 Good morning, everyone, and thank you for coming. I get to do the day, but I understand there's some snow coming, and thank you for all the good work you've been doing in your local town for plowing and keeping it open. I know the states are busy and trying to keep our highways open, so did everyone have a chance to sign up if they wanna speak? Is there a sign-up sheet somewhere? I thought the league was gonna have a sign-up sheet. Yes, thank you, Mike. Just these people. Oh, okay, we gotta leave. Oh, they do have a, you have a sign-up sheet? Right now I do have a sign-up sheet. Who represents the towns anyway? Do you gotta leave or somebody? Oh, I'm sorry. She's awesome. She's awesome. Okay, so. Okay, you gotta pass that around, or are you gonna do whatever you wanna do? So, if you wanna speak, could you please stop? Okay. You are the main attraction this morning. So, and we do have a few people who are prepared to speak, and I think you're gonna have some time to talk to them. Sure, that's fine. Okay, I think the house. I'm going to the church. Okay. All right. So, I think the chair, I think the house should be along momentarily. So, I'm Dick Mazza, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and I will have their senators to do so themselves. So, we'll start on the other end. Jim McNeil, Roland Cowan. Thank you. Jim McNeil, Roland Cowan. Jane Kedger, Caledonia Orange. Andrew Perks of Washington County. Okay, and I think Senator Ash should be here momentarily. Oh, okay, with that, the Vice-Chair, would you like to do- I was gonna- I'm Vice-Chair of Transportation, Barbara Murphy. I serve Fairfax here in the State House. Dave Potter, represent Clarendon, West Rutland, Crocker, Wallingford, and West Rutland. I'm represented Beppo White, and I represent the town of Hartford. Name, BLCT. I'm a board member. I'm Molly Burke, and I represent Brattleboro. Yay, Brattleboro! I'm Mike McCarthy, I represent St. Alton's. I'm Connie Cliffey, and I will represent five towns on the Panerica River, and three ill at once. Patty McCoy, representing the Towns of Polkney, and Ira. Brian Savage, I represent Swanton and Shelton. Tim Larkin, and I represent Bennington. Mary Sullivan, I represent the South End Hill section, where I went to. Okay, so, do we have a list that would like to get started? And again, thank you for coming and share your thoughts with us. Don't praise us too much for all the wonderful work we're doing, all right? Okay. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks, everyone, for your time. My name is Charles Safford. I'm the Stiltown Manager. I'm also a BLCT board of directors member. I'd like to thank you again for this opportunity to testify and for your continuing efforts to keep Vermont moving. I particularly want to thank the Vermont Legislature for amending 19 PSA 306 to ensure a town highway formula that being said, today I want to focus on stormwater funding. Stormwater management is a hugely expensive obligation for local governments, even with the assistance from the Clean Water Fund. According to the Vermont Clean Water Initiative 2019 Performing Board, out of a total of 13,000 municipal road miles, only 169 miles of municipal road drainage and erosion control improvements have been implemented. STO in and of itself has 28,000 miles of roadways, of which the initial A&R screen determined that approximately 48 miles of roadways for a total of 800 segments were hydraulically connected. Towns are required to bring all hydraulically connected roadway segments up to the municipal road general permit standard as soon as possible, but no later than December 31, 2036. The connected roadway segments that are considered very high priority permit standards by December 31, 2025. According to a report prepared by engineering consultants, the estimated construction cost for STO to bring its very high priority road segments into compliance is 230,000 per year. Over the next five years, in all of the road segments, 180,000 over the next 16 years. The total estimated construction cost is $4 million. This doesn't include other stormwater such as the 3-8 Urals and the like. The Clean Water Board state FY21 Clean Water Budget recommends an increase in municipal grants and aid from $3.2 to $3.7 million. This is only a $500,000 increase statewide at the time when we're supposed to be ramping up our compliance efforts. In FY17 and 18, STO received 100% reimbursement from the municipal road general permit projects by FY19 that was down to 50%. In FY20 it was down to 21.8%. In its FY21 budget the town of STO has increased its stormwater expenditure budget from $75,000 to $235,000 which is an increase of $160,000. The select board is also seeking approval of an assistant engineer to help with stormwater planning and implementation. Total compensation cost for this position is budgeted at $15,413. Even though STO does not have any impaired waterways along our municipal roadways they are disproportionately impacted by road standards and stormwater regulations due to our steep slopes. Admittedly there are a number of roadways with ditches that do not meet current standard due to our topography, ledge and utilities. Also while the community has been a leader in environmental stewardship with over a third of STO's 72 square miles being conserved the community has resisted widening roadways that may involve taking of trees and diminishing of the community's character. So as a tourism community it has more locally designated scenic roads than the rest of Vermont combined. So our base indicated the number one activity of tourists is to drive around and enjoy her scenic beauty. Although there are some allowances for scenic landscapes and the municipal road general permit it is going to be a struggle to balance managing stormwater permit requirements and maintaining the community's character. While there is a benefit to stormwater improvements there is also a cost. A cost that the state budget does not appear to fully recognize to date. I encourage you to increase municipal grants and aid funding so that state-wide goal of cleaning up the public waters of the state of Vermont does not fall on municipalities and property tax payers. I'd also like to add what I told Bill Fraser the city manager of Montpelier at the last board meeting. When towns like STO start tapping out and saying mercy, there's a problem. We've got a pretty aggressive agenda and it may seem like a long time frame but an accumulation of everything out that's going on. I'm not talking about DEC and perennials, dream environments and turning what used to be culverts into bridges and that's a whole another range of topics we could talk about but I know you folks are feeling the pain. I know the federal government isn't doing its part. Senator Mazanai we're talking part of the meeting. I don't envy your position but we are where the rubber meets the road and the job's not done. We need your help. Thank you very much. Any questions? Comments at this time? Thank you. Thank you. The chair just joined us from the house. I'm Corporal Cormack from Maryland. All right. Next I'll list. Next. Okay. Thank you. Good morning and thank you all for this opportunity. My name is Eric Osgood. I'm chair of the select board in Johnson. I don't have any particular item I just wanted to share with you how important what you do down here impacts the people of my town. Johnson is very prone to flooding. About 40% of our budget is on for the highway department in the town's budget and another 35-ish so we're in them for public safety so we're in the 70-75% of our budget in those two large ticket items so there's very little left to do other things but in our transportation highway department in the budget there isn't a lot of wiggle room just to maintain the highways cost a lot of money as you guys are back on Halloween the flood event we had the rain November 1st it went into November 1st from that event we're into it right now for just over $40,000 hopefully FEMA will reverse this for most of that there is another area that we haven't touched yet it was a complete washout it would be about $20,000 to repair that it's an area that quite often washes out every time we have hauled high water we're not going to probably put it back the way it was for $20,000 it's just a waste of our money to do that we do have some alternatives we had a consultant come in and did a study for us and basically put it in a swale and when the water comes up it goes around the bridge and washes right down through and then when the water goes back down then it goes through the area so it would be like a low water crossing basically and that's when the river comes up the mouth where it goes under the bridge is very narrow it can't take all of the water so it does break the banks and washes out the road around it pretty significantly it is a looped road so it isn't like anyone is locked, isolated in there we're going to look at two options one is to either have that swale put in to the tune about $100,000 if FEMA will grant us that or we're going to remove the bridge the bridge needs a lot of work it's going to cost a lot of money it's it's an option that we will really have to consider whether we keep the bridge or not it's a little bit unfortunate because it's one of only two covered bridges that we have in our town but I would hate to see it go but we've just got to look for places to cut costs and it does require a bunch of work so I just wanted to share with you guys that the money that comes from all clear it is very important to us we're struggling to keep our budgets in line as you do and we've made ways of coverage out of this deal from this latest flood unfortunate any questions? comments? you're working relationship with AOT it's important it's important to us to receive any complaints I thought that was good to work the only issue we had with them was in that particular storm trying to get them there from traffic control we were just impacted all over we couldn't get red cross there because of the storm it was a lot of fun okay thank you very much appreciate it next we have Chad from Killington okay good morning morning are you snowing Killington this morning? just a little bit I just briefly wanted to talk to you about funding mechanisms and how we're going about it one thing about transportation the project dictates the funding it's not a top down methodology and that's why we're in what I consider an unsustainable process of how we're funding infrastructure and to talk to the stoves point of view related to the stormwater it's a very simple math problem when you know how many linear feet of hydraulically connected ditch lines you have to maintain in stormwater and you have 16 years to complete it you know exactly how much that's going to cost in that 16 years there's no reason to be modifying numbers and if the state's going to say we're going to pick up half the cost but whatever that is the project dictates the amount of funding and making sure you can do a complete project when you do it the example I'm going to use is one where route 4 passes through Killington who were three years ago they did a repaving job they did a partial reconstruction on one section but here we are two or three years after the project but we're going to do a major culvert replacement cutting out the road we just finished repaving and then the one part of the culvert that's not happening is right at the base of Killington road we four or five years ago built a parking right when we were doing that we had to extend the stormwater through our to make sure we were discharging beyond where the parking area was going to be so when we did that I approached AOT and we asked them to do the design of what that culvert should be from what crosses the road because it crosses route 4 and we said well we're going to build our structure and our outfall to meet whatever the design standard is that you guys come up with and they told us it was a 36 inch pipe so we proceeded to install a culvert with a 36 inch inlet that had a 15 inch pipe running into it so the speed all they had to do the next time they were going to do a project is replace it to the size that they said it was going to be and that project still hasn't been completed and that's also part of the same paving project that took place that was just completely ignored and we continue to have ice build up and damming and things of that nature overflowing the road onto route 4 right at that intersection so the issue is and that is a perfect example because when I asked the question why aren't you doing this there's a couple of other culverts who aren't doing what we had funding that was originally going to be a complete reconstruction project turned into a mill and eight except for one 60 foot section and that was definitely a product of the case of we're going to give you X amount of dollars and you figure out what you've done with it versus what does the project actually take to do it right and we are constantly throwing money away as far as I'm concerned and we are still dramatically underfunding and as representative McCarthy has seen I've shown him my sustainable funding model that actually will tell you if you actually want to do the math there's a way to do the math over a 40 year cycle of what you should be funding for every mile of road in the state and we're not looking at it from that perspective we're looking at it as how much money do we want to give to it and how we're going to manage the overall budget versus what it should actually mean and we continue to fall further and further behind questions thank you I have two questions one on the culvert is your point that the culvert want to be too small the one that's being replaced is actually because it was deteriorated the new one it's going to be too small the one that was too small was an existing culvert and we were building the extension beyond it and we wanted them to tell us what the size should be what they were supposed to be building it's too small is why it's overflowing it's not a new culvert and you're now replacing the 12 inch so they came in did all the work and not replace any of that infrastructure so we have a 36 inch no it's an outlet of 36 and an inlet of 15 well 15 total it's 15 going into the inner center okay and the parking lot did you say that you built it yeah we had a grant for 80,000 dollars I believe from ART so it was part of that grant project but I just it makes my skin crawl if I cut up the road that we've already paved in the last five years and that's why I always ask what do we have to do underneath the road before we fix the top of the road thank you any questions, comments thank you very much for coming over next is Brian Osberg the Colchester good morning thank you for providing an opportunity for me to come and speak with you today I wanted to comment very briefly on the DMV miscellaneous bill specifically the centralized online permitting system being supposed to be evaluated for the issuance of overweight permits generally the town of Colchester is quite supportive of this approach provided that it doesn't in any way dilute our ability to protect and preserve our public infrastructure transportation system that is our main priority but we actually think that going to some type of a centralized system would be much more efficient and I just wanted to touch upon a couple of things by way of example of what we want to try to preserve with the possible advancement and development of such a process the fees that are collected from overweight permits we would gladly forfeit the 5 and 10 dollar fees if the state were to take the responsibility of issuing overweight permits we're not at all concerned about losing that revenue our administrative time to issue overweight permits far exceeds the revenues that we receive based on the current statutory fees so we gladly forfeit that there does however need to be some recognition of those fees that are put in place by municipalities that aren't intended to address administrative cost but are instead specific to individual roadways where those fees are designed to establish a reserve fund to repair the damage to those roadways caused by overweight loads so there has to be some type of provision in there that the fees are going to potentially be kept by the state to issue with those other types of fees that are referred to need to come back to the municipality they are not administrative fees they are capital reserve fund fees point one point two is more from a liability standpoint this sounds like a online web based portal not sure whether it's fully automated but there's got to be some provision to make sure that these overweight loads that are on our roads are properly insured we would normally in a manual system require insurance certs and review those and approve those concurrent with the issuance of a permit there has to be that capability within this system and I would take that one step further at least from Colchester's perspective we actually require permanent overweight loads on their insurance certs to name the town as an initial insured the underlying insurance from the standpoint that they do damage to our roadways it doesn't necessarily help us if we get sued as a result of something that happens on our roadways relating to an overweight load that we permitted so I would throw that out there point three any permit that the municipality would ordinarily require must be required of the state system to be any a process where the state may not permit particular overweight loads that we would have otherwise permitted on our local roadways so it really needs to mirror anything that the municipalities would have permitted and then lastly we need to preserve the flexibility to in the permitting process address conditions that change rapidly throughout the year and so they do in Vermont sometimes we need to be able to invoke weight restrictions fairly rapidly because of changing conditions on our roadways maybe we have an instability issue on a road or a bridge or something like that and we need to be able to maintain that level of flexibility so again we're quite supportive of this if it's done properly the devils and the details we're happy to work with you and others to see what we can get to thank you I guess the initial thing was all we were trying to do is instead of the town dealing with 150 different requests with different truckers centralize it so it would be easier for everyone but I take your issues in consideration because we don't want to jeopardize anything else other than the fact that it would be easier for trucks to have one instead of filling out like you said 250 or whatever any other questions or comments one of the things that we heard from the bus and truck folks was the level of the fines that the towns can issue if they don't have the local permit which they might not even know about part of the changes and things how do you feel about a change in the fine levels to be more in line with the attraction I don't know that they're necessarily not in line with to be honest with you I don't when I look at this in totality I don't particularly see that as a problematic area I think what's in place now makes sense to me I understand that being able to work for everybody makes sense to everybody but we don't really take the issue with us so you would support it changing the lowering of the fines would or would not any questions or comments thank you very much Brian for coming over appreciate it okay next we'll see the Hoyt from West Fairleigh okay good morning good morning good morning thank you for this opportunity coming to you from the town of West Fairleigh population 675 alright town of West Fairleigh we don't have a road crew we have we contract for all of our services which means that truly the management of our town highways follows the select board we're very fortunate to have a local contractor who lives in town who takes huge pride in the way that our roads are managed he is very forward thinking and it's been a good setup for us we don't own a shovel and our select board has a very diverse bunch and there's just a total commitment to making our communities better and that's what we're working towards we live here in terms of transportation we drive the roads we're checking out the next town's road work even and we're really good at keeping everybody rolling when something goes wrong we hear about it when everything goes right we don't hear from anybody but you can relate but to keep moving forward you gotta count that as a win as well in terms of the recent MRGP road permitting it wasn't new to us those are practices that run the codes and standards it certainly has accelerated that work it has helped us prioritize that work as well it's expensive our budget is going up much further it's going to have to go up every year is a little adventure in that way one of the things that's really important to us and we appreciate are the resources, the people resources it's particularly for us fairly it's essential that we have access to folks who have a practical working knowledge of how to construct them how to manage them and safety one of the disturbing trends that we see is a trend to kind of undermine local governance rather than collaborate to kind of place our towns in the crossfire of some interagency jurisdictional spats that have to do with our highways and I do appreciate that our legislature legislators and these committees have a pretty good nonsense filter for lack of a better word to see that there are a couple things coming down the pipe one of them is has to do with fairly innocuous sounding legislation on updating the tree warden statutes and when you read it it's really more about usurping control town control, local control of our right of ways and we need to have that to maintain that control for safety and just for actually sort of back up is that if anything towns do far too little trimming and cutting in their right of ways it's expensive and particularly in terms of everything else that's coming out it falls into a really low kind of priority in terms of that proposed legislation series of hearings and notifications we talk to the landowners when we we don't want to get the phone call when our work is going to affect somebody's lawn in getting rid of a burn we're talking to those landowners we like our trees we leave trees so this is not an issue another sort of pending or upcoming or proposed bill is H240 which takes fourth class roads out of the better back roads program it doesn't change the fact it doesn't change the standard that we have to meet on that class 4 road it's going after a funding source that is competitive if we feel our fourth class road project is going to beat somebody else's third class road project it should be in there and it should be for the viewers to decide on the merits whether it should be funded as well we are appreciative of the resources that are coming to us through Vermont local roads absolutely essential shout out to district 4 patrons who's very responsive to us and our questions again we're on the front lines we don't have a road commissioner we're trying to navigate some of these new regulations and once again we need to be sure that those regulations are coming at us from those that have through the channels agencies that have practical knowledge and not some sort of other agenda in managing a road so thank you very much and thank you for all that you do thank you too questions? comments? sure the first bill that you referenced about the tree warden is I'm not familiar with it it is a house bill it's H-673 it's because it's forest and parks it's before ag and forest so often legislation has collateral impacts and you're identifying absolutely thank you you said you had 600 miles of roads or 6 in a population how do you fly your roads now? we contract for all road services say we have a local so you don't have a road program of your own? Dallas is also the road commissioner I am the road commissioner it's a great contract and it works well for the town and we do oversee all of the materials separately through the sled board and that sort of thing thank you very much for coming okay let's see Peter from Brattleboro we've already done that and next one is HB from where? sorry that's me HB Valinta I heard you said Peter from Brattleboro I jumped a gun okay okay I'm sorry thank you good morning I'm Peter Alwell I'm the town manager we're here today with two members of our select board Tim Wessel is our vice chair and Elizabeth Lothlin is a member of the select board we're here actually happy to share some good positive feedback with you about V-Trans and what we like to add to the ask about stormwater management thank you we've had a lot of communication with V-Trans in recent years there's a major interstate highway bridge project there's been quite a few different safety issues that have been addressed and some planning to address some bridge replacement and other infrastructure projects that are coming in our area and particularly pedestrian and bicycle safety issues that are really important in our community that we work a lot locally and collaboratively around and need partnership from the state have received really good partnership from the state so we want to let you know from Secretary Flynn Wayne Simmons on down through the entire team it's a pleasure to work with them and we appreciate the degree to which they keep the promise of wanting to be partners with local government addressing these needs and it's in that spirit that we join Colleen Charles and others in asking that that same spirit of partnership extend fully through how we're all working together to improve and protect the waters in the state of Vermont and we completely understand the necessity the federal requirements that the state had to face and come up with a way to address we're not flinching at all at the responsibility to do significantly increased work related to the roadways and other aspects of protecting the waters but we're not getting near enough financial help this is a classic unfunded mandate in that the requirements are requiring exponential increases in the cost of doing this work not just along the roadways but in the entire package of improvements that are required but specifically in the roadways I think each one of us is seeing already doubling and tripling and more and knowing that it's going to increase even further in the years ahead while the state aid has increased it hasn't increased nearly enough and we would ask you to please as the transportation advocates work with all of your colleagues in the legislature to make sure that within the prioritization that has to happen up here that more state funding is made available to municipalities since we are indeed at the point of the spear in implementing the improvements it's a big issue we're trying to work our way through which is a surprise to a lot of us because it is becoming a big issue and one of the factors is we haven't heard much from the federal government at this time of what their plans are for infrastructure over the years and we need to work together so we hope something comes along sooner rather than later any other questions or questions from I have one thank you for being here it's not related to anything that you've mentioned but I'm interested this winter in snow and ice removed from sidewalks especially in places where it seems to happen many hours after the adjacent street is cleared do you guys have a policy or what is your practice so there's a combination of different ways that we address that in the downtown area the building owners are responsible and normally through the merchants who operate downtown businesses they usually take care of the sidewalks directly in front of their buildings they're by ordinance by ordinance really and then moving out from the downtown to into neighborhoods in particular along corridors to schools we do run sidewalks we have a pair of sidewalks that are operated by our public works department we actually only had one for years and struggled to keep up with that need and town meeting a couple of years ago funded a second that's made a huge difference for us in terms of being able to keep safe pedestrian pathways in that developed center of our community further out than that we have a lot of circumstances where it's all dependent on what people choose to do out in the neighborhoods for themselves and in many cases on our more residential streets we have folks walking in the roadways but down where it's more of a public shared space the need to keep sidewalks and crosswalks safe we do that in that combination of ways one particular challenge this may be more detailed than you hoped for when you asked the question that the combination of public and private effort required through the ordinance and through just partnership has worked well for our community but one place where we have fallen down over the years is in the downtown area at the intersections in the access from sidewalks into crosswalks seems like a little thing but it's no man's land in terms of the shared responsibilities that I've described and so we've actually separately contracted now for individuals to go into the downtown area and shuttle those connecting points out we do find that it's not a perfect system there are times when that particular task will lag behind the clearing of the other routes but until we address the issue I actually am interested in those details and I will pursue them with you that'd be great yes Senator Ash question I'm not sure if this is something you've found or through VLCT you've thought about you're probably aware of the transportation climate initiative discussion amongst the number of states while all the details are not fully out the governor and the legislature both wanting to see how it would work for Vermont and I think each of the potential states is doing just wondering if you've had local discussions about the wisdom of the approach or if it was going to happen how the municipalities would want to see those resources utilized sure we've not had local discussions specifically about that initiative so I can't comment substantively on the sharing of that particular those particular resources I would ask just in general that again in the spirit of the partnership the fact that your constituents are our constituents and we're actually in addressing local needs and direct communication all the time around transportation issues and all other issues then when it comes to looking at new responsibilities and new opportunities that we do that as collaboratively as we can we welcome the opportunity to be up here with you as you work through your work we really appreciate continued support for when you identify a way forward that's good for Vermont that's going to rely on municipalities to be out at the front end of implementation that come with the resources to help us succeed are there questions? thank you very much for coming I appreciate it yes, okay what was the name again? I'm sorry thank you good morning, Heidi Bridge-Ballenta from the town of Highgate, town administrator and I appreciate this opportunity very much I had not planned to come but we did several municipalities received a notice from Vast yesterday that who manages the Memorial Valley Rail Trail that this might be an excellent opportunity to just speak about the completion of the Memorial Valley Rail Trail through our communities I did plan to come with the Swanton Economic Coordinator also both of our towns are on a segment of the trail that is languishing has not been completed in the very long time that other towns have been benefiting from their completed segments of the rail trail and this may not be the ideal spot to speak about this but it is a great audience so I wanted to take the opportunity Elizabeth wasn't able to join me but this segment of rail trail is significant to Swanton and Highgate in the significant opportunity that it would open up for us for economic development and tourism and it is really an opportunity that should not be kicked down the road again it is really significant as both of our towns are working so very hard on bringing a focus back to economic development and tourism and what we can do to help ourselves and all of the focus on villages has been a spectacular support for improvements and the rail trail will make a dramatic difference just as we attempt to get light up and revitalize those communities that have been stagnant for a very long time so I won't speak long because I wasn't prepared for this and I don't have a lot of data or facts but it is an impassioned plea to put that money into a project that will make great rewards for our towns our region and the state and what it can benefit that's in a nutshell my message it's more of a statement because I really appreciate you bringing that topic forward and I just want to reiterate that in house transportation it's something we have heard about over the last half dozen years for me I'm sure it's been there longer but it is 90 when completed will be 95 mile trail from east to west of our state so I think that it really is a broader picture for our states I appreciate the communities that are still yet to be connected but the whole picture is really quite exciting yes and I want to add to what Barbara said I think you can be helpful while you're hearing the state house talk to people on the institutions committees where the cap of section budget begins and that's what the governor has proposed to pay for 20% of it the other 80 will come federal dollars federal highway dollars and I want to say that I wrote on it past October wonderful trail and lobby while you're here we're convinced and I'll just say it is one of the worst spectacular segments the whole thing is it is and you're from Swanton Hyde the bridge in Swanton is that one of the recycled highway bridges? yes it was originally a railroad bridge the game of the town great thing so these trusses are no longer worthy for highways but can be a bike pass absolutely and I think it does have one over the hydro dam the truss bridge yes okay thank you very much appreciate it Jeff Weinberg oh good morning how are you? great Jeff's not a stranger here we appreciate it the opportunity that the two committees provide to the lead members on these local government days and it's a bit of a tradition and it's one that is much appreciated not just by myself but by I'm sure everyone else here I'm going to change the subject a little bit here and speak to first of all express thanks particularly to the house transportation committee for taking up the question of the master license agreements that were a source of litigation between the city of Rutland and v-trans last year the railroad the crossing issue and that litigation has been resolved out of court by settlement thankfully and so Rutland is in a good shape right now but the legislature required in the transportation bill a study and the study gave about four charges to v-trans and also required the involvement of the league which is much appreciated I have to say in when we received the study we received it with a significant amount of disappointment in some critical respects the study really does not respond to the legislative questions the questions that were posed and I'd like to I don't want to go through the whole thing and I'm sure there are more important things that others would like to bring up but I'd like to cite a couple of them that are particularly troubling the in the summary of the master license agreement in terms of conditions that is a standard agreement that rail road required municipalities for doing utility infrastructure water sewer storm water infrastructure at rail crossings at roadways there are several things in there that are not fully addressing the concerns that municipalities raise particularly the very first one description of the authorized facilities state first bullet point on page under 1.3 just the summary the state and rail road retain authority to approve or deny approval to the utility for additional facilities first of all from London to my knowledge nobody else has any objection with the state and the railroad having to approve the installation of new water sewer storm water lines at crossings it's only appropriate that they have to review the plans and approve them to make sure that they're in compliance with all the federal and state and other standards that are necessary what that summary doesn't include is what we were objecting to which was the fact that in addition to approval municipalities are required to surrender across all of the crossings within their jurisdiction and for the life of the MLA any right to appeal a decision an adverse decision a denial with which the municipality might object so it's not the approval the approval is perfectly reasonable it's the requirement that we have to basically take whatever answer we get we can't go to another tribunal or court or otherwise and challenge that denial on some reasonable basis and getting to that point down at the bottom of the page under five indemnity and public liability and I'm only hitting like three points so I won't go through the whole thing I promise the very first sentence says and it's reasonable the utility in this case municipality acknowledges that its use its uses meaning the presence of these these pipes and so forth may expose the state in the railroad to additional liability to which they would not otherwise be exposed it's a statement of fact it's perfectly reasonable but that's where it stops and from the municipality standpoint the presence of the railroad across the municipal right of way or over the utilities exposes the municipality to additional liability to which they would not otherwise be exposed in other words there is there is a balance here and there's a tension because commerce and public safety are very much at issue with both roads and railroads and those things need to be harmonized but critical utility infrastructure water wastewater stormwater public health public safety environmental protection infrastructure is equally critical and there needs to be some recognition of a balance and an effort to try to harmonize these things this agreement the one that is currently required makes no attempt to do that and that is our central objection there is there's also the irrespective of negligence on the part of the state of the railroad all liability for anything bad that happens goes to the municipality that's still in there and then there is an opportunity to appeal a decision regarding maintenance of facilities but all the court routes of appeal are all within the agency of transportation all controlled by the agency of transportation there is no independent third party such as the courts and that does not extend to new or proposed facilities only for maintenance or upgrade of existing facilities or utilities that's an issue perhaps most troubling of all is that under two point there's a list here under table one of approximately 50 towns and cities that have master license agreements with the state this is greater to see this list we had requested this previously and it was not forthcoming and we've also requested to actually look at the master license agreements for these 50 and that is not here nor is there a summary in here of the nature or the date that these master license agreements were signed many of them date back to the 90s, 80s and 70s and we've reviewed a few of those and quite frankly we would have signed one of those in a heartbeat it's the more recent ones the ones that require this additional language these new requirements and we don't know how many of these actually contain that language which is not fully responsive I believe to the request finally 4.0 insurance the statement here and again I'm going to go back and actually read what your request was point number three in the legislation whether municipality, municipality operated utility can secure sufficient insurance coverage to enter into the agency's current iteration of the standard conditions to the master license agreement one municipality utility or other person needs to use the right way for the line of the railroad owned by the state and the response can be summed up in a sentence midway through and in the existence of MLAs with non municipalities or municipality operated utilities we listed earlier in this report one that there are over 50 MLAs suggest it is possible for municipalities municipality operated utilities to secure sufficient insurance it is curious that the agency didn't pick up the phone and call any of the 50 that they have on their list to simply ask the question in response to your question did you get insurance to cover this shifting or imposition of liability I don't think they did because I'm quite sure they know the answer to that question which is not contained in their summary or in their report and that is that the insurance doesn't exist you can't get it we tried in fact the railroad Vermont Railway tried diligent to find any product out there in the marketplace that the city of Rutland could secure make it possible for us to sign this agreement and they couldn't find it V-Trans couldn't find it and we couldn't find it so I think it's much safer to assume not that these 50 municipalities have secured insurance but that they have gone ahead and executed these agreements we don't know how many contain this language but some of them have they've gone ahead and executed these agreements without insurance and placing all of that burden on to their residents and taxpayers which is somewhat ironic because in a smaller community in particular in Vermont there's no such thing as municipal bankruptcy under our constitution if the municipality becomes insolvent that burden goes to all the people of the state of Vermont essentially to the legislature so by imposing this requirement on municipalities and in the event that something very expensive and very horrible were to happen and the municipality was insolvent in an attempt in effort to respond to that or to meet that obligation that obligation goes right back to the state it's almost as though the state is shifting this liability onto itself which makes no sense at all so there are a number of other concerns with the report but I would encourage the committees to question this now one other thing as I said our issues resolved we haven't been required to have a master license agreement we went to mediation court ordered mediation with the agency and with the railroad and on the day before the hearing on our second mediation the railroad president whom I personally frankly with and the mayor particularly has a good friendship with him so these were difficult this was difficult litigation because we actually like these people quite a bit got a letter from David Wilson essentially saying okay go ahead build your project you don't need a master license agreement the the process and the litigious process that we were both engaged in was such that it would get in the way of critical public health public safety environmental protection infrastructure that need to be built and since then we've had another project that we've gone to them and we've done another letter so one would hope going forward that the $100,000 that close that we did in legal costs to get to this point has resolved our issue but it does no good for any other municipality in the state and I would add that it was the funding for that came from the drinking water state revolving fund because these are eligible project costs which means that under the 50% subsidy the state of Vermont paid for at least half of our litigation against the state of Vermont those dollars really ought to be spent for drinking water storm water wastewater and CSOs it shouldn't be spent on lawyers fighting over these things and other communities may follow and that would be tragic if there is a way for the legislature to encourage or otherwise find a way to modify some of these requirements in these MLAs so that we can get out of this conflict where we do have potentially conflicting goods and interests safety health etc but there has to be a way to resolve these things short of litigation and that would strongly encourage your efforts whatever you could do to help bring us together on that but you've done a lot in getting this information even though it is disappointing what it doesn't contain Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I guess I would add to say the mayor commissioners we only have one mayor to his comments my disappointment in the report was it seems to rest on the fact that they're common that these agreements are common around the country to me that doesn't mean that they're okay but would you agree that pretty much for the rest on there's a multi-page table in the report for surrounding states and it summarizes some of the key provisions in there if you read that we've studied these things if you read that carefully and I can't say this from knowledge because I haven't read the standard in the way conditions in Connecticut or Massachusetts or whatever but if you read it carefully it would seem to suggest that the more onerous requirements that are here imposed on municipalities, municipal utilities and Vermont are probably not present at least not to the same degree in many of the surrounding states so yes, master license agreements are common actually they're a very good thing the stated purposes but in the front of the report we totally agree with we would love to have one it simplifies and clarifies relationships and responsibilities it is a handful of requirements that are being imposed here that we are objecting to 95% of the content is perfectly reasonable and appropriate okay yes I did read the report and I had a hard time saying what do I do with this and because we were aware that the city of Rutland was really the genesis of the language and the difficulty that you've described you're saying that the legislature really needs to take further action I'm just wondering if there is some kind of written document or whatever that you can go with your oral testimony to help us determine what action you would like to have considered and what legislative remedy would address it because I know the league had expressed its displeasure with the report in terms of helping to guide future decision making and legislative remedy so is there maybe you've already done that in the house transportation Representative Fagin from Rutland City introduced the bill that went into the house transportation committee and that evolved into the study but that bill contained language that we believe would have resolved this now it probably a dozen other ways to do it not the only way to do it I'm sure but that would be a good starting point that legislation which ended up with the study of the law Thank you Thank you very much George Putnam Cambridge Good morning Thank you for this opportunity to meet with both transportation Thanks for coming George Putnam, I'm select board chair of Cambridge First I wanted to add my support for the one on the real trail that was built for Cambridge and when that segment is completed to the north that would be bigger to Cambridge and towns along that so I certainly want to encourage that the main thing I want to talk about is state roads in Cambridge the main state highway in Cambridge is route 15 and I want to thank the state for rebuilding that road from the Grand Marriott out towards the wild county last couple of years reached almost the edge of the wild county that's a very important road for us it sees a lot of cuter traffic it sees a lot of solid waste several trucks a day on that road from assistant county out to the landfill and coventry goes through Cambridge so that's a very separate only separate multiple so I appreciate the resources the state is putting into that road much of the economy in Vermont depends on tourism and I hope the state is also paying attention to all the roads into the ski areas earlier you heard from Killington and you heard from Charles Safer and Stowe route 108 through Smuggler's Notch was recently rebuilt on the Stowe side and my one big ask today is to pay attention to route 108 on the Cambridge side from Jeffersonville up to Smuggler's Notch that road to the top top shape and you can do the speed of rebuilding and that road would be much appreciated that ski area is very important to the economy in our area and that's still a ski area on the other side Any questions? Any questions? I mean prompted because we did look at a map in our committee room of the intent and asset management of our highways and I did notice a discrepancy which side of the mountain 108 happened to be upon and I mentioned that I didn't think that there should be a discrepancy with those colorations We'll see if it goes anywhere The whole road through the Notch is a scenic byway so it seems a lot of summer traffic as well as winter traffic As I said earlier one of the factors is that we have to hope that the congress comes up with some new infrastructure throughout the whole country because it's an issue all over and we're still working with the same amount of money luckily this year but I don't know what the future is going to bring but we certainly would love to give warm money out if we have it and because there's a need all over the state it's infrastructure improvements all over Any other questions? Comments? Thank you very much for coming over Appreciate it Did I hit everyone on the list or did I I thought I got everyone on the list but maybe yes Mayor Lee is staring at the city with a berry I wasn't going to speak but because of everybody else I thought it was going to make a couple of comments One is just take advantage of the other bills that you might see out there There is a bell Peter Anthony introduced for the tress slope to remove it in the city of Berry It's a flood hazard on one end but I just heard there's a Memorial Valley rail trail that could use a trestle to go over and take those opportunities and take action in one place and support another one I think that would be great The other one was about the plowing and the sidewalks before roads One of the things is just the logistics so if you plow a sidewalk first and then you plow the road so part of it is you kind of need to work from the inside out in order to dispose some of the I just wanted to reply to those two comments there's nothing too specific but I just thought it would be something to people's attention AOD put a few hundred people down in town of Berry and we love them there Some of the legislation that was spoken to earlier about having streets maintained by some of the butters I think that is a great way to try to prevent cost savings having to be trans there to help us understand more of our own paths and trails I think is going to be great the more that we can expand the side of a sidewalk on one side of the street versus maybe on both you could use part of that as a storage for the snow in the winter it makes one route to go down some of the plows that we have there are the older plows you can use them because if you go down a narrow intersection you either have to stop so just logistics in general the better you can do those processes it will save costs in the long run Okay, question Thank you very much I think we have to ask you to repeat the sidewalks in the streets because our chair just returned and it's a perennial question Yeah, I'll give a quick overview if you have snow on the sidewalk and in the road the logistics would be if you plow the sidewalk first then you plow the road where does the snow go and it ends up on your sidewalk so if you are able to plow the snow on the road first you can come back through and get that snow along with the snow and the sidewalks that can move it further out Then the sidewalk would go on the highway No, it's not to your lawn Okay, thank you Thank you Anyone else this morning? Yes I wasn't going to but as a conversation earlier and I'm not about money So you like me Two things As you know voter-voter is connected to our voting portal from DMB The two questions I would like to see addressed or the like to see addressed is the application for a driver's license asked for the physical address but people give a physical address as their mailing address it doesn't get to the proper one or they give a physical address that is not coinciding with our 9-1-1 address which is tied to our voter registration so it doesn't match up to addresses in our town so constantly we're getting changes of addresses for voter that really don't meet changes so we're rejecting those because they're not matching up to anything within our town so it would be nice if voter-voter could match up to 9-1-1 so that they wouldn't be rejections or all constant change of address The second thing is Is there a fine question on that? Is it an input issue? Is it a software issue? It's a software issue from voter-voter sending it to our town and when we go to enter it it's telling us there's an address change when really it isn't because for instance in my town in Dorset we have US Route 7 we have Vermont Route 7 we have US Route 30 and people are just putting down Route 30 so it comes in as an address change and I look at it and I'm like oh no they're registered, they're here I'm rejecting it because they're not giving their proper 9-1-1 address and our voter registration is matched up to the 9-1-1 within our towns so that's the problem The second thing is most recently your committees were talking about emojis Don't talk The Senate Committee was not Okay Well I have a couple of constituents in my town that want the American flag but the only way you can get the American flag is if you're a veteran and veterans are very dear to my heart but so are my citizens and they would like to have the American flag as a possibility they're not worried about the swanly faces or anything else the American flag so I called and the American flag is attached to a series so it's the American flag with a V and that but I don't understand why the American flag couldn't be offered to anybody who is proud of being an American with any number or specialty play after it So we actually in the house have several requests for license plate changes and individualizations and I have to say I have now decided that my opinion on this is and it is true the license plate belongs to the state it's actually not yours and so I think that we could maybe start redirecting that to some other process where potentially veterans can supply 3M bumper stickers that people can put on I think that the license plate has a purpose that becomes diluted and they all become from each other and so that's just now my reaction is that it is actually state property it's not ours why is it not ours though you have to return it no you don't you're supposed to you actually are supposed to well people have license plates hanging around their houses plugging holes in their barns okay okay I'm wondering just to throw out as an idea we we got a lot of news attention about the emoji bill which was a short porn bill which we have not spent time discussing there are many many bill proposals that are up on the house committee's wall about specialty plates ideas for specialty plates ways to modify them have vanity stuff on specialty plates it's starting to become the opinion not because of the property issues that representative Murphy referenced but that we should just get rid of specialty plates it would be a lot easier so I take your point that there's a real public desire we're not going to have that discussion here today I just want to throw that out there that I think we may be heading in that direction would you attend it by yourself oh I'm sorry Sandy can stand on the town clerk of dorset and also on the league board thank you appreciate it okay anyone else today without emoji plates we're not going to or any kind of place are we all set? thank you very much for taking the time to come over you've been very informative