Let me, I need to grab a copy of the agenda. Okay. So I have- So people that aren't in person are gonna be writing down or somehow getting the names of the defendants or Christian from that? I will say them out loud if that's okay, because not everybody is on video. John, are you gonna connect separately? I don't know. Do I need to? No, you don't need to.  I could try connecting and see what happens. Okay. So- Do I know how to get on my phone? It's just, it's open, just WCSU public?  We can- Actually, I don't. You don't? Okay. Nothing personal.  All right, so maybe we can have everybody announce themselves who are here. Tom Fisher. Telling it's my failure. Do you guys hear that? Because then I'll be able to- Do you wanna talk here? Unless you- Tom Fisher. Tom Fisher. Telling it's my failure. Jeremy Hansen, CV Pepper chair. Linnick Ravel, Waterbury. Jerry Diamantidis, Project Manager. John Morris from Marshfield. Randy Freinlich, Alternate Legal Sets. Oh, oh, hold on. Just the folks who are here at- And that was Wendy Freinlich from Duxbury. No, from Middle Sex and I'm the Alternate. Middle Sex, okay, I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Okay, so it's- Where are you at? Do you have those? Could I just read them back to make sure we got everyone? I have Jeremy. Yep, I have Jeremy Hansen, Linda Greville. Jerry Diamantidis, John Morris. And Wendy Freidrich. And Tom Fisher. And Tom Fisher. And Tom Fisher, yes. I can type her name into the chat if that's- I have it from the website. Okay, wonderful. Okay. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? I have one. I wanna make a- I just wanna have a quick note about the farmer in Tundridge. And the leftover cable and about how we might approach doing better. So I'm gonna put that at the end. That's not a super pressing issue, but it is something that I want to, I wanna at least talk about. So if we need to pick this up later, we can do that as well. Okay, public comment. Is there anything that folks wanna talk about? So, Siobhan and Allen. I just wanted to mention, I had sent this out. Somebody stood up at the select board meeting. This was not an agenda item to discuss the ARPA funding, but at the select board meeting in Orange last night, and the description from the treasurer was, let loose on CV Fiber CUD. And said that we were only gonna be laying fiber on the main roads, and we weren't gonna be going up any of the side roads. And that he had this information from some unnamed source at Topshop Telephone. Just wanted to put that out there, that that's faulting around. I'm doing damage control with the select board and the committee that's doing the planning around the ARPA funds. Well, I think the good news is that every communication that we put out is emphasized that we're focusing on unserved and underserved. And so I'm not sure how anyone can go from that to main roads only. Allen and David. So I wanted to report that I had a series of emails with somebody here in Worcester who had questions about what about people who are living off grid? Are they going to be connected? And I know that came up during the online presentation, Jeremy, and you answered the question. And what I told the fellow here in Worcester was more or less what you had said as well. But I've been thinking about this. Do we have any sense from any of our maps how many people are out there who are in this situation? Is a premise that is off grid noted on our maps or does it simply not exist in the eyes of the planning maps? So I'll kick that over to David. And then David, if you want to ask your question after you're done answering that. So I can, in Worcester especially, I can tell you where the WEC lines in and there are houses without underground, whatever. It's probably a half a dozen of them. I can tell you who they are. Yeah, I think if we know, I'm not sure I know a half dozen but I certainly know probably four. Yeah. I think if we know that many there are probably more. And I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing to pinpoint all the people who might have the same question here. So I just wanted to bring that up because I think this is something that we want to pay attention to. I think it's a fair number of people and we don't know they're out there unless they contact us or we have personal information or knowledge of off grid people. But I think we should keep our eyes and ears open on this one. Okay, sounds good. So not to sort of bat this back to you but do you think that we need to, we need to have a formal policy? Yeah, I've been thinking about that too. I think Jeremy what you said is kind of what I was thinking which is that we're probably going to pay for whatever distance from the last poll that they're near that we would pay to connect somebody's house. And let's say that's, I don't know, 800 feet. We will pay for the 800 feet and anything beyond that be it an extra 200 feet or an extra mile is going to be the responsibility of the homeowner. But what I don't know is whether that's a good policy in terms of the actual construction of the system and if there's something more that I should know about or any of us should know about in terms of what it really means to be off grid and if there are other ways of connecting people that we might want to consider. So I think it's, I hate to bounce it to David but this might be a planning and development at least conversation just to sort of help us wrap our hands around what the situation is and how big the challenge is. And then maybe from there we can develop a policy as to how this should be treated. I think we very definitely should have a policy and make it consistent and stick with it and be as open-minded about trying to get people connected but realize there are some people who are really way far out there and we want to make sure we're not being asked to connect dear camps that are two miles back in the woods. So David, does that seem like a reasonable next step is for planning the development? Maybe some alternatives to deal with that but my question was, my question, my comment for Siobhan was I posted in front of which from yesterday the information on where to find the webinar and the slides. So actually I need to put the slides up in the Google Drive folder. I should send that to everybody. Yeah, I'll send that link to the, I've already sent it to the treasurer and I didn't think to put it on, unfortunately I'll put it there too, thanks. Okay, Ray and then Jeremy. I think I lost the thread of the conversation here with regard to UpGrid and OnGrid is UpGrid, the definition of location in the statute has to do with those who are connected to the electrical system but I hear you say UpGrid, I'm hearing somebody who's not connected to the electrical system, is that correct? Because we're intending to have available service to all the under and unserved. Now, we'll look at what the existing policy is around but it's typically that if it's 400 feet or less we pay for that, we do that, right? And if it's more than that that the person who's getting it pays for the incremental cost and if somebody can't afford it, we look for programs that might assist them in making it available to them under equal access to broadband or if we have grants that are available that we can spend that money on, et cetera. But this obviously has ramifications for the budget and the costs, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think, and I think that we tried to answer that question in the questions that were put to us in the operator RFP. And I think we said something like I just said. So I think that's where we're at at this point in time but obviously it requires some additional work. Okay, Jeremy? Nevermind. Anything else on this item still under a public comment? I'd like to just say that whatever we choose is gonna have to be super flexible because I think that there's gonna be a lot of variety in the types of people who want to connect. I can't hear you. So John Morris just said that he said he thinks that we're going, because there's gonna be a lot of variety in the people who are off-grid, we're gonna have to have some flexibility about how we approach it. But there's not gonna be a one-size-fits-all. Is that a reasonable, okay. Anything else for this or other comments that are not on the agenda? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'll just add in, we should just be careful not to make any promises that we can't keep as far as all we're gonna cover a certain amount or a certain distance. We don't have firm numbers there on that sort of thing. So be cautious as you have in your conversation. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, anything else? All right. I'm actually going to move up the discussion of Waterbury's application to join CBFiber above the consent agenda just so that our friends here should we accept Waterbury's application to join that they will get to vote on everything. I do not want to leave them out if we can avoid that. So I did confirm with the chair of the Waterbury Select Board and I have a specific request from him in email saying that they did apply what the date was and that they have appointed two people should we accept their application to be their delegate and alternate. So I would like to move that we accept Waterbury as a member of CBFiber. So Tom was next to me so he didn't have network latency and he got the second in before everybody.  All right, any discussion? And so maybe, so we have both our delegate and alternate from Waterbury here. So Linda Gravel, you're the delegate and then I see Christopher Schenck is on the screen. He is the alternate, is that correct? Correct. All right, so where would you folks, well sure, so hold on a second. So I'm wondering whether we want to do introductions first or whether we want to have the discussion next steps for this first. Do you want to have questions and then do introductions later? Okay, so. Any first questions or any discussion? Well, that's okay. So we want to go with discussion first. Yeah, go ahead, Alan. So I've been thinking about this more and looking at the statute and what it requires of the town that wants to join and us as a board before we make a decision and I think the statute is written the way it is because we want to remember there are two ways that towns come into a communication union district. There were those towns that I'm thinking of as forming towns. They're the ones who formed the district in the very beginning back in 2018. And we actually had to have votes in our towns at town meeting or Australian balloting or whatever you were using in order to have our town be part of this new thing called the central month communication union district. The second way is what we're dealing with now and it's what's laid out in the statutes under 30 VSA 303082 admission of district members. And I think of these people in contrast to the forming members as successor members, people who did not join at the very beginning and had a vote in public. Instead, they're using this part of the statutes in order to make application through their governing board within their municipality. And that's fine, but there are some responsibilities that we have as a board that seems to me, I haven't, I don't know if we've done this. The language in the statute says the board, meaning us shall determine the financial, economic governance and operational effects that are likely to occur if such municipality is admitted thereafter either grant or deny authority for admission of the petitioning municipality. If the board grants such authority, it shall also specify any terms and conditions including financial obligations upon which such admission is predicated. So I'm reading this and I was trying to figure out why is this so different? Why is this kind of admission so different from the kind of admission that the forming members got to go through in the very beginning. And I think what people must have, what legislators must have been thinking was that by the time a district is up and running and it could already be raising money, spending money, it could already be operating a system, there are bound to be some areas that might have an effect significant or not so significant on the current ongoing and planned operation of the Communication Union District. And the Communication Union District really needs to think about that before they have a new member joined and they take on the obligations that we have as a public entity, as a Communication Union District to a town in terms of providing service in the area of telecommunications. So I guess what I would like to hear is what kind of determinations, if any, we've made regarding the financial, economic governance and operational effects that are likely to occur. And maybe that's going to come up during a presentation by the people from Waterbury. They'll tell us some of the issues that they have and costs that might come our way, right? You know, I really have no idea how many addresses there are in Waterbury. I don't know how many of them are unserved or underserved. I don't know if Comcast and Consolidated are already both operating there and consolidated the springing fiber. I don't know if there are any other operators. So I feel like if I were to follow what the legislature has asked us to do, I'd like to hear some answers to those questions. I can answer some of those questions, but I want to, Chuck had his hand up before, so I want to give him a chance to...  Okay. So I don't know offhand that number of underserved folks. David, you had mentioned it to me previously. Do you remember offhand order of magnitude underserved folks in Waterbury? 200? Okay, there you go. 287, so, which is a very small proportion of overall premises. I did explain to, I did pass along our estimate of how much it would cost for all the different phases of the project, the same sort of estimate that we put in the presentation that I'd given previously. Did that estimate for Waterbury and they know where that's at. They also know they, not our friends that are joining us here today necessarily, but the select board and Steve Luxpeak, the planning director there, they know what those costs are and they also know what, they know that Waterbury is not going to be at the top of the list because we're already sort of, our train has already left the station in a pretty concrete way, in that we don't have them scoped in our grant applications for the first round for pull auditing and such. So what I suggested, I've not heard back concretely, what I suggested was that if they want to get in on the pole inventory that's happening imminently, they should consider using some of the ARPA funds that they have and cover the, cover Waterbury's, whatever the portion of water, I'm sorry, whatever the per pole cost of Waterbury would be for that inventory. Whenever we would get to that, to that town so we're kind of going in chunks of towns as we're going to talk about this later. But in terms of other conditions or requirements or anything like that as is our opportunity based on the statute, no, I've not expressed that that was required and what we all kind of came to at the last meeting was that we would kind of go and please somebody tell me if I'm wrong that we had sort of two different angles here that we didn't in principle have any problem with them joining, but that we could not really commit to using our current grant funds to support that, to support construction there and we certainly wouldn't be building there super soon with any sort of high priority. RD had a, was fairly vociferous about making sure that the existing towns didn't get left behind or weren't put at the end of the priority or weren't put after Waterbury. Just seeing if I can remember all of the commentary that were brought up last month. So I don't know that that necessarily answers questions Alan, but I think we have a fair bit of leeway in terms of how we proceed. My personal druthers, which may not be everyone else as I recognize are to admit them and sort out how to get them on board after that. Yeah. To elaborate on a point Alan made, I really do think the intent of that statute was to conceive of a world where our network is partially built or completely built and a new district wants to be added in or a new community wants to be added into the district. And what does that do to change a lot of the high level design and infrastructure costs and of course operational costs? I don't believe, and I personally haven't seen it but maybe it exists. I haven't seen any sort of more detailed operating models other than the business plan figures we received way back in the day. So I don't know that we've even gotten to that level of detail and we've been admitted to other communities since then. So I don't know that we did that same due diligence for those other two communities. And my personal take on it is that, now is kind of the last call. So to speak as it were with the conditions Jeremy laid out for us to be able to add someone in and not have it impact us in a huge way. There could certainly be impacts and I do think it would make sense for somebody to go try to figure out what those impacts are to Alan's point. But I am quite in favor of them joining the district personally. Jeremy, then David. Yeah, so a couple of questions. First, we've been talking a lot about sort of the cost, how much does it pull in for a cost who's gonna pay for that, et cetera, et cetera. What about benefits? I mean, would it make running parts of our network easier if we could run through parts of Waterbury? So that's something else to consider. And the other thing is it sounds Jeremy, like you've been having verbal conversations with people and discussing these conditions. Is there any actual documentation of that in case people come back and say, hey, why are we at the back of the list? And then we can point to this, here's the sheet of paper, here's the email that says, these are what the conditions that we agreed to. Well, so I mean, if we wanna set conditions on their entry, that's one thing, but my explaining of the reality of our strategic planning, there is an email chain for that. I'm happy to capture that and share that for austerity or CYA or otherwise. But yeah, I mean, there's not like any sort of contract or document or paper, but the email chain should probably suffice in that respect. And I'll point out that Chuck just wrote in the chat there that portions of more town of Duxbury are very Waterbury Village adjacent. And I don't know where those 287 addresses are, but I'm gonna go with, there's a number of them that are rather close to the Duxbury. I can't say that. David? Correct. David, go ahead. In terms of answering one of Chuck's questions, the Duxbury in Washington, when they were added, we applied for CARES money and got CARES money to update the feasibility and the feasibility plan. I don't think we updated the business plan, but I just wanna go on record that I support adding Waterbury to the CUD. Any other thoughts? We can hear from our Waterbury friends if you are so inclined. We could go, I saw, I'm gonna go now, within Waterbury Center. A week ago, I saw an ad in the local advertisement paper that they were looking for volunteers, so she joined the CUD fiber group. I don't know why they didn't join at the beginning, but I was glad to see that they were looking for volunteers. Christopher and I showed up at the state, the board meeting, got elected. Basically what I know about your group at the moment and the history with Waterbury. You know any more, Chris? Hi, everyone. No, I don't know much more than that, but I will say around the same time that I saw the same article that Linda saw. I also found the survey that was going around by CB fiber, and I very enthusiastically filled it out myself because I've been personally dissatisfied with internet, but I also recognize that it's a larger issue that I wanted to get involved in. And recently I was the director of technology for Vital, who's the operator of Vermont's Health Information Exchange. So if any of you are aware, as a state, we underwent a change in your consent status for your health information going into the Health Information Exchange. And there was a massive effort to share that information and make sure that every Vermonter had the information that they needed and the ability to opt out, if they so chose. But there was a huge problem that we came into, which was a significant number of Vermonters did not have access to any internet or high-speed internet. So ever since then, it's been very much a topic on my mind and something that I'm passionate about. And I should point out for any of the soon-to-be new board members that I'm happy to schedule a time where we can all sit down and talk to each other and I'm happy to schedule a time where we can all sit down and I can catch you all up because it's not trivial. We are moving really fast right now and where we are from the perspective of a board member rather than the presentation that I gave to the public is it's a different thing, it's a different thing. And I can do the full history and everything. One more comment. Sure. I worked for sovereign telecommunications for many years before I retired I've experienced in telecommunications. I've also been working on the legislature about getting internet all over the state, county, democratic chair. You post in the county that I represent and I think that internet is extremely important for the whole county, especially with the kids for getting school done, for bringing new families into Vermont and for adults who wish to work from home. So it's a very, very important issue hard on it already for the last two years although whatever it didn't have me here. Okay, any other thoughts or comments from anyone? Alan? I guess if I can just circle back. I'm one of the things that I've been thinking about is the fact that I think some of our some of our hardest problems and where things are built first and last and where our attention should be have come in the areas where there have been rural areas that from the federal government standpoint should be served first because they're underserved but people who live in urban areas and for us I guess that's Montpelier and Barry they feel somewhat left out I believe and rightfully so of the chance to be able to connect to a publicly owned and operated high speed internet concern that's probably gonna be up and running in the next few years. And they feel like they're not at the front of the line they're kind of at the end of the line. Waterbury is another, you know in this world of Vermont is essentially another urban center that has different challenges for where it's at with provisioning of high speed internet services than the rural areas in the other 18 or so towns in our district if you subtract Montpelier and Barry. So I just, I guess as much as anything times Ken has expressed some frustrations with Montpelier not probably having connections built through the city soon but I just wanna make sure that the Waterbury folks know that they could be in the same situation where our top priority really is the rural areas the underserved and unserved and that really is the policy of the Arthur money and the federal funds that have been coming out. So they're going to have to accept that at this point that's the train that's moving and moving pretty fast and the train in the urban areas the feds are assuming there's already they're already providers there and most of those for most of those premises in their municipalities. And so the attention that they will get will not be nearly as great. Jeremy? So I need to step away from the meeting for 15 or 20 minutes. I don't really have a clerk's report. I've up to date on the meetings. That's about it. If this comes down to a roll call vote my vote is I accept. So take that to one side. Right. Thank you. I'll get back in a bit. Okay. Anything else? Not hearing any more comments. I will take that as folks being ready to vote. So maybe I should ask it this way. Are there any folks that are going to vote no or otherwise? Okay. So I will take that as unanimous consent to approve Waterbury's application to join CB fiber. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Christopher. Thanks, Linda. Actually, do we have a quorum? Do we have a quorum? Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Oh, geez. Okay. Yeah, we're 16 out of 21 now. So our quorum number now for 21 towns is 11. Okay. Good question though, Jerry. I know. I had to update that number in my head and that you just did it. Yeah, good. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is the consent agenda. So the July 13th minutes. I move that we approve the consent agenda, which includes those minutes. Second. Second. Sorry. Tom's here, beat you again. Any further discussion? Okay. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Financial report. Ray, you had sent something out earlier. Give us a summary. Yes, I'm liking the live group. So I can send a summary of the finance report. I don't know if you have that back there. Let me turn to the, please find the PDF file. And I guess what I'd point out at this point is this, that our total budget for these items is $45,000. And that to date we've spent about $17,000, which is a little bit more than a third, almost to 40% of total. And in July, we spent just over $4,000. And that's in the executive committee, approved expenditures for admin services, legal advertising and project management. Questions, comments? Okay. Thanks for that, Ray. And related to the finance report, I have been checking the bank account every day so for when the grant money, the electronic funds transfer for the grant money should come in and it does not get arrived. So everyone will know, I will be emailing with Glee. All right, clerk's report, Jeremy said he didn't really have anything. So we'll move on. Project manager support, Jerry? Yeah, I'll just be quick by touching on some categories of categories of action, I guess. So there's contractor coordination. I've been updating the contractors on the grants and the notice to proceed status and that's a separate one we can talk about later but that notice to proceed I believe is hope. Shouldn't say believe is imminent. So that's contractor coordination. Then there's agency coordination. So for poll, for the poll inventory area A and the non-weck high level design grant, the package, there's a grant package you have to submit that threads certain set of needles. We threaded those needles and we were approved to move forward with that contract. That's for the poll inventory area A, high level design, non-weck area. Then there's the separate grant that is the Weck 3 CUD, high level design and I sent that package in today, again attempting to thread the needles of the requirements for the PSD. So that's pending approval. And then there's also under the heading of agency coordination, there's monthly grant reporting to PSD. So the grant reporting that was due July 30th has been submitted to PSD with no comment from them. Then there's utility partner coordination. So we have weekly Weck coordination meetings being that we're our partnership, we actually have a partnership with Weck if you will. And I do the agenda, I attend the meetings and I write up the notes for those meetings. And what we've been working on is the poll inventory data coordinating the receipt and the transfer poll inventory data. We're developing an electronic poll applications with Weck so that we can do this electronically instead of on their paper system. We're also collaborating with Weck on the make ready RFP. We're using their make ready experience to make sure that the RFP that we put out has the right information in it. And then also we have what I call the Moortown Common Road Grant. We have 90, we have $150,000 I believe it is to run fiber through Moortown based on a CARES grant. And we've been working with Weck on that because we think we have a possibility of making that happen using this grant money. So our first poll inventory effort was gonna be on Moortown Common Road and the vicinity is the addresses associated with that grant. And depending the fact that we have the money and the poll inventory starts there, we have a write out with Weck tentatively scheduled for the 23rd of August to see if we can almost make this a pilot project for all of the partnership we're doing with Weck plus using this new information that we're gonna get from the poll inventory data. Then with GMP, the other utility partner that we're coordinating with at the moment, it's a very different relationship with GMP. They already have an electronic system that I'm gonna get a tutorial on so that I can upload the information, the poll inventory, the poll application information up into their system. They're very welcoming to us and they're willing to work with us very closely, but I'm not sure that it's a partnership as much as it is a collaboration to limit the level of effort for all parties involved to get the ready work done with GMP. And then the other heading I split this out into is internal committee coordination. So I coordinate with Phil on the budget and the budget reporting, for example, what was just reported now by Ray. And then I'm in regular daily really coordination. If it's not daily, I'm looking for these guys. Regular coordination with the committee chairs on just what's happening, what are we doing next, what needs to be in front of what so that we can move forward. So that's my update. Any questions for Jerry? Okay, thanks for that. It also occurs to me, I missed something that I was anticipating doing. I'm seeing what the watery application come up again on the agenda. If we could do a quick round of introductions, we have two new delegates from Middlesex and I thought that if we all introduced each other and to welcome them, let them know who we all are. I mean, a lot of you have tags on your names there on the screen, but we'll go around and just do a quick round of introductions if that's okay. So we'll start with you, Tom. Hi, Tom Fisher, delegate from East Montpelier. All right, so we'll do all the folks on my go-to-meeting screen here first and then the folks who are here in person as well. Jeremy Hansen, I'm the chair from Berlin, Christopher. Okay, Josh. He's muted. Yep. Sorry about that, can you hear me now? Yep. This is my name is Josh Sharpness and I am the delegate for Baratak. Thanks, Josh. Alan. Hi, my name is Alan Gilbert. I'm the delegate from Worcester. Siobhan. Hi, Siobhan Perico, and I'm the delegate from Orange and I worked at Slavernet for two years in tech support. David. David Healy, delegate from County Colise. And I'm also the chair of the Planning and Development Committee. And Alan's the chair of the Policy Committee. Thanks. And Chuck. Hi, Chuck Burr, Morton, also chair of the Communications Committee. I should point out that Siobhan is also the vice chair while we're pointing out alternative credentials here. Jeremy is our clerk.  He's the delegate from Plain Feud. You might as well introduce yourself, too, if you like. OK, I'll introduce Christian Myers from CVRPC. He helps us with our minute. He's a staffer there and we pay CVRPC for him to do that. I'm getting some break up on my side. Didn't hear you say my name. Everything you said is true. So Central Monterey Regional Planning Commission. But they are one of our partners. They offer us folks like Christian, that some admin support and an address. Seth. Seth. Capits alternate. And was standing in for RD, but RD has actually shown up tonight. Henry. Hi, I'm Henry Amastetti. I'm from Duxbury. And I'm very happy to welcome Waterbury to CVFiber. Henry, Ray. Ray Pelletier and Northfield Delegate and Chair of the Finance Committee. John. I'm John Morris. And I'm delegate from Marshfield. Thanks, John. So because we have we have enough Johns now, I should be more specific. Now, John Walters. John Walters live in East Montpelier, not on the board. I am a member of the Communications Committee. John Russell. I am John Russell. I'm going to be here in Worcester. Glad to be here. Thanks, John. Katharina. Katharina Mech. I'm the delegate from Washington Town. David Lawrence. Hi, David Lawrence from Middlesex. And I'm an internet old timer. And commonly online, I've been known as TAIL, T-A-L-E. And if that helps distinguish things from David Healy. All right. Thanks, David. Ken, muted. I'm sorry. I've been away for a little bit. No, so just doing a round of introductions for the new board members. OK, so I am Ken Jones. I represent Montpelier. And yes, so I look forward to working with Waterbury to understand what our organization can do with communities that are largely, largely served. I'm not grouchy. Thanks, Ken. Tim? Hey, can you hear me OK? You sound great. OK, I've always had problems with audio here. But Tim Sullivan, Roxbury, also Rhode Island residents. I go back and forth. Camerashie tonight, because I just wasn't in the room that I usually am in. But I think we should be also introducing ourselves as far as how much upload and download speed we have to wherever we are. So 2 and 1 half megabytes of download speed and 0.5 upload. That's also why video doesn't work well.  Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry, I brought it back into light. When we get good service to everybody, then we can start celebrating and like doing victory laps and such. Sounds good. Thanks, Tim. R.D.? R.D., you want to take it? You're muted. I'm R.D. Eno from Cabot. And I welcome Seth O'Brien, my alternate, but harder than I am. And I'm just imagining how quickly these meetings are going to go once we all have great connections. You've given me both, my friends. All right, so we kind of did some introduction already, but we'll do this again, if you don't mind. Yep. Linda Gravel, I'm from Waterbury. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Jerry DeMantides, I'm the project manager and independent contractor, formerly delegate, alternate delegate from the formerly treasurer. He's born a lot of hats. I'm Wendy Freinlich, and I am the alternate delegate from Middlesex.  Kill them. That is a great way to end, I think, the run of introductions. Thanks, Wendy. We'll have a nice long, good conversation, catching you up with all that. All right, July 28th presentation update. So I gave that presentation. We had about 40 people attending. I thought it went pretty well. I ended up giving the same presentation again a little bit later to East Montpelier. And it was to the slight word there. And they appreciated that as well. It's been uploaded, so folks can watch it. The slides are out there. I don't know if there's any other questions or any other things that we need to be talking about with regard to that. Just thought I'd catch you up there, David. muted. Would you recommend that we all present our own version of this to the other SelectBoards? Can you say that again? I'm sorry to have the audio off on my machine here. Do you think it'd be a good idea if we all gave individual presentations to our SelectBoards? Given the attitudes that came out of that meeting, I certainly can't see how it would hurt. They were very excited. I mean, they liked having all of their questions answered. Different SelectBoard members wanted to know different levels of detail. There were a lot of questions specifically about polls and conduit and logistics. So, I mean, if you're not comfortable doing that presentation, I have a bit of time between now and the end of August if you wanted to schedule through your SelectBoard or City Council or what have you. I can do that, but yes, I would say take that presentation and present away. So, we have prepared presentations for individuals who are going before their SelectBoards and in particular looking for our funds. And we've done that, I think, for John Morris and for several other folks. And we're happy to do that. It's more your town specific. And so if you are planning to do something like that, let me know and we will do something specifically for you until you're happy with it. Yeah, so in particular, we by we, I mean, David, can generate a map and we can then plug in the numbers and get the sense of how much money are coming from the ARPA funds and how much each of the plug and we just take that part out of the bigger presentation and look at how much each town or city would cost to build out in its entirety. Anything else that we need to do moving forward with this presentations or anything? We have an agenda item for the Executive Committee on Thursday to talk more about ARPA funds and towns. But if anybody has anything to talk about, I don't have a specific item on the agenda for tonight. Yeah. I want to unmute you. I just wanted to say that we tried to have the Select Board meeting in Marshfield and Jeremy came out for that. And then it turned out they had quorum issues and we didn't have a meeting. And I was wondering if Jeremy, if you connected with them about the next meeting, are you going to be able to do that? Yeah, good question. So I'm on the agenda for next week, the 17th. They will be catching up. They had Select Board members that were sick. But I will be, yes, I will be going to Marshfield. I will be giving the presentation there. But we already prepared the presentation. So I don't think I actually have this slide. So if Ray or John, if you can send that to me, that would be, I mean, they at least seemed interested in what we were doing. And it seems like they would be willing to part with at least some of the municipal ARPA funds that they're getting. All right, anything else on this? All right, moving along, Microsoft tools update. This is yours, Chuck. All right, well, I'm happy to report that we finally were able to successfully purchase the Microsoft email and tools, the Office tools. It only took eight weeks to provision through the state's supplier, fun times. We have a couple of things we need to address before we can roll it out more broadly, but look for further details to come in the very near future as we start the provision accounts for each person and start to set up the document sharing. Worth noting, if you are doing a lot of document collaboration and you're going to want the desktop downloaded applications and not just use the web interface, it does require a more expensive tier of license. And in order to get that, our current process is that you will request such access from the executive committee and the executive committee would approve that up to the amount that has already been approved by the board for the spend, of course. We do have some wiggle room already baked in there. We were to go above that, you have to bring it back to the board for board consideration. Any questions on that topic? And thank you to those of you who have helped to become gigapig testing for me. Thank you. So Tom and I needed to switch spots, so I'm feeding the display here now. So bear with me as I shift over a bit to put this. OK, can you still all hear me OK? Yep. Great. Glad to hear it. So I'm going to do this. OK, all right. Any questions for any questions for Chuck? You see Jeremy, Matt's hand up. Jeremy, I have glare right on your face. Yes, go ahead. I'm sorry. So I just wanted to say that I'm not a man, so I have to echo. Do you mind muting Jeremy? I think it might be yours. Is that better? No, I can't hear you, but I don't hear echoes, so that works. I just wanted to say that I do have multiple Microsoft accounts now set up on my computer. And it's pretty straightforward to do that, both email and a couple of different OneDrive accounts or whatever they're called. And so if anyone would like help getting those set up, let me know. One piece, if you want to do it yourself, make sure to tell it not to back up anything by default. And I didn't catch this. By default, it tried to back up my desktop, my documents, and my pictures and move the physically on my computer, physically move those files from their original location in my user directory, copy them into the OneDrive thing, and then started uploading them to CV Fibers account, which is not quite what I wanted to do. So anyway, that's just a heads up that don't do what I did. And let me know if you want any help. All right, thanks for that, Jeremy. Go ahead, Chuck. Yeah, just one caveat there while the apps of OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook all do support multiple Microsoft accounts very seamlessly. The one app that does not support multiple accounts very seamlessly is Teams. If you are already on a Teams business account and you use it, you will have to log out and log back in and switch between that, because for whatever reason, they've made the decision to have Teams only support one enterprise Microsoft account at a time, or you can add on one additional personal Microsoft account sort of inexplicably. I'm sure there was some design decision to go into that, but that is going to be the one major gotcha, I think, if any of you do actively use Teams for work. So Jeremy, was that a hand up, or you were just indicating that that's your situation? That's my situation. I use that a lot for UVM. Okay. Well, hopefully you will be the one case that had the OneDrive issues and everybody's going to not make that same mistake then. Let's hope. Okay, so we are right on time. Let's move on to the Vermont Community Broadband Board. Even though they've only been in existence or constituted for less than a week, they've already had two meetings. One last week, one this morning. And they are off to the races for better or for worse. I don't remember when they're going to meet again. I think they're going to probably meet informally and they may have another meeting next week, but all the CUDs got to present this morning about where we are, where we're going. They had a long conversation about what they're, I'm going to back up a little bit. For some of you, you may remember what it was like being at the first few CB fiber meetings or before we really understood how we worked as a body. And that's how the VCVB meetings have been going, except they're all in a kind of a, it's a much smaller board and everybody wants to talk all at once. There's a lot of ideas and there's a lot of stuff going on and folks are very motivated to do stuff. The recordings of the board are online. They don't have a webpage of their own yet. I guess I don't know really what else specifically to add that you couldn't glean from their minutes or whatnot, but they are hopefully going to be putting forth some, a grant RFP for the H360, I guess what Act 71 funds for pre-construction and such soon, that's the rumor. Siobhan? Are they subject to the public meeting law? Oh, yeah. Yay! Yeah, so they will, you can show up for their meetings. You can, they do have to post their, they have to post their agendas and their minutes and all of the same stuff that we have to go through they're abiding by as well. Right. Yeah, garlic sauce? So, Henry, mute. Sorry, I just had a question. Is there a way to get on that list? Of the meetings? That's a good question. I would check the, I would check the Department of Public Services site for right now, that'd be my guess. Otherwise, if you send Rob Fish, robert.fishatbramont.gov, send him an email and he can put you on that list for sure. There's, there's probably. Yeah, I got on the first meeting that I didn't get the notice for the second meeting. Okay, thank you. Sure. Anything else, the folks, maybe any of the folks who watched one or the other or both of the, the board's meetings, anything else you wanna add or anything else we should note for all of our folks here tonight? Okay. Today was a, it was a long meeting today. It was really long. They had an agenda that was probably two or three times the amount of time they could reasonably get through today. So they will continue plotting along. Okay. Grants update. Who wants to take this one? Jerry, you gave a bit of this before. Do you want to, do you wanna talk more about it? I mean, I don't know that we have too much more to say. Yeah, I can go through it pretty quickly unless David prefers. David, do you prefer to do it? No, you're on mute. So I guess. You can take it, Jerry. Okay. So, so we have, we're moving forward, it seems, on two of the CARES grants that we, well it's the one CARE grant, but the two programs within the CARES grant that we haven't had any, hadn't gotten any traction before. So there's Northfield Roxbury that we're starting to get traction now with EC Fiverr. And then there's the more town that I discussed before. So it's, you know, we were very concerned about it getting too late in the year, but it looks like we might be able to bring these home. So that would be, that's very positive. And then as I said before, we have sent in our request, our first invoice has been sent in for two grants, the one grant that's the pole inventory and the non-weck high level design. And also for the, this package that I submitted today, which is the three CUD, three CUD weck territory grant. So we've asked for our first funds for those. And then as Jeremy said, we are positioning ourselves to respond to the request for proposals or put out the application, if you will, for the next round that's going to include pole inventories for areas B and C, as well as a detailed design and potentially some money for make-raining. So we're poised to answer that when it comes down the pipe to us. I think that covers it for now. Ray, David, did I miss anything? I think you got it all. Okay, any questions? Oh, Tom has a question. I hear the infrastructure bill came out of the Senate and has headed to the House from the federal level. And does we have any idea what that might entail as far as how it would pour down to us? So as I understand it, it's, I think Vermont is looking at $100 million because it was divided up a certain way but there was a state minimum, which is I think that's got Pat Leahy's fingerprints on it to essentially say we would have gotten a much smaller cut had that minimum not been in there. So definitely Kudos to Senator Leahy for that one. So back in the napkin, we're looking at a ninth of that roughly. I mean, the formula that they're gonna use is different, but whatever, because we're one of nine CUDs. And then again, the state maybe spends that on state infrastructure, I don't know. But we're talking about in the millions, I mean, if the House doesn't do anything with it, that is, which certainly wouldn't make any wagers one way or the other. Any other thoughts or questions about grants past, present, or future? Very good. So let's keep it rolling then. RFP, RFB and contracting updates. Ray, you wanted to put this on here. There are some other folks that may want to give some updates or questions about this too. Yeah, so David can jump in as well. So for RFPs, the WEC high level design is a waiting state review. David probably has more to say about that. The non-WEC high level design, detailed design is also a waiting state review as part of the process. There's a WEC detailed design of RFP that's under discussion. And we'll see when that pops out. But it's likely to be also a CD fiber initiative in terms of issuing the RFP. For requests for bids, we have in the works, the areas B and C whole inventory requests for bids should be issued this week to the three contractors with a view that three weeks or so from now we'll have proposals that we can make some recommendations with regard to who's going to be getting what work when of course has to do with the funding streams. David, do you want to add anything or subtract anything to those? No, I got updates on the RFP for operator that we put out several weeks ago. We got questions from three different firms. The team produced a response and thank you everybody. We ended up with 41 questions that were not duplicative and they are now on the website. And I don't know how many proposals we anticipate here. I know the three firms that asked for questions or two of them anyway, I know we're going to propose. Then the rumor has it that the firms that are bidding on Northeast Kingdom, Zyber and Maple Broadband, they're probably bidding on our job too. In terms of contracting, I think we're pretty close to a negotiated contract with vantage point for the high level design with WEC and CV Fiverr and the detailed design for CV Fiverr. And we'll be taking them up at the executive committee on Thursday night. I sent copies of them to everybody today. I probably should have put it on the Google Drive then we don't have to be cluttering each other's emails. Sorry, but that's my update. Actually, you're going to put it in the Microsoft shared proposal for it as we migrate over to that. As soon as you send copies of everything. That gives us a sub-directory structure, right Chuck? Oh God, I don't envy that. Any other questions or updates that we ought to have? Anything else about RFPs, RFPs or contracts? Gary, I think you covered most of your stuff previously. Oh, Chuck. Are we voting on that contract tonight or is that just in exec? Yeah, we voted last month to move forward. So we did vote. I do have some feedback on that contract that I'll send your way. All right, thank you. All right. Anything else? Very good. Town outreach update. We kind of covered this a little bit before and I realized that in my haste to get the agenda out, my times are all screwy. It's funny. Good stuff, because I've gone from 720 to 635. That's exciting. Well, not before. Yeah. Well, we'll see. I feel a little bit like Michael J. Foxen's like my flux capacitor. Anyways, town outreach. So we talked a little bit about East Montpelier and I'll be presenting to Marshfield. I sent letters, physical letters, dead tree letters to all of the towns and cities asking for their feedback on hub locations. I should probably send one of those to Waterbury now too. The idea there is that for those of you that are just joining us, the statute provides that each member of municipality should provide for lease some space for equipment. And so we essentially explained in the letter what we're looking for and as we're doing the high level design, as we're gonna get to do some more of the detailed design for the network, we need to know where are we putting some of these core networking components and can we put them on public property, wherever that might be, wherever the select board or city council would be amenable to that. I'm confident that in sending the blast out to 20 towns, cities, we'll find something. And now we'll go from there. Anything else on town outreach that we ought to be talking about? David? I think, I mean, we have historically talked about the money, opera money from towns, but the county money is now officially going to the town. So they have a lot more money than we originally put in that table. And I think Ray has sent out that table to everybody. So we should know every town, every member here should know how much money that town has. And it will involve following up and staying on top of whether the towns are interested in contributing to what we're doing. Yeah, and the remote league of cities and towns actually got some funding to coordinate and help towns as they're kind of navigating the process of great that we have this money in our bank account now. And that money landed in bank accounts within the last couple of days. How do they spend it and still follow the federal ranks? And that's essentially what we're trying to navigate with the memorandum of understanding with the towns that are interested in turning over some of that money to us. So we're still going through the process. There's some legal issues to still resolve there. Okay, any thoughts on town outreach? Okay, auditor RFP. So thanks Jeremy. So I sent out earlier an email with a proposed motion to issue an RFP for an auditor. And then in the chat room, I put the motion there for you. There are three whereas clauses and then the motion is hereby moved the governing board requests the finance committee to draft the executive committee to refine issue and publicize request for proposals for an accounting contract to conduct a required single audit for 2021. Second. The motion is patterned off to the motion that was approved by the board for accounting an accounting firm. So it should look familiar to you. How can you answer any questions? Jerry has a friendly amendment. He would like to propose. Could we also add to that that the single audit is one very special type of audit. But I think it may well be possible that we will also have to do some other audits. There may be some standard financial audits that are required if we want to have three years of audited books to go forward for a to go into the private market for funds or the state may require us to do audit. So is there possibly a way to add something like and any other audits as may be required in fit for fiscal year, you know, to do it for this fiscal year or something along those lines. Sorry, I didn't get this to be an earlier rate. That doesn't sound very friendly, Jerry. So I've added some language in the bottom of the Jerry amendment. And that would be, and such other audits as maybe required thereafter. What I said, thank you. All right. So, Shivanya, the second, is that amenable? Yep, yep, yep, yep. Wonderful. Amenable means amended. All right. So anything else with this motion for the auditor RFP to get that process rolling? That is on the agenda for the Thursday executive committee meeting as well. I should point that out. Not hearing anything. Are there any objections to the motion as amended? So friendly, friend Lily or whatever, whatever. Amenably, there you go. So amenably amended. Okay, not hearing any, the motion passes unanimously. Thanks, Ray, make ready RFP. So I also sent out a motion, proposed motion earlier with regard to make ready services. And under the regulations and under federal regulations as well, those who were looking to attach items to polls may, when the poll owner does not or you're unwilling or not willing to do it in a timely fashion, may engage contractors to do it for them. We've had some really good conversations with WEC with regard to make ready and what their resources are capable of doing. And they're amenable to our going forward with retaining contractors to make ready work. They will be part of the process when we review qualifications to make ready contractors. They're required actually into the regulations to post those contractors if they're willing to have to work. Green Mountain Power were also in discussions with them. The motion is as hereby moved the governing board authorized the issuance of requests for proposals for make ready services and further authorized the executive committee to take such actions as necessary to refine the issue and publicize an RFP as needed as well as the grant application timing and amount in support thereof. Second. Happy to take any questions. All right, any questions for Ray about the make ready? Okay, I'm not hearing anything. So are there any objections to approving this motion? The motion passes unanimously. Again, on the agenda for the executive committee meeting to get more into the weeds on that one if you need to. So if you have suggestions or anything after you've reviewed that, please send them on over to whomever. Okay, we have a, so we normally go to round table, but I wanted to add a quick discussion of the new story you all must have seen. The farmer in Tunbridge, who is at risk of losing quite a number of dairy, well, losing almost their entire herd of dairy cattle due to a subcontractor of Eustis leaving out a whole bunch of leftover cable that got chopped up and mulched while they were haying and is killing a whole bunch of cows and is not clear that they will be able to financially recover. And this was, this will probably be litigated.  They had to get rid of it, throw it somewhere where cows weren't going to eat it. That said, there's a lot of folks who are looking at the work that's happening imminently in the state of Vermont and saying, I don't want that to happen to my farm. So like our East Montpelier Select Board Chair is a dairy farmer. And I would hate to see us doing work in East Montpelier say, like imminently, and then a contractor leaving a whole bunch of material nearby and that gets mulched and it kills Seth's cows. I'm gonna put it out there right now, not on my watch. So we need to take some affirmative steps to make sure that our contracts with contractors have specific language about cleanup. And I think this is what the campground rule, leave it better than you found it. So we have to have something in there that will have expectations that are clear that say if you're bringing material with you to a construction site, any scraps, any bits, any pieces that you bring in, you take back out. I don't see this as particularly controversial at this point, frankly. I guess I would ask Alan as the policy committee chair, do you feel the need that we should draft a policy or do you think that we can just say to our contractors when we get that far that they ought to include something like that? Or do we hire a lawyer at this point and say we need to hire a lawyer to write that little tidbit of language that will then go into all of our future contracts? Because this is something that we must address. So Alan and then Jeremy and then John. Yeah, I would suggest if this is okay with Ray, that Ray and I have a conversation first. Ray's pretty good about contracts and I think this probably is a question of getting good solid contractual language into the contracts that we make. And that might require a practicing attorney to review for us, but Ray and I can talk about that. Is that okay, Ray? Does that sound like a plan? Okay, great. All right, thanks for that Alan. I've got Jeremy and then John Morris. Yeah, I agree that this is really, really important. There was a little bit more background. Part of the problem was that it was stainless material which is non-magnetic. They have protections for like say a piece of barbed wire that gets in, they've got magnets that will pull out the magnetic material, but it doesn't catch the stainless. I don't know, I mean, I do think that it would be a good idea to have a policy in place or some contract language that we can point to. Some farmer says, hey, you're gonna be running through my land. I don't think I want that. What guarantees do I have? And then we can say like, look, here we put in our contracts X, Y, Z, that if there are any problems that result in damage or deaths to animals or whatever, that the contractor is 100% liable for all costs or something like that. I don't know how to structure that, but I think it's, I think something like that should be there. Fair enough, John Morris? I just wanted to say that, I think no matter what kind of language we put in there, there's gonna have to be some liability insurance. And I don't know if that's gonna be covered by the contractor buying some liability insurance or CV fiber owning some liability insurance, but it's gonna have to be an awful lot of insurance. I don't think a regular $1 million policy is gonna be enough to do that kind of liability coverage. Right? Yeah, all of our contracts have a section on liability and we're not assuming liability for the work that our contractors are doing. We'll put language in there having to do with the issue, particular issue that we're talking about and perhaps that might be a little bit broader than broader than that. I'm reluctant to kind of adopting policies, kind of ad hoc policies as we go. One of the things when you do that is that you become liable for upholding your policies. And so be careful what you write and adopt. I think that her attorney's review is in order for this. A policy is in order for this, so that it's known where we stand on this. This is an important issue. Thanks, Linda. Anything else, anything else on this? Yeah, John? Morris? I just like to respond to Ray and say that whether or not we adopt, whether we accept liability or whether we say that the contractor is liable, if there isn't insurance, then the contractor may or may not be around to cover that liability in the future. And that's why I'm suggesting that no matter what happens, there has to be some kind of insurance that can cover it if the liable policy can't. Our contract's typically also has an insurance section in it, so. I'd also just throw in the idea here is we'd like to avoid it, not just cover it when it does happen. So making sure that we elevate it to at least a speaking level to our contractors that was saying, you know, not only did you submit this in writing, but hey, by the way, we don't want you tarnishing our reputation in the state by, you know, having something like this happen. Okay, one more point then, since- Sir, I mean, would you repeat some of that because it wasn't clear what Tom just said? Yeah. Would you say it again, Tom? So saying, it's important that we not only write this down on a contractor and policy, but that we actually state this to the contractor and make it clear that, you know, it's our, yeah, how the state's gonna view us is a major part of this. And we wanted to, you know, be prevented not just be covered in case it does happen. And then Jerry had something to add. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up that even with the poll inventory contractors that we've already had contact with, we've told them that, you know, they're the face of CV fiber in the community and that we're community-based and we had a long discussion about the need to be, the way we are a part of the community and the way we wanna monitor the behavior, if you will, of the contractors in the field, that's very important to us. Definitely agree. So as we're having conversations with contractors, primarily with folks that are gonna be out in the field, these are things that we need to, we need to take affirmative steps ahead of time in addition to the CYA legal process that happens, that will cover things if they do happen. Yeah, it's much cheaper for everybody if it just doesn't happen in the first place. So I think if we can just say, hey, pick up your crap and that's just our position, I think it'll be better for everybody. Okay, so this is the point in the meeting where because we are done with our agenda items where everybody gets the opportunity, oh, I'm sorry, I was gonna go to round table and explain round table in a sec, but I see RD has his hand up.  I hope you can catch some of this. My upload is about zero, but the people we need to be in conversation with are not just our contractors, but the landowners on whose land the contractors are gonna be going to do their work. Out of giving prior notification to property, some of these polls are located, but I think it's an important consideration. Having the magnetic logos on each side of the truck may not prove sufficient and can do much to enlist public trust if we do as much outreach and prior notification as is possible. All right, thanks, RD. One of the things that we're doing, just to adjust that and then I see Siobhan you have your hand up, one of the things that we're doing to try to get the word out there about at least some of the stuff that we're doing for poll inventories is that Washington Electric Co-op is publishing information about our contractors working and looking at those polls. They're communicating that to their members and they're communicating that through their website and they're communicating that, they'll be, will be communicating that through their current newspaper. So not to call you out too much chuck on this, but I don't know, did you get any copy or do you have any talks with folks at WAC about some copy or a landing page that they could advertise? Yeah, that is in process and is going to be one of the topics for discussion at next Thursday's communications regular meeting, but we do have Jerry actually working on composing some of that for us at this point. So thank you Jerry for your work on that. And I would just call out that, having done a lot in the realm of communications trying to do personalized outreach here is just not something we are equipped to really handle. There are a lot of farmers in our district. If you're concerned, I would encourage you to try to talk to some of the farmers in your community directly, but doing that level of a personalization campaign is going to be very difficult for us to pull off effectively. So I think we're just gonna have to do a lot of over communicating at the district level and in our front porch forums and in any sort of channel like that where we can blast out announcements. And if folks have other suggestions for how we might do this, other places where we might communicate there, that's going to be efficient uses of our time and our resources, I would love to hear that. I think the more people know, A, the more excited that they're going to be, but then the fewer surprises that folks are going to have down the road, hopefully. So if they see a CV fiber car or truck, they're going to look at it and say, oh, I remember hearing about that because Henry posted on Duxbury's front porch forum and everybody's comfortable with what's going on. And this may also be one of the benefits of reaching out and presenting to select boards and city councils so that they understand that this is imminent and there's going to be people walking around at least in some communities soon, very soon. Anything else on the farmer concerns, cable, contracting, outreach? Oh, I'm sorry, and Siobhan, I'm sorry, let's come back. That's okay. I know this is sentimental of me, but I think of them as our cows. This isn't just about liability. These are our cows, and these are our friends' cows. And I was so distressed when I heard how several of them passed. It was very upsetting. So I think we need to, we're not just conveying the legal, certainly the legal stuff is absolutely necessary because the contractors are not going to be thinking these are our cows, but I think we need to recognize and convey the message that we understand these are not just a monetary vehicle for people. These are people's family, in a lot of cases, their cows are their family in certain degrees. And it's just, there's a heart to this as well, I guess is what I'm trying to say there. I'll stop. Thanks Siobhan. So when this meeting is done, I recommend you should go hug a cow. It'll make you feel better. R.D.? R.D., whenever you're ready. Looks like he might be doing the chat instead. Okay, it looks like he's typing something into the chat instead. And so I will offer a cow hug by proxy if anybody would like me to. There are cows right outside my front door, so it's easy for me to do so. They're very nice. Okay, so we will be doing a round table now. So each of our opportunities to have one last word to mention anything that you might want to mention, things that are going in in your community, things that you thought about the meeting, anything that you want to share with the rest of us. Sometimes this is sort of a group pat on the back and such or not. But let's, yeah, let's go down. We'll start with one of our new folks, Christopher Schenck. Anything to add that you'd like to share as we're wrapping up? No, I'm just very happy to be here. Thank you for including me. And thank you very much for joining us, Josh. I couldn't hear anything you said, Jeremy, were you talking? Okay. All right, Josh Jarvis. I have nothing more to add. Just want to thank everybody for all of our work that's been going in. I didn't see the picture. Thanks, Josh. Alan, Siobhan? I'm fine. No, I'm good. Thanks. David? I'm good. Thank you, everyone, for all the hard work. Thanks, Chuck. Jeremy? I think our new motto should be let's go hug cows together. I can really get behind that and tip it. I just want to say everyone's doing a great job. I can't believe how much work is being done. I think at this point, you know what my skills are. If you need any help, let me know. My takeaway from earlier conversations was that we should proceed with sending out the PowerPoint to front porch form and et cetera. Is that correct? Yeah, that's what I would do. And then the last thing is that I would like to work with whoever to prepare for approaching the Duxbury select board with the DARPA informational session. Okay. And again, thanks everybody for all the hard work and let me know if I can help you out. Sounds good, yeah. Henry, let me know when the Duxbury select board meeting is I'm happy to come out and do that if it's in the next few weeks. Well, I want to get the proposal ready first, but yeah, yeah. So yeah, so the way that we've done it previously is we've presented and then the presentation kind of has the proposal and the pitch and then we send over the MOU beforehand because they will invariably have questions like that. And so there are still some legal issues that we need to work out and that will hopefully be sorting that out in the next, well, obviously this week, frankly. Yeah, that sounds good. I guess for me, the first step is customizing the presentation for Duxbury, getting that under our belts and then approaching the select board after that and also the agreement as you spoke. But the first step is to put together the modified proposal and feel good about that and then go on from there. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, let's connect on that and we'll figure out what's next. Right? Great job, everybody. I'm fine, thanks. Thanks, Wright. John Walters? Nope, I'm good. Thanks, John. John Morris? No, I have nothing to add. Thanks, John. David Lawrence? Nope, nothing for me. Thanks, David. R.D.? Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, R.D. Tom? First, I'm not sure if I'm more excited to get fiber to my own premises or to R.D.'s premise. I'm not sure. I'm close. Second, I also want to say I highly recommend reaching out to your select board. It was very successful. And thank you formally to Jeremy for meeting that presentation. So it was great for them. It was lucrative for us. And it was just a really good experience. So I highly recommend, if you haven't done that yet, at least reach out and start the process. It was not that big a lift and it got us pretty far. Thanks, Tom. Linda? I see the work that's being done here is extremely important for Vermont. I want to thank everyone for their hard work. I certainly have a lot to come up to speed on and I'm hoping that Jeremy will help us with that. Thank you. Definitely. Thanks, Linda. Jerry? Nothing to add. Okay. Wendy, Sean can connect you there? Yep. Just thank you for all your hard work and that's it. Okay. Well, I think that is the end. I will declare us adjourned then at 747 p.m. And we can fly out of here. Have a nice night, everybody. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. I have a few questions, Jeremy, before we...


I want to ask you this question, are you a billionaire? I'm not, I'm not a billionaire, I'm not even, I don't know. As for wealth, I can't say I'm a rich man. No, I can't say I'm a rich man. Then who are you then? I'm a rich man, every person, yes. Doc, I think it's all about the mindset. Yeah, yeah, because if I say I'm rich, yeah, right, if I come and say I'm rich, because I was in America, right? America, they have billionaires, dollars, right?  Nobody. The fact I know are some few South Africans. Ghana, who's rich in Ghana? Yeah, no, no. There's two to four money that we have, no, you know. So if you go and meet the actual billionaires in America, they'll make a lot of dollars in a month, not hours. So for me, I don't see myself as a rich person. So don't be ordinary. See, if I say good morning, good morning. But it's an underwritten, good morning, say good morning. So what have you achieved? I've achieved anything.  So help while sleeping, wake up. When everybody wake up, you know, start crawling, when everybody's crawling, turn up, when everybody's turned up, start walking. When everybody's walking, right? Start jogging. When everybody's jogging, start running. When everybody's running, then you fly. My name is Wadamaya, your one and only annoying village boy who's on a journey to change the negative narrative of Africa by celebrating African excellence. But my travels across Africa have made me come to conclusion that most successful African entrepreneurs are not known and celebrated by Africans. And this is why I feel like it's my responsibility to bring the unknown to the limelight. It's my responsibility to celebrate every single African who is doing something great to change the narrative of Africa. I am Wadamaya. Believing in the motherland, celebrating every African. I am Wadamaya. Through Africa. Mr. Ghana, baby! Africa to the... Listen, I just had to sing this song for you guys because I'm super excited. It's good to celebrate Africans that are changing the narrative of Africa in their own way. This is Ghana and this is not a capital city of Ghana. This is the western region of Ghana and the legend that I'm going to celebrate today. This man was born in the forest. He grew up in this village. He left to the city to hustle and he became the founder of this prestigious company that you and I boast of because this is a Ghanaian-owned company. This is one of the highest paid tax companies in Ghana. Do you know the founder of Casa Preco? Will you ever believe that the person behind this great company was born in the forest? Listen, have you heard of Signature? This beautiful building that you're seeing belongs to him. Have you heard of Casa Globa? He's the man behind it. Have you heard of Amenfi Plaza? He's the man behind it. Have you heard of this mineral water that is competing with so many foreign-based mineral water in Ghana? You're not awake. So you better drink awake today so that you will be awake and celebrate your own. If I were you from today onwards, the only water that I will ever drink is awake mineral water. This man has done a lot for this country and I believe that if you're an African, especially Ghanians, if you're seeing this video, I'm pleading with you to share this video to anyone that you can. Let's celebrate our own. Let's celebrate this living legend. Let's celebrate the giants of Ghana together. Thank you. At this story, who blew your mind? Can you believe it? Being born in the forest, you were born here? I was born here. Did you grow up here? Yes. For the first 13 years of my life, it was here. I had never traveled anywhere, but here for the first 13 years. How was your childhood like growing up from here? Very challenging, because even here, this cottage, this village, I was my mother and father. Only my father and my mother and myself lived in the middle of the forest. Middle of the forest? So I used to walk about the most five miles in the morning to come to school here. This is where I started my schooling, on this very plot. The one that you used to walk two hours to come? Exactly. From the forest in here? Yes. So it was, I think, class one, class two, class three, class four, class five, class six. This very plot. And after school, I go back to the forest. Live the forest, go out there, make it big, and come back and retire in the forest. I'm a villager. I want to live in the village. I live in the village. I eat what the villagers eat. You grow your own tend, and eat what your own tend does it. So can I call you a village man? I'm a village man. And when he retired, he decided to build himself a castle in the forest. But listen, this man is so modest to the extent that he doesn't even want to accept the fact that he's living in a castle. He called this place a house. You know, when I build a family house for my family, not my children. That's the extended family. I'm the head of the Ibeana family. I'll show you the old building to inherit. But it's a family house. It's a family house, yes. I've got my private one at the back. But Doc, you're calling that a family house? It's a family house, yes. I know, like, you're so modest. That's a family castle. Okay. A family house, because we had it before. We had it before. We had it before. When I saw the ceiling, the TNG that they did about 150 years ago, I said, wow. You know, and that inspired me to do something like this. I was so inspired by my forefathers. I thought they had a lot of wealth. But because I came to meet the good ornaments. A lot of good ornaments. A lot. Yeah. So I believe the family in general was rich. But along the line, they lost it. But after being there, I think that is the castle from heaven to earth. But you know why so many people don't know this man? Because he's not loud. He makes his work, speak for himself. I don't believe being out there would add any value to what I'm doing.  You know that. The sea. Yeah. Even they can't even catch snakes.  So our focus, not being from buoyant, you know, so mine is focus, focus, focus. So probably most of you have seen his product out there, but you don't know that he's the man behind it. Let me help you. Casa Preco. Signature. I mean, this beautiful building that you've been seeing in Accra belongs to him. Accidential, it's about signature. Signature. Signature is one of our, that is our, that's my name because it's a signature. So it's a different design altogether. Okay. It's about 230 apartments. Why the name signature? It's my signature because I give the name as my signature. But I believe that you and I didn't know that this building belongs to him. You know why? It's not everything that you do publicity. That's why for me, I'm not a media person. I don't like the media, but sometimes you cannot hide. That's why I'm giving the interview to you. No, people call me for interview. This one like this. Once it comes out, they start calling me and accusing me. Why did you give interview to Maya? Maya. You are called interviewer. He said no. Aha. Whatever is special, yeah? You guys need to understand that. He does not grant interviews, but I guess I found an interview about him in 2016 when he won the EY World Entrepreneurship of the Year. Dr. Quabena Ajay, you're a group chairman at Casa Preco and you are obviously entrepreneur being Ghana. Congratulations for that. You're quite an inspiration to a lot of us entrepreneurs. We've got a lot of young entrepreneurs who are watching the show right now. A lot of us start businesses, but we fail to run them for a longer period. How have you been able to succeed in business, sir? Business means we have the same attitude, the same play. To be successful in business, first, you should have a passion to succeed. Because I always say that nothing succeeds better than success. Can you believe it? The whole world picked him from Ghana to celebrate him. I want us to celebrate this man today. Share this video share this video to your dad. If you are a dad and you are watching this video you can share this video to your children. Let them get to know this living legend, living in Ghana that our people are not celebrating him. But since he was born in the village he only granted this interview because I'm the village boy. But, yo, it's not just because I'm the village boy. I'm the new son in the family. You're my son. Oh, I'm not a son, yeah? You're my son. And after spending time with him, I came up with a conclusion that he is a visionary. Well, yes, because with that vision we get lost. Anyone with that vision we get lost. So, that's why people get stuck. You go in the circles. It's called a rat race, right? But these things for me I am an old man, right? I'm not doing it for myself. I'm doing it for for the generation. It has to be for the generation I'm thinking. Do you think generational worth is something that Africans should look into? It's very important. It's very important because you pass on like a route, you know, you make a path and then your generation will definitely go through the path. You know, yeah. So for me I am as a family head, I'm reading for my family, my immediate family and also even my external family. External family. So I'm taking good care of my I'm taking care of my family members education. Yeah.  You know, my children, I'm doing the same thing. My grandchildren, I'm doing the same thing. You know, I set up a fund for my grandchildren. Whoa. Education I found, yes, all of them have got it. So that when do we reach 18 years that they're going to the university level, right? Whether their father have money or not, their grand parents have already set up the fund for them. This man is an industrialist. Yeah. My name is William Akunu Ata. I'm the senior manager of research and development for Herbal Farms and Research Limited. This is the first out of group chairman. This is where he used to live and this is where he started Casapraco Company Limited. We currently use it for the production of concentrates for Casapraco Company Limited. It grew at a proportion, you know, we produce and we are loading on the streets suddenly the sun unloading, you know. But fortunately for me because of the generation I think I've already acquired and learned through our current locations, you know. So at a point he says let's go and build a factory because we cannot be loading inside the sun. It's really hard to cover quickly with the Napoleon. So that's where I went to Germany to also go and buy Siemenske Hand Tomatik machine lines. So around now when we came to our new facility we are no more doing manual washing again and then we are transited from the manual washing to Siemenske Tomatik so I went to Germany to buy the used machinery from Germany. We did that for more. You know. And then the Nigerians came in the Nigerians head of the product a little bit especially. And then they started coming in. So I made a line now that the money was coming actually. So I wasn't using the money also because I already invested in the business so I bought another line from Nigeria and it could not even survive them.  You know so actually it got prompted me to go and buy a brand new line from Kronz. You know a brand new fast line from Kronz and one line I was doing about 35,000 bottles per hour. Wow. And then the Kronz asked me are you going to use a line for water or for alcohol. But the general it was booming in Nigeria you know they just were buying a lot. This man right here is a philanthropist and his philanthropic works is on another level. When he returned back to his village he decided to transform the entire village and you believe it. Let's start from the personal level because it's a family man he decided to transform his family house into what a family castle. He built a school for his own people. I built a school for them I built a computer lab for them they have internet through other books and I gave them lights pool from the beginning probably 30 years ago I bought a light pool they put the light pools on to see the government and the government brought the wires. So when I built this house I built this school also for them so when I was here I was like a headmaster here the teachers had to come to school early because I'm watching you from here the children know that I was watching them when I was here. That's how your house is opposite the school. And he realized that you can't have education but health is important and he realized that there is no hospital in the entire village and all the villages surrounding it so he decided to build them a modern polyclinic. And then I built the clinic recently polyclinic with a theater with Esri Cedren's World May World treatment room lab it is there right now so I did that one too. After going to polyclinic a facility being put up by Kata Pako Company Limited Okay being put up as in it was built and then furnished by Kata Pako Company Limited You mean everything here Everything you see around is from Kata Pako Company Limited Not from the government? No The village that he was born did not have water so he decided to dig a borehole to supply water to the entire village he didn't want to make life in the village so boring so he decided to use his network to bring MTN to the village to connect internet across the entire village so when I was there I was using internet I never felt like I was living in a village he realized that since this village is going to have some kind of fan vibe there are some people that would definitely misbehave so he decided to what bring police station he built it himself and the public servants that are coming to the village to serve the government he gives his own house to them I gave my first building that happened when I was 24 years at Vaku time 24-26 years around that time it was a very nice building but I gave it out to the teachers then my father's house recently I also put it in good order to give it to the teachers I was born in the village and the first time I used watercloth set was when I found myself in China so places like this where the clothes set is too modernized for them so he decided to transform this because of the toilet facility with flashing facility we are even here to commission it probably we commission it this week for the first time everybody who comes here will go and help so it's where you can flash and then we have done bow gas so that the bow gas we are trying to see if we can use even the gas to do something later on so that's how it is this is used to be the toilet that the villagers use and they still use it it's not like they are not using it anymore they still use it and decided to transform what you see right now to what is over there I was very busy you don't think a man like this need to be celebrated I have been there before I mean this that he's talking about it's not like we making it up but I've lived a life like this before where you just go squat do your thing and you don't even have zero paper you use the bushes scrub your and then you go back home so what you are talking about is food right security communication medicals right and education you have distance in your village if you are in Temauakra and I'm here there's no difference no difference this village have everything I feel like there is one thing that is missing I never knew that the visionary man had it in mind when I came here we set up about 5 year development plan for the village where we said ok we will do a school we will do a police station we will do a clinic right and a bank is coming here very soon yesterday they were here a small bank a bank is coming here so where the cocoa farmers can easily go and deposit their money also inspire I mean keeping money and not spending this because the money is with you the tenses that you can spend it is very easy but if you bank at the bank so that's why I'm helping the villagers to set up a small bank so I already spoke to I mean from my royal bank they have rented a facility here and they are going to start putting their bank very soon so very soon there will be a bank here and after spending time with him I found out that he is also religious I mean I feel like successful people that I have come in contact with are so religious and he is not an exception I believe in God whatever you do for me that's my belief I believe that all the start there might be something behind it and also I believe that there is life after death because the Bible says that at a point God will raise the living and the death that's why Jesus Christ also raised Lazarus when you were there for 3 or 4 days to show you that what you have done today it can be done tomorrow and you believe that he built a church for God when I saw what this man has been able to achieve and knowing where he was born there was this question that was going through my mind how would someone born in a place like this come this far so does it mean that anyone can be successful? I believe so I believe so it's about the determination it doesn't matter where you born no no no it doesn't matter where you born it's about you see I think this thing about success right? if you are poor or if you are born in a very poor environment it's just like you are being put in a hole you know a hole but if you are determined you cannot remain the hole forever you have to come up struggle to come up most of us know the boot to struggle to come up so we are born in the hole we stay in the hole and die in the hole your children will also come they are born in the hole they die in the hole then you cause the right race you are going round and round so you need to struggle to come up struggle to come up and the struggle is yourself not me everybody do it so nobody can race through the hand and bring you up so it's a mental attitude one of the things that you've done in this country in Canada nobody knows that you are the one behind it I know you don't like talking about this is for me what are the things that you've done apart from everybody know you to be what are the things that you've done in the country that nobody knows that you did well initially I heard that somebody delivered at a hospital and they detained because you cannot pay the fee to be the charge I just told my officer 2000 gonna see this let's go and pay you go and pay and they never tell the charge the guy will tell me that the people want to come and thank me so that's sort of if you have small money and you give some hours that will not let you collapse your company why don't you do it that's why this place at a point I was thinking of everybody everybody who goes to the school everybody from this time had especially from me everybody because I thought I could afford it so why don't I give it to somebody who can afford it one thing that I really want you all to know that successful people start from somewhere and this is how he made his first money you know how I made my money I'll tell you this story because I was on the street for some time it toughened me up so just imagine you being on the street for some time with guys and then getting a formal employment that's easier because I have friends now so in the morning oh Charlie you brought KK I'll come and eat so when I joined the Valko we met Sisu Sisu and I think Sisu that you made you take all the money this month it's for you all 100% right the next month it's for this person and next month so I was the last person to take it so I think about the 7th month I took the money that's how I got the money to be trading that's the story and that's the money that I had to today hasn't left me not that I had money from anyone that's Sisu money that's Sisu money that's how I've natured it from that time to this time that money has never left my hand on behalf of all Africans Dr. Kobena Ajay we say and listen I got a chance to spend 3 days with him and go for fishing catch and eat let's do this one you eat what you catch let's go I'm ready if you don't catch you are not eating and that 3 days that I spent with him I decided to do almost 5 videos so the whole channel this week we are celebrating the living legend my dad I mean my new dad whether you like it or not since he is a village boy a village uncle the village man on this platform so stick and stay subscribe to be part of this channel the videos might be probably long because imagine all his life without an interview and what am I is here I'll bring all the details out so most of the videos that I'll be uploading next week 30 minutes 40 minutes even an hour so yeah stick and stay subscribe like the video share to your friends and family I really want the president to repost this video for me can we make it happen tag his excellency I feel like this man right here needs an honorary award from the president I'll see you all in the next one I am Maya peace out I'll be gone