I guess it's seven o'clock so we can open tonight's meeting. Meeting of Waterbury Select Board Tuesday, September 14th, 2021. Are you working, is it Karen? To the best of my knowledge. All right, Mark's not here tonight, so we'll be kind of running the meeting. First, meeting on the agenda, so we'll approve the agenda. Can I add on to the changes? Can I add an additional update on the senate last meeting? Sure. I've got a couple changes. Okay. So we put the line. I'm going to recommend that we. So. So kind of swap things. Yep. And then I have. So that would be so F. Consider vacancies on. All right. Consider proposed resolution of court case. There's nothing else. I'll take the motion to approve the agenda, please. The motion papers say aye. Consent agenda items. Consist to the minutes of August 23rd meeting.  This would be, I didn't realize that Carla has that. I didn't want to see that she had another consent agenda. So. It would be. If you're going to do it on the consent agenda is to appoint. The consent agenda item. The reason I took my name out. I saw it there was because it was driving to point to one, you don't have to point to it. So. Okay. So. And I'll ask the board. Or just leave it as the consent. The fact that Bill would be the pointee for the morning delegate for the LCT. Because if we leave it at any time, then we don't do a separate motion and we'll just get approved. I think it would be better to put it on the manager's side. Well put it on the SWAT board, I guess. Yeah, it's F. Yeah, that's what you do. You've got G, the part G, so it's G here, right? Yeah, it's H. H, H, H. Right. So we'll be there. So, okay. So we've deleted that out of the consent agenda item. So the only thing for the consent agenda is the minutes of August 23rd, easy peasy. If the motion to approve. You want to put the question on it? No, certainly. All right.  All those in favor say aye. All right. All right. Public. Is there anybody on the public that wishes to speak now? Is there anything? You're all welcome to participate in questions. The agenda goes on. The start is one of this limited comments. And I see no one here. Nice to speak to the public, so we will move forward. Waterbury land insurers. I've been back. What's that? That's not bad. Yeah, sure. Come on. We'll be everyone. Appreciate the opportunity to come here and share with you some information about the Waterbury Land Initiative. So I'm Steve Nagin. I'm the chair of the Waterbury Land Initiative. And really when I asked to be put on to agenda, it was really to be provided with information to all of you. I'll let you know right up front. I'm not sure if you've heard of the last of the select board or of the municipality, but really just to be given information, let you know who we are, what is we're up to and think that there may be opportunities in the future for us to be a resource for the town. And when it comes to implementing certain parts of the town plan. So with that, I'll kind of jump right into things. So we're just a very small grassroots, local volunteer nonprofit. We were established two years ago, really came about by a number of us parents who at the time had explained soccer in town. And we get together and we talk about things that we really liked about Waterbury. We've come to this kind of common understanding and agreement that we all tend to want to live here in part due to the natural environment that Waterbury offers, whether it be the forest land, the open agricultural land, just kind of the pastoral setting, the forest setting that this town provides is something that we all know draws people here. And at the same time, it can be something that has potential to kind of threaten that landscape with the opportunity for more people wanting to come here to experience that has potential to start to take away some of that open land and some of that open space. And so it was a need that we identified that we wanted to come together as a group to really be a resource to help people that were interested in the long-term conservation of their land. And we started talking with people and we started to hear from individuals who said, you know, that's something that I've often thought about doing. It's something that I'd like to do, but I don't know how to. I don't know what's involved in it, or I have approached a land trust, maybe the Vermont Land Trust or even the Spill Land Trust. And for various reasons, their property didn't really hit the mark to the priorities for those organizations. And so we saw that there was a bit of a lack in opportunities for people whose property didn't necessarily fit the strategic plans and goals of some of the other conservation organizations that come into play. So with that, we did, like I said, two years ago, we kind of established ourselves as a nonprofit here in the state of Vermont. And really, we want to be able to assist, like Mike said, those landowners who voluntarily want to conserve their land. So we're not actively going out and looking for places that we think should be permanently conserved and protected in any way. It's really listening to the community, hearing what they have to say, and seeking where their interests are and helping those individual property owners to meet that goal that they have. When it comes to the town plan, you know, like they give kudos to the town for acknowledging in the last rendition of the plan things like the highest priority interior forest blocks and really recognizing the importance of our recreational assets in terms of economic development of the town. Those are all things that we think that within our mission are things that we can help out with. And I wanted to just, I'm going to read around the papers so I don't miss anything. What the mission of the Water Grant Initiative is. It is to lead, support, and assist in the conservation of Waterbury and Waterbury area land in order to protect and improve Waterbury's outdoor recreation, agricultural, cultural wildlife habitat and water resources in a manner that will support and enhance the social and economic fatality of Waterbury while maintaining ecological functions. So we do recognize that they're, you know, worked or not. They said we're not anti-development but we want to be helping to think about smart growth, smart development where the best places for some of that to be. And for those landowners interested in protecting the land, we want to be that resource that can help facilitate that. So we are not a land trust in our own right. So by that I mean, I don't know how familiar folks are with kind of mechanics of land conservation. But one of the common things you hear about are conservation easements that place indeed restriction on a property that allows certain activities while keeping other activities. And we are not currently set up to be that sort of organization. So we want to work with others that have that capacity. But we're also looking at other opportunities for helping people realize those objectives in conservation as well. I also wanted to just to kind of put a point on the fact that there are people interested in hearing from there's a project that we're working on right now it is by no means a finalized project to mean that it's going to absolutely happen. But it's located on Perry Hill Road and the landowners based on the position of the property which was joined as the CC Pluton State Forest there's a real opportunity and interest from a lot of partners are working to have that be included as an addition to the CC Pluton State Forest to enhance the current mountain bike trail system that's there and provide additional recreational opportunities for the community off of that. So that's something that we're working on for about a year and a half now conservation takes a long time. We have been working with WADA we've been working with the Vermont and Stowland Trust kind of as helping guide us in the process and we've been talking to some potential others to help to see that project to be realized as well. And we're always looking forward to finding that service to other people who are interested in doing some other sorts of things. So with that I'll pause and I'll certainly entertain any questions or comments that people have to understand more about what we do. You said I'm doing you said that you're not interested in this kind of act of time. Is that a goal for you all? So one of the things that we're doing as an organization is looking at a strategic planning process and not only one of the questions that we're asking is whether we want to have the capacity to be one of those stakeholders. Because we kind of see ourselves as filling an inch that that may be currently avoid which is where the smaller parcels where those other land trusts we would be interested in. That may be something that we need to do to help us open that. One good seeing you again. One big question and this is just from what you're description is it sounds like these are activities folks could already take advantage of. You're just really a kind of nonprofit consultant that would be the correct statement. Absolutely. I think that's a fair characterization. Again, there could be some properties that a firm of interest could be willing to have discussion about, but the landowner doesn't know what those opportunities are or how to get there. So in that case, we may just be a kind of a facilitator to make that communication happen. Kind of like years ago on the conservation commission where we talked about if we had a good conservation project working with the Stow Land Trust because not kind of recreating the whole thing in an auditory and using that facility to help the use of stuff like that associated. But I think that there are good mechanisms. There are a lot of land conservation groups already. They're kind of been cut in completely. Exactly. And actually thanks Mike for bringing that up. I want to make the distinction between the Waterbury Conservation Commission which I also serve on and the Waterbury Land Initiative. It's with different functions. One being Missical Board or Commission, and being a nonprofit for our organization. So you have your 501 seat-free status from the whole level? So we are a registered nonprofit. We are not a 500 seat-free at this time. So we've actually been working with R.W. as our fiscal sponsor so that when we do go forward to write some grants for some of the things we haven't done. Well actually we have. For some funds to get some appraisals done. So you have to be registered with the Secretary of State. Right. And we're in the process of looking at that. Okay. And how can we and members of the town stay up to date on what they're working on and that's the project? Yeah, so we don't. Because we are still very young and we are all volunteer. We haven't yet established a website or any kind of other website at this time. And so the best way for us to kind of keep the select order involved would be with some periodic updates and updates of projects that are happening. Certainly as we move forward and we start to have some projects really coming in the pipeline that we're working on then I think at that point we'll be looking more at things like maybe some updates on from sports forum or any updates to anyone here if that's what you'd like. So Steve is one of the components that really lacks in any land preservation efforts obviously by the money. Yep. And I've been in the construction industry all my working career and I've seen born and raised here and I've seen in Jones swing the amount of land open versus now being developed and I'm tired of that problem and I recognize that and it has an impact on me mentally because every time I do a project I think to myself there goes another piece of the model. I know people here that I've always played a power ball from time to time and I always scored a number one, the big one that I would reverse the development trend if I could in the town of Waterbury it made it more towards your effort of more preservation and less development because I think at the end of the day I've done it before and I was going to miss not having it seems like that in the open landscape the speed picture that we're looking at instead saw I applaud your efforts I would like to think and hope at some point that maybe if there are people out there that feel the way you do and the way I do that I could start ponying up you know some of the answers to putting more teeth in your effort yeah I appreciate that and there will be opportunities certainly as we move some of these products forward to acquisition basis if that's what it is or purchasing of a conservation easement there will always be a public component that people can contribute to that so there will be a variety of sources of funding but always the individual community members having an opportunity to contribute to that will be something that will be there yeah of course since the COVID real estate prices have skyrocketed absolutely that's made it more visible for you to gain any ground in your efforts yeah and there are the appraisals there's conservation appraisals and development appraisals and so the difference those are really what we're looking at but you're right there's it's both it's a good time to be thinking about conservation because of the interest for people to be coming here due to COVID and even before that and at the same time that does put the cost of those places very high yes so thanks Steve for coming in I guess I'll acknowledge first that there's open land there's open land and it's probably the first person that people call about taxing too high I gotta ask in a town where we have 40% of our land area that is either the Mountain Institute or the State Forest how much more State Forest do we need saving things like that go up into the reservoir and up into the Mountain Institute State Forest it's forest land it doesn't look like that but that's for all scenes you know the footage or the data on what happened so I understand there's maybe a need to save and keep some of that kind of stuff open but I guess I'm a little concerned that we're trying to add more land to the Mountain State Forest there's a lot of acreage in State Forest in this town already and is that what we really need because everything that ends up getting either put into the State Forest or on the State Sands we get a fraction of our tax still on that either a pilot program for State Forest land we have a number of people already who even though we only have two more firms in town now we have people that have land in current use forest land that's a forestry so I just want that side of the coin to be current I guess or to be looked at that we need money for a lot of things we need money to preserve open land but we need the tax base to run it from here as well and there are some facts about the animals I appreciate that and it is a conversation that we have about that fact my understanding and you would know better if I would the land going into state ownership, private land going into state ownership the state does provide payments in lieu of taxes but as you've referred to they're not the same rate necessarily as the taxes are but there is a compensation if I understand for instance they kind of you know from the pilot payment that we get from the forest land so we get three payments from the state to help with open land first is the current use program which private individuals own property they bring to keep their private landscape and there is a reduction so we get about I don't know I want to say maybe $95,000 from that fund and then we have payment in lieu of taxes for the state buildings by another state complex down here and we get $350,000 from that payment in lieu of taxes and if that was in private ownership would probably get $800,000 taxation on the same property and then we have the land that's in the Portland State Forest in the Mount Mansfield State Forest which as I said is about 40% of the land area at the top and we get about $105,000 so $105,000 is a lot better than $105,000 but it's nothing so it's a fair amount of value yeah and again we're trying to help people who are interested in doing that and in this example I gave the landowners are interested in having that they want to maintain a legacy a family legacy and the adults and having it be in addition to the State Forest is really what we came to together and that's mechanism in that situation to do so so we want to help people who have that interest to realize that understanding of course that there's always going to be a financial aspect to it at the same time we're also seeing that parcel in particular is part of the highest priority interior forest blocks and the need to kind of recognize that and to make efforts to protect those areas and that's certainly if that is the case that's a reasonable thing to consider I guess and you know Dan Sweet is in the audience you know there are conversations that can be had you know from the perspective from the talent perspective would it be better to turn property over to the State put it in the State Forest you know since I'm a dollar payment to the State on that if people as I understand it if people sell or give their development rights to a land trust then they remain the owners of the property they're still in tax bill it's a diminished tax bill because the highest amount of use of that land is land open land or whatever it is as opposed to you know some kind of development I just want I just need to say that I'm not against preserving open land certainly and I'm well aware that a lot of people come here to live and to play to see things like that but I just want to make sure that I pay that I'm going to look out for the finances as well thank you so we started with 9 original board members we're currently at 11 and we are 5 also out for 12 so there's a lot of these are all large residents that are part of it and it's been exciting to hear how many people are getting excited when they hear that we exist and what we're trying to accomplish the response of folks and even talking to some of the neighbors of the parcel we're referring to people seem very very supportive of the idea that we present to them so how does one become a member of the organization so as I mentioned we all have a membership right now so we're a board it's our membership really which is not but that will be part of our strategic funding as well which is that it should become a membership organization and we'll guess that one see what interested me about your idea and your effort is I've got 30 acres there just as you get on the Guelphal road I'd like to see that property stay as it is because I keep my field open I constantly in the woods working to enhance the wildlife you know ability I did speak to somebody from Forreston parks there on the radio one day and I was explaining to them where I lived and what my property was and she equated it to the same thing as the Chutesville Hill wildlife corridor and all right it would be surprising how life comes through there constantly she asked me if I would consider you know getting on to one of these programs and I just simply told her that I'm the type of person that doesn't want to that money is going to come from other sources other people and I can't conscientiously make from my neighbors to support my tax bill for my property because I bought property knowing that there would be taxes that come with it but as time goes on the taxes are starting to really be painful and I don't want to chop it up and put houses on it and liquidate myself out of it and I don't want to have to be forced to leave because I can't afford the property taxes so I've been starting to talk and consider some of these alternatives as much as I hate to and I certainly don't want to you know if you put your property into land use you have to abide by guidelines put forward by the state right that's the other thing I cut and bail my fields I'm constantly upgrading the soils to create a better for for not only my use but selling to other people and then what forest land I do have around it I'm constantly pruning the wild apple trees so that they bear more food for the deer and other animals keeping things cut back where I think they need to be cut back and just helping provide a better area for the wildlife I don't feel like I want to be put under the state's thumb that's the other reason I kept signing up for any of these subsidies yeah well the current use of it I know you have a full agenda so I'll take much more of your time but I'd be happy to talk to you more about that programs are sometimes misinterpreted what you must do and they really can be beneficial to a lot of landowners so happy to share my perspective on that I'm going to be able to do that but again I thank you all for letting me share a bit about us here tonight and I look forward to sharing more with you about some other projects and further along pipeline alright thank you okay so we'll move on select board business first thing is to interview and consider planning commission nomination of assistant planning and zoning director so Cameron come on up and sit at that alright chair just for the benefit of the select board members who are new or maybe need a refresher course the zoning minister's position is the only position in the town where there's a municipal manager but the municipal manager doesn't hire that a couple of meetings ago you agreed to do job descriptions for the planning and zoning director which will be his title and then the assistant planning and zoning director because the zoning director is part of both of those titles the companies have told us that these positions have to go through the same process as a traditional going to the state has to go through the way we do it so dean of who has been our zoning administrator since 2014 I think retired in July we've got advocates for the position and the planning commission has now reviewed those applications that they interviewed candidates and Cameron McCormick who's sitting here before you now is the person who the planning commission is nominated to the select board for appointment for this position the select board's role is to interview the candidate if you like and then make a decision as to whether you will make an appointment or not you can't say well we all want Cameron we all want Jeff Larkin we often consider the planning commission's nomination so the planning commission has nominated Cameron for this position now you're trying to interview him you can make the interview as long as short as easy or complicated as you would like and then after he's done at some point tonight or at your next meeting you can deliberate and make a decision so I'll tell you right now that letter B is to consider the appointment of the planning and zoning director by the planning commission that we hope will receive what speech the planning commission made the appointment of the nomination of the assistant at their last meeting two weeks ago the nomination of Steve for this new position was on the planning commission so we'll have to we'll have to do this with Steve Steve's position at a future meeting so he won't be so you will not do B tonight but take B off so you're going to interview Cameron and then you can consider the appointment of the person who's been nominated by the planning commission after your interview and you can do that immediately and you can say let's think about it for two months so anyway, Cameron's here and one last thing I met with Cameron and Steve yesterday and we do have a policy in town that employees have to be subject to a background investigation before they can start so I explained to Cameron that tonight if the select board chooses to make the appointment the appointment will be made subject to a successful conclusion on background investigation if you do that then probably tomorrow I'll get people to help sign it and background investigation will take place that takes usually a few minutes or so nothing Cameron is not a fine candidate I'm sure he probably is but we don't get any information about other candidates what they're called occasions well the planning you don't get that because the planning commission they invented that app it's one person you don't know anything about anybody else so this is the state law how the procedure goes Cameron nice to meet you I'll talk to you about you like you're not in the room so the planning commission did a full interview invented other candidates and also Camden interviewed with you and Steve well Camden really did an interview with me I had a meeting with him to explain how the planning commission is nominated you now this is what happens next and if your select board makes the appointment here's the parameters of what the job offer is going to be so he pretty much knows what the administrative portion of the job offer is but I can't officially make that offer until you make an appointment are there any glaring poles that don't cover up before or like doing a full interview again you should just talk to him I was just curious tell us about your qualifications why do you deserve all approval yes I apologize I thought perhaps Steve had sent Cameron's president to your right he wasn't here last week go ahead in May of 2020 I obtained my bachelor's degree in renewable energies from Vermont Technical College for the next year I was working as a project coordinator and warehouse coordinator for Freedom Solar wasn't loving what I was doing so I started looking around for other passions I found this position and I spent a lot of time doing service throughout school did a lot of serving, bartending all of that to pay my way to college and so public servant seems like a good application of those skills and I already have the passion for the environment so planning zoning helps do what I can to protect the lens that I'd be overseeing you didn't go directly to college no I originally went to UNH out of college out of high school being 18 to 20 I was not ready for college so I left worked as a drafter for a couple years and decided to go back to school so I went to Masasoi Community College for the mass transfer program but then ended up moving to Vermont so I took another year off and then went three years at Vermont Tech I originally started as a electrical engineering with the idea of working with renewable energies and then when I moved here I found out about Vermont Tech and it's renewable energy program and that was the stopper name I know I was just finding a background did you have a specific about the core and working planning and that kind of I had most of my coursework was in you know, sciences engineering and architecture so I have some base level I have the idea but I do not have any prior experience now so Cameron they say that being a select board member is one of the most thankless jobs out there I think that maybe a zoning administrator or planner down plan almost fit in that same category because a lot of times you are dealing with people's personal properties and what they feel their rights are to do what they would like to do on those properties and also with their personal financing you know finances because in some cases it can have a lot of money invested in the planning process and at times people can be perhaps unreasonable and in confrontational are you aware of those issues and ready to take them off yes absolutely actually I would say my time in restaurants also prepared me for that I have dealt with my fair share with difficult customers had to cut people off at a bar even had to call in police sometimes to have people escorted out when necessary I pretty level headed as a person I don't take offense too much so I was directing anger at me that's that's fine that rolls off my shoulders and I can move on from there what is your legal training which I've mostly seen as a little bit of a whole I so I know I will have to know all the information for the word of the name all the regulations I spent a lot of time reading three different towns statutes for land use while I was at three mountains solar because I was in charge of all the permitting for solar arrays so I'm pretty used to at least the legal jargon involved in there and the processes of permitting which I know will be a lot of hard work position another task will be expected I think you're probably endures defining all the rules and regulations and no matter how hard the planning commission tries there's always great areas that may be some other hurdle to have have to overcome and find that way you have the passion to get involved in it so knowing that I would have Steve as a partner and someone to refer to for those very areas ask like what would we normally do in a situation like this having that source of long-standing knowledge in the position I think would be set up for success within there I think not just with citizens of the town but particularly I think there's a lot of mystery around zoning and people don't understand the process and doesn't feel clear so one of the hopes I have with the restructuring is really accessible information about the process breaking it down making it easier to find and understand and to be like actually personally accessible to folks is that something you talked about a lot about I mean I found myself considered for a long time to be a teacher I always felt that I had a skill for translating things to people so that they could understand them I spent a lot of my high school time in math around me how to do math if they weren't getting it from the teacher so I think I could use those skills to be able to translate what I know to the public as needed Are you currently living in Waterbury or near? I am currently in essence junction and it sounds like you've had a lot of transition in your early life if you get this role and you see yourself staying here for a while and being a part of our zoning you know the job portraying our community for a long time Yeah if I was offered to position that would absolutely be the plan I've been looking at properties for rent in Waterbury for a significant period of time my partner works in Middlesex we work with any mobiliar until COVID we moved up to Essex because that's what was available that suited our needs at the time but we're definitely trying to move back this way because I was in a discussion so it would be a perfect opportunity Would it be a long term position for our community? I mean even yet I would like to maintain the beauty but also have the functionality that the lens offers I guess control growth would be a good term for it Yeah and that's a reasonable philosophical question but you know better than anybody on board might say the zoning administrator is not the visionary for what the community kind of looks like is the person that just looks at the regulations and says yes or no That was my earlier question for you Also with Danny's benefit maybe and perhaps David the zoning administrator is appointed for a term it's a three year term so to the question about what's your goal how long do you plan to be here if he gets appointed it makes it for you as someone who is sitting on the select board for years from now has a chance to decide what it is here and that's indefinite three year term Yeah The zoning administrator the less watery somebody adopts a term the state law the state law says the zoning administrator is appointed for three years So I think that if everybody's satisfied that the board agrees to mirror the planning commission's nomination Cameron would you say your last name Norman Somebody would like to make a motion to nominate him as the assistant planning and zoning director Chris? Yeah I personally would like to discuss this in a decade of section I think it's way more appropriate than just kind of doing it despite a lot of stuff So what people continue stuff like that Now I think it's appropriate for Cameron you know you know we should prepare that and maybe that could be put to the end of the week Okay That's what we're doing That's why I asked the board was okay So we'll put that into an executive session at the end of the meeting and we'll let you know You're welcome to stay until we like to go home It's a pleasure to meet you I'll see you tomorrow Thank you for that Okay so we're going to skip B and we're at C3 C3 So now we're down to D which is considering allocating the use of an on-street parking space for a new use without main street So again Steve is not here this evening He's got the planning commission meeting that he's chairing So Jeff Larkin I believe he's here as the owner of the building at Lancelot Main Street This is for space where Garfield's is used to be and the applicants I assume maybe want to introduce yourself I don't know Sure, I'm Jeanina It's been filed It's been through the zoning process It's been to the DRB The DRB has approved the use of the space But the DRB had one condition and this is anachronistic to the village and the current zoning bylaws even in the downtown district when it goes into the bylaws we talked about what we were going to deal with So the old bylaws basically still in effect So this business does not have the requisite number of off-street parking spaces So the DRB approved the application and the permit with the condition that the owner shall obtain approval from the library select board for use of four additional off-street parking spaces need the requirement for the building including the change of use for 1,000 square feet on the first floor prior to the issuance of the zoning permit So that's really why we are here tonight I've been joked about often the on-street parking spaces if everybody who was told that they can use them and their customers parking there at the same time can be So anyway the recommendation from staff is to allow this to allow them and make a motion to the on-street parking requirement for the building located at 19 South Main Street including the use of 1,000 square feet on the first floor for the hair salon change of use for the hair salon to retail bakery and specialty school for grid pocket key free So somebody wants to make that motion and then you can second it and then ask questions so so moved I was going to say that's a long one you could think if that can suffice but I think there's something to take but Bobby you made the motion to second it can I is there no way to and visual space there's an alley between that building here right away also you know you know reallocate parking spaces yeah I guess as a former chair of DRD for the last years that particular rule regulation we've had this conversation about I strongly love or should be downtown area it's really not great requirement it's not fair to that's my personal so okay I was going to say perspective so from this building tonight there's a on-screen already to give you perspective and already just for those three right but but in reality it doesn't really cause any problems no and just to remind the board there was discussion about the interim bylaws to recognize the fact that many municipalities are moving away from any parking requirements in the downtown but people figure it out they want identity they want people walking and that's the easiest way to get it if you require people to build all these parking lots then you're going to have a whole bunch of parking lots and a lot less places to go so it's really you know if you look at it from a 21st century land use perspective you want your lots filled with buildings and people and let them figure out how to get it and I'm not even sure the formula is for all that accurate today because people are walking they're walking I'm not even sure how you get to the number is actually the value of what's happening when I asked Steve about it today he said that the new unified bylaws with the planning commission is working on right now but doesn't have the parking we haven't adopted that yet and there's still requirements so right now we need to to the motion that we not allocate parking spaces but realizing the economic development impacts that we think no spaces extra space need to be allocated so just to be genuinely about the thing that's not to just put formal space I understand I think sticking to the script and doing what to do right now I agree with Bill because of the way the rule was written we have to have those four spaces to the current rules you know so we ever do a full head count on the number of spaces lost because of the construction projects we did but I don't know how many lost yeah you know that was kind of always an issue with me about the parking because of some of the complaints about parking but I come to the realization that if anybody wants is willing to take the risk come into the village to start a business it's kind of a scenario the strongest will survive you know in a sense if you're willing to put the effort into create a business and as more businesses come in compete more for those parking spaces and I guess it's a I won't call it a crapshoot but kind of in a sense a crapshoot whether or not the business will be visited by enough patrons it be successful and that gamble is strictly on the business owner so I'm completely satisfied with their choice to do it so as far as I'm concerned the parking situation be it as it may I wish you all the success in the world so just for the board's benefit it's a retail bakery but it also is the school right and I think part of the reason for the parking shortage if we will is the school aspect maybe just want to share with the board what your whole business model is sure so the idea of the business is that it'll have a commercial kitchen and it'll have a competing space for birthday parties and workshops for cake decorating others should be very different from what the rest of the street looks like which gets busier at night when the ice to be a little bit busier to keep things up for the day and early on the weekends they'll be very controlled based on how parking is going and how the bus is going so that's a perfect example you've already investigated that scenario and understood the pros and the cons but who wants to use the you know moving forward and how they should take that so this I got to come to your opening day last and half of the interview open stand so what we're looking for is a motion to just allocate the four additional parking spaces we yeah we move in a second we move in a second now we have a little discussion if anybody needs to want to have can I say I I'm up to stage you're up to stage keep it working alright anything else have it that's that again thank you both thank you community service we're looking forward to the oh you're welcome thank you thank you we all need a little bit of glitter get through the day thank you all very much can I make one slide comment on the previous your interview with the administrative time and this is huge previously being a DRB chair not having documents and then from an applicant like tonight you know we want to first buy a permit for business six months could it be if it's and here so that's just an important thing from both sides of it yeah thank you trust me I see you the same side especially for members to be able to have documents if you want to prepare for me thank you thank you it's a third time I have to speak up because I'm working here and seeing what's going on it's a really tough job so if you see only two sides you can give the third side the one in the chair I know that being a DRB I'm speaking with Tina the two previous you know zoning administrators that's a tough job it's a tough job and it all starts with I just have one question in 25 questions later that said that's not something that we asked or talked about but I know that Alyssa is on the call and I'm curious if we could ask her opinion of based on the interview with Cam and made it at wait or not I don't know now so since Jeff and Karen both mentioned you know like timeliness being just an important factor but we didn't get to talk with Cam about that Alyssa about it if it came up in the interview and her opinion about that with Cam you mean the time the timing process through the regulations how lively he can be potentially making decisions and moving things forward dying on top of work so I know I just didn't have an interview with him I did share with him that there has been some frustration both internally and externally about the California Administrator the key is the zoning administrator determining that the application is complete and that's where the rub sometimes is and I have had people complaining that I came here I submitted a permit application and you know weeks have gone by nothing is happening then I would talk to Dina and she would say well I asked them to provide me a copy of XYMZ and I didn't get it until three days ago and the application isn't complete until I get it and then I have 15 days to act on it so I've had this discussion with Steve I've had this discussion with the Planning Commission and Steve back when we were a year ago when Dina's term came up there was some concern on the Planning Commission they wondered whether they should be a pointer because they had some of those issues and they did the pointer and then Steve now under this new configuration that is formally not formally passed but formal he's the supervisor of the zone administrative matter I did make Steve the administrative supervisor of Dina before but under the law he really wasn't part of supervisor but I tried to help move things a lot in that way so I did explain to Ken that timing this was important I told him that as you just suggested when you were interviewing him people who own the property should be given the benefit of the bell as often as possible so if they submit an application try to get it to the point where you can determine it completely as quickly as possible communicate well and quickly with them if it's not complete once it is complete you're going to act on a timely basis just because it says 15 days, you don't have to take 15 days you can do it in five, that's okay too so I did have that conversation with him I also told him that when there's a gray area and this is a frustration that I've had with many zone administrators not just me Dina sometimes I think they'd get overly protective of the regulations I said if it's a gray area you know the law tells them that they have to literally interpret the bylaw well that's kind of arthritic literally interpret so you've got to make some judgment call I said if you really are in a situation where it's a toss up well it could be this, it could be that I said issue the permit give the benefit of the bell to the person who owns the property who's paying the taxes, who wants to develop their property and let the neighbors be the one that appeals your decision like don't say no it may offend the neighbors and then make the person who's trying to get the permit appeal it's his property so I did have that conversation so to that point should there be some form of documentation by the administrator who you're now calling kind of cover their butt so they're not in the hot seat when there is a gray area they have to make a a knee-jerk well of course there's a lot of documentation Chris there are things that say you will not and those are documents sometimes in the regulations should not should it give you flexibility and I'm with Bill is when it says should give you some leeway and I err upon doing something versus when it says you can't it says you will not do this you don't have a choice we instituted it but I'm sure Steve will continue this whether it's Cameron or someone else you know that's logged in with a date and then there should be another location that is complete as of such such a date and then quite it's back to people we had a situation a few well probably several months ago where Dina had a permit and when she was away on vacation and Steve he actually issued a permit because he thought that the time had expired and the law says if the permit is complete and the zoning administrator doesn't take action within a certain period of time the permit is to back the issue so we try not let that happen I think some of the most cumbersome parts of the process is the appeal periods you know questions, people a lot of those are just picking but maybe if you make your decision but I think the key is is to be good at documenting what you're doing and I think I'll have this conversation with Steve and whoever the new person is you know you can be proactive if it says the permit has to be issued 15 days after the application is being complete well if 10 days goes by and the application isn't still complete you can write a letter to the applicant and say look the application isn't complete yet it's 10 days old I don't have to issue it within 5 days because you haven't done something and I think sometime time management is a challenge and especially you know 2020 was a tough year because there were a lot of people sitting at home with nothing to do and everybody wanted to develop something and you know you got one person and now the structure that we have now we have two people that will be able to act on these things so it is a little bit of a challenge so I think we are aware of those concerns and we will do our best to try to address them before we go into executive session I would like to hear from Melissa knowing that none of us watched the interview if that's an important voice before that is what I meant I don't know that she needs to or wants to stick around so maybe we have to talk to her now just any input you might have after your interview before we deliberate together as a board I guess I would say upfront we didn't discuss as a planning commission providing input but given that it pertains to everyone and I'm happy to share I would also just say personally in the planning commission role this is a great select board meeting to be listening in on I appreciate that the parking was also at this meeting some good common threads in terms of your question about timeliness and management of systems I would say that was a question we asked in addition to what Jeffrey alluded to with the development review board receiving materials we as the planning commission obviously Steve prepares some of those but we also get like zoning administrator reports talking about the status of permits and what happens and ostensibly that informs our work as the people creating the direction that is zoning administrators administering so certainly planning commission members who have been around longer than I feel like getting that information and having it be timely and complete is important to our work so that was a question that was asked during the interview process and part of our consideration and I guess this is more my own spin on things but I would just say that another piece of timeliness is having someone in the position and I guess just like making the link to parking is I feel like we have a ton of stuff we could do as the planning commission we're excited about it being said you know there's the zoning rewrite that everyone's sick of hearing about and administrative updates and do we think about with the zoning rewrite enable some of this joint conversation with you all around parking or act 250 and having staff support helps us move that forward so I think I would just say like I think it's generally in the interest of the planning commission do have you know we recognize there will be training needed and that day one we wouldn't expect anyone to be able to be fully up to speed but I think you know I think we're allowed to say Canada we had folks withdraw because they took employment elsewhere and just given the hiring environment again just speaking for myself you know this is kind of an unusual hiring process as you all know when it's outlined again this is my own editorializing I just want to be clear but you know the points that are just made of like they interview with us then there's this weird in between they interview with you just to say I have a personal concern about timeliness of not finding someone but the bottom line answer to question is we nominated Cam because we thought he could do the job we think it's important to have someone in the job and we did ask a question about timeliness because it's of interest to us I think following up on that you can ask a little more questions if you want there were a number of good candidates in the end Cam is the only candidate there were several that were true for other reasons and I was not at the planning commission meeting and I think she just alluded to it but I asked Steve I said okay he's the only candidate was he a good candidate or is he the only candidate because there's a difference and I guess the planning commission probably talked about that a little bit but the planning commission's decision was we don't think it's in our best interest to re-advertise even though he's the only candidate right now because we believe he can do the job and I'll ask you if that's more or less what ended up happening yes I think that echoes our sentiments thank you Alyssa and I'm excited oops I'm excited for future conversations about parking and other fun things so just say that's an age old problem alright thanks all thank you okay so we're going to move on okay so this meeting was some time ago so I do have some updates to my notes on the last meeting I attended it was very intense for a couple of reasons so if you've read my previous notes there's been some discussion on the water tower and the amount of water that it leaks and the rape staff and the rape board the actors discussed replacing it this year but at the length of time it would take to get the parts off here it would take six to eight weeks and that would push back programs they already had in place for scheduling push back and talk this season so they decided to put it off but I talked to Timi last night because I was there for a different board meeting and they have received some of the parts but they're not going to be installing it so if you I was in a hockey league this summer and coaching a league this summer and we have gear in the dry room which is in between locker rooms two and three that's where the high school kids keep their gear I realized that some of the gear wasn't dry from a week prior so I asked Timi about it he went and looked at some of the systems and said they were really fine with humidity but turns out it was a faulty it was an error in the reading system so I had that looked at I have it in my notes here about when it was last replaced in the life expectancy for the Muncher system so like I said it was really high tension the last meeting because they didn't know if they would have to shut down to eradicate the mold and just how much of it was there there was some behind the lockers additionally to the dry rooms the lockers on the outside and just how bad the mold was so they ended up talking to Timi they ended up canceling some of the programming they went to different rates because of the mold issue they had got it checked out and by one opinion they said it was okay they got a second opinion they got the same result that it wasn't too terrible so they talked about different options at that meeting what they could do to go forward and try to get fixed exploring deep modifier options and their cleaning process what work has to be done to be removed, cleaned, come down, dry room removal and replacement of indoor lockers and benches so that is outlined and they also had to speak with their insurance company about what would be covered, loss of business things like that and talking to Timi last night that was still a discussion with the insurance company what would be covered there are programs still happening in the ice room right now and they are still going forward with their future scheduling but like I said the system has been, the monthers have been replaced but yeah they're still looking for cleaning that is more financial pressure that's a positive point even though and if you have any questions that you want to ask just let me know and I can forward them down to Timi and that board as well okay which one will we have uh the commission so so the select board is not only aware of the demise of the untimely death of Jack Carter in fact Jack was also a cemetery commission and his term runs through 2024 so he was elected a cemetery commission in 2019 and he's passed away so the cemetery commissioners they at their last meeting made to inform the select board that Jack had passed and that they would like to advertise or someone to be appointed to the position so again for the benefit of the new select board members when an elected official either resigns or passes away or for whatever reason they cannot fulfill when there a vacancy arises the select board gets to appoint the fill the vacancy until the next end of the meeting so what the commissioners would like to do now is advertise for someone interested in serving as a cemetery commissioner at your next meeting or a subsequent meeting from tonight anyway you'll make that appointment to that person to fill the vacancy until the next end of the meeting which is March 2022 and in March 2022 there'll be one cemetery commissioner whose term is up back here will be running for election so to provide the adjourn and then for this whoever gets appointed to this slot will be appointed for the term that expires in 2024 so it'll be two years from March so that cemetery commissioner they would like you to move forward with that process on the library commission yesterday the library commissioners met Curtis Osler who was also elected in 2019 I believe and his term expires in 2024 as well Curtis has submitted effective today to his resignation it's been my pleasure to serve on the library commission for the past few years it's been an honor to work with you all because of the change in career it has all been relocation out of state it's a powerful it's a big experience that I do so and we should test and find the library director and for the library department so Curtis has designed effective today so same process so what we'll do is we'll have those two positions and we'll have to do some time in the next couple weeks to bring some candidates to move that we advertise both the library and the cemetery director position yeah so I thank you I think that's a court case yeah this is pretty pro forma if you remember Terry Hill Partners that's the new building on slow street where people's food is going to go and those medical offices and other offices on the 2nd and 3rd force they they were denied by the DRV they subsequently appealed that decision and the select board began the process of adopting into the talk so this is a stipulation to a draw it comes from the Terry Hill Partners and then submitted to court and our lawyers forwarded it to me and as asked if the count has an opinion on it so it basically says now comes Terry Hill Partners through their attorneys hereby moves to withdraw it's appeal for the reason stated herein while the select board adopted the zoning bylaws and at the 26th the appellant via the zoning permit and the new board approved the appellant permit application on July 21st 21st for those foregoing reasons the issues raised in the appellant appeal to this court have now been resolved so it's a formality so if you can make a motion to agree to the stipulation to involve to involve this appeal that will be appreciated so check it if you have a question I may need your guidance okay we as you know do you have a point voting delegate under the select board or not? oh yeah sorry it's like I used to be strong that's the one I didn't get you got the alphabet I got the alphabet so the rolling of cities and towns is the municipal association the municipal league that the town belongs to they are our advocates before the legislature they provide numerous training opportunities for public officials for elected head appointed they run three different insurance well two insurance trusts covering three different types of insurance property accountability health insurance and unemployment insurance they don't do much with health insurance anymore because of the the fourth chair act that was adopted after the first administration anyway they have their in the meeting in the fall usually in October this year it is September 29th and then the remaining next week September 29th will be an in-person annual meeting basically they will be also conducted by Zoom the three the LCT boards have their in the meeting that day the general board the board of directors where a municipal legislative policy will be discussed and hopefully approved and then the two insurance trusts will have their in the meetings and there is a requirement for member towns who would like to state and vote to a point in which they will vote one from each town it's not like by population so a little victory against as many votes as tick grown it comes to the legislative can't do that anyway so like board can't appoint anyone should be an elected or appointed official serve if anyone would like to be the voting delegate I think it would be a great job and that's the board's choice I hope we have the two I hope we have I know there's only like one day that's there's only one person meeting and then there's several training in virtual and if anyone of you want to attend any votes go ahead and sign up or let me know when I can sign you up it's really good I've been to a number of trainings they're quite good it just came into me I wish I could have with me in version one but I'm going to be out of town the virtual ones I don't know might want to attend a couple of days if you do I believe there is a few small things if you know for sure you want to do it you can let me know and I'll register you and we'll pay for you directly if you're not sure and you decide at the last minute that you want to attend you can go ahead and pay the fee and then submit the reimbursement that's a good and in the future you know this is the second year in a row due to COVID that they do not have the need to have a normal account fare last year it was all virtual but in the future year COVID ever gets out of the way and you're able to attend it's usually it's a usually alternates between building and filling and it's it's something that I would recommend all of you can have some anyway so if you said are you making a motion I make a motion to appoint Bill as our delegate to the Monthly Inclusion Season and we'll be back in a moment until we discuss so what are some of the topics that they need to cover just go on the website well this you know the legislative policy they used to do it every year they're doing it every three years now I don't know if this is the on-year or the off-year but they'll make some tweaks but typically they have I think they have four sections they have on finance administration it's a government relations committee all fair committee they have a quality of life committee they have a public safety committee and there's one that's more specific to environmental stuff and you know they solicit elected officials and elected officials to be members of those committees those committees craft and edit the policies that are going to get voted on by the delegates out there and then that adopted policy becomes their platform and they use that in the legislature to try to push forward the municipality agenda before the legislature most of the time unfortunately it's like the legislation that you're talking about approving is not in compliance with our policy please don't approve it once in a while we get there and I can say hey you think that what you're doing is good it would work it's often used to say pull the reins it actually lets you get a very good job considering it is all virtual you know I just like it some things you can do virtually pretty well their staff as a matter of fact that and the county offices was a TOC county offices out of officials and employees could set off I would extension does that I would encourage you to do that as well because that was for it so based on that all those in favor of having a building and what are you going to get for the LCT town fair say aye aye no more on the ban okay the plan records this is this is from Karlo shop she's not able to do this anyway we have had an agreement with a number of solutions for a number of years we've had two five year contracts with them already they do we have fund 36 which is a restoration of records and when people come in and they pay for recording there's a certain amount of money that goes into this restoration of records and this company does a lot of work with our land records making them accessible for the public Karlo had gone out and looked for another vendor this year to deal with these land records restorations and making them accessible through the website you can look at all the land records and most of the land records through the website and several months ago Karlo came to the select ward and asked you to approve signing a contract with a company called Co-File and you approve that contract and when the contract starts in September the current contract with this avenue ends at the end of September September 22nd is when the new contract will be in effect so Karlo had gone out and decided that she wanted to go with the new company Co-File they were supposed to start September 22nd 2021 and out of the where Karlo is winding down Karlo sent me this email last week and said there will be an agenda item of the managers items that is the contract renewal with land records and a previous meeting with the group signing a new contract with Co-File after signing the contract I made that Co-File and stopped selling and servicing the system and she said so she contacted Co-File and said what do you mean not I just signed a contract with you and now you're not going to sell this product oh that's all right we'll make sure we take care of you and she got into it and she said look I'm not comfortable going with a company that's not going to have this product anymore you can tell me all you want and you're going to service me but if something goes wrong where am I there so anyway she has worked out with them they've agreed to allow her to cancel the contract so what Karlo would like to do is ask you to approve the contract of the current vendor it's essentially the same price as it was before she told me earlier today that it used to be a pro-document price and now they switched it to $1,060 a month but she said if you look at the number of documents it's within you can just optimize Karlo to sign this contract with Avenue 5 Solutions for the government's land record management I'd move to have the counter to engage with what's the name of the company okay to engage with Avenue to have land records for the questions are none of those in favor say aye update on 2021 paving let's get this back to you so you can check the paving she's well connected we had decided earlier in the year even if we got their social grant we won't kind of pay the social grant this year because of we didn't know early enough that we were going to get it so I come to the board but yeah we did get the social grant and we will have to pay that with the July next year so we know Stow Street will be an active portfolio for next year and speaking of Stow Street again that could more than anybody you might remember some of this conversation we signed an agreement with the state probably six years ago now to to have the state command and do a sign package and a pavement parking package to both on Stow Street and Duffield Road and I don't know what has happened but they have they've not done anything that they were supposed to do so now that we have the state grant for Stow Street paving I'm not sure if the water works with Mario and to make sure that once we're done paving that the line striking and the marking and the signage that we've already the states aren't committed to do get stuck that would be the best time to do it is right after that's paid so I'll it was a one-time time it was a one-time deal what I don't understand and I've never got a straight answer is how come we entered into this agreement we never did and there was a lot of back and forth and it's like well it's really better to do it after paving project and the signage but I'll work with Bill and it'll look like that anyway our 2021 paving it's just about done we used 2021 money along with a little bit of Main Street funding so Elm Street which was really in bad shape and going back to 18 November they came back that far the village went in and replaced the sewer line there in advance of the Main Street project because that might be the bigger storm drain working so the village did their work on the sewer and storm drain on Elm Street that was outside of the Main Street project they put temporary paving back in but it was pretty beat up so Elm Street has been paid it's a lot of runs where it's close to both it's a thousand times better than it wants it's not the ideal system but it's much much improved we also we've had fall the fall of 2020 we placed the water line on Stowe Street from Main Street up to the drive bridge that was in hand outside the Main Street project it was that truly Main Street project and then this earlier this year they did the sewer line from Main Street up to the drive bridge and worked out with the town's budget so now Stowe Street is the only thing so we did all the subterranean work and essentially paid for that project to bring everything back up to grade and patch to bring the town at the top on because we brought up the speed we didn't want it working on the sewer with Main Street project so Stowe Street has been built to the brand new standards of Main Street we also replaced the the main bridge on the drive bridge so we took that right down to the county deck put a new government membrane on that so from the drive bridge from the main street from the side of the drive bridge over the drive bridge all the way to Main Street that's all there obviously Main Street is 99% done with much more finance but that job is pretty much done except for the power calls between the county and the churches the complex we're hopeful that maybe by this time next year most of those poles will be down that's what we're pushing for but neither of us nor the state are really in control of that that's free of power and contrast standpoint and a couple of other smaller any coming down to Stephen yet I don't think any have come down yet but remote power has moved almost all of their lives and contrast has done a really decent job of moving most of their stuff consolidating which used to be California which used to be California which used to be consolidating the one that we have and taking the money out of there so anyway Washill and Whompson Trail that's where we decided to put our money in the shoes so from the end of the class 2 project which is a little ways about the Kennedy Drive where we had the class 2 pavement from two years ago we no doubt took off all the pavement all the way up to the end of the pavement of Washill incorporated that those grindings into the base added pour line and some gravel and we have put a base coat on all of that now we had talked about once we got past Whompson Trail where we have to do the big culvert job in the dip just before you get to we had talked about leaving that unpaved this year the word came back to me last week and said well we've got some concerns about how well we'll be able to keep that in the winter he recommended that we put a base coat on that so Washill adds a base coat all the way to the end the top coat will go off Washill next week I believe and the top coat will go from where the project started at the bottom to just beyond Whompson Trail and then we'll leave the rest of it just the base coat we'll have to come back next year and cut out a little bit of pavement over that's what I thought we were going to avoid if we hadn't done it but when he and Alex had talked about it I felt it was that's the key Whompson Trail we also did Whompson Trail and if you remember you agreed to allow us to change the portion of Whompson Trail that wasn't paved so our full road on Whompson Trail was paved that just started over we did not write that up as you know better than most of Chris you put pavement on the ground a road looks different some of the shoulders need some work in terms of the elevation of the shoulders versus the road so right at the end there just past the belt course where the old pavement ended was there any some work done about itself if they did yeah I think they I think they probably added some I don't know but anyway we're almost finished but I put an entire base coat on and then pavement was that was the whole pavement cost of the pavement project with the entire brush hill was stacked in this much of the road we had to make up yeah I think I think we'll because we didn't do so straight at all except for the portion of the road to Main Street I believe we'll be within our budget if it went over it's not going to do it's ordinarily yep I think that's the last thing on the agenda list if it is we can make a motion to go on the separate session I'll come out this is the planning and zoning director just to confirm the ordinance did you or can you move it back into the parking lot oh of course just a few things a central amount state police advisory board which I remember they're going to have a picnic for the troopers for all the troopers in the district on the 22nd one of our self-proclaimed clubs you're more than welcome to attend I believe it's what you say be there in the middle of the day you want the picnic for the troopers that's why we can look like that and of course the business it's gone back and forth we finally well we finally it was hard with the state police you know schedule you know it was originally scheduled for the 22nd then it was based upon there and they they just agreed to that so anyone just wants to even just pop in say hi thanks for what they do be more than welcome you know it so Mike you want to make a motion so how do you request the executive session so moved okay so moved okay so thank you


So today we're in downtown Boston and we're going shopping. We're with family and everyone. Get in the vlog. I also got a hoodie. Anyways. We almost got sex traffic. We had someone stalking us. He was videotaping like this. He was holding it like this. And it was on before. And that was the one that... But yeah, no, literally. If we find him, I'll get a little clip of him so you guys can watch out. This is the pooter. And when you like... It sounds like a heart. Name my next victim. Right there. Right there. Right here. Right here. Right here. This is euphoria. I did it for my hormones. Make it all connect. Get my freestyle. I can do it with the freestyle. Freestyle for the young bosses. Where are you? Schoolgirl. So I put this hoodie on top of this. Cause I just bought it. With no warnings. Talking about like... No, it is haunted.  But like I gotta do it for the good of us. We have so many stories of like stuff that's happened in that house. So if you want a story time on them, I will do it. Just let me know in the comments down below. The reason why I'm starting this in the car. We brought like mediums in and a facet to make it worse. I'm not gonna get good night's sleep in that car. God was sleeping on. And notice is a handprint on our sliding door. It wasn't just like a regular handprint. It was like a bony lawn. Very scrawny. It wasn't something that a human would make. That handprint was like reaping. I noticed it. The same exact or very similar handprint is on the window right here behind the camera. It's a bit smaller but it's like the exact same handprint. And it's from the inside. You try to scratch off what you did in the inside. And it like scrapes off from the inside. So this handprint was made from the inside of the car. Pray for me. Wish me luck. The second story other than the handprint I was gonna tell you guys. Just happened in the car now and I'll get Brittany to tell it. So you're gonna think I'm crazy. But I was falling asleep. And I don't know if you know what sleep paralysis is. But it's very common. Which is whatever. But like the next step after sleep paralysis. It's like an out of body experience. Or astral projecting. So my body's asleep. But my mind was awake. And my eyes were kind of like this. So I could still see. My brother was sitting over there. So I could still see him clearly. And I felt the presence of like a kid. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl. But there was a kid. It sounds weird. But pulling me away from my body. And I was getting super scared. And I felt like I was going somewhere else. So I was just trying to fight really hard to like. He was just very scary. And then to add on to that. I'm texting my cousin. She's like last night Pedro. Which is her husband. Got up to pee. And I was wide awake. And all of a sudden I got so sleepy. And my body felt weird. As my eyes were shutting. I saw a small black figure. And it was a girl. A little girl with long hair. But I got so freaked out. She jumped up and it was gone.  That happens in my family. We made it. We're here. I'm putting the rosary every single night before I go to bed. Here we go. That first experience. Isn't just me. The basement. That's a no-go area. Kitchen over here. Upstairs. Room here. Room here. My grandparents room. And then the bathroom. I'm going to close the door. It's fine. Which one? Slowly. Or just close what it says. We're not just kidding. The bathroom? Yeah. Maybe someone's in there. Yeah. That's pretty much the house tour. Keep you guys updated.


I'm hugely honoured and also hugely humbled to see all the happy, eminent women on the list. So yes, I'm very honoured, very humbled to be on this list. And a very big thank you to my team out there at Nickelodeon and Viacom, who made this possible for me. To be honest, I'm not sure there is a separation to begin with. I think it's all the same. There's no male-female divide. And I think it's all of it. And everything that you achieve and everything that one achieves really is on merit, to be very honest. And therefore, I'm not sure that this distinguish really happens in real life, where men and women work together and achieve what they have to purely on merit.


It's crazy how labels sign influencers these days to me. It's so interesting, but you don't hear any conversations heavy about it. The influencers that are being signed by labels, I think Xeas people were actually pretty aware of. There was a decent awareness, but so many of these smaller ones, curators, influencers, from what I've heard, typically it doesn't seem like a massive life-changing amount for a lot of them, but it's more like, hey man, we'll keep throwing you some bread if you make sure you respond to the emails in a timely manner. We'll get your passes to all the fans, so we'll make your lifestyle look good. Exactly. I want to know what the signings look like. If you had to sign an influencer, so I wouldn't take a label deal. I'm in an exclusive deal if I was an influencer, unless they were going crazy. And the ones that I know who are signed, they don't have an exclusive deal. But if you were a label, how would you approach it? If I was a label, how would I approach an influencer?  And what kind of deals would you try to break bread with them on? I think, so if I was the label, I would go after music reviewers. Like people who just review music, any type of reaction channel or reviewers type of channel. I would go after the music blog promo pages, so the Instagram accounts, the TikTok accounts. And I would go after meme accounts that have a music-focused audience. So there's one page I follow called Grand Wizard Chatmigas built off the DJ Academic brand. It's a meme page, but he has a music-focused audience. So pages like that, or that is another one called Tyrone. Tyrone has a, which I actually think might be owned by a really big entity. But if I was a label, I would go after those. And so I think there would be a couple of different ways I would try to do it. The pages, meme accounts, music pages, I'll probably try to like outright buy. And maybe just offer the creator like a really large buyout deal. Look at how much money you're making here. Okay, you generate $150k. You know what I'm saying? I'll give you... Not even, most of them. Yeah, but let's just... Okay. Let the big ones get a right. Probably try to bottom out right just so I can hire somebody internally. Or bottom out right and then give them a job. Like, yo, I'll give you, I don't know, $400k for the page and then hire you on under $85k of your salary or something to keep running the page. Right? But now we're going to just keep it exclusive to our artists. Well, maybe not even that. Maybe even be like, yo, you can still take whatever promo money you get from it.  This gas. We need to press the gas at full blown. This is coverage daily news for this artist, that type of vibe. Yeah. I think the ones that have a brand, like their face attached to it, that's a harder one. Because I think hiring them as almost like an employee, like a similar bi-model and interming to an employee will probably be what makes the most sense as a label, but they're not going for that. You know what I'm saying? A smart one wouldn't go for that. Yeah. So I will probably just try to work out some type of a yearly lump sum while either I get a certain amount of artists I can push you that you have to do or it affords me an extremely discounted promo rate. So if you can typically charge in 10K per video, I want it for 800. You know what I'm saying? And in order to get it for 800, I'm going to give you, I don't know, 100K upfront right now. You know what I'm saying? Or something. Because if I know how to, yo, I might have, you know what I'm saying?  You know what I'm saying? That's going to save me 80 bands. Yeah. In that scenario, like 80 bands plus, you know what I'm saying? Like in Lawrence, I'm willing to do that right now. I know I got at least five or six like that. And I think a lot of influencers would do that. Like the label was like, yo, I'm going to pay you to still pay you. It just needs to be a discounted rate. Most of them are going to go for that. They're going to go for that. Because I don't think they will be thinking of it the same way. But I don't know. I've never thought about it. I would love to talk to like one of the ones that have done it and see like, because I feel like most of them just get hired, bro. They get like, boy, I'm almost at work. A whole lot of them will get hired. I think I like to buy out deal. Like for the mean pages, because the mean pages without having a face, you can damn near throw anybody. I like keeping the same person in the role because they're already, you know, they know it. It's the cost of training and all that stuff. You don't have to deal with any of that stuff. Just let them let them rock or I keep them numbers up. And the complexity definitely comes for the individual influencer because the individual influencer has more of a brand to uphold. You can't just throw somebody or play some. We've seen people do that. And it's a hard game, man.  But I think the lump sum deal is nice. I think it would be, I'll probably focus on orchestrated campaigns and somebody that makes sense for their brand. So you have to be a lot more select. That's another reason why you can't just buy them all out. You'd have to say, all right, this person is great for this audience and maybe I'm focused heavy on R&B or maybe I'm focused heavy on rock. You know, if I'm going to somebody who's general but impactful, let's insert like Anthony Vantana, which he probably would never do that. But okay, those people would be one off. I would never try to buy them out because it's just too, it's too much of a variety. But somebody who's like in my bag. So if I'm an indie label, especially I try to come up with some kind of relationship where you can curate because major labels are I haven't seen them be good at. At truly maybe they don't have the time to or funny enough, the resources to really bring their attention to using a lot of those influences right on the long term. But any labels, like they're real, they're creative. They get it.  I think to a lot of the, at least the situations I've seen in the past that I was pretty sure was an influencer signed to a major label is they go from being, like you said, like a trusted voice of the of the E streets, if you will, right? When the music says like, I know this guy put me onto a bunch of random stuff. And then I don't know where they just go to like only talking about bigger artists, right? Or only covering bigger artists. And it's like, I don't think the labels realize when they make them make that change that they're killed off the brand trust of the influencers. So over time, the value of the influence is like, it starts to decrease from the moment they start doing that. And then it's like a lot of especially like music curators. A lot of them maintain that reputation by being able to say like there were the first ones to talk about somebody. Right. So now if it's like, I mean, unless you was a label, like, you know, of course, I guess if you have your smaller artists, you can still help them kind of maintain that that image that look, but it's like they don't have the ability to like naturally go out there.  They're like, every music creator knows, like, if I don't make a post talking about this person, I'm going to look out the loop. So I feel like when influencers get locked into these label deals or where they can't talk about those artists, they look like they're out the loop. Exactly. Yeah. So then their audience starts to lose trust in them. And then the effect of basically making how effective they are, like, like less, you know. And so I think that's what allows them.  So in their curator impact is better than any of the other curative impacts I've seen, you know, as like half decade. But because of that personal out the loop aspect of things, you can truly activate a campaign and get people to talk about you without ever having to, well, I don't say ever having to pay, but paying cheaper pages that they're following, right? Just to get discovered by them. And then because they got the FOMO, I got to be the first to introduce them. Then you use that human behavior for them to go ahead and start putting you out into this, you know, how about to say man of sphere, the artist sphere, the industry sphere, all that stuff right there. Because, because like once you could tap into human behavior and wins, that's why the open verse challenges were so big for a second, right? Because now it's playing into the artist ego for me to get seen. So I'm a flex, right? And then I see other people are actually getting attention from this. So that's even more important for me to get in. Oh, dang. And I actually might end up on a track, right? That becomes even another game. So it. And at the end of the day, you get all this game from people putting out your own song. So it was just a perfect human behavior experiment. And whenever, so like when you look at these curators, like, because I feel like it hasn't been legitimate curators in the last five years. I haven't been that many of them. It was like a deficit. But now with TikTok, it's a lot of like legitimate, like, you know, upcoming curators that people truly look at for their opinion on music. You know what I mean? It was almost because we know there were some pages on Instagram. There were that curated music, but it almost wasn't cool for some for a while. Yeah. I mean, I think the Instagram community, there's a lot more like blog is like you can tell it bars from like traditional right. Right. So TikTok feels more.  I'm trying to think of a person like a million. Like I guess like DJ academics, right?  It's like, like no different in like a complex, right? Or pigeons and planes or something. So I think, I think that's the difference in it. Like TikToks feel a lot more personal because you can't really, I mean, but even TikTok has like big, or it's starting to build a culture of like big music repost pages like Instagram. Like it's still in its infantile. It's hard to be successful though. Yeah. It's very hard. I think I maybe know of like four or five that do it really well. They didn't already have a brand, but like their own TikTok building a brand is a faceless, faceless music curator. Very hard thing to do on TikTok. See, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.  Yeah. There's no way a brand can legitimately be a real curator at scale. Most of them at least, right? Because, you know, it becomes more commercial and people don't really know who they're trusting. And it just doesn't work. Colors has probably been the best I've seen like in the modern era in space. I was like colors and probably pigeons and planes. Pigeons and planes. I don't consider them modern anymore. Oh man. You know what I mean? They're current. You know what I mean? They're still doing their thing and they're some of the best. You know what I mean? Yeah. But yeah, like they've been around in the game for a minute. You know what I mean? Colors has too, but like colors is still like catching a new wave because of the video format and all that stuff. Pigeons and planes isn't that. It's traditional, right? But I'm saying like when you go back, the DJs used to be curators. It was a person. And you know if I go listen to this dude, this dude sets going to go a certain way. This guy has a certain type of taste. You know what I mean? That actually means something. And when you listen to these individual curators on TikTok, it's another person. Again, I already know what he vibes with, the type of stuff he hates, especially the ones who do commentary, right? Like what they don't like. And just like a news story where you might watch four or five different channels or four or five people talk about the same issue. Like I'm willing to now go see what that curator thinks.