agenda tonight. So let's get started with us. We have Christian Meyer with us. Hi, Dorinda. Claire Rock with us, I think, and Victor is Victor is here, our road commissioner. Sandy and Shane. Yes. So we've got quite a few guests. So welcome everybody. And we do have one amendment. Hopefully everybody saw the revolved agenda. We are going to be meeting with our department and you've got some material from Jeff Coons that he wants to present to us at the end of the meeting. We can try and resend it to you. And Mike just, Mike Raul just joined. So he's with us also. And we just have Jen Evans join. Oh, Jen Evans. Hi, Jen. Hello. We're trying to keep track of characters here. Welcome. I hear you. Thanks. So we are going to call the meeting order at 503 according to my watch. And the first item on the agenda is the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission representatives Claire Rock and Christian Meyer were with us to outline the capital spending plan process action possible.  Welcome again. Hi, thank you. Thank you for having us. I am here accompanied by my new co worker Christian and I had met with some of you a month or two ago and provided a kind of introduction to what this project was. And I will now be kind of formally handing off this project to my very capable co worker Christian Christian comes from us from working at a council of government organization down in Connecticut but has roots in Vermont. And he'll be taking the lead on this project and I'll be able to be able to kind of support him as he moves forward working with you guys. I provided him with quite a bit of background on where we are to date. So with that, I actually kind of wanted to hand it over to Christian to lead the conversation with you guys this evening and I will of course stay on the line. But I wanted to introduce Christian and I'll let him take it from here. Thank you, Claire. Right. I've been with CVRPC for a month now. But I've been working in transportation and capital planning for quite some time. Right, Christian. Sorry. You came from Calis, right? That's right. All the way from Calis. Yeah, I know your parents. Yeah. Yeah, so this, you know, for me, I know the area I know middle sex well. Certainly look forward to getting into this project tonight. Basically, Claire and I come to you with three items. We've distributed the contract for CVRPC services. We want to go over the idea of how we're going to define a capital improvement. And then finally start touch on the concept and how this this group wants to go forward with the Capital Planning Committee. So let's start with a contract. I don't know if there are any comments concerns with either the contract itself or the scope of work. Really review it in detail. I skim through it and it looked fine. Claire, did we update the dates? Remember, we had some we had to move some stuff forward to get it. I didn't notice if we had like I Yeah, those updated dates should be in there. Originally, Liz and I had met and kind of looked at kind of taking the timeline out. You've got to fill the performance period of your municipal planning grant. We've actually just shifted that in response to the conversation with an end date being in December so that that could go before your town in ready for town meeting day. I guess that would be 2022. So that those all those dates should have been adjusted to reflect that. Well, your last thing is final edits in December 2021. So I would think that would do it. Yeah, I think I adjusted it. So if you to have a public hearing at the end of November to give us time to review make revisions in December. Yeah, so just so you guys know that that was Claire and I did sit down and looked at the dates prior to our first meeting to just like kind of we sort of started from the end and moved up. But then after our meeting, or with the entire team, we decided we wanted to have it out for town meeting. So I think these dates are I think that this is fine on that contract. We just need to sign the contract. I think you've already actually even sent me your first bill that I approved. I think I saw that go out there. Yeah, okay. So Liz, you have you have gone over this contract in some detail. Yes, yeah. And Dorenda, you've gone through the parts of rely that apply to you. Great. Your head. Yes. All right. Well, then we'll go forward. I guess we what's what's the best? What's your typical process? Do we sign send it to you for signature? You want to sign it and send it to us signature? We should. We should. We have we have not approved this contract yet. Correct, Liz? Yes, we have not. We still need to we yes, we probably need to vote on a motion to have a motion to approve the contract. Okay. Now, are you making that motion Liz? Yeah, so move second. Okay, Liz made the motion. Mary seconds. Any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the contract with the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, please say hi. Hi. Any opposed? Okay, contract approved. So who needs to win this contract? You Liz, me who? I don't know. Probably you, Peter. It says for the town. It doesn't really say signature. Yeah. Well, I'm headed to sugar bush tomorrow morning for the lifts opening at 10. So, Sarah, if you can have Dave put the contract out on the counter, I'll stop by and sign it. I already got it there. Okay, we'll get it. We'll get it over to you guys. And then we'll both have copies of it. Perfect. Alright, so the next step and this is something I know Claire has already introduced you to the idea of defining the capital improvements under state statute. There's some breadth to how we define them. I've gone through some of the past town documents to try to figure out some of the issues that might have been at the back of your minds when you were thinking about pulling together a capital improvement program. So I included that in the memo I sent out. I don't know if there are any thoughts, comments, but I'm happy to take your direction there. We've discussed this we didn't reach any conclusion yet. My recommendation I think Liz and help me out is that we potentially do it as a dollar amount rather than categories of items. That may not be the perfect answer either, but I'm afraid if we try and list every category or every item that could be included in this potentially, we'd have a list a mile long. Well, I guess like, yeah, we talked about a dollar amount. And I mean, I guess the question is, is 5000 the number? Like, is that what's normal Christian or do sometimes towns go lower? And like, do we not consider things like our IT, for example, and the costs associated with, you know, computers and servers and things like that? Do those not get included in this kind of plan? So I think $5,000 is a common threshold. However, with that being said, I was looking over East Montpellier's plan today, and they have under facility improvements, broadly speaking, things like a sump pump, which is a $500 item, and all that aggregates to be their line item for that year, which might have been $8,000. But there are some other items bundled together. So there's a lot of ways we can split that I think the key is not to get caught up. Try into too much detail. That's where I think the 500 number can be clarifying. dollars barely barely feels up to greater. Well, 5,000, not 500. I think 5,000 is a is a good number. And I also think, you know, so regular computer stuff, you know, if we need a new router for $400 or we need a new keyboard for $100 or this or that, we're not going to include that. If we're going to do a major upgrade with new servers, new workstations, new whatever, I would consider that a capital item, and that would certainly be over the 5,000. But I like the way you've divided into public works town hall, conservation lands and public safety. Are you Peter saying we shouldn't divide it that way? Oh, I think we can divide it that way when we look at it. And we could even have if we want to, I suppose we could have a different, different threshold for different categories. But I just my inclination is to make it relatively, relatively simple. And if it's a gray area included, and at the end of the day, we can exclude it if we think we should. But I don't want to make I don't want to make it pages and pages of my new, you know, boxes of bolts and chains and truck tires and stuff like that. On the other hand, if we're going to buy $25,000 worth of gravel to put on the road, that should obviously be in there. But what about like the and I'm not saying that this is necessarily going to be in it, but like the like, we're already spending money on the village planning, right? Like for grants and things, those are over $5,000. You know, would you have a village category to for like the all of the stuff that we're looking for money to get grants for that you might need match for? I think that I guess that's my question. I consider that a capital item, whether we'd have a separate village category or not, we could have a separate category for for grant support or grant match or whatever we want. Yeah, I mean, I think that we need to have that whether or not. I mean, because Christian, I'm, we're right about this isn't our budget. This is our budget planning. This is the tool that we use when we're looking at what what potential costs are going to be for the town, correct? Yeah, that's right. It's trying to look at those big items out 10 years and be able to plan for them. So we don't have, you know, the bow constrictor eating the elephant of trying to get a greater through the annual budget. Yeah, I always thought, you know, at the state level, it was always about what you were going to bond for. And so that was a much larger threshold actually than $5,000. I always anticipated it was things that we wouldn't pay for in one year. They were a sufficient magnitude that you had to pay for them over a period of time, which is why we've always done our our our loans on on the things like trucks and excavators. And we haven't really done any upgrades to the town hall that have risen to that level or to the town shed. So I guess I would think that we might even want to have a higher threshold of $5,000 when I think about it. But maybe I'm the only one because $5,000. Sometimes we I mean, our paint job on the town hall, doesn't that cost us almost $5,000? No, this is $500. Oh, $500. It's a little arbitrary. There are things that are going to be on the other side of the line. But the other thing I would say about this and correct me if I'm if I'm misspeaking Christian, but this number is a guideline number. If we say, hey, that's an important item, and we think it should be in the capital plan, even though it's only $4,000, we'll stick it in the capital plan. On the other hand, if we have something that's $6,000, and it's a repair that we have to do to one of the trucks and there's no point in planning on it because we have to do it right now. We'd exclude it from the capital plan, I think. Yeah, I think there's some flexibility there. And the next the next item we want to discuss is that that capital improvement committee may play a role in this conversation. Having some sort of steering committee to drive this conversation, especially once we get into the the nuts and bolts of looking at the items that the town might want to consider. So yeah, I mean, I think that the committee so the the committee definitely wants to be a part of that. Like I think that, you know, it's actually pretty big. It was like, there were like at least a dozen people there, not more.  But and now Randy, who's on our call right now, he's on the budget committee, he'll probably be joining us as well to those to those meetings. But I think that the idea behind, you know, the capital planning committee is to, you know, make recommendations and to help, you know, identify what are the things that we want to have in the capital in this this planning process. And I mean, if you've you've already identified a lot of the things in this, you know, demo created. Yeah, so this yeah, just a quick bullet list. But I think a secondary element to that committee is looking at the life of this. This capital capital improvement plan after CVRPC, who's going to do the annual updates and kind of carry it forward to sort of initial lift is there going to be a committee there to to keep the momentum going. Okay. Yeah, Christian, Steve Martin here. How many people do you see on that steering? Well, this is this is one of our questions. Is this going to be an advisory committee created by the select board with say five appointed members, plus public input? Or is it going to be just a steering committee that makes no that doesn't vote necessarily or make formal recommendations to this board? And this board then serves as the the guiding the guiding board for the capital improvement program going forward. So I don't have an answer to how many people I think it would depend on how the town envisions this this committee functioning in the future. We have a budget committee. Go ahead, I'm sorry. I was going to say, wouldn't wouldn't the budget committee, you know, sort of theoretically be that committee that that sort of takes it over after it's created and is what they use when they're looking helping us with our budget every year? Wouldn't that be a task of them? It could be, but I think this is looking farther into the future. I mean, maybe the budget committee would would take it on. I'd like to think I'd like to think that this committee, whatever it turns out to be, would continue and their their mission would be, you know, to review the most recent year's results and to push the forecast out another year into the future. Yeah, and you know, that would absorb the road road foreman and commissioners preparation of our five year plan for roads, all that would be melded together. So certainly somebody from the road department should be on that committee. But it should I agree with Mary. I would think I would think the process would be the road. The road commissioner and the road foreman would present their plan to the capital planning committee. That's what I didn't necessarily need to be part of the committee. I don't think. Oh, well, I mean, either way, I have a question. Um, so how does this play into us budgeting like $5,000 a year to say the building fund or the bridge fund or the road thing? Is this play into that? Or how's these two things work together? I can't speak for the details of middle sex in the past, but I can say that sometimes due to that they have again, looking at deciding East Montpelier, they have their opportunity fund. I don't know exactly what details of the opportunity fund are, but they budget $6000 a year that goes into this fund. And I'm guessing it's things for things like conservation funds or things that may arise that they have a balance there available for. So something like having a fixed rate like you suggested during I think would be possibility. Well, we already, you know, the last several years we do already contribute to these funds. Another thing is is we normally have a special article every year for the for the conservation commission to put into a plan into a fund for them to do future purchases. So is that something that would still normally happen? Or is it I guess, you know, I'm trying to figure out what supersedes what? Yeah, I don't want to go ahead. Sorry. Sorry question. So I would think to render the way it would go is that the committee, this committee that's putting together the plan would say included in this plan is the fact that the town will put so much per year and the paving fund so much per year and the bridge fund so much per year and the conservation fund, whatever it is. And then it's up to the select board, if they accept that plan and go with it to implement the plan by doing, you know, if we're going to have a special article, we'd have a special article if we included in our budget, we'd included in our budget. But it would be part of the planning process, I would think that we would continue to do that or not continue to do it. But I'm not sure. But I just have a clarifying question for Christian and Claire. I mean, these are this is used as a tool to help us project. It's not our actual budget, right? It's like, this is what's coming down the road over the next 10 years. This doesn't mean that we have to have everything that's in this plan is is going to come into our budget necessarily, right? Because I mean, obviously, the voters have to approve the budget anyway. But this gives us a way of of of projecting what is what are our costs going to be next year? What are they going to be in five years? What are they going to be possibly in 10 years?  And this is what it's going to look like. So like when Dorinda is saying, well, how is that going to change? It's not going to really change it. We're still going to continue to fund those funds. But in the capital plan, it's going to show that, you know, we're going to be funding, you know, $20,000 a year to this fund. And, you know, maybe in seven years, we know we're going to have to repave x, y, and z. And then that allows us to say, oh, we're going to need to up that amount that we're giving. I mean, isn't that the point of this? Yes. Yes, it is. It's to take a look out down the road. And say, when do we expect? What are the big expenses we expect to see? Then follow that question with how do we prioritize those questions? So it's not just so we know the the lift at the town hall needs to be replaced in probably five to 10 years. We know the there's speeding in a certain neighborhood and we're going to put up a speed feedback sign for $6,000. We know the useful life of the pavement on another road is going to expire again in some somewhere in that five to 10 year range. Well, this allows you to say, okay, we don't we're not going to have all these expenses in the same year, we can spread them out and have level funding, bankrollings, bank banking some money in the lead up and then have level funding to cover the items as we go through it. So yes, it's looking down the road and it's planning much in the same way alone is kind of a reverse version of that where you pay for it now and then or you buy it now and pay for it later. This is kind of trying to plan ahead get to get out ahead of that. But does this this does not mean that we can't I mean like so I know Peter you've talked about this a lot how we bond for things rather than save for things right because interest rates are so low anyway. And so rather than setting aside $20,000 a year for five years to buy something for 100,000, we just borrow it in five years at 100,000. Like this doesn't but there's an example of something that I think this committee would take a look at. How do we raise funds for major expenditures? Do we save up the money? Do we borrow the money? Is it some combination? Right? Try and pay for it in one year? Do we try and spread it out over years? I just muted them. Okay, that was bad. That was bad. So I guess Christian, I guess one of the questions now is so are we tonight deciding like, okay, 5,000 is our threshold? Do we or do we have to decide anything tonight? Is this more of just like, okay, this is and we do have to decide something, right? I think we approve the contract and having a clear idea of how you want your advisory committee, this capital planning committee to function could take the role of deciding anything tonight. Again, as we get into the nuts and bolts, develop a ranking system, different priorities may become rise to the rise to the top in terms of importance. Does this does a select board have to vote on like how this committee is going to make decisions? We have to do that tonight. Like is the committee going to be a voting committee? Is it going to, you know, run by Robert Schultz aboard? Like that's something that we the select board have to define about our committee because the people who are on this meeting right now are not on the committee. There's maybe one or two of us or three of us. Remember, it's on page two of this memo.  They don't have to be decided tonight, but it will be helpful, certainly to us as we go forward. Knowing who we're reporting to a an ad hoc committee could, you know, take the place in the in the short term and then an official advisory commission, which again, that's a that's a state. That's a statutory language advisory commission has to be created by the select board and members have to be appointed. So no decisions have to be made, but it's something that will no decisions have to be made tonight, but it's something that's going to be I think very important to this planning project going down the down the line. But you can still have people I just want to clarify, you can still have people on the committee that are not on this advisory, like they're not appointed, right? Yeah, I mean, or that are not as they'd be exhibition, they wouldn't have a vote. Okay. And I guess that's the question for the select board here is, would you anticipate the the committee that will be guiding this process will be making like a formal recommendation to you on the plan, therefore having an expectation that this newly formed committee would be having some decision making power, and then they would be making a formal recommendation to the select board on this draft plan, or whether they're just simply providing input to CVRPC along the way, and we're taking it under consideration as the plan is being developed. And so I think it's kind of a question for the select board is, to what degree are you going to put some of the decision making power into the hands of this newly formed committee. And that that would help us understand how we interact with the committee and and what expectations we have with the committee and what questions we ask the committee and how they would then forward information to the select board. So my take on this and my recommendation would be, first of all, we have three select board members who are serving on the committee. So we have a majority of the select board sitting on the committee. We're going to have a good idea what's what's happening in terms of process. In terms of process, I would hope that this committee in function with the with the planning commission would come to us with a with a whatever the right word is draft plan, recommended plan, whatever. And we might accept it as drafted, meaning the select board, we might amend it a little bit. We might ask them to make changes to it. Similar to the way we do our town plan and we do our zoning and other things that we have to do. The committee makes a recommendation. And maybe that maybe the committee holds a holds public hearings. I mean, that's down the road. We have to we have to think about how that would go. But the whole purpose of this committee is to be separate select board but make a recommendation of the select board as far as I'm concerned. That's what I think too. But it sounds like in your memo, I think it may be too early for us to decide whether or not we want to have an advisory committee that that votes. And then we appoint members. I mean, we may not want to. Certainly, I wouldn't think that any one of the three of us should be on such a committee. We may not want to do that right away. I mean, would that really hamper your work if you you came to a meeting and there were 12 people and we all had our two cents worth? Would that really make it difficult for you to be Christian? And no, no, I didn't click and if her experience, but I don't I don't think it'll affect us one way or the other. We need to have sort of a person to report to someone who can help us find our contacts, set up the meeting we need. We want to town impact input from all directions to, you know, and allow the community to weigh in. And we can work with whatever format, I think, whether it's an official advisory committee with long term standing meetings, etc. It's more a question of how the something for the town to decide, and maybe that comes comes out comes out of the study, too, is some recommendation for how how what kind of committee would be formed to manage this? Yeah, it seems like I mean, the committee as it is right now is sort of lots of different pockets of people in town with different interests, right? There's like the energy committee. There's, you know, the sidewalk committee. There's there's people who have different, you know, interests in in making sure that, like, what they're what they would like to see is in this this capital plan. And then there's just people who just want to get involved, right? And just be a part of it. But 12 people is too many, right? I mean, in terms of like an advice rare of voting, that seems like a lot. That that's you probably want to certainly at least an odd number. So maybe we go to 13. OK. So we don't have to decide anything tonight. And is there anything more that we should talk about tonight, Claire and Christian, do you think? That's everything on my list. Well, I'm going to touch with you, Christian, about we need to get another meeting on the books. And so you and I can talk offline about sort of the next thing on the to do. And what's clear is that the chair, at least the temporary chair is our only sharp. Yeah, I've been forced to be the chair, is what it boils down to. I'm hoping Randy takes over. OK, all right. Great, I certainly have enough to get get moving and start moving into the next steps. All right, great. Thanks, Christian. Thanks, Claire. Thanks, guys. Nice to meet you.  OK, OK, guys. So Liz, in terms of next steps, you're going to have a meeting of the committee. What's the next step for your interview? You're muted, Liz. Sorry, I was going to I'm going to get in touch with Christian to find out what evenings work best for him and then schedule something for hopefully April. I mean, I've got to look at the again at the thing, but just to like get us back in in get get the group back together again to talk about what we just talked about. But should I'm a little I'm a little conflicted here about how this is going to go? Like, should the select board be providing some direction to the committee or are we waiting for the committee to come back to us and say, this is how we want to go? I mean, in terms of the advisory committee, what Claire was just talking about. Well, how we're going to move what the process is going to be moving forward?  I mean, who Claire? I mean, who Christian's going to sort of be in contact with or what their role is. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The mile high view. Okay. This committee is going to get together information. They're going to work in conjunction with the regional planning commission. They're going to present a draft plan to the select board by such and such a day. Yes. I mean, I think we should agree on that. If that's the process or if the process is you know, the select board is going to work with heaven forbid with the regional planning commission trying to put this together. No, it's going to be the committee. Risers, I just, I just think we, before you have another meeting of the committee, the select board should decide how they should go. That's all I'm suggesting. And we've got to agree. Okay, that's, then I agree. If we need to vote on that, then we want to have the committee be the, the basically the decision maker around what gets presented to the select board. I would agree with that. I think that it should be that way. There happened to be three select board members on the committee, but I still think it's the committee. Can I just say something? That's a problem. Maybe there shouldn't be three select board members on the committee. I'll leave. No, can I just say that you don't want to have three select board members because now you have a select board meeting. Someone else should be there. I agree. It probably shouldn't be me. You're the fourth behind it. I can withdraw if you want me to. I just thought it had a little bit of background expertise. Can I see a next? So member? It's got to be you or Peter. I mean, or it could be me. I don't have to be there. I'm, what I mean is. I'm happy to withdraw also. I've got plenty on my plate. I'm just saying I think we need to decide and present that to the committee and say, this is what we think. What do you think? So do we need to vote on this? Well, we have time. Are you talking about having a meeting before we have our next select board meeting? Probably not, I don't know. Right. So let's think about it. Well, you know, the second thing on the agenda for April soon is, is that sound going away? Regional Planning Commission is going to conduct meetings town officials, town or road planning commission to identify that some projects and then it's sometime as they're collecting data, that data that they coordinate capital planning committee. But someone mute Charles. Is that Charles? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So if you look at this, you know, the outline. Yeah. There's a lot of flexibility. I think that the capital, whoever is a volunteer needs to have another meeting because it feels like it's gone off into oblivion. In the meantime, I believe that the select board can decide when, especially when they're starting to be interviews, whether they think they want to have five designated people and put all the power with those people to make the decisions and conformance with the statute or the, you know, you continue to have meetings that are kind of updates of what the Regional Planning Commission is discussing. So you get the community involved in what's happening. They haven't formulated a plan yet. But, you know, they may have, after talking with the road foreman and commissioner treasurers and town clerks and planning commission, they may want to give an update. And there's no reason why there can't be 12 or 11 or 13 that listen to us. Right. Well, that's the thing. These are not going to be based on what the work of the Planning Commission is, I mean, of the Regional Planning Commission, there's not going to, it's not like we're going to be assigned to be doing all this work. We're more of like, you know, giving input and having, you know, the go-to for the, you know, for the Regional Planning Commission to be able to, you know, ask questions and things like that. So I don't think that this is, and this isn't necessarily every month there's a meeting.  Well, you don't even have to say that. You can say that it's been suggested that. Yeah. And then, you know, some of the people are going to drop out by attrition anyway. And so, you know, you can try and highlight that they're going to be people who promise to attend every meeting, but it could be there's just, you know, Christian and, and or Claire, or both of them come and they update. There's no reason not to let more people be updated because they're, you know, this isn't going to happen for over a year. I mean, we don't have to have any kind of a draft for, you know, well, it's- Well, it's less than a year. Okay, it is less than a year. All I'm saying is there's no reason to say five of you can vote and the others if you can't because by attrition, you're going to lose some of those people anyway. All I'm saying is that I think it's important to have enough meetings that people feel that they're making some in on something. And we're kind of going over time on the agenda. We've got a lot to cover. So do we have to make a decision right now, Peter? No, I don't think so. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Let's not think about this. All right. So I'd say we move on for tonight, but I just, I want this to be free ranging and inclusive, but I don't want it to be so free ranging that we have people going and no consistent core of people who are through the process. Okay, we all bid on that for tonight, everyone? Yep. Okay. Next item on the agenda. Discussion of proposed FEMA buyout of 28 Rich Road. Stephanie Smith, State Hazard Mitigation Officer to attend action possible. Are you here? Yes, I believe so. She was. Oh, there she is. Hi, Sarah. Hi, Peter. Yes, I'm here. Hi, good evening. Hi. Good evening. So when I see Jennifer is here also somewhere, my pictures are flying around here. I'm having a hard time to track up people. Hi, Jennifer. Yeah, Jen's on this page of mine. I just, I guess what we're looking for tonight and help me out, Sarah, is for you to give the board an overview of how this process works and what the potential obligation of the town could be. My memory of this, which may not be perfectly correct, is that we agreed to go ahead with the process with the hopes that funds would be available to pay the town's match and the town's potential extra costs, which might not be included in the initial estimate. And that, the prospects for that have changed somewhat, I believe. But anyway, if you could give us an overview of where the process is and what decisions we need to make and when we need to make them, that would be great. Yeah, so I'll start with the funding. So the grant is awarded from FEMA. FEMA covers 75% of the project cost. And we also have, for this particular project, 20,000 from the Vermont Disaster Recovery Fund to go towards the non-federal match. And then I also have funding identified from, it's the funding is from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, but it's managed by the two rivers out of Creechee Regional Planning Commission to fill in the remainder of the match. So the funding is in place to cover the full project cost. This is where I want everything on the record. So when I sent the select board the contracts, these are the terms I need to, I need to absolutely have to find because what we're looking at, Stephanie is not enough money, okay? So when we look at the federal contract right now is for $136,000, is that right? I don't have the number in front of me. All right, so let me check. And FEMA is going to chip in $102,000. Yeah, the federal share is 102, that's correct. Okay, the federal share is 102, which is 75% of $136,000. The deadline for completion of this project is August 21st, 2021, right? It currently it is, yes, although we're able to request an extension to that. It's pretty easy to get the first year extended, so I would not confirm that. But this is where I start getting very nervous because the town's money is on the line here. So, and this is taxpayer money. So you're looking at $136,000 just to be clear is to pay Jen enough for her to get out of her house, correct? Which would, that's what we, the town has agreed according to this contract to give her $110,000. So the town has not agreed on the amount that will go to the homeowner. So in terms of the process, the first step once we have a sub-grant agreement in place with the town is to hire an appraiser to go out appraised for the current market value of the property. So what we have right now is an estimate for the budget. So once we have that appraisal in hand, we'll know what the value is of the property, which will tell us what that federal share is for the property purchase itself. Okay, but it was budgeted and it was budgeted before I was here, but that budget typically it's based on the town assessed value plus 20%. Okay, so Jen has to walk away. She's also under this contract obligated to provide the share of the money according to the, if she needs to provide 25% a week, if no one else provides 25%, that's what she signed in this contract. So that's part of the application process is to have the homeowner in the town sign a match form. But we have 20,000 from the Vermont Disaster Recovery Fund and the remainder is coming from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. Okay, so the match is in place for this project. The match is in place for $136,000. That's not for this project. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is very important. So what's your concern in terms of the project being more expected? Okay, so my concern is that $2,000 in the contract is budgeted for asbestos removal. We've been over this before. When we did an asbestos survey in 2014, the cost was $9,000. When we had bids for the asbestos removal, two of the bids were in $40,000 for two tiny pieces of asbestos on those roofs where that asbestos number is 10%, is 5% of the actual cost of what it's going to be and the town could be stuck paying for that. Certainly Jennifer's not gonna pay for it. Sarah, can I add something to that as well? We've been dealing with a lot of asbestos contractors in my line of work. And I'll tell you right now that there's been a tremendous amount of price creep and availability for contractors as well. So I think that concern just goes up a little bit. I agree. So is there concern broadly or is it specific to this property that we're concerned? Well, this is the only property we got going that's in a buyout right now. I understand, but is there a specific concern for asbestos that you know of, Jen? Did she still hear? Yeah, she did hear. Inmuted, yes. And if you don't right now, we can definitely follow up on this piece offline. I just, so there is additional funding that we can request from FEMA if we need it. The round of funding that this is in, there is additional funding. I don't, let me see if I can pull you what the number would be. It's, we have about 300,000 that we could request an overrun within. Can we get that in writing? Can we get a $300,000 in writing? Cause that's what this project's going to cost. Right, well, I mean, I don't want to stick the text. Can I interrupt the interview for a minute? Excuse me, it's Peter. So I think what this really boils down to, Stephanie is we're scared to get into this with all these unknowns out there. Like, you know, there's money available, but is it going to really be available when we need it? Is it really going to be there? Is the town going to end up holding the bag? Is really Sarah's question, or is potentially Jen going to end up holding the bag? And she needs to know what she's in for. But to me, isn't there some way where, where, and I understand it's a little bit putting the cart before the horse, but let's have somebody do an assessment of the asbestos and get a real number for us, rather than just putting in a plug number and thinking that's going to be what it is. And I understand it probably costs money to do that estimate, but I'd rather know, I'd rather have real numbers, real bids, real estimates for what this is going to cost, and then know where the money is going to come from and then say, yes, this is going to work. We go ahead, or if it can't work or won't work, we say, no, I'm sorry, it's not going to go ahead, which would be unfortunate, but. Right, so once we do. The uncertainty of it, which is troubling. So once we have the appraisal, it's, you could go ahead with an asbestos survey if there was a concern about asbestos at that point. If the concern is that you don't want to wait until demo once the town already owns the property, I get that, that makes sense. And you can do that ahead of time and pay for that through the grant. And if it's going to be too much, we can pull the project at that point and you already have funding to cover that match for those pieces. So I would say, yes, we should, I think there should be a way to at least find out what the concern is instead of speculating that it might be a significant amount of money. And when we don't really know at this point. Okay, that aside, we're looking at a hundred. Without giving us numbers, we believe that you have a mortgage on the house, you're going to have to pay off, correct?  Yes, I mean, it's a buyout. He would be buying the house from me. Yes, correct. Yeah. All right.   Right. So this has got to work for you and it's got to work for the town is the bottom line. Right. But you claim we don't even know if there's any asbestos in the house. Okay, well let's just put the asbestos aside. We're talking about $136,000 total for right now for this fund. That includes $102,000 of the FEMA grant. And out of that money, we've got to pay you, Jen. And then we've also given you enough money so you can walk away. And then we've got to deconstruct two structures because you've got a house and a barn there, correct? Yes. Got to deconstruct them, remove them and remove all the utilities. I don't know of, let's say your prices, your appraisal is $110,000. I don't know of any way to do that and an asbestos survey for $26,000. I can't imagine the house across the streets being disconnected and that has nothing to it and that's going to be about a $50,000 job. So I just need, if we can do this great but I need the numbers in writing, I can't have there are ways and there are grants. It's driving me crazy. I'm not going to stick the taxpayers with $40,000 in costs. Well, I think what we're saying, Sarah, is we get the estimates before we agreed to this. Did Jen say that? Did Stephanie say that? We can get the deconstruction estimate, we can get the asbestos estimate, we can get the utility remote so we know what the entire cost is. And oh yes, by the way, don't forget, board members, that we don't need or want to own this land and we're going to own it. So that's part of this too. And I assume Stephanie that getting those estimates that's going to require us to go through the federal bidding process, we're going to have to send out RFPs, be careful of, we're going to have to go through all of that even before we acquire Jen's property. You, if you want to do that ahead of time, you can go through that process. You have to follow your procurement process. So it was just because our finance just reviewed your procurement, I know your procurement is meeting the federal standards. So you have to follow your procurement process. Right, but I was also reminded that we needed to be very, very careful as we were in the last buyout to make sure that how we went for the bidding process. So I'm saying we can't just, you know, get some guy to come in and take like a thumb view of how much it's going to cost to remove Jen's home. We actually have to go through the bidding process to do that, correct? Actually remove it, yes, but you can get an estimate ahead of time. Someone might be able to just go out and give you an estimate. Okay, great. So we don't have to go through all of that. Just to- But then once you actually get to demoing the property, you would have to go through procurement to hire someone to do the demo.  You're certainly welcome to do that. Yeah, Randy has his hand up. Can we have one? Did I hear earlier that there was an asbestos assessment done in 2014? Did I catch that? Or did I- No, that was a different structure. Okay, all right, thanks. But until we know, until we even get that appraisal back, we don't know what the value of the property is. And at that point, and this is completely voluntary for the town, it's completely voluntary for the homeowner. So if at that point it doesn't come back high that it works for Jen, you can walk. So it's not like, you can start this process without fully committing to the full process. That's what I'm trying to say. So the town would be on the hook for the appraisal and the asbestos evaluation? So it's part of the grant to do that work. If we don't go ahead with the grant process, then the town would have to pay for those costs, right? You can get reimbursement and then withdraw the application. Oh, okay. Okay. If you decide not to move forward. Okay. So Jen, are you willing to have somebody come into your house and do an asbestos survey? Yeah, of course. Okay. And I would, honestly, I would wait to do that until after you have the appraisal. That's the first piece. Yeah. Because then you know if that price is gonna work for Jen. One last question is how likely is it that we could get the application rewritten so that these numbers could be in writing that you would have that we would, instead of just saying the funding's out there or the deadline can be moved, how I would feel much more comfortable if we had everything in writing? So I'm happy to send you an email with the information about how we would go about getting an overrun. And in terms of the deadline, I can include that as well to tell you how much funding we have until I don't wanna update the budget with FEMA unless I know exactly how much we're gonna be spending on different categories. So we can, I can send you what the process is, how much funding is available under this round, which is just over 300,000. And we can go from there. But then it's getting, so we actually, we need to get the sub grant agreement in place first. Then it's doing that, hiring someone to do the appraisal. And then if there's a concern over asbestos following that appraisal, you can get someone to do the asbestos survey so that you know what that's gonna come back as. And it's, we can take this very one step at a time. So we're not getting anyone into any uncomfortable risky situations. So the first thing is the sub grant first, and then the appraisal, and then we could do the asbestos survey before any Monday's change chance. And then the deconstruction estimate as well. Those are the big... Yeah, if you wanna call and get an estimate on demo, and if someone gives you an estimate and it's significantly higher, send me the estimate, and we can talk about doing an overrun request before we get to that point. So if we voted on the sub-grant agreement at the next Tuesday meeting, we can start with this process. So there's one more piece that Melissa, I checked in with our finance this morning. She needs your certificate of insurance listing the Department of Public Safety as an interested party. That's the last piece she needs. Oh, right, you should send that to them. Okay. All right. That's where the insurance is easy. Yeah, that's the last piece she said she needed. So she didn't have that, if you could send that, Sarah. And then she can finalize the sub-grant agreement so that you guys can review it because we haven't received that yet, right? No. Okay. So board members, does that make sense to all of you? Do any of you have questions about this process? It is complicated and it is confusing, but my take on this is we can work our way through the process as long as the money's there. But if all of a sudden we're gonna be in the hole for 40 or 50 or $60,000, we can't go forward. That doesn't work. So let's take it one step at a time. But you can have someone go in if there isn't asbestos concern and give you an estimate I want the cost review to remediate that for free. I just did that in my house. I have some of the asbestos we need to clear up. We had three different contractors come in and give us estimates. So you can do that without hiring someone and then go through the process to competitively procure. So once we get to the demo, you can get quotes prior to that. Great, can you say, do you live in the area? Can you give me their names? I'm feeling great, yeah. Great, perfect. I can tell you. So we could just, if the board has agreed, we can once we get this sub grant agreement, maybe tack it on to the agenda for next week. Yes. Okay, good. So I just want to speak up about having people give you estimates, whether or not there's actual asbestos in the building or not. The assessment itself and having things tested does cost money. So let's just be clear about that. That assessment costs money. Having an estimate based off the assessment may be free of charge. Yes. Yeah. Apologies if I made that confusing. Yes, we would still have to pay someone to actually do the assessment first. And we're frozen again. There we go. Any other questions, anybody? Jen, are you okay with any of this? Well, it sounds like the same arguments that we've been over and over every time I've been to a select board meeting. So no, I have no questions. Okay. Okay. Well, we will let you know as we go forward with this process, obviously, and we will move as expeditiously as we can. I mean, we're not, we need to deal with this and see if it can work or not. Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna go forward. Anything else, board members? I'll just say, Jen, if you have my email now from what Sarah just sent to you, if you want to reach out to me, please do. Okay, thanks, Stephanie. You can chat offline. Yeah, great. Perfect. This sounds okay to you as long as we can document this and make sure that this is the way it'll go. Yeah, otherwise it could get very costly. All right, exactly. Oh, exactly. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Jen. Appreciate you being part of our meeting. Sarah, I'll send you a follow-up email tomorrow with a few more details. Great. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay, we're back on time. Amazing. Okay, presentation of potential graders to be purchased as approved by town voters at the March 3rd, 2021 town meeting. Road foreman Shane Bricky to attend. Action likely. Shane, you're on. Good evening, everyone. We all received three reading documents from, or I received them and forwarded them to you from Shane, a general letter, and then specs on the two graders that we've been looking at. So with that, Shane, I'll turn it over to you. All right, good evening, everyone. So as you all know, the road crew and I have recently been checking out graders. We drove down to North Traction Springfield and looked at a John Deere 772. We also recently went to Tunbridge to check out their John Deere because it has joystick controls and the one down in Springfield did not. We also demoed a John Deere 772 for eight hours here on our roads. We have also gone to Milton Cat in Richmond. We drove a Caterpillar 140 around the yard. Cat would not bring a demo. We cannot attest to the power. These are both well-known companies with great products. I have called around to several towns and asked about the graders. All the towns of Cat graders really liked them with no major issues. The towns of Deere graders like them with no major issues. There are pros and cons to both graders. Tunbridge uses their slope controls in their grader and really likes them. And I feel some of the decisions should be based on professionalism. I contacted both salesmen in January. The John Deere salesman was here the next day and had a proposal in three days. The Caterpillar salesman was supposed to come the next week and never showed. I called again and he was supposed to be here and never showed again. Peter Hood finally coaxed him to show up and to reiterate Caterpillar would not bring us a demo. They want us to try out other towns graders. We requested a quote on a John Deere 772 and received it. We requested a quote on a Caterpillar 160 which is comparable to the John Deere but the salesman would only quote a 140. I have the weights and specs printed for you. The price of the John Deere is 240,700. The price of the Caterpillar is 225,000 without slope controls. And if you add the slope controls, it's 231,700, a $9,000 difference. We are also looking at the purchase of a walk-in roll. WR90 three packer roller to go behind the grader. Installed and this number has changed because I talked to John Deere this afternoon. It is 35,000 not 35,800. And the cat, it would bring the John Deere to 276,500 and the cat to 267,500. If we want a plow harness for the front as a counterweight which they suggest we are looking at additional five grand. In closing, it is the road cruise recommendation to buy the John Deere 772 GP. It is a bigger grader, not a lot. We can go over weights after, but I mean, you look at the weights and there are different things on all kinds of stuff for the weights of graders, but it does have more horsepower. The crew likes the fact you can open the windows and use a steering wheel for transport and winter usage. The John Deere also looks like it's better built. I know it's a little bit more money but it is a bigger grader and that is what the town of Middlesex needs to help improve the roads. You hired me to help keep the road safe and well-maintained and the right equipment is part of that. Thank you, the road crew. So as far as the weights go, I got the weights offline off John Deere's website and off Caterpillar's website. I have the Caterpillar guy telling me stuff weighs a certain amount. You have the John Deere guy telling you stuff weighs a certain amount. I know we've called several towns and talked to them and they claimed that the Deere and the Cat 140 are similar weight-wise. The Deere's a little bit bigger but the horsepower-wise is what we're really looking at and the guys and Jay's the one that's gonna be running it the most, he likes the Deere. He likes the fact it has a steering wheel and that you could open the windows in it. You cannot open the windows in the cat, you have to open the doors and there is no steering wheel and a cat grader. And John Deere also he changes price on a couple of things. So the total price on the John Deere is actually $1,000 less is $280,500. I really think we should buy the Deere for the fact the guys like it better. Jay's the one's gonna be running it and I do believe the town approved 290,000 for a grader, did they not? You know, up to 290,000. So this does not, none of this includes installation of radios, other stuff that we have to put on the grader, right? So there's gonna be some additional costs. So the two ways would be the only additional costs that we have to put on it. I mean, it comes with all the strobes unless you want an astronomical amount of strobes and it comes with all the lighting on the John Deere, so. Okay, so there's no, so it's basically installing the two-way radio on the antenna. Yeah, we're gonna have, we'll have to have that installed. Yeah. So I do have a couple of questions for you. One, I think it would be useful for the board to explain what the walk and roll is, what the purpose of it is and why you think that's a good thing for us to have. The town of Eastmont Fair has one. It is a big roll that goes behind the grader and you keep it lifted up while you're grading and when you're on your final pass, you drop it and it packs the road behind you, which they claim is better for your floor riding and watering behind it and it packs the road tighter like cement, so they say. Eastmont Fair likes theirs and it's also supposed to make it last longer. So I think Eastmont Fair said it cuts out a grading a year is what the average is. Well, certainly and I've gotten a lot of comments and I know Steve has and probably Victor has where we always need to grade the roads right before it rains and then they turn into a soupy mess because of all the loose material on top. Would this alleviate that by compacting it after the grading? If you pack it, it would alleviate a lot of that. Yes, especially, I mean, technically you shouldn't grade right before it rains but sometimes when you have no other choice and you have a lot of rain. Well, all I would tell you is in recent years our weather forecasting hasn't been so good. So it happens, it's nobody's fault. It does, well, that was proven this winter, so. Yeah, okay. And in terms of the other question I have is the John Deere comes with a slope control, the Caterpillar, it would be an extra. Is the slope control really gonna be useful for us? We weren't sure. Talk to Tunbridge, cause they have it and the guy that runs the grader down there uses them all the time, he loves it. That's what he uses to grade with especially on your finished pass because it keeps you everything even. I mean, you don't have all the jitters with your hands and things like that. So he likes it and he recommended it. And everyone else is in a toss up whether they wanted to try them or not. So I mean, the construction companies probably use them more. John Deere comes with it. I'm sorry Shane, just to back up a little bit. Could you explain to the benefit of the board? Members what the slope control is? Slope control allows you to set your mold board to a certain angle and degree so it doesn't move when you're feathering your road the way you want it. So if you want it pitched to the edge at a certain, it should be four to 6% they claim from the center to the edge. You can put that board so it does exactly that and you can go down through and grade and the board doesn't move, it keeps that pitch. And then once you can interrupt it when you get to a driveway or a culvert or a robber. Yeah, you can interrupt it and then it go back to what it was doing. I think those are my questions. Anybody else questions? Randy had his hand up. Yes, Randy. So I just, I had a question about the roller and is that the similar installed cost on each of the machines you mentioned? Like 35,000, I think you said. Yeah, that's installed. For both machines either or? Yeah, the price is the same. They go through the same company. And is the slope control the only difference in specs between the two that as far as functionality goes for the road crew? Steering wheels, cat does not have. Everyone uses the joystick. The guys say, you know, it takes a long time to get used to. You can't go down the road fast with a joystick. But some of the guys like him, I mean, town of Danville he has a greater but he doesn't use it in the winter because they kept their old grader with a steering wheel and that's what they wing with. So I think if you were ever going to use it in the winter for any purposes like that I think your steering wheel is better because you're looking over your shoulder when you're winging and doing a lot of stuff. You got to know what's going on next to you. And I think a steering wheel is better than a joystick because you just, you have it here instead of over here on the side. And I don't know. I just, I think it'd be better off having a joystick with a steering wheel. So I have one other question and a comment. And I've talked with some folks that work in other towns and road crews and whatnot. And I think the roller is a great option for these guys. I know what the price sounds expensive but it does make a huge impact on the quality of job that the road crew is able to do. So anyway, and the only other question that I had was about training. I know Jay's typically the guy, the grader all the time and whatnot are either of these companies offering any additional training for Jay and for the rest of the town road crew to get people more familiar with the equipment no matter which way we go. I think having one person that's able to run a piece of equipment is great but it also limits you if they're out sick or they go find another job somewhere else. So just thinking about that and succession for them to go down the road. The state does offer classes too. They had a course a couple of years ago when I was in marriage field that you could go take a greater course for the day and they teach you how to grade. You can go that route too.  And by the way, he apologizes for his phone and he had his grand kid, I guess. But Charles, he wants to know how to run it. So for some reason if all mountain Jay's out and grading can be done, he can go grade. Whereas if Jay and I are out the same day right now, no one else knows how to run the grader. So I think it's a benefit to have people learning. They are classes and courses. And I'm sure deer and cat both offer them. I think cat has sent me something on it, but I know the state had offered them. I don't know about right now through the pandemic, but. Darinda, greater school, Darinda. Yeah, I know. Let's go.  That was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. Are we voting tonight on this grader? Yes, we are. Okay, cause I would vote for the grader that is going to do the best job of not having, like when it rains and mud. What is that the roller one, Randy? It sounds like either could be fit with the roller list. Okay. I think the answer here guys is that both these graders could do the job for us. And as Shane said to me earlier today, this is kind of like John Deere versus Farmo. The guys who have John Deere's loved the John Deere's. The guys who have the cats love the cats. The discouraging thing we heard through our process is that the service both with John Deere and cat is likely to be equally bad. So that's a little discouraging because that was one of the criteria I had is that I was looking for better service. Well, how did, wait, Shane didn't say anything about the service. I don't know why this. I know, so that's, I mean, I like everything he's told us about the John Deere because the people were better to deal with. But if you're telling me both bad in terms of repairs, that's disconcerting. Unfortunately, we get what we get. And I have a little different take on the cat salesman than Shane does. He was pretty nice to me when I called him and all he said to me was, hey, look guys, we've sent our graders over to year twice. Members of your road crew have driven them and tried them out. And, you know, he was okay, but he certainly wasn't excited about doing business with us. Let's put it that way. But that's just the salesman.  He probably feels like we yanked his chain at some point. If we... No, he does, Randy. That's basically what it is, but he has a little bit of a reputation and he was actually apparently fired by John Deere. So that's interesting. So anyway, let's do this. What about distance and transport fees when we do have, I know things are under warranty for a certain period of time and whatnot, but what about transport costs? I know North Tracks is quite a ways away considerably further than our Milton Cat at the Richmond area. I don't know how that works, but it's something that pops up into my head when we start talking about service. Well, the warranties are both 84 months full coverage. So when it's under warranty, I would have to assume part of that warranty is they pay for all the transport. So you have seven years before you have to worry. And I do believe, and I could find out, but North Tracks is in Williston. I mean, you're 15 minutes further than Richmond. I believe they would come out of the Williston to work on it. That's not too bad of a difference. I was just thinking. Yeah, I don't think it'd go to Springfield unless I do believe they said it'd go to Williston. So the one other thing I want to be clear on that everybody understands is historically we have used our current grader to wing back snow banks. We are purposefully not buying a wing for this grader because now with our bigger chain wheel dump trucks and the wings that we have on those dump trucks, we can wing with our truck and it's more efficient and works well. So we're not going to have a wing on the grader, but that said, under certain conditions, we could certainly be using the grader in the wintertime. Dorinda. Mine are more or less financial questions. So the caterpillar is in stock from what I see and they're giving us a $55,000 trade-in. The John Deere, we would have to wait until probably, I don't know how long it'll take, probably till July and that one has a $40,000 trade-in. I know there was discussion previously about if our current grader was to break between now and when we got the new one, the loss in the trade-in value. Is there any consideration for that? Well, I guess I would look at it too as until we found out from the John Deere salesman that there was one in stock, we didn't know until he looked into it, he was going to have to order one too. I mean, July 1st is our deadline. And I'm telling Jay to be very careful with the grader and make sure we keep everything up and maintained on it to make sure nothing happens to that grader. We don't want to use it hard. Want to make sure it stays good. I get it from a town stand point while you think about going that way, but I think that's a mistake to go that way. That's my opinion and the road cruise opinion. So just to be clear, Shane, this cost figure includes a net of the trade-in, right? Or no? Yes, yeah. And so what he did, because John Deere came back with more money for us, but they didn't give us all in the trade. They took some off the top end because it was $319,000 greater and they dropped it down to $299,000, and then gave us more for the trade. That's how they did that. Okay. Because the initial quote was a lot higher. So Victor, are you still out there, Victor? Dary had a question as well. Okay. Yeah, we've had... Are you in a question? We've had capital grader since the mid-80s. We've always had good luck with them, good service. I don't see why we're trading for John Deere, which is actually bigger than what we've got now. So you had, when you were dealing with them, you had good luck with Melton Cat, Gary? Yes, we did. Since the 80s. Victor, one of the... Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Shane. One of the other things that I don't like about the Cat grader is they have shims and the assembly that holds the mold board and you have to change those shims. Now, I talked to the town of Rochester and he couldn't remember the cost. And I tried to find out from Cat today, but evidently these days you have to have a serial number associated with looking up parts. So the best he could... The guy could tell me, he said to replace all the shims in the greater is $2,000 to $3,000. Because the board loosens up. Well, Marishfield, Plainfield have John Deere's nine, 10 years old and they've never had an issue with the board loosening up. So it makes me wonder if there's a problem with the Cat, why they put shims in? I don't know. But I think that's another maintenance issue also by having to put those shims in. And in town of Rochester's 2012 and he's done it three times, had to put shims in. And like I said, Cat couldn't give me a definitive on exact cost without a number.  But on the new ones, he said it could be 2,000 to 3,000 depending on which grader it is. So I do have one of the questions. I'm sorry, I meant to ask it earlier, but is there an extended warranty available on this, on either of these grader? I think the furthest out, they went in seven years if I remember right, unless Vic can remember anything beyond that, I don't think they went 10 years. 84 months and of course, if you have enough money, you can buy any warranty you want. Right. But the one they come with is the 84 months. Yep, Randy. What's the expected lifespan? What do we put in for expected lifespan for these things? 23 years. Yeah, we've had to put some money into it, right? I mean, a lot of towns try to trade in 15 to 20. Sometimes they're doing the least thing and doing it in seven to 10 and getting more for the trade and keeping a newer machine. But that's something to do down the road. They'd say 15 years you should trade. I don't know, most towns go to 20 or so. Or so. Yeah, but Tunbridge traded their grader. It was 15 years old and they never did one single thing to that grader except for your general oil changes and maintenance. And they tried out a cat. They finally got the guy to bring him a demo and it broke down twice on them and they were finally able to try it the third day and they didn't like it compared to the John Deere. But I know the guy in Danville was honest with me. He said point blank, he didn't like the John Deere but he said, I'm a cat man. He said, so probably in the back of my mind, I like the cat better. So that's why he went with cat. Yep. I'm neither, I don't care either way. I just think driving the John Deere and driving the cat around the yard up there, I think the John Deere is a better machine, it's a better bill. I think it's more rugged. If you look at them side by side, the mold board, everything is more rugged on it. It's thicker steel, it looks more rugged and it's more horsepower. So what we're talking about here is basically a $9,000 difference. We do want to get the, for the extra weight on the front, we do think getting the plow harness is a good thing. That's why just a hunk of steel that you'd attach a plow to if you wanted to put a plow on it. Yeah, if you ever wanted to put a straight blade on it, you could and those are around four grand, five grand. If you wanted to do that down the road and it's weighs about the same as the counterweight. The law towns are going, I think that's what Eastmont Pillar put on there is was a plow harness for the extra weight. Did we ever consider a lease, like you said, sometimes do? That'd be up to you guys. I don't know, you already have. Did you inquire about how much it cost to do a lease versus a purchase? Yeah, it is. Do we have that information? Yeah. So with Caterpillar and there is no lease information with the bid we got from John Deere, Caterpillar did supply some lease information and we're actually better off financing it through our own bank. Well, I have it. John Deere had it somewhere, but yeah, you're right. I think the lease payments are about the same because they're both seven years. They don't go beyond that with a lease. Yeah, it wasn't in the John Deere bid, but I did see it in the... Yeah, I have it on another tax paper. It's 37 years, it's 39,000 a year. Yeah, that seems a little hefty. Yeah, because the CAT one came in at 2.99 and I can get it through a bank at 2.45. We're gonna find, I think, that we can borrow money, Mary, at a lower rate that it's gonna cost what the leasing company is gonna give us. And with a bank, we can pay off the loan at any time. If we wanted to do it in 10 years, we could pay it off and so it has no impact as far as leasing or whatever. I just wondered, I mean, when Shane said some towns lease them for seven to 10 years and then they get a newer vehicle, they get a newer rig rather than holding it for 15 to 20 years, that's why it was there. What they're doing though, Mary, and this all gets back to our capital plan is they're paying the cost of that greater over seven years, which means they're paying a lot more money every year. And we can do the same. I mean, we could decide in seven years that we wanna get a new grader and we would get a bigger trade in for it. So it's kinda gonna work the same way. No, I mean, I just wanted to know if we thought about it. I mean, I'm not advocating it. Obviously, if you run one every seven years and you trade it in, you're gonna get a lot better trade and that's some of the dealerships, especially Kat's problem. The issue is guys, this is a big expensive piece of equipment, it's expensive to buy, it's expensive to run and we need it. So, I don't think we need to replace it every seven years. I would hope we could replace it before 24 years, certainly. I think we pushed it a little long on this one and we spent a lot of money putting money in that and it basically worked. I mean, it's worked so far, we won our bet so far, but running them to the bitter end, it's not a good way to go, especially when it's the only piece of equipment that can do that job. When it breaks down at the wrong time of year, it's a problem, needless to say. So, any other, Victor, what's your take on this? I guess, if you don't mind spending the money and you've got the money there and I don't think that Shane's gonna be very happy if he has anything but that. So, nice, worth the happiness, that's the way it ought to go. I'm totally supportive of him. Well, truthfully, the difference is, I mean, I'm not saying it isn't real money, it's real money, but in the big ebb and flow, it's peanuts compared to having the right machine to do the right job. And I mean, what Liz says is exactly right on. We wanna do the best we can to get the machine that's gonna work the best for the town. So, if there are no other questions, who'd like to make a motion? I'll make it. So, I move that we accept Shane's recommendation to purchase the John Deere, what was it, 772? Yeah. Okay, 772 equipped as specified. So, including the walk and roll and the plow harness. Yes. For 280,000 even money, Shane, is that what the number is now? 500. 228,500. Yeah, 285,500. Okay, okay, is there a second? Mary Skinner seconds. Any further discussion? Or did you have a question, Mary? No, I'm seconding. All right, okay, thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Can I just ask a question? So, when I write this motion, I'm gonna say that's 285,500, including traded, right? No, 285,500. 285,500. 285,500, net trade, yeah. With trade, okay. With trade, yeah. Yeah, trade, yep. Thank you. Okay. I just want to say thanks for all of that. That's the most expensive thing I've ever moved to buy. Congratulations, Mary. So, Shane, put the heat on him. We'd like to have that delivered July 1st. Yeah. Okay, I will. And, and, Arenda, you'll do your usual magic behind the scenes, correct? Yep. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I just want to say good job, Shane. Thoroughly researched and well presented. We appreciate all the detail. Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm glad you- Do you guys want me to stay on? Yeah, you might- The only reason we're gonna stay on would be if you have anything to add to the highway report, which is coming up in a few minutes here. Like next. Well, I can stay on and listen to Victor if he has any questions as I can be here. Sure. Perfect. And Shane, thanks for including the road crew in it too. So now we hope everybody's happy with the decision. Yes. Also means we hold everybody accountable, right, Mary? Yes. This is what you boys wanted. This is what you got. Okay. Okay, thank you very much, Shane. Thank you. Thank you, Vic, for your part in this as well. Okay. Highway report, update of road conditions. Victor. They're excellent. They're certainly a lot better now than they were a week or 10 days ago. That's correct. That's correct. And Shane and the crew spent quite a lot of time last Thursday and Friday when it was cold. And like I said, he told us that he had 30 loads of stone or dense graded, fine dense graded up there that they got a couple of weeks down and then they went back and got 12 more and Charles was hauling some, but they used that all up. And has been able to cover most of the roads in the town in the last few days with this dry weather. I mean, it's really helping us out. And Bruce is going around with where he needs to with the with the rake and the little truck and that kind of really smooths it out and aerates it so that it dries a little faster. And Shane is going to work. I think he's going to work with his father on that grant, which is going to be in by the 15th, I believe. Yes. What kind of grant is it? I'm Victor, I had a paving grant, a paving grant. OK, got it. And and the and he said he's been in touch with with Pike Industries and and Jeff Hutchins out of Richmond. And I believe they said that they have a big job to do. That would be Hutchins. E.J. Blondin is their their guy for paving. And he said that they have so much work that they would have to give you a price for next year. Oh. But Pike hasn't said. I don't think I don't think they've really committed one way or the other. Anyway, they gave us a call. Right, they gave us your call, right? Doesn't. And I've worked with Pike long enough, they could put it off if they wanted to. I mean, but anyway, the idea is to get the money. The real idea is to get the money. So this is for the paved portion of Center Road. Correct. Correct. And what would what would the plan be? Are we going to strip it down? And what's the change that was for them doing everything? Yep. Wasn't it, Shane? Yeah, and then they're going to possibly they're going to deduct some because we talked about taking the pavement up from my father's back to McCullough Road ourselves, because that needs to be rebased before anything can happen to that, because the road's given away underneath. So that needs to be addressed first. But they told us if we set that stuff to the side, that they would come in because they're going to reclaim the rest of the road and then pay four inches over the top. And so we'll actually raise it back up a little bit and give it a good base. And then they said they could reclaim the pavement in afterwards if we just found a place to stockpile it nearby. So that and their quote wasn't that bad. No, the top price, depending on how wide you guys want the roads. I mean, if you want to start thinking about bicycles and going 20 at a price of I don't have it in front of me, but 26 foot wide, I think was three hundred and thirty five thousand. Twenty four foot wide was like three hundred and twelve or fifteen thousand. Chump change. Yeah, that's what I thought. Let's hope we can let's hope we can get the grant because without that, that road is dangerous as we all know right now. So would it go all the way to the interstate? Correct. Well, I have another another just another quick, quick issue while we're on the subject of roads. So at the bottom of East Hill Road, we're turned into Territory. There's what I've been. I've been telling Steve is a no man's land. There's a section there which doesn't get maintained by us and doesn't get maintained by Montpelier and it's a pavement. I'm sorry, the pavement part. Well, it's paved. Yeah. But it's but it's updated. The pavement on one side. Montpelier's redone the pavement on the other side, but nobody does.  Maybe he's gone. But anyway, at some point, we need to figure out who's really responsible for that because it's pretty rough and it's pretty nasty. And well, we put a bunch of cold patch in there because it was really bad. And it's mostly right at our line, according to the sign. So I don't know. You guys are going to have to tell me where all the lines are. I mean, I'm just going by without I'm told the guys told me that was ours. Well, I don't know how we. I don't know how we determine that, but I think we need to determine what it really is. And maybe that is a matter of meeting with Montpelier and looking at the survey. I don't know. I don't know what it is, Shane, but but it's it's kind of foolish that we have that that we have that gap there. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it is. We can contact city engineer Montpelier and I'm sure we can meet him out there and resolve it. Yeah, that'd be perfect, Victor. Thank you. Yeah. Anything else, Vic? How is the Upper Terrace Street East Hill now? Because I drove it on Saturday and it was terrible. Was. Yeah, we. We fixed it last Friday and then the garbage trucks. The Saturday before was a lot worse because Charles and I came in and because we had to come in and deal with a couple of washed out culverts and we took the loader in the back go down and it was really bad. But we were able to get loads on it Friday morning. Gavage trucks tore it up Friday afternoon. It was better than it was. But Jay went over that Monday and over portal and he did a pretty good job with them. And they were pretty smooth and he's going to try to go over again. They're starting to dry out pretty good. And today we had Jay graded Molly Suple. Then where it turns to Senna Road, that first flat and Woods Road in West Hill and had Bruce following them around with the York rake and drive those roads. They came out great. Molly Suple. The bottom line, the bottom line, Mary, is that we have no close and the governor's road in Berlin was closed. So I did a little bit of a job. No, no, I just love to. I just that's my favorite way to go in. But then you had that that email on front porch forums saying stay away from it. Yeah, it was a good idea to stay away. And then I had some friends from Piliar that were going to drive up and they don't really know how to drive mud roads. So I was checking it out for them. And that's when it was kind of really lumpy with a lot of frosties and flibes asking. OK, we all said on the road, guys. Yeah, I am. OK, your end up. Yes, treasurer. No, nothing really of any great importance. How's that? You're smiling when you're smiling, I know everything's OK. So that's that's good. Thank you. So and I again, apologize for for amending the agenda to add the fire department tonight. Jeff pointed out to me that I had told him that he would have a chance to talk to us before we met with the other communities that we plan to meet with at a special meeting next Tuesday night. So he is here tonight. And he submitted for our review and and perusal his accounting of the mutual aid calls for the last for the last four years. And I know he wants to talk about that. They have other things that he wants to say to us. So, Jeff, you're on. So good evening. I'm sorry for the snafu on the file type. But anyway, so you all should have the twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty and so far for twenty twenty one. The only update on the twenty twenty one is we're at a total of eight calls right now. No changes in mutual aid either getting or sending. So what I think the total mutual aid calls is from everybody. But I specifically worked on Montpelier and Waterbury as to how many calls and what kind of calls they were. And as you can see, especially with Montpelier, looking at the twenty eighteen, we had total of seventeen mutual aids to us and seven out with Montpelier, there were ten. However, of those ten, three were requested by Montpelier Ambulance versus us calling for them. They were car rollovers. And Montpelier Ambulance called out Montpelier Fire Department before we could get on scene. There were three structure fires, two MCIs, which are mass casually. Incidents, one was a big fuel truck that we shut down the interstate for about eight hours. And then the state archives. One of the things that I don't think you all may be aware of that on certain calls like structure fires, we preload getting other towns coming because our philosophy is easier to shut them off and turn them around. If we don't need them, then to get them going late. So there are some times when we'll call them and then we don't need them. The other thing is the state archives. We're going to call because we all know the value of that facility. And then Camp Mead and Red Hand is another kind of an automatic call. As far as accidents where we use Montpelier and Waterbury is if there's an extraction issue because we don't we've taken a hard look at should we buy what you may know as hearse tools, a jaws of life, basically hydraulic equipment, considering the small number of times that we've had a need for those pieces of equipment and that Waterbury and Montpelier have those equipment. We made a conscious decision that we would not purchase that kind of equipment based on the price of those pieces. So that's why we'll get Montpelier or Waterbury out on the interstate sometimes. When we go to 2019, it's kind of the same. We're 15 total, 10 from Montpelier, two from Waterbury. And in fact, in 2019, we went to Waterbury twice. Um, 2020 question. It's just to understand it's not specifics, but what I don't quite understand is when you say calls, we requested. I'm looking at 2018 calls. We requested mutual aid 17 and then from Montpelier Fire Department. Are you saying that you requested 17 calls? No, I'm saying I don't understand what that even means. Montpelier responded to us 10 times. We requested them seven times. Montpelier emails requested them three times. OK, so on the right there with these little like three S, S, F and two MCI, that's of those 10, right? Correct. OK, and then the total calls 66. That's not what those numbers should add up to. That's just calls you didn't necessarily even respond to, right, or something? The those for the total on each sheet on the top total calls. That's the number of calls we responded to each year. But those numbers don't add up to 66. Correct. And they're not going to is the total calls calls that we went on by ourselves, calls with mutual aid, calls that we went out on mutual aid. So where I'm just touched, that's just to show you how many times we went out as a department throughout the year. Do you have any information on the times they requested mutual aid from us? OK, Montpelier has not requested any mutual aid from us during this time period. And I believe that since Bob Gowens took over Montpelier fire, they have not called us at all. They have a viewpoint that many of the surrounding departments view as they want to deal with union firefighters. So they call Berry City in. They bypass Berlin. They don't call us. They they have occasionally called Worcester in for station coverage. But it's a very rare thing that they call anybody other than Berry City. So how about the water very? I'm not aware of Waterbury. Oh, you mean Waterbury to us? Yeah. So those numbers are are down there as how many times Waterbury responded to us and then how many times we went to Waterbury. So for 2018, Waterbury came. We requested them five times. Two structure fires, but one we canceled them on once we got on scene. There were three MCIs, two of those were tractor trailer units and one was a multi car accident. We went to there. We went to Waterbury twice, once with an an engine, a tanker, rescue. And then the other time was with just a tanker for 20. Is it says calls provided mutual aid? How about calls, total calls for mutual aid from Waterbury? That's that we got from from Waterbury. Yeah, like maybe they asked for stuff like seven.  So 28, 2018 calls were requested mutual aid. There's from middle from my fire department and then Waterbury fire department. So for each on each piece of paper, I took out the number of calls that we that my peer responded to us and that Waterbury responded to us. And on some of those calls, my peer and Waterbury would have responded on the same call like the MCI fuel truck, both my peer year and Waterbury responded to those calls. That's not my that's not my question. My question is how many times in Waterbury request us total and how many did we respond to? They you are you already said they they don't ever request aid from from Middlesex. Right. Waterbury requested us two times and we went two times on 2018. We requested them. We requested them five times in 2018. And we they requested us two times and we went two times. Where do you see that? I'm sorry. Where do you see where they requested? Oh, where we provided mutual aid. OK, I got it.  You responded. Yes. OK, I have a question for me, guys. And I'm I'm I'm parsing through this stuff at the same time. You are, Jeff, and I appreciate you putting these numbers together for us. I have two sets of information. I have Bill Frazier's email, which I shared with all of you before the last meeting, where they said they'd requested mutual aid from us all these times and we hadn't been able to respond. Well, I don't see that in these numbers at all. So that's concerning to me. The the other thing I have is I was successful in getting the call sheets from dispatch, which are quite voluminous. And I'm not sure I'm not sure they're going to help me get to the bottom of the get to the bottom of the question either. But we're to say that we're receiving inconsistent data is is a little bit of an understatement. And and, Jeff, I'm certainly not doubting what you've given us, but it's just it's just interesting that Montpelier in particular has this position that they requested mutual aid from us all the time and and or many times and that we've been unable to respond. And that certainly is reflected in this. So I have a question. I'm sorry, Jeff, I think you answered this, but but I want to make sure that I'm understanding this on all of these twenty eighteen and nineteen, where it says calls. We provided mutual aid. And then you say like in twenty twenty, we provided it three times two to more town to one to Berlin. Are you saying we never got a request from anyone else during that whole time? Correct. OK. And the same for twenty nineteen. So every single time someone requested mutual aid, we gave it. Correct. So so that is concerning, Peter, if you're if is there some way that we would not know that someone tried like they didn't leave a message or something like I don't know how does it work? It comes from dispatch list. But but who gets the call? They would they would send it out to our pagers. OK. And when we get calls, we put down if we when we when we get calls, even when their thoughts, especially like for us, when we get called and their thoughts alarms and we get canceled or there's something on the interstate and the state police cancel us before we even get there. We put we got a report that we were called at this time on this day for this that we were canceled by whoever. And one of the guys on the department who's he's listening in on the meeting right now, since he's been on the department and I forget exactly how many years Scott's been on. But Montpelier has never called us because he Scott's available. Most of the most of the time to go to calls. So I just don't see where Montpelier is saying that they have called us and we have not responded. OK. But I still don't understand what's this total calls for 20, 20, sixty seven in twenty twenty. What that's the total total of all calls. So a lot of the calls, there's no mutual aid requested or given. So you just went and so these are only telling they're they're not saying when you just went to some random little thing that's included in the sixty seven, but the ones below are just mutual aid. OK, I got it. So when you had your stove fire. Yeah, it was just us. We didn't call Montpelier, but I was in that sixty seven. OK, so you were right. Yeah. All right, carbon monoxide, balls, smoke detector, balls. Got it. That makes sense. So do you. So I guess my bigger concern is once we get down to like saying to Montpelier, well, actually, you don't call us for mutual aid. Is it because they don't want to call?  Or is it really this this union thing that you're that? I mean, because there's some somewhere we're having to disconnect, obviously. I believe it's more my personal opinion is, I believe it's more the union thing considering that they pass over Berlin to call very city and very city calls Montpelier case in point with the church fire they called very city for a tower. They didn't call their own. They didn't call Berlin's tower. They called very city. So and then as far as the church fire. Some clarification, we dumped six or seven tanker loads. And the reason the engine was parked where it was is because Waterbury and Montpelier were already congested down in on Church Street. And our engine was used to shield the tankers as they were coming in in line to drop off their load. So that's why it was placed where it was. And it may have appeared that it was doing nothing, but it was actually protecting the tankers waiting to be able to dump their loads. And we provided, like I said, six or seven tanker loads to that fire. Jeff, where did the water come from for that fire? They decided to go to the hydrant that's at where 100 comes out onto to because the water pressure there is so high that they didn't have to set up any drafting. It was faster to go that way than to set up drafting at our pond or something of that nature. And it doesn't tie up a vehicle as well, because you're just looking into the hydrant. Peter, you're going all the way to Waterbury to get water. That was the the decision. My understanding of the decision by. Waterbury's chief, that that would be faster. And use less equipment than setting up a draft site somewhere. Peter, yes, you have a participant here who would like to comment. He's had his hand raised digitally for quite some time. I'm sorry. Who are we talking about? Scottish him. OK, Scott. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's he's somehow. OK, he's muted. I'm asking you to unmute. There he is. There I am. Just sorry. Sorry, it's OK. Just a fact, Jeff, bring up about the call system if they can get the information on all our calls. Besides your pager, we also have our nine one nine one one, which tells us what we're responding to. And it tells who's responding to what. So that might be a record there. And that's about traffic. I'm outside. And the other thing I ran into, I did see about starting a draft from our our pond, but I couldn't get the connect because it wasn't plowed. Our pond meaning Middlesex pond. Pond at the pond at the fire department. Yes, yes, yes. So and yeah, so that that wasn't plowed. But when I got on scene, they did have the engines up. So I used our engine as a blocker and Chris brought the tanker down. And once he dumped, I took over the tanker and I was driving the tanker. Well, I left the because the road hadn't been blocked off yet. So I left it as a blocker. OK, so so we have that we have that hydrant that goes into that fire pond there. And we also have a dry hydrant down the other side of town. That was an unfunctional also. I want to go out of out of the village towards towards Waterbury. You get to that low spot. There's a dry hydrant there just outside of town. I'm a little. I'm not about that. I know about the one down by Du Bois. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Didn't work, Jeff, you know, I know I may be wrong. I thought there was a dry hydrant down at that low spot. Or it will turn off there so you could draft out of the river. No, the you mean going towards my failure right outside of town headed towards my failure on route to now. There's no dry hydrogen there. The state will draft that will draft out of there with a portable pump when they're when they're sucking water for whatever thing that they need. But there's no dry hydrant. OK, all right, all right. I just it seems it seems a little bizarre to me. I mean, the other place, the other place there's a hydrant is is right at the base of McCulloch Road. There's a hydrant there dry hydrant. Right. But but getting. That uses another piece of equipment. And getting it to have constant power. When you if you're not using it all the time, then you you lose your draft and it becomes an issue of getting it back again. When you've got a hydrant that's putting out lots of water, there's no you're not using a piece of equipment and you're not worried about losing your draft when you're not having a tanker hooked up. Well, I'm like, you know, this this is a new world to me and I'm learning a lot. But I'm I'm. You know, the underlying reason for these discussions is, you know, our concern that the fire department due to low manning and people being unavailable doesn't seem to be able to respond at times. And, you know, all we're trying to do is get to the bottom, get to the bottom of that and figure out potential solutions to that problem. Because I believe it really is a public a public safety issue for our residents.  Then I know you guys spend a lot of time and a lot of effort to do what you do. And just, you know, is it the most effective best way for us to be providing service to our residents? So I appreciate you tonight. Do you have anything else you want to add, Jeff? No, I just I mean, if you have questions about the data that I gave you, if you don't understand it, I tried to put down all the acronyms of what they mean. I just think it shows that, yes, we've had a lot of we have a lot of calls into the town for mutual aid.  It's there are certain situations where we're going to call people as soon as we get a tone. Case in point, the archives, we had there's one on here. The sprinkler was going off and we called. We were called and we automatically called in my period because we got an indication that the sprinkler was active. Well, it was active in the pump room. It wasn't active in the actual archives themselves. But we don't know that until we get on scene. And with red hand, with the importance that that has in the town, we're going to err on the side of caution and get people rolling as soon as we hear that there's a fire in Red Hand. A couple of times have been false alarms. I'd rather have have another town called in for a false alarm and not need them than waiting till we get there and so. And and you're going to have that on any town around us when they've got structure fires. We have a unique thing in the in some of the the businesses we have in town, plus the the the interstate and what we've had to deal with up on the interstate with multiple car accidents and tractor trailer accidents. I mean, with that that fuel truck, we had us, Waterbury, Montpelier, Berlin, Moortown, St. Pauliwis, Hazmat, Red Cross, Berry City. Those are kind of calls that no department's going to be able to handle by themselves. Right. I think I think just circling back to what would start at this most recent discussion is is comments from from both Waterbury and Montpelier that they respond to calls in Middlesex, but Middlesex doesn't respond to calls to them. Now, if the bottom line is they don't ask us to respond, that's a whole different issue. But that's certainly not what Montpelier was saying. So we just need to we just need to get to the bottom of this. I mean, Montpelier definitely feels like they provide a lot of service to us and we provide no service to them. Now, they're not asking us to provide service. That isn't our fault. That's our contention. And I understand that. And I don't know. I haven't Steve's Steve's been talking to talking to Waterbury. Was that Steve or you still there? I'm here. So what are they saying the same thing that they provide service to us? Provide service to them? Well, I don't have that that all of that stuff in front of me. Peter, what he had talked to me about, but there definitely are some some differences there. And the same thing that you're talking to Montpelier and I don't know where the differences are coming, but there's some differences there. Another thing with Waterbury is they were called out a couple of times for on the interstate because the accident was right on the town line and ended up being in in Middlesex, but they get called first because that's where the person driving by does. Oh, I'm at mile marker, 61 and a half. And that's Waterbury. Well, it ends up that it's 60 and a half and that's Middlesex. So, I mean, there's nothing we can do about that. I understand. I mean, I so so next week's meeting, we're going to have we're going to have Waterbury and Montpelier. Waterbury and Montpelier represented. So hopefully we can get to the bottom of this and and and clear the and clear the air. Any other questions tonight? Board members for anything more from you, Jefferscott? I will say that whenever we called, especially Waterbury, and we always thank them for coming and they say, oh, any time, don't hesitate to call us. We'd love to come. And that was most recently at the chimney fire in December up at the end of Knock Road. Yes, everyone was thrilled to be at the church fire, too, because they don't get fires like that very often. Well, I I can't say that they were thrilled to be there. But because since I was on the operating table, but I mean, firefighters do like to get in the trucks and go. And well, I think this is a go ahead, Scott, I'm sorry. We did actually, I don't know if you knew, I didn't know if you were going to subject. We did get called for mutual aid for a tanker all the way up in Northfield. But Scott, that's on the sheet. They have. OK. Yeah. And we've never asked Northfield to come to us. The spirit of mutual aid is a wonderful thing. And thank goodness we have mutual aid. But it's just just a question of I think I think we want to feel. And I and hopefully you do, too, that we're holding up our end of the process. And certainly we can't we can't compete with Waterbury with all there. However, they have some huge number of people and they have paid. You know, it's just a totally different thing. And obviously, Montpelier is is completely different. So we need to we need to work our way through it is all I'm saying. And I I think we're we're providing quite a bit of service to the surrounding towns. And since I've been on two years now, I've been to maybe 98 percent of the calls and once heard from a player. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't think I think the think the squeak from Montpelier is coming from the money guys, not the not the fire guys, but I could be wrong about that.  But we can unless that pager goes off, unfortunately. No, no, no, we understand. We understand any other any other questions or comments? Anyone? Oh, thank you for this informative evening. Yeah, thanks, guys. And I just ask one question. I don't have the two thousand twenty one. Were there four pages because I only printed three? Yes, there were four. OK, I have to go back and get that. Thanks. So I recap real quick as we eight calls so far, three of mutual aid that we requested, three of mutual aid. So, Jeff. Are you are you three seven one? I know I can't see the number. Did you just send three seven one eight eight oh four. You just me. That's Mary Skinner. That's my. OK, I'll find it and send it to you, Mary. Thanks. I mean, we all got it at one time. Quite a while ago. Oh, so did we get it directly from Bill Frazier? I thought you said it was more than you, I think, by Sarah. Oh, OK, well, I was looking under your name. So maybe I have it. I just couldn't find it under. See if you can find it. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll find it for it. OK, gotcha. OK, thanks, guys. And you'll plan on on zooming in next Tuesday, correct? Yeah, Doug won't be able to be there because he'll be delivering propane. OK. I mean, it is. Don't get me wrong. I know we always says that, but it can't be. He can't be delivering propane at every single select board meeting we have ever. He's avoiding us. That's the way I feel. I'm sorry. He's a lot of times he misses our meeting. He's out till seven or eight o'clock at night on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. OK, you're the one. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. We're getting there. Approved minutes of the March 30th select board meeting, action likely. Move approval for a second. Second moved by Mary, seconded by Steve. All in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any of any opposed? We've approved our minutes to consider Peg Schwartz for town emergency management coordinator to replace retiring Paul attendee action likely. All right. Sarah, can you tell us a little about her? Yes, Meg. Well, I guess she goes by Peg responded to our please on Friend Forge Forum and elsewhere for an emergency management coordinator. She is retired from the state. She lives in Middlesex. She's a retired scientist who worked for the state for 20 plus years. Her job experience prepared her for the documentation and reporting aspects of the EMC position. She's very willing to take the state's training to certify as needed. She worked for the Vermont Forensic Lab and the Department of Public Safety as an analyst, supervisor and eventually lab director in that position. She worked a little bit with emergency management to identify how the lab could assist in various emergency scenarios. Our patterns will bring more frequent challenges. I'm committed to local resilience and preparedness and see this as a constructive way to help in this area. She spoke with Paul attendee at length and he assured her. There are lots of pieces of people and resources who will help her. She's a little nervous, but she sounds pretty good. Sounds great. Yeah, it sounds great. But those are updated Lyop or whatever they call that darn thing. Yes, on ASAP, right? It's got to be done. Yeah, it's supposed to be done by the end of April. So I don't know if that's going to happen, but, you know, you're certified. Yes, I know I am. Thank you for reminding me. So does anybody know her? Anybody on the board or people on this ordinary? I don't, but, you know, she sounds she sounds she's I'm glad she she seemed eager and she seemed intelligent and she also seemed like she she had a good conversation with Paula Tenty. So that's all good.  Great. Somebody willing to make that motion? I'll do that. I'll make that. Whoops. OK. Wait a minute. You made the motion, Liz. I was. Let's start again. Wait a minute. Liz can unmute herself. Can you unmute Liz? I have to ask her to unmute and I don't know why she asked. She's asking you to unmute her. There she goes. The host is not allowing participants to unmute. That is a that is a blatant lie. It's well, that's what it said. And now you can hear me. There you go. We've got you now, Liz. Yeah, I don't have anything to say, but if I did, I wasn't able to say it. OK, all right. So who made the motion? Who made the motion, please? Mary did. Mary did. And who seconded it? Steve. Steve. OK. Let's take care of the no taker. So it's been moved and seconded to appointing the courts as our town emergency management coordinator. Are all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Peg. That's great. That's wonderful. Got a lot of ground. Correspondents. Sarah. No. OK. Brenda, you've got your waters. The last time I only had two people so far. I better look at him. I did. You did. And I think one other Peter did. I did. So you did. OK. OK, then I'm set. OK. And we need an executive session, Sarah. Well, yes, Phil requested it. I requested the executive session. And under premature disclosure, putting the town and potential partners as at a disadvantage. OK. That's for the motion. Yeah. So we need a motion to go into executive session. You'll make the motion, Phil. Yeah, I do. OK, and a second. Liz. OK, thanks, Liz. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are in executive session. I've got to get rid of these other people before you start talking. So you also do want to get. I got to remove Orca. Exited executive session. And we're going to adjourn our meeting. Thank you all very much for your time and attention. So we're on for five o'clock next Tuesday as well. Yeah, correct. And Peter, I want to call you just to get some just to talk a little bit more offline about the capital planning. That's fine, Liz. OK. Yep, that's fine. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye, guys. Thanks. Hazards, thanks. Bye.