Good evening, I'll call the Monday, July 1st, Berlin Select Board meeting to order. With us tonight are to my far left, Justin Lawrence, my left close Smith, to my right, Jeremy Hansen. Angelina Capron is with us on the phone. With us also is Dana Hadley, town administrator, Diane Isabel Treasurer, and I'm Brad Town. Additions or changes to the agenda date? I have no changes. Public comment. Hearing none, Treasurer's report, Diane. Okay, the preliminary audit is gonna take place on August 21st, so I'll keep it in the day, that I think I'll have two of the CPS with me, and the field work will be on October 1st and 2nd. And I do believe for the preliminary, they are gonna have to talk to one of the Select Board members and they can call you up. So whoever, I'm gonna ask again, when we get closer to it to see which one of you, you know, they can call and they just ask. Which is they have to ask, okay? Yeah. On the new truck loan, okay, I did get a rate of 2.05%, okay, which is a lot better than we even quoted, as to community national like, okay? And they were, this quote is good for up to three months, 90 days, okay? So we'll have to close to the 490 days in order to hold that 2.05%, okay? And they were saying, as a five year loan and payments in arrears, the payments annually will be $31,869.96 based on the $150,000 we spoke up. So it could be something different if we end up borrowing less or whatever, okay? But the most of we're borrowing is $150,000. I also want to make it known that Vemur's rates have changed for the pension. This year, this past year, it was 5% the employee paid on their payroll and the employer paid 5.625%. Now, for FY20, beginning in July 1st payroll, the employees were paying 5.125% and the employer will be at 5.75%. And that's all I've got, otherwise I might have something to add. And the nice thing about knowing these increases if you know what they're going to be in previous, next year, so when we do the- They've planned them out three years in advance, which is the first time I've seen that happen. But if you like to take a look at that. What are the different groups? We're all in the group B. And it's all in the same group. Because that's municipality defined benefit group. We have one person in- Define contribution. Define contribution. But still at plan B. And I don't know what the rate is for that one, but it's- It's lower than that. It's lower than this, yeah. And we only got one person. Right. So they expect the rates to go up by 0.25% each year? Something like that, yeah, quarter of a percent. And in some years, they don't go up at all? We have a little concern about, Diane had mentioned to me today that their actuaries weren't as accurate as they had thought in the pension fund. People are living longer. How rude. So it kinda, you understand how there were some excuse, you know, what they have or reserves, et cetera, et cetera. So they may find that- Yeah, there could be a point in time where we may have to make a big lump sum payment. It hasn't happened yet, but the auditors calculate that information based on what the state gives us at the end of every fiscal year. So is that something we should talk to you about in mind when we do budget this year? Yes. Just kind of. Yeah. Do you have any idea what you think would be the- Not at this point. And I'm hoping they'll have a better idea down the road. So I mean, so if it's five and an eighth this year, and we need to set aside enough that we cover five and a half or something, and just essentially just kind of follow it up. Yeah. You know, three eighths of a percent, whatever that ends up being, and hope that we want to try to out-guess the actuaries. Maybe that's the- And I think we would have some time to do that, because obviously this affects communities and we all budget the same way. Right. So- And they started this about three years ago. So what three years into this, what they're looking at? And is it possible for us to pay more than what they're saying there? I mean, that's not- Okay. I don't know. No, I think that what they would do is send us a bill. Here's your bill. This is what you need to add for additionally. But there hasn't been any real talk about that happening just it may. Okay. It probably will in the future, but I don't know how far in the future. Gotcha. Thank you, Diane. Everybody's seen the approval of licenses, permits, vouchers, and applications. Moved to approve general fund accounts, payable warrant number 19G26 with checks 19333 through 19367 for the amount of $42,089.25. Also, payroll warrant number 19-26 for payroll from June 9th, 2019 through June 22nd, 2019. And the amount of $44,186.95. Second motion. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Municipal tax rate. Yeah. I would like to begin by saying that we had a vote for a budget vote from the school and that did pass and that was June 25th. So the next step is that we have to wait 30 days in case somebody says we want to recount or whatever they want to not agree with it. And that would be July 25th. Then a July 25th, the union district will send it to the state of Vermont. And then the state of Vermont has up to 30 days to give us what the municipal school rate would be. So potentially I would not be able to issue tax bills until like August 26th, which means the first tax bill would be due in September, the end of September, September 26th, potentially. I'm hoping it doesn't take them that long to give us a rate. Regardless, we'll be going at least a month later than we normally do for tax bills, which would mean so the first one potentially could be due September 26th, but the next one will be November 15th and on and on. So it's gonna be a very short gap of time between the two payments. But because we have a decent amount of the general fund, there's no cash flow concerns about that. Right, as long as we don't start doing big projects. And as far as the truck, when the truck comes in, I can get the money from the bank before I have to pay for the truck. The truck, yeah. So that will work out. Good, yeah. I passed out our worksheet on setting. This is the municipal rate only we're talking about. And just to go down, we have the budget that the town voted on, the 3 million, 2005,03. Articles, 74,000, the fire department, 267. So the total is 3 million, 344,918, and the estimated budget revenues. And as I say always, we're conservative on our estimate of revenues. So then we usually have more, but we do know that we're gonna get the pilot payments of 185,000. And that could be slightly more or slightly less. I mean, that depends and the current use is pretty stable. So taking those current revenues, that gives us the amount of taxes to be raised, which is 2,087,668. The grand list is up a little bit this year, mainly due to personal property taxes. Five, the grand list is 506,850,700, which is divided by 100 here. So that's what we have to set our rate on. Gives us a municipal rate of 56,645,664. And you're agreeing with me, Diane, I hope? Yes, last year. Last year it was 5,508. So it's up about a penny and a half. You'll notice that there is no, we did not have any carryover from previous years in the fund balance. We had a loss last year. 29,548. We don't know what the loss will be for this year. And that just got, it essentially just got absorbed in the buffer that we have in the bank. Yes, yeah, and indesignated funds. Now we do have, that doesn't mean we don't have a fund balance. That's just the, we've always just taken the latest one. We do have a fund balance, which is over a million dollars. However, it's between restricted, committed, assigned and non-spendable. And it brings it down, we have 565,000. It's based on less, on FY 18s. On a year ago's figures. We're always a year in a rears. And I guess I would just caution the board if you're thinking of using any of that, it does create a false tax rate. Because it will be great this year, but next year it's gonna catch up. The state does recommend that you have at least 5% of your operating budget, which we have about 15% of our operating budget, which is, I think, essential if we have a disaster that has to be addressed. And it also helps us in times like this when we're not getting our revenues are delayed and we're still having to pay bills. That's certainly the case with other municipalities around here, they're taking out lines of credit and short-term loans to- Yeah, I think many of them take out like anticipation and taxes notes and things like that. And we're very fortunate we don't have to do that. So we can safely set this rate because we have all the information that we need and we'll just wait for the school. School rates actually split up. Diane does have a little information on that. Yeah, there is an estimate. There was just put out by the WCUSD before we did the vote. And they're anticipating that the rate would be, for residential, 1.717%. And last year it was 1.6683, so it would be higher. So in looking all in all, we have a local agreement and that last year was 0.0015, which is pretty small. However, if I was to take the 0.5664, the 0.0015 for local, and the 1.717, which is the guesstimate, the total rate for residential would be 2.2849. And right now the total is 2.2206, so it will be more. 2.2, I'm sorry, what was that? It was 2.2206, that's what we're in for FY19. But FY20, potentially I'm thinking, and this is just an estimate, would be 2.2849 if we were to use these numbers that we have right now. And just for fun, for lack of a better way to do it, I'd like to know how much the operating budget is costing on the rate versus the fire department and the special article, so that's the bottom. And it really doesn't help you much, but I think it's good to know. So just south of what, 3% increase? Yes, yeah. Overall? Overall. And we're setting the rate tonight, I just wanted to make sure. If the board decides, obviously we can't bill, normally we would be standing on the wings, ready to push the button on the printer, but we can't do that. Yeah, but it'd be nice to have this behind us, so that when I can, I can just get the bills out. So move to set the municipal rate for the town of Berlin for fiscal year 2020 to 0.5664. I second the motion as presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. And those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Bill May, come on up, Bill. Thank you. Working in town right away. Thank you, Diane. Thank you, Diane. Bill is Middlesex Land Maintenance, and he has a job at 235 Pylon Avenue, and I guess I'll let you explain what you need to do with it. Actually, I was hired to resurface this guy's driveway, Mark Wheeler, and his driveway's washed out and so forth, and I can go in and resurface it, but there's a problem with drainage in front. Because I guarantee my work, I need to repair that so it doesn't rewash out my new driveway. And what happened is the ditch that runs along the front has filled up over years with sand, and at one point it's almost level with his lawn, so if you get a heavy rain, the water flows over the top and it washes into his driveway. And the dirt is also above the act of culvert that runs under his driveway. So it's a situation where you're kind of looking a hole to see where the culvert goes. My intention is I would like to be able to just clean out that culvert, drop it down another 18, 20 inches or so, so if the water is back to the lower level of the pipe and doesn't flow over onto his lawn, and I'm gonna build up his lawn, so if that ditch fills up again, it has to go a little higher to get into his driveway. But I also, like I said, I can't see the culvert very well. It's a metal culvert, and it is visible in the driveway. Now he was thinking that probably the frost lifted the pipe, and I'm thinking more that his driveway settled down over the pipe. But in the event that if I get down in there and I check out the pipe and I see it's either rotted out or caved in or anything, at that point I would like to change the culvert as well. What size is the culvert that's in there now? A 15 inch. I believe it's a metal, so they've changed the diameters over the years. Now they're poly, they run in 15 and 18s. You know what I wanted to mention, I think our ordinance says 18, minimal. Can you tell me your position? Oh, they have moved up to 18? Yeah. Okay, sure. I got one. Okay, yeah, I did get prices on both because I wasn't sure what your rulings were on that. But you know, another thing I can do too, if I find the culvert is just simply plugged, I can remove it and clean it and replace it with the old culvert. I just gotta make sure that the water's running down through where it's supposed to be going rather than dumping it into a yard. I move that we approve the permit for digging within the town right away for Mr. May, provided that the public is replaced. It's an 18-inch culvert. I second the motion that's presented. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Thank you for your fine explanation. Thank you. I'll make sure you get the permit. Okay. And you said, Phil, you're not starting the job for, Pardon me? Did you say you were starting the job? Wouldn't be at any time this week, probably maybe towards the middle of next week somewhere in there. Perfect, okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, this is a planning grant application data. Yes, this is the grant that Jacob Hammersmith talked about the other night regarding basically what we would use it for is to employ a consultant to draw up plans for the downtown center designation. It is due September 30th and we found out today that we can't apply until sometime in August. So we're right on top of it, which is good because Jeremy's name is spelled wrong in the second page. But if the board is ready to vote that we should go ahead and apply for it and then I would bring you a signature page at a subsequent meeting would be good. Move to apply for the municipal planning grant. Nice second motion. Okay, for the discussion, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Okay, Josh, we're maintenance on class four road. Okay. So I was just curious as to like the last meeting I was here at, it all kind of just got flip flopped from what we were talking about was just like the maintenance how I got, you know, off onto a wide end of the road and turn it into a class three and check out the legalities and all this stuff.  No, that's a class three up to the old town. Oh, okay. It still is, yeah. Okay. Coos Road, anybody? Yes. Road by the airport. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. It goes to, yeah. Yeah, it goes nowhere, yeah, yeah. But, well, it did access wood use land that way. Yes, yeah. And it was an old town dump there. It was a dump there. A few years ago, yeah. And it just kind of got all kind of sidetracked from the winter maintenance. And I just wanted to clarify that was all that I was really looking to do with that last meeting was to try to get the town to take over that just a winter maintenance, plowing and sanding. And the reasons were is, you know, because people get done, I think I told you before that, you know, I have four-wheel drive vehicles so I don't have to keep the things sanded all the time but if anybody else goes down in there they seem to have trouble getting out. And I do have a sandbarrow down there that I would take sand from the town sand pile to fill that barrel. And it turns out that, you know, that I can only get two buckets of sand which is beyond the point. I can get two buckets this week, two bucks next week and just put them into the barrel. But I'm just getting tired of coming home and having people stuck or having to help people or being sitting there with friends over at my house and watching as somebody happily comes down and can't get out and we're kind of sitting there entertained by it.  And, you know, why do I have to plow out for my neighbors too? My neighbors don't plow the end. He has a snow blower that he still blows his driveway with. He doesn't go and clean out the end of black road when the town comes through with a snow plow. I take care of that. And I don't see why I should be maintaining the road for not just myself. And plus I would still have my driveways. I have two driveways down there that I would still have to plow. It's like I'm asking the town to come and plow me out.  There's just like a one lane road that goes out to a one house and they talk to the road foreman. And, you know, he gave me some of the names of these roads that are just like one house out there. And then I've got like eight different names. I've had like two houses or three houses but you guys do plow the roads. There's also right here right off of a shed road. David Moyes, which is an old town road that the town plows. And, you know, not that I'm trying to get something that I shouldn't get. I'm just getting to the age and I don't want my wife stuck down in there. If I'm not around, could at least sometimes go away in the winter time. And my wife is there and I don't want her to have trouble also. You know, I have some other I was even much written down here about, you know, about something that, you know, from the last meeting, it was, you know, and after seeing Angela's email, I feel that the board felt that this was some kind of vengeance I was trying to take on my neighbors by having this road discussion, which it absolutely has nothing to do with that. And it's about having access to my house and making sure that people aren't going to be blocking my way to get to my house or out of my house. And, you know, and other people follow their GPS and Angelina even stated in her email that she has been sent down that road by her GPS. And it happens a number of times. And I think that one of the problems were, and I don't know if this is one of the reasons why you kind of denied it last meeting was, you know, Mrs. Dowett was saying that she didn't want to hear trucks going down or driving away at four o'clock in the morning with flashing lights and backup beepers. Well, Tim doesn't plow the roads at four o'clock in the morning. And he had also said that he said that it wouldn't be a problem at all for him to do that because he goes up and clears the intersection at the top of Crosstown Road anyways in the morning with a regular one-dump truck that they have. So he said it would be no problem to drive down and drive back out of Black Road. It would take him virtually minutes. And you know, I think that the cost was brought up by the town, if the town was gonna incur any costs over this and with them not doing the portion of Cousro that they're not doing anymore, they could do Black Road without any additional cost to the town or time. Actually, it'd be less time because it's closer. And that's about it. I was hoping the town could, you know, my way of at least plowing the Black Road portion of it. You know, there is a dead-end sign at the end of that road. And that also drags people down that road. Wonder where this dead-end road goes.  And in the summer, it's not such a big deal because you can get right down and turn around and go out. But in the winter time, it is a big deal. The roads that are like Colby Road and Wheeler Road and the rest of them, are those class fours or class three?  Those are threes. Those are class three roads. Both Colby and Wheeler class three? Yeah, most of them are.  Most of them are in class three. There are several roads that we wonder why we have, but we do. And so Wheeler Road, Colby Road, there's another one down in Riverton and I'm thinking of it as Davis Road is class three. And I believe Dave Mamoie's driveway is Shed Road from historical old road when the road, I don't know where the road went over here before the highway, but. And is Mamoie's drive still class three? I am not a hundred percent sure of that. According to the state, yeah. His road wasn't even shown on the map. Yeah, according to the state, they're only crediting us with 0.13 of a mile for Shed Road. So it makes me believe that no, it's not. The map, there shows it longer. I don't know why that, it shows it longer. Yeah. So I mean, I think it's something that, I couldn't ask him today when I thought of it as he was off, but I think it's probably something that we've inherited over a number of years that they've been doing right along. But I mean, my only question is it up, is it a class four or a class three, or does the town show it up? I believe it's a class three, but I don't have the proof, yeah. It doesn't show it on the map, it does. It shows that the trails are going right here where it turns around, where his road goes down. So all the others that Josh mentions are class three roads. I'm not disagreeing with what I'm saying though. Absolutely, I saw the day for class three. And Coos Road is a class three up to where the dump used to be. But there's no residents. There are none, no. Well that should definitely be a class four. And so, Tim had talked to you a little bit about it, but you haven't made a decision. We haven't brought that back for decision, but at some point that might be something to bring up. We had that problem with someone driving down there and getting mired in the mud. Yeah, I know Chip, what's that road done for the dump? The class four policy that was adopted in 2016 does state that on a class four road, no winter maintenance. There would be no winter maintenance. We do have two class four roads that we do limited summer maintenance. One is Rowell Hill Road in the class four section. That's the steep part in the middle. And the other is Gun Club Road over off of route two. They cross four roads, Dana? Those are, the two that we do minimum maintenance, Angelina are a Gun Club Road and a section of Rowell Hill Road. And both of those are closed in the winter, though. They're both closed in the winter months, yes. Okay. Well the only way I can see taking, doing winter maintenance, Josh would be taking afraid that to class three. And what would that involve? I mean, we started talking about that the last meeting and then the whole thing just kind of escalated into something that I really didn't want to go to. You'll have to look into it, Dana. Well, I did talk with the BTRAMS and the board does have the right to do that. They suggest that we have a couple of public hearings to have that done. The board can make a decision if they want to do it or if it's a petition, then it would go, it would require so many signatures on a 5% of the voters on a petition to do that at the board. If this board did not decide to support it. So there's two ways to get it on. And then it would go to the town and be voted on. So you've been changing it to a class three. I mean, I can investigate into that myself but I don't want to burden the town anymore than what needs to be done for doing that vote. If you could just come and say, in the plow, it's no bum, but making it a class three if that adds burden to the town. I don't feel it need to, but if it needs to make it a class three. I think that the concern that I have and is that if we start doing anything with a class four vote, we have all these rows as you know that we've wondered why we're doing it. So we need to start really reeling that in and to be fair to everybody. I mean, yeah, it's great if you have a one person road and it's your driveway and you get a plow, that would be great. It seems like in that sort of company with Tim, it seems like there's a number of them. But there's a number of them. Well, the thing that is, are they class three or class four? They won't be in the, must have been- These are threes now. They're threes now. They got turned to threes at some point. I can't tell you how they became threes, but- Yeah, I don't know. In much of it, I think it's historical stuff that has been for- You know, why if these people were contacted if they left nothing on a class four road, why wasn't I contacted in 2016 when this class four road issue was coming up? I think it was a policy that we're working on updating the policy. So we weren't really thinking that there was anything different really with that. So why did it change all these? Yeah, it was just kind of, there was a class four road policy. We just beefed it up some and I could look back on the old policy, but it certainly wasn't meant to be let out. Living on a class four road until the last couple of years. I've had it in 18 years. I haven't had any trouble. Last couple of years have been broke for me. And plowing and sanding is a big issue on that. It's an issue that concerns me very much. So when I'm away and having my wife not be able to get in or out. All I was doing was just trying to help you understand. So there's two ways to get it updated. To get it updated. If you chose to, if the idea was to move it into a class three status, the board could go through the public hearing process and get it put for the voters to vote on. Or it could be by petition. What do you mean so it would go to hearing and go to voters or it's just voted on by the board? You know, that's a very good, I said voters, but I think I was talking board. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there'd be open sessions for public comment. But I guess what I'm thinking, why I'm thinking that is there would be, it's recommended that there be a public hearing. I'm not sure if that's a law that is a public hearing, but, and I would agree. And I think this board has always been very open. How many we had, this is the third hearing, sitting here on this? No, no, no, the same subject. Okay. That's what I think. That's what I think. Okay, so where do we go to next then? So do I get on the agenda for the next meeting to see if we are to have a public hearing on it? Well, what's entailed going from a class board to class three? Is there any minimum standards we have to put on the road before we upgrade it to a class three? That is up to the community. According to their Bible, in the beginning. And if you excuse me for a minute, these other class three roads that go to these people's houses, they're no different than black roads.  The only difference there, Josh, is I'm not sure they may be grandfathered from a change of the state regs. If they are, then any new road coming in would have to be any up to a class three may have to be changed, may upgrade. I just don't want to have surprises down the pack here. Because there was a minimum of like base layers as I recall. Well, that's a new road. That's what the new road is. It's a new road. But you see the town on our own is this one. I just want to know that we don't get, going from a class four to a class three, if there's some minimum standard we have to meet before we can do it. But I swear we ran into this when we were talking about this with Ronald Hill or something else before where we were, hypothetically talking about, that it would have to be. I think that was up on Vine Street, that road that went out that little community. When we took that over. That's right, that's right. So, but there was something in the regs as I recall that it had to be, there had to be some depth. That was a private road that we took over to a public road to check. The paragraph about, if you bear with me, I just wanted to read you the recommendation from the Department of Transportation, Agency of Transportation. Reclassification from class four to class three, it says upgrading as a common issue. Faced by the governing body as landowners often now locate homes in remote locations. There is no statutory requirement that such requests must be granted by the governing body. However, there may be an issue of constitutional equal protection if the municipality can be shown to be disparate in its treatment, I didn't say that right, in its treatment of similar highways. The governing body may grant the request but order that the petitioner bear the cost of the upgrade. And the difference is with Berlin Heights, Berlin Heights was a private road and they needed to bring it up to a standard so that the town would accept it. This is a town road and do we have to bring it up to our standard? And, well, if we do bring it up, if we do take it back as a class, bring it up to a class three, is there any requirement from the state on the surface or the condition of the road for them to take and give us money for a class three? Not that I'm aware of. I would certainly ask that question. I haven't asked that question in that context, but I mean, we're talking a 10th of a mile? Yeah, it's about 500 feet, almost a 10th of a mile. The answer for that's not magic book. Do you wanna see the magic book? I do. It's secret. I'd like to know. And so I can ask that question. Sure. I just don't want the town getting caught on the hook here. You know, I mean, I think it's a, if we've got added to our class three list, we would get part of the grant from the state. I'm sure it would be minimal, but. Blimey, we're giving up. Josh, can I just ask you, how much money are you spending on sand and salt for your driveway each winter? Oh, I don't have, I don't have, I don't keep track of that. I don't have all my flowering bills. And the salt and the sand salt mix that I've been using has been from the town, the town file. I would feel like I have a 55 gallon plastic barrel on the hill that I try to keep, try to keep full. So it's a lot of time. A lot of time. Question is that we have a certain budget for salt and sand every year. Yeah. And I just wanna know how much that's gonna increase in the future. Angelina shouldn't get all of it because you're giving out the road. It's about the same distance. So it won't change anything. Well, you're already doing it with the town. Salt and sand, our town stuff. Right, and actually, Justin had a good point that I'm already taking. You're using the material anyway. Right. Okay. A lot of, a lot of great language in there. Yeah. They're good at that. I mean, if we're gonna go down this route, I think we need to look at the other candidates for going from class four to class three or from private to the town roads and vice versa. As I understand, the other roads are already class three. This is the only, the only other two roads that are class four that we maintain are Rao Hill and Glen Cub Road just because they're so steep. But there's private roads, probably like Dave Malloy's, that are, that have more residences, or in the case of Malloy's, they probably shouldn't be plowed where it's being plowed if that map is right. But like Borelli Farm Drive, there's three residences there and a reasonably active Airbnb. I mean, should that become a town road that's maintained? Well, I'm trying to think how to say this. Berlin Heights, that road, when they did that development, that was in the development contract that the town would take it over. I don't remember that. I'm pretty sure. But I'm only concerned was that as the road aged, whether or not it still had the material that was required to meet the state standard for class three. And apparently, I pretty sure they went up and headed board. They probably did. That happened before I came. I think you did it in about 13, 12 or 13. It met whoever they board just happened to meet the requirement. I could ask Diane that she would be very familiar with that, where she lives. Yeah, so, but this is, like I said, this is still a town road and you said that the state would be fine with, is fine with class three. There's no minimum requirement. I, from what I know right this moment, I don't see a minimum requirement. Obviously, I would ask them specific questions, i.e. how would we get on the class three list to be reimbursed portion of, to get our road grant. And again, to be sure that it doesn't have to be a certain standard for the state. And not to be flip, but we have roads that are not up to certain standards. The lack of a better way to put it. Well, roads probably in better shape than some of that. But I mean, from most parts, those other roads that, I mean, they see a lot of travel too. Sure, yeah. Was that other road with the bed and breakfast you were discussing? Was that a private road now? Or is it? It's a development up behind the farm in the airport. I'll conduct. I was at a Burley farm off Mosey Road. Oh, off Mosey Road. Yeah, okay. You were talking, just talking about the Dodge Farm. Oh, Dodge Farm, yeah.   Yeah, like the other roads, I don't know how the contract work, but it's an interesting point. If they have an active bed and breakfast up there, you were saying, I think that's an interesting point as well. But currently, this is already a town road, so it's a little bit different anyway. Well, like I said, if you can look into it, Dana, and find out if there's, I mean, if there's no worries about the upgrade to a class three and make sure that this can go back onto the state books as far as reimbursement. Okay. So that's one question I'm gonna ask them about getting back onto the grant list. Yeah. Basically, ask them if we can just swap. But then, you know, we're giving up Poo's Road, they got this one. Right, you haven't voted on that though, so in my mind, I don't know what your thought is on that, but I'm not even, and the other question that I'm going to ask them is, is there a standard that we need to maintain to accept the road? Which is interesting, because we just got the new road standards that I'm working on that have to be done by the 1st of August, so. I know I'm just really talking about that. Anything else, Josh? I think that's it, because I'll just check in with Dana and see what it comes up with on that, and if there's no, can I assume if there is no, other than the public hearing, if there's no additional cost to the town, is this, do you think it would go through, or? It looks like it might not, I mean, all right. At least, I would have no objections to it. So there has to be a public hearing? Is that what you said? I don't know, Dana. I don't know if it's a legal requirement, but they did suggest that it's a public hearing, and I think it's a good idea. I do think a public hearing is a good idea. It's here, it's you having a public hearing. You never know, you may have two people come, you may have 100 people come, I mean, but I suspect not. But it opens it up to the potential for one to have a public hearing. It wants to put themselves out there for everybody that has a private road and to come to that meeting and take a line on my real property. Well, and that's an issue. The climate is different, you know. But I'm just saying I didn't want to... Yeah. Currently, you're on a town. The difference with yours is that we own it. Right. Yep. So, will that be... I think probably what we should do, I should get answers for you for your next meeting, which is on the 18th, I think, yeah. And if you vote to go forward and you want to have a public hearing, maybe in August, whatever day that is in August. I mean, I certainly can have, now that I have specific questions, I'll just call her tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you very much, Josh. All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Josh. Have a nice night. You too. Let's see here. Approval of all boards minutes from... Right. I didn't have the minutes of the 20th yet, so, but I do have the minutes of the all boards night. And it was a nice, I thought it was a nice evening. I thought things went really well. So, it was a thunderstorm? We had a, yeah, we had a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, John was able to run out and put the top up in his convertible, which I had to stop the... It added to the homey. It added to the, it added to it. I thought the speaker did really well, and I realized with the speaker that it's very difficult, at least maybe I'm the only one, but it's difficult concept to understand. And I've heard that same presentation a couple times, and every time I hear it, I get a little more out of it. Yeah, it was, it was, it was, I mean, that was the first time for me. Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's, I was, I was excited to have committees kind of here. What direction? You know, I would go and... It's a big, it's a big deal. We have to do that more than once, a quarter or something. I don't know. Like, I feel like if we had like, my dad was on the select board. He was, he was like liaison to a road crew. So, I mean, I know that's a lot of what you do, but you would go, if you would go, but he'd talk to Gary Richardson all the time. He was trying to Gary anyway, but then he'd bring the stuff back to the board or him and Adele. I almost feel like with the school board stuff that we had going on earlier this year, and all that, it would have made sense if, I don't know how we do that. Well, I think it's, Carl representing that. Made a good suggestion, I thought, was to have the chairman come into the board periodically of each committee to kind of update you where they are and have some conversation back and forth. When you get to the school board, and especially with the new school board, it's the logistics, you know? It just gets to be difficult. I think it would be, if we could schedule that somehow or try to give them like every other month, have somebody from a different board and then ask them if they could. The hardest thing that I do is communication. I mean, it's the hardest thing. And so whatever suggestions you have, I think it would keep us on the same page so they weren't relaying to you and you relaying to us and all that. That was one of the ideas with the all boards evening so that you could hear from the state. So you weren't hearing from me. Maybe something that, you know, it's kind of like when you have five people in a row and you whisper to someone by the time it gets to the end, it's different. Well, I'll make the motion that we approve the minutes from the all board meeting. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, I'm sorry. Made a motion to approve the minutes for the all board meeting from June 26th. And I just wanted to note a couple of changes in the third paragraph down that starts with he, just to put Jacob there as opposed to he. And then the second sentence in that same paragraph, have Jacob further reviewed and take out the word and. So instead of he and, have Jacob further reviewed or just Jacob reviewed. I'll fix that. Those changes, I second the motion. It seems so right to me. So I'll amend my motion to the changes that flow made. And I second the motion. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Two abstentions. Two abstentions, that's all right. Oh, Prime Minister is report Dana. And I have. First of all, I'd like to just advise you that we are closing the office on Friday as well. We're going to take Thursday and Friday off. Thank you very much. You didn't know you were doing that. That was very nice of you. Anyway, that was very nice, Angelina. Thank you. Then, Jacob mentioned the other night that we had just gotten the village center designations for two village centers. That was Berlin Corners, that's this neighborhood here, and the Riverton designation. And that was a very interesting process. We went over into the hearing and pled our case. It's the same board that is going to hear when we go for the downtown center designation. Now, are you going for two town centers? Are you going for a town center and Riverton and a downtown up here? Well, I may have misspoke, so let me just back up because I have to be very careful with what I say. We are going for the new town center designation, and that's the project over at the mall. Here, what we have here is the village center designation, which is not the same, that's the same, but it's more of a specified, yeah, for specified. Historical preservation, right? And some of the things targeted in the low. Right, and there are quite a few advantages into getting that, and we were successful in getting that. So, and Tom did a lot of work on that too, so I want to kudos to Tom. I also want to let you know that the police department, for a long time, and I always think of Jeremy when I think of this, he said to me, Dana, why do we have two cell phone carriers? Why are we using Verizon and AT&T? And the beauty is we're going to be using one cell phone carrier. And AT&T has a program for first responders, et cetera, that gives priority to them, and so it's a pretty good program, and the cost is pretty attractive. So we are giving up the Verizon in the police department and going with AT&T's first net. And as part of their build out of that, they're actually building more towers. You're probably familiar with this. They should have better coverage. They'll be out, all the emergency management folks get preemption, so they get fast lane. Are they building more towers or just putting more antennas? They're building more towers. They're building, how many do they say more? 13 more throughout the state? Throughout the state. Yeah, wow. Yeah, a bunch of federal money got thrown at them for public safety stuff, and they're doing this all around the country. I was just thinking, I thought that they the tower business got away from the public service board and was going back into the Act 250 review. Well, I still probably have to wait till that too. Good luck. It's in the pipeline. In 15 years you'll have this, I want to be nice. Yeah, and the cell tower on our land, that one there was permitted for six or eight antennas. So I'm assuming that they'll put an AT&T or somebody will put an antenna up on that. That antenna, I mean, I think Verizon put it up, but they sold the antenna to ATC, American Tower Company. And that's been bought out by another company. It's hard to keep track of who's... Whatever it is, is that AT&T basically get rid of the towers so they don't have the overhead and this other company does all the maintenance. So I just wanted you to be aware that's really all we had going on is that I have to tell you about. Okay, thank you, Dana. Round table, Justin. Yeah, it's back to the discussion of getting board together or whatever. What do you guys think would be a good approach to that? So I think you got people there. I mean, I almost got there if it didn't have, you know, kid issues or whatever, but I think incentivize people to go anywhere with food, which is really effective, but will they actually show up? I mean, if we ask them to show up, I mean, given that they're volunteers and whatever, that sometimes will struggle.  I think it would really add a lot to the community and the sharing and collaboration. Yeah, I agree. You got to have something of value, too. So I think that I really wasn't aware that those people were gonna be there, but that was huge value. So I don't know if there's updates or if there's any way we can use that to keep pulling people, you know, finding a common interest. I think that you're, the chair of the planning commission is very interested in keeping connected with the board, as well as the DRB, and the chair of that is also very much able to comment and share. And some of the other boards, I think that it would help if we could kind of keep them more connected because frankly, I think that they might kind of go off in their own doing things and we don't follow them as well as we should because volunteers, I mean, the volunteers to me is the blood of this town. And I appreciate every volunteer that serves on a board. And it is a good point. Obviously, it's hard to make a lot of meetings, but I think it's, I think people would like it. I think I'd be interested if I were chairman to have someone, if I had the board interested in talking to me about things or had something. So what do you think? Are you thinking like, you don't fight them in? Well, I'm thinking me, I mean, I think the gathering of the, in a neutral place was really nice from the standpoint that people got to chat with each other and meet each other. Now, we all know each other, but still you don't, you don't as much, you know. You work with someone more than you see others. So I thought that was a really positive thing. It definitely allowed for an expansion. Right. So I think the networking was great. Some of the people, they were new members too. And we had a couple new members and you certainly want to make sure you encourage them. But I think that also it would be good to have, you know, in a formal select board meeting to have Carla come in, for example, and say, this is what we're doing with the planning board or just so that you know. And that board has been up in hesitant to do that. That board has just been out straight with the master plan and the zoning and everything. I just, they put in countless hours. Does it make sense for us to go to any of their meetings just to observe and see what they're doing? Well, of course you always can. No, I know. If you go as a group, I need to post it, of course, but you know. There's nothing saying you couldn't go and come back and have a round table discussion about what you're doing. Of course you can go. Yeah. I try to show up once in a while myself. Yeah, thank you. I was just going to suggest on behalf of the board, if everyone agrees that we offer up congratulations to Tom McDowsey and the efforts that he put into what you just described. I think that's wonderful that we got that and he put in a lot of efforts and it'd be nice to pass that forward. Okay, thank you. Jeremy? I'm good. Angelina? Sorry, I didn't hear that very well. Round table. I think she's talking about the exit 6 closure. The exit, exactly, the exit 6 closure. Wouldn't that be the overweight on the road? Yes. Unless they have a permit. Unless they have a permit. And are these... Which direction are they going, Angelina, if I might ask, toward East Road or I mean toward Route 63 or the other way? So all I can think of if they're going toward here is they've come up 63 and they can't get on the highway so they cut up that way. We had this discussion with the state, if you remember. We did, that's correct. The detour should be... I haven't seen the detour signs myself. There are detour signs there and in fact I went to Barrie City today and I really noticed a difference in the traffic. The trucks coming up from South Barrie, that exit isn't closed. They should be able to get on the throughway either way. I think you're right. Can they get both? Can they get south? Because they're not next to the work. It's just the exit from the southbound side. The only thing they might do is stop traffic if they're going to do a blast. We knew that we were going to have people that were familiar with our road system and were going to use roads, which is why the state gave us a grant of $11,000. Are they hauling sand now? What about gravel? They are 18 wheeler trucks with the boxes on the back. I'm not a trucker, so I don't know the truck spot. I don't think they are, Brad. Because Newton he hauls with the tractor that don't. Right. Do you know that my neighbor has some... As far as what you can do about, if they don't have a wait permit, the police can ticket them. If they do, I don't think you can really do much. It's a public road. But those permits are issued by Tim, right? Yes, yes. And obviously I don't believe everyone has one. I mean, but I'm just being... So, could we maybe send... Somebody or not? Their patrol or two over there a day just to... Make observations? I don't see why not. Send a police to over there. Check it out. Check on it. Anything else, Angelina? Okay. I'd just like to say thank you, Dana, for that... Send up the all boards meeting. Yes, definitely. I'm good. Motion to... Move to adjourn. Wait a minute. Any... Set you right out. Executive session? No. We have a motion on the floor. I second the motion to adjourn. Thank you all. Bye. Bye. We're adjourned.


Hi everyone! Welcome to a new video here on my channel. Today I will be talking about one of the many ways I develop my art style, which is learning from other artists. Let's talk about it. So let's talk about what art style is. For context, I will be referring to art style in relation to an artist's distinct style or way of drawing, painting, sculpting, etc. whatever it is. So an artist's style can be determined by different factors. So it can either be one factor or multiple different factors combined together that basically make up their art style. It can be the way that they use art elements and principles either individually or in combination. For example, it could be having a set color palette that they use consistently in different and multiple artworks. It could also be using a composition technique in most of their artworks, not all but most. It could also be how they draw something in specific. It all pretty much depends on what the artist decides to do for their artwork and once they do it consistently it becomes a distinct style because that is what people recognize. So every artwork does have a style but an artist's style is seen in multiple artworks that they have created over a duration of time. And within the art community, having an art style is pretty important for an artist since that is what can set you apart from other artists. That's also how people can easily distinguish your art. So think of your favorite artist and look at a bunch of their artworks, specifically ones made within the same time frame and you might notice or you'll definitely notice a consistency. So that's kind of my definition of an artist's art style and that's what we're pretty much talking about in this video. And as you can see on screen there is one method that I am using that you can also use to develop your very own art style. So I also want you to note the word develop because for me I personally think that your own art style develops and evolves based on the skills, the knowledge that you learn and also the interests that you have. So an art style does not just pop up one day where for example yesterday you didn't have an art style and today you suddenly found one. I don't think that's what necessarily happens. I believe that an art style develops over time because what I think is key is consistency. The fact that it's repeated in multiple artworks makes it a distinguishable style or almost like a brand for the artist but not really. We can talk about that some other time. An artist's art style can also change over time. That's pretty much part of your artist's journey, your progression and your growth. So if you're just learning how to draw I definitely would not recommend on focusing too much on finding an art style. Rather you should definitely focus more on improving your skills, increasing your knowledge and also honing your interests because those are things that I think will eventually help you as an artist and also your art style will develop as you also develop those three things. However there are drawing exercises that can help you develop your art style. Although the methods that I personally like not only allows you to develop an art style but it also helps you learn and it also helps you note things that you like and things that you don't like. So that's kind of hitting a few birds with one stone so you're improving your skills and you're also honing your interests and at the same time you're developing your art style. So this video shows only one method of many. I highly recommend that you go out and you do your research, you search for more places where you can learn the other exercises that will help you greatly. So the method that I'm using is basically learning from masters but this also leads me to the sponsor of this video which is Skillshare. I do want to thank Skillshare for making yet another video possible and Skillshare is a really great online resource. They are a great online learning community which offers a wide range of video tutorials and classes which are all taught by professionals and creatives. So if you are looking for more exercises on how to develop your own art style, Skillshare has just the class for you and it is called Find Your Style, Five Exercises to Unlock Your Creative Identity by Andy J. Pizza. However the best part about Skillshare is that they also have other classes on other topics such as photography, design, business, lifestyle, productivity, so much more so if you are interested in that class but you are also interested in other classes on Skillshare, I do highly recommend that you guys check them out. I have a special link in the description box where the first 1,000 people to sign up using that link will get a free trial of Skillshare premium, so that gives you unlimited access to all of their video content and then after the free trial it is valued at less than 10 US dollars a month if you choose to pay annually. So I highly recommend that you guys take advantage of this offer, check out the links in the description box for other resources on how to develop your art style and the Skillshare class is linked down there as well. For the method that I am using in this video the basic idea of it is that you take an artist that you like or you admire and it could be because of their art style, it could be the way that they use specific materials such as water colors or oil paint, maybe you like how they draw certain things, like how they draw faces, you can choose any artist you like, it could be a well-known painter or a cartoon animator, it's up to you and once you have chosen an artist basically you copy one of their artworks. You can also copy more than one of their artworks, it depends on what your goal is so I do recommend that you have a goal for this exercise. So you can either copy the artwork to the exact likeness from like top to bottom or whatever or you can focus on smaller details, it depends on what you want to learn and what you want to achieve for yourself. The most important thing whilst doing this exercise is to observe. Take notes of what you are doing, what techniques you used, if you made a mistake and how you fixed that mistake, take notes because that is a really great way to learn so that the next time you're creating your very own original artwork you can apply those techniques that your favorite artist used into your own work as well. And another important thing to note when it comes to doing this exercise which is hopefully common sense is that you do not claim the copy of the artwork or the artworks as your very own. So please acknowledge that it is a copy of the artist's work or works, that it is not an original, that this is not your own original and also provide credit if possible so with the internet nowadays links to their social media account or websites basically where you found them is really appreciated. So that's what I'm doing for this video. I have chosen more than one artist. All of these artists I follow on Instagram and they also have very distinct art styles but they mainly draw portraits and very fashionable girls which is right up my alley so that's why I've used them as the artists that I will be learning from today. So each artist is listed on screen as they appear when I am drawing them and they are also listed in the description box in the same order that I'm drawing them in this video. So if you guys are interested and I do highly recommend if you don't know these artists just yet definitely give them a follow on Instagram. They are amazing and your feed will look very aesthetic. So my goal for this exercise is to focus on how to draw eyes. I also chose these artists specifically because I love how they draw eyes and it's all very different all very distinct. Each artist has their own consistent way of drawing eyes which I really like especially eyelashes. So that was also one of my goals because drawing eyelashes is still something that I struggle with. It's a hit or miss sometimes when I do it. So I'm taking this time to learn how these amazing artists draw them so that the next time I draw my very own portraits and I want to draw eyelashes I can use the same techniques that I've learned from this exercise. And because my goal is only to learn how to draw eyes even though my reference artworks are portraits I'm only copying the eyes. More specifically I'm only copying one eye and because my goal is also to learn how to draw and not how to color I'm coloring all of them in my style. I'm not copying the way that they color. I'm also adding the line art in my style and pretty much all I've done for this exercise is I've copied the shape the lines and the shading. After that I've taken liberties with the drawings. So that's something that you can do as well and I think I've mentioned how you can use this exercise in its very basic form but I'm also showing you how I've taken that and then I've applied it to my own personal needs so hopefully you can also get a similar idea and do the same for your very own art journey. So think about what you want to improve on if you have a favorite artist and can you identify their distinct art style and if you want to learn more exercises on how to develop your own art style whilst also learning and improving your skills because if so let me know in the comments down below and I can make more videos like this. The next step from here is to take your observations from this exercise take any mental or handwritten notes and pretty much apply that into your very own original artwork. I will actually be making a video on that as my follow-up so please stay tuned. However I think this is a good place to start. You can do this once or as many times as possible not forgetting to credit or to acknowledge that it is a copy and not your original artwork. With that said I will end today's video. I hope that you found this information useful. If you try this method please tag me. I would love to see it. You can tag me on Facebook Instagram or here on YouTube. I'm not entirely sure how that works but if you figure it out let me know. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please leave a comment, like, and subscribe. Share this video to fellow artists as well and I wish you the best of luck with your art journey and I will see you in my next one.