, but that might have been something for 25 years ago. I didn't even live in this town at that point. So, all I can say is the seven years that I've been here, or the four years. Three would be three. That she's been here. You know, we conduct business one way, and we can't again say what the next board might do, or the next administration, or the next road foreman might do, but we can tell you what we plan on doing right now. Yeah, and as far as I'm certainly not aware of any, you know, we find, you know, we do, things come about slowly in municipal government, but you do find out if there's, someone has a curb cut, or somebody's built something, or there's a zoning violation. I mean, a lot of times this stuff just, you know, comes up, and perhaps at some point, road foreman did give your brother permission to do some work. We do allow that, or sometimes we'll do a quid pro quo. If somebody's doing some work, we will allow. They will say, hey, you know, yeah, they'll do that, and we're gonna do this, or, you know, whatever, we try to work together with people, and so, you know, I just, so as to what the culverts or the ditching, or whatever, I'm happy to, you know, send the road foreman up there to take a peek, and see what's going on. I don't know, I mean, I know they've been up, is obviously they, to maintenance on other roads. Well, you know, we would have a meet with just to take a look at the position. And as well, yeah, because, you know, for sure. So as far as we go, the class four, the right road piece, we're moving forward with that, so. I'm gonna have the town attorney. So we can move forward with that, and set the date. Yeah, we'll have them do the title searches. Title searches, and then as far as the other one, the Gilead section of road, we have some questions to bring back to the next meeting, to then make a decision on how we wanna warn that road. So I'm not gonna have him do a title search, you know, until we have both properties, and I'm not gonna have him. I just wanna make sure that we have it. Okay. So. So, because Owen has been patiently waiting here for the longest time to get his catering event done. Oh wait, I just had one more issue. I just wanna bring up, is in regards to cow manure. So you will have to make, and I know, you certainly know the process, is to A&R, because certainly the rights applied for Andrew himself, and got a cattle crossing sign, and dealt with that. So I just wanna say that if there's a violation, I know that you took pictures of the 2016 A&R regulations, but that's beyond our purview. So as far as weather toxicity to humans, I just can't answer that. So there's an easy online form, and you can write to the A&R, and I know you've done it before, so they can answer your question. So I just, I didn't want you to think that I didn't look at that. You're in charge of the town roads, though, right? So they certainly. The select board is in charge of the town roads, and it says here, the cattle crossing signs will be put up for cattle must, where they must use the travel portion of the road. Well, they're using a thousand feet of it, where their land is over here, all open, and they could be driving the cows up there, and would you like to go up there with your grandkids, six year grandkids, and walk up the road for thousand feet, and have cow shit all over your feet? And should you have to step around it and avoid it, the road is for public use. It's not for cattle use. Andrew, can you, do you cross there? We're out of now in relation to where you passed your cows, so I know that you went through the correct process, and you dealt with Marco, and you got the sign, and it was placed, I don't know the relationship of where you crossed, where your pastures are, or whether or not you can crop, keep your cows more to one side before you cross, I don't know your. The cows have to cross, and they have to use the road at some extent to get to their pasture, especially the longest pasture, the furthest away from the farm. So you crossed? And to say that it's open, the pasture right beside the road, where there's a brook, right there? Right, okay. So when you come up, I'm just asking Andrew, so Andrew, when I go up, I've been up to, you know, walk, dip, ribbonet, whatever, when I go up, I know where the cow the crossing sign is, of course, and I know where the road is, I assume that goes to the sugar house or something out there, so there is a ditch right there that goes down to the brook, so do they, I don't know where the cows cross, but they come up from the sugar house and go there? They come up beside the sugar house. Yep, and they come up that little access and then they go up the floor? Then they come out, they go across, they can go across the road there, by where there is an old gate post on either side. Okay. They go across the road there to get to two paddocks there, and then otherwise they have to go up the road. No. Okay, all right, I was just trying to get my bearings, but as it says by statute regarding cows, that's clear on the cattle crossing, but it also says that cattle basically as long as, and the statute is clear about this, I have a label cows, it specifically says that the cows, I'll tell you what it says, and then you can go, this is what I said to you, is as long as they're not knowingly, they're not running at large, basically, that's what it comes down to. There was even a whole Supreme Court, I got a decision about it, but we're not allowing the cattle horses, sheep, goats, or swine to run at large, and they define run at large. So you'll, I'm sorry, but you'll have to take it up with A&R, just, I just wanted to let you know that. So as far as the toxicity of cow manure up. I guess I'll take it up with my attorney because it says, it specifically says that the cows can use the road where they must, and they don't need to, he's talking about the brook crossing, they pasture the cows in the brook, and it's all open land on the left-hand side, right from the, right from the- There's a brook right on the left-hand side. Where the brook is on the left-hand side, where you pasture them, then it goes right into your tool shed, it's all open, and then there's a patch of woods from here to the wall. Yes, that's how it goes through up. And that goes right to your pastures, you go in your pasture and it's all on the left-hand side. So it says right here, town highways where cattle must use to travel the surface of the highway to reach the overpass, so it's- Who must, they don't, there's no must there. They're using it as a convenience, it's not- Well, we could look at that later, but at this point, but it's regarding the toxicity of cow manure, and them going through or the river, that's ANR, that's my comment. The ANR, we know how the ANR is with the farmers, they're right in their back pocket. Well, I'm sorry, that's just- They oversee all the farms and stages. We're gonna move forward, we've spent quite a long time on these items this evening, so again, we have a plan in place for the next meeting, we're moving forward with the right road piece, and the Gilead Road piece, we'll be back in two weeks to make a decision on that one. Just one more, one more quick thing. No, nothing. For you to be aware- Really quick, just so the town is aware, in your right-of-way, there's buried fuel tanks too, that were never imported. Why don't you bring your whole list of stuff- You need to be cleaned up, bring your whole list of things. That the town is allowed. Brian, okay. We're gonna move forward. So, Owen, you're next. Are you here? That's why I'm here, yes. Because of the request- Hopefully, Jesse is also here. There he is. Yeah, it's weird now, it's different. So Jesse's actually gonna do the talking, I'm just here for backup dancing. So are you talking about your request to cater? Yes. On Ram Street? Okay. Hi, Jesse. So is there something that you want to select for to know, other than the events on October 8th from 4 to 10 at 49 Graham Street? No, I'm only here a few all questions for me. I know Pam had sent me an email saying that wasn't an actual address, and so I didn't know how to figure it out. Yeah, well, end up happening is Mark Bocher owns land up there on Graham Street, and I don't think it had a 911 address assigned, and of course, Pam lives on Graham Street, so she couldn't figure out where this was. And our concern was that the select board don't really want us to issue a permit on a non-existent address. So we finally figured it out because the new permits from the Department of Liquor Control don't tell us who you're catering for. So we couldn't tell, that's why Pam reached out to you, Jesse, because the new forms are weird, because it's all online, and we didn't know who it was. So then we were really in the dark going, what? So they just put the address but not the... Yeah, and you had to hand write it in. Yeah, as you can see, it's a totally different permit than what you're used to. It just says, location event, 49 Graham Street, wedding reception, the date and time, but it doesn't say anything about who, yeah. So if it had been someone who has a house there, we would have figured it out, but yeah, we were... I said to Pam, isn't that near your house? And she was like, there's no 49 Graham, so we were a wee bit confused, but we figured it out once you told us who you were catering for. So that's not your fault. That's the state of Vermont, for not asking for enough information. We just need a motion to approve babes by request to cater again on Graham Street, somewhere on Graham Street. Yeah. Okay, all in favor? All right. All right. Let's see if we can go in together. I was going to say it's not a very long street. Yeah. I only have a couple of houses. Thank you. River Valley Ambulance for discussion. Yeah. So it's just Warva, our current representative has been unable to attend meetings due to the circumstances beyond their control. So Warva has forwarded their bylaws. Thanks Owen. To me, which state a director may be removed without cause only by the vote of the town for which they serve. I have drafted a letter to the current representative and just out of due respect and courtesy, I think we should send them a letter, give them two weeks to contact us. I've had ongoing conversations with them, but Warva's got a big budget coming and we need representation. And they have been calling us the representative. How often do they meet or say monthly day? And Dave Aldriguetti is interested in position and the current representative wanted Dave Aldriguetti to take the position. But because Warva has such a big budget coming and we are the second, we're Randolph and us, we're the biggest, second largest contributor, we need representation. And do we have to do anything formally at the board to either add or substitute Dave? We will have to. So my person has served us for a long time and I just feel like out of respect and courtesy to them, I have drafted a letter, a nice letter to send to them and just let them know that in two weeks, we're going to be removing them and replacing them with Dave. I just feel like to do it without notice would be disrespectful and for a lot of years of service. So, and it's unfortunate. And you said that person was already kind of well aware. Yeah, we've had multiple conversations, but they haven't resigned and, you know, always leaves a bad taste in your mouth to do that, but we need representation. So, so that will be back on our agenda for next two weeks. Yep. So I've drafted a letter and I'll put that out. There's nothing for, unless somebody has public input on rescue planning. And just as we talked about, well, you weren't here last time. Gene was, but he's not here this time. You weren't here. So as we had talked about quickly was with Teresa's contract, which we thought was the end of September. It's really mid-October. I came in September, so I was confused. October 15th, then. That if, well, the two options, one is as a board meeting together with a board and it might, it's more difficult with the board because we would have to meet once or twice or something to talk through it. Rather than do that would be to, just authorize myself to negotiate Teresa's contract negotiations and then bring those terms to you at the next board meeting. Yeah, you should see my list of demand. And, and, I'm just kidding. It's fine. It's gonna take you and I 20 minutes. I would negotiate with her. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, you do that. So I would bring that to you at the next board meeting and we could talk through that. And then, and I think the 15th, is that what you said? Yeah. Of my contract and it's on the 15th. Okay. Move to approve authorizing, Chris to negotiate terms with Teresa on behalf of the select board. Hey, all in favor? Aye. All right, anything left on the town manager's board? I just wanted to, you know, I received another grant that I applied for. It's called a BRIC grant. Can't remember what it stands for, but it's from FEMA. It's for a scoping study for the box culvert on Gilead. That's between, oh, Jeff Gilman's. Name of that road to his camp. Anyways, losing it. Anyways, from there to, from the bridge to go to his camp and Winterberry right there, there's a large box culvert. So we received 81,375 dollar grant. Obviously there's a match for us of like 20,000, but for them, for us to hire someone to come in into a scoping study and to figure it out. And then once we get the scoping study, we get it done. We'd be able to apply for hazard mitigation grant money to actually do the replacement because that's a very large event down under the road in there. It's a large one, but the good news is AJ and Morgan were going through all the files at the town garage and they found the original plan specs for that, which is awesome. That'll help with the RFP. And they actually found two projects, two large box culverts for Lily'sville. So anyways, so we did receive the money and then so it'll be FEMA money and there'll be at least money to design and then money for construction later because that's going to be a bear. I'm not even sure. Hey, not that I want to go open this Pandora's box, but where are we at in regards to the, the bridge? We are in a holding pattern because FEMA, it takes a while to get through their process. We have sent them the plans, we ended up leaving the bridge basically where it was. We were going to move it and that was just going to become a whole nightmare. So we're, so the bridge is back where it was. They have done, you know, borings and studies and hydrological studies and God knows a ton of money that we've spent on it and there it's back to FEMA now. So it's sitting there. We're just waiting for them to approve the design. So that'll be a million and I think it was originally a project that was supposed to get done last year. It was. But then it was going to get done this year, which now sounds like next year. Yeah, because we haven't, we got another extension on it because it just, well we obviously had an engineer that we let go and then we had to rehire and so it's been a process, but then they were deciding whether or not they're looking at precast a bridge and bring it in. But the price tag on this thing is insane. Right. Too bad we just can't leave that. I even. Don't worry about it. I know. Can't worry about it would be the easiest. I know and we went through that. I even, the guy was leaving, Hoby Gates, I was trying to get him on his last, you know, moments that for the state of Vermont it just, I'm like. Donate us and maybe bridge to Bethlehem. I said just sell it to me, I'll buy it. Nope, he won't, he wouldn't do it. And so, you know, the hope I think is that we go out to bid over the winner, but it won't really impact anything on Gilead per se. You know, maybe a little bit of traffic delays depending on the bridge and pouring it, but it's got a hefty price tag to get to one house. That's for sure. But anyway, so I got the grant for the, for the scoping study. So we'll. Okay. And then select board meeting minutes from the 12th. I did have something I would correct it in there. It's going to be meeting minutes here. Sure. There was some wordage in there which pertain to the water bars on. Yep. So Brian had sent a change, which I had made in my second draft, which you have. And then he sent another draft, but I made the correction. I thought that he first wanted, but. So where it says Chris clarified, the board did not have them filled in as Brian installed them without a permit. And I guess just the reason behind, the reason behind that is that they were installed. So the outlets were, so the outlet of the water was pouring onto an adjacent property owner. So that was, that was the reason why we filled those on. But I just thought that it was pertinent for that piece to be in there. So the water was draining onto an adjacent property owners, owners, what, without the motion. Yeah. The minutes taken at the meeting are supposed to give a true indication of the business of the meeting. Right. They're not more in peace. They merely have to be the motions and who attends and this and that. But you did send your notes. And I did tell the select board that they could, you know, take your, what you wanted and attach it to the minutes. So it would be historically in the minutes if they wanted to do that. I was doing some work on the road for the water issues or something. And I haven't been doing any work on the road. Well, it was that past issue, I think, because it said, I'll read to the section. It says, Bryan asked the board to make a decision on fixing the portion of Gilead Road that goes past Andrew Wright's to the height of the road past Bryan's right away. Bryan has done some work on the road in the past to stop the water from running down the road, but the select board ordered the water bars filled in. Chris clarified the board did have them filled in as Bryan installed them without a permit. Chris is saying we should add there because the water was draining on to an adjacent property owners without permission. And then it says, the water needs to be stopped from running down the middle of the road, which is what you said. He feels the road has been neglected and he's asking for a decision on repairs. He also wants to know when Beth will stop getting highway aid. So I mean, do you feel like we're really, I mean. I thought the minutes written up didn't say that, Bryan, I didn't think it stated that I had done work in the past. It said that I've done work. It says has done some work on the road in the past. Yeah. Does it say in the past? Yeah, because when you said, when you wrote to me, you said you wanted to add it to the minutes. I read your edit and made sense and I made that as I don't know if you read on the second time, but so that's what it says. So, I feel like. Well, I'm just saying that it'd be nice if people knew that what else was going on to as far as the decision made. Yeah, I know. And they should have got that in the minutes when you were here that time. It's hard because I mean, obviously we always try to do a good representation of the minutes because historically you go back and say I need to know a decision that the select board made 10 years ago. I go back to look at those minutes and sometimes they're really vague. It's just the motion and who was there. It doesn't really give me the history behind why a decision was made. But in regards to the select board having those filled in, those minutes written at that point should have been accurate. So I can't do like provision this history. But somebody has a problem with them that this is the time to bring them on. Well, you should have brought them on back. This minutes now, yes, but the minutes we wrote a year ago, no, but are you happy with that statement? I guess I'm asking if you're happy with what we wrote. I'd like the public, the people to know that the town filled in the water bars and allowed the water to run down the road again. Okay, we've stated why. And yeah, and I think it probably said that in the last round of minutes too. Well, plus two, now your packet, everything you put is in the packet. So it's out for historically now. And also the fact that the town has given private people permission. Right, you're trying to take over the meeting again. No, no, yes you are. You're just stalking. Okay, do you need to stop? Is this an open meeting? No, this meeting is the meeting of the select board. It is in a public setting. That's what you don't understand. This is our meeting, not your meeting, not his meeting or those two meeting. This is a meeting of us, normally six, and it's in a public setting. So you have the opportunity usually only under public comment to be a part of the meeting. We, and there's a lot of other boards that don't do this, is we often have two-way conversations on all of the items. Most boards don't even do that. You have public comment, that's it. It's basically you're watching it on a TV. So you have the opportunity. We're taking care of our meeting minutes right now. It's not your meeting minutes. You've had the opportunity to put some comments to Theresa that she's put in here. We've accurately depicted what's here. The other good thing is nowadays is you can go on ORCA and you can watch the whole meeting. Word for word, you can play it back. Doesn't matter. It's there, it's a public meeting. You can go on ORCA and you can get the word for word on what everybody says. The meeting minutes are just kind of a higher level snapshot of what that topic was about and any highlights of that. So that's all we're after now. So I made that note that you want to amend them to add that. So I did that. Is there any other amendments to the meeting minutes? Make a motion. They'd be accepted as amended. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. And then there was a whole lot of different communications in here. We had planning committee. We had recreational committee. There was the, it's one I'm missing. Conservation committee. Yeah. There's a facility inspection report because we had the inspection of the wastewater treatment plant, which I told you about that we had done. We finally got the report. Which is great. That's amazing. I've never seen that. Yeah, that's interesting to read. Yeah, probably not. Yeah. And Richard had gone through it with fine tooth comb, wrote back to Michelle Cole or Michelle Cole and said, hey, there was a couple of things here that we don't think were quite right that you had talked about maybe the note was so he went back and wrote back to her. But it says that, you know, our inspection rating was acceptable. So it's excellent, acceptable or like failed. So, you know, so it was good. And they did, we're very commentary of Tim's record keeping. And so Richard was able to do stuff. There was some stuff we had to go back and find a letter note later because obviously with Tim passing there was some stuff we didn't know. But I thought it was very interesting read and very thorough and really tells you what's there and what's going on. So, wow. It was just documentation. Yeah. Yeah. I had seen one years ago that had been done, but first time I had seen one. So, for that one. So, Richard in the file. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I was, you know, really happy. Some of the stuff too are changes, as I mentioned before, that the feds are doing, that the EPA has changed some rules that the state had not implemented yet. So now the feds said to the state of Vermont, well, if you don't implement, we're gonna start issuing your permits, which nobody wants the EPA issuing the permits. So some of the things that are coming about are not a lack of anything on Richard or Tim's part has just changed due to the EPA. So, but yeah, it was interesting read. I thought you guys would like to see it. And then we also had budget status report in there. So when comparing the numbers, we are 17% of the way through. And also too, I did send, because I think I told you what, I sent out all the draft or the existing budgets to the department heads and I'm gonna try to get some feedback and meet with those guys to see, with all of them to see, you know, what they have coming down the pike for the, for some more budget work. So I'm not sure if I'll have that in two weeks, another section, but it depends. I'd like to pin Morgan and AJ down and try to get, you know, the road crew is the biggest portion, but right now salt prices aren't out. The state has an issued salt contract. So we're trying to pin down a couple of things and they, I'm sure they are, but you know, we're probably only a month away from the weather starting to take the other turn. So how are we doing with any type of winter prep maintenance like pothole patching or any of those types of topics? Well, he's obviously got two people now, Morgan and AJ, but yeah, we made a deal with, so the sand is gonna get delivered. So we don't have to truck sand, which is nice. And so that's being taken care of. I talked to Morgan today to see if he was gonna deal with Cargill or American Rock Salt, but it looks like one of them, maybe American Rock Salt, isn't even gonna issue a contract. So we'll have to see. So he's working on that and they are gonna be upgrading. Let's see, we have rain this week, Morgan's off a day, they're going out next week to get all the roads graded, leaves blown out, graded, graded itched and. Because I haven't been over all of them, but I know traveling down Gilead Road, that mile section there has got various potholes. And we actually talked about Gilead today, not the paved portion, but the retirement dirt portion, because I know there's a bunch of those on the dirt. I'm not sure what Morgan's plan is for patching. I had talked to him when Jeff was there and to see when Jeff was doing, just patching the places where Reed placed culverts to see if Morgan wanted anything. He said, no, they were gonna do it himself. So I'll have to, so I'm sure he's got it on his list because he had the option to have someone do it. And he said, no, we'll do it ourselves. No, it's just gonna come quickly. It is, we were talking about the heavy rain, making sure all the culverts were open and that sort of thing and prepping for, any real bad spots for mud season that they were gonna do anything. And there's probably some sections on Sandhill that need to get patched for the winter too. Yeah, no doubt. So I'm assuming he's doing patching because we did have a conversation about it the other day, so. I have a note here to ask him about Christian Hill Sanders' role. Well, I saw a video this weekend of Mount Washington. Looked like Antarctica, so, yeah. Yeah, so I'll ask him, when do the plants gonna close? What's your crystal ball say? Usually just prior to Thanksgiving, yeah. Thanksgiving, that's what I thought. So anyways, he talked about it a while ago when I asked him if he wanted Jeff to do any of the patching and he said, no, it's gonna cost him too much money, they were gonna do it themselves. So, obviously he's gotta. If I'm available, tell him, get a hold of me. If I'm available, I'll donate my time to help patch if. Okay. If he lets me know and I'll try to clear my schedule a little bit out there. Help me. So he's, yeah. So Chris, one other thing on Saturday, I was up at the band shell and I talked to Kirk White for a few minutes. He mentioned he wants to get on our schedule at some point in time. Get us up to date. But he said, now is the time, if there's anything that we want the legislature to take up, now's the time to get it kind of fleshed out and get it to him because right after the election, people are gonna start clamoring for this, that and the other thing, by the time it gets to January, they've already got a stack of bills like this and it's too late to do anything. So if there's anything, particularly that we want to move forward, get it to him as soon as possible, or certainly by election. So they go back into session in January, right? January, yeah. So he was doing it what quarterly with us before, the check-in. Monthly, I think. Wasn't he coming monthly? He was coming monthly for a while. Yeah. Monthly when they were in session. Yeah, he was. So he's saying get their list before the end. Get them on in October. I'll email him tomorrow. Yeah, see where the schedule looks like. When he wants to come back. But he said, you know, election is the stopper point because you don't know who's going where or what and change. But after that, everybody's gonna start passing in all his suggestions and things. And by the time it gets to January, it's already a dumb deal for the nation. What bills are gonna be touched? Sounds good. All right, I'll make a note to email him and see when he wants to start. We can come back. All right. And do we have any other business coming forward? Sure. The tree issue, did you? Yep, we asked, we're gonna cut the tree. I asked Andrew if they, it's on their property, if we could cut it. And if he wants the wood, he said, yeah. So Morgan and AJ will cut it. And then, I don't know if they'll just drop it or whatever, they'll take care of it. And, but no, they agreed that it needs to be cut. And I mentioned it to Morgan. I said, oh, by the way, I think you're gonna have a tree. Yes. Yeah, I will tell you that we're getting rain this week and Morgan is off the day, so don't partner it. Cause it's not, they're not gonna cut it this week. That I can tell you, because AJ will be alone one day. And I think, and it's supposed to pour one day. So I don't, it's not gonna happen this week. So just don't park under it. And then, you know, there's always somebody on call, you can just call the state police dispatch and they'll, they know who's on call or else they'll get a hold of Morgan and well, you got two choices. It's either Morgan or AJ. So one of them is on call. So, but it's, you know, that's not a problem. But I did mention it to him today, but I just want you to know, don't park your truck under it this week. Cause it's not going to be this week. Anything else? Need a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn? Yup. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you. Yup. Thank you.