Good evening. I'd like to take and call the Monday of August 6th regular select board meeting for Brooktown in Berlin to order To my far left is Pete Kelly Wayne Lambert to my left Jeremy Hanson to my right Diane is Angelina Kaepernan and our town minister of being a Hadley and our town treasurer Diane is a Bell in Bradtown and We will start with Additions or changes to the agenda. They I have no changes or additions public comment hearing none will move to the treasurer's report The preliminary audit is set up is set for August 29th And on that day the auditor needs to speak to one of the select board members It could be over the phone She just asked basic questions. Are you suspecting any kind of fraud or are you getting reports? Are they timely?  Yep. Yeah And that's all I've got because the other item that I have is in the agenda Okay Full rule of licenses permits vouchers and applications Upcoming tax sale I think we've sent you the paperwork on Diane's got an upcoming tax sale. It is scheduled for August 9th There are One of them is a just a 2.1 acre property off of Cecile Avenue in Berlin Which is Highland Avenue at the top of Highland Avenue to seal One of them is a mobile home, which is out on 149 three mile bridge road That is a mobile home that is on someone else's land We know and one of them is another mobile home, which is down at Weston some 69 3rd Street and Finally, there is a home on Muzzy Road, however, we didn't send you a picture of that one. There is a financial transaction In process on that on that one. So we think that one's So as we've done in the in the recent past We let you see what we have and if you have any interest in the town on bidding on any of these We've included the amount that would be what we think as of now would be the minimum bid which would change the day of the sale legal fees and interest And I don't really have any that I would recommend that you express any interest in I think it would remotely make sense to be the lead a lot Yeah, and I don't see what we would So that's going to be an August 9 What time Diane is 10 a.m. At the town office. Yeah, we usually do it And of course the turning handles that so we hope we have some interest Tax out because it costs a lot of money to set it up Which we have no choice So can we do yeah, he's got all your graphics We'll skip to the next one. I don't see mr. Dodson either Maybe we can do oh Jim is next It's great to come back Well, I take disorder vacations my boss wants to think I come back and all rested and ready to go I'm ready to go I come back thinking like I couldn't figure out some way to not have to come back There you go spending a week and a half out of camp with no Jim is with the Berrytown Thunder chickens. He we discussed that he has a couple of roots that he's working on And he's trying to get over to I guess you try and get over to Irish Hill Yeah, so and they involve I guess I need to explain to the board what they involved as far as town roads as you know Some will be able to unless you have an ordinance Yep currently I guess not now First off we certainly appreciate you guys taking the time to take a look at this this just as an example. This is an overview Of what we're looking to Is the line the GPS line where we've mapped it to connect out through there the part We're talking about today is just to get from Applebee's under the bridge and up into some private property there and pick up Black Road and down around to the Irish Hill trail Which would be over here on the far left The stuff that I had emailed the other day is a much more of a close-up of that that makes it easier to see And I do again pull out my base camp on here if anyone wanted to see anything close I'm pretty sure I took a picture of that and sent that this is the map that you have in your packet you maybe didn't get it very clearly, but It shows and what town roads were you going to have to impact Jim we were I I'm to me. I call this cross down road out here if that's I don't know if that's your right name for that yeah from The sled traffic we've got tentative permission from the landowners to break off from the trail before it gets to the road by Applebee's And loop around down across here and up the old road And then over the culvert and under the bridge and up into the property of data For as far as the ATVs go we had tentatively thought that you would prefer To set up a plate for them to get from the parking lot to cut through here somewhere and down this road to not to stay out of the Main traffic, but from what you said, I didn't know but that maybe that we were mistaken at that that would just soon not To be going up and down the road over here I thought they'd be less traffic so that would be more and it would be more on the weekends and nights and stuff when there wasn't much usage there and Then to get and they would follow the same track up through private property Pick up the end the far end of black road Where dead ends there and down that the edge to the Irish show thing and there's quite a bit of that I just drove out there again to remind myself That that there's enough width on the side of the road if normally what what they do is either depending upon whether just when When the truck goes by and wings it down or a rumor goes by and flattens it Allows you see you're not actually in the line of traffic You're really right in the top of a flattened snowbank along the edge of the road so that there's not Not as much of the you know sled traffic actually in the road We would prefer to get up into the woods there We had a tentative plan to go down below there But the city of Montpere after much discussion decided that they wouldn't offer us to cross their property down there with the sled traffic If This area right here is is really ideal for it We're pretty excited about the possibilities because you've got all of these services You could possibly want access to the highway parking food gas all that sort of stuff and within minutes You're up there in the big woods. It is amazing I don't know how often you guys get a chance to get up into those trail You could be the middle island pond or something I mean you go you walk just a few hundred feet and you're right You're in the big woods up there There's a Turned part of the trail system down in Northfield Where we would tie into that with the sled traffic to get them access to there and headed towards Watesfield There are some problems out there Bridge which you probably see from the interstate over in Waterbury where they cross the river There's a suspension bridge was one of the longest ones in North America one time But well the flooding we've had in the ice and stuff it keeps It's caused enough trouble but rumor has it that they're not going to reopen it So now if you're on the Watesfield side of thing You really have no way out of the valley to get anywhere without going that you know You know as my wife says around Robbins Byron around the back way. It's you know now that suspension bridge You're talking about there. That's the one over by fires in a private field. Yes I don't know that it's going to close permanently, but rumor has it that they're not going to go back and try and fix it again And you want to use these roads here to take and make connect a trail from Applebee's in the parking Yeah into the trail system in Northfield, right that will connect into the vast trail system and also the Northfield ATV club comes up to the little piece of deli place at the end of where the interstate drops down Currently and they feel they can connect on to that which would allow you at that point to go from clear from brain tree All the way to Applebee's and back That's there is There are existing trails there which we've already found and there's plenty of folks up there using them But we're as far as the clubs and organizations go unless we have permission from each and every land We can't do anything and I can go there and ride if somebody will let me but as far as the club coming in Do any maintenance and fixing the bridges and doing all that sort of stuff unless we've got written permission from everybody along The way we can't send anybody in there to really do anything to help maintain the trails as people are already using and Is really the organizations are really a management tool to try to get Keep things a little organized out there and do the maintenance on the trail But also get a clearly mark path so that Cuts down a lob on the calls that you get from you know Hey So when somebody's been riding ATV down in my backyard or something like that if you've got a clearly marked trail and the Club is there and usually the law enforcement is pretty good about working with us about You know checking on things we can kind of keep a keep a handle on it So your plans a little different it doesn't include shed road any longer. Is that what you know? I only mentioned that not it was really We thought it would be your preference to have it for ATV traffic to come up And then kind of cut through here and get to it as opposed to going out the driveway and turning and going down But I know in your email you mentioned you had some concerns about that So I didn't know if you would prefer to look at the other way We're you know open to that in any way that we can do that We have merely picked what we thought would be the most desirable For that particularly since most traffic Unfortunately, most of us that can afford to drive these things have to have a real job still so So when you say you would travel on top of the snowbank and maybe stop me if I'm not telling it right It's really in the right away that we're talking about Probably the best way to think you do sometimes because of the lay of the land You have to come down and you're back and forth because the sleds don't really want to be on the road any more than that You know, and I would like to think somewhere along the way We could find a path up through the woods off a black road But there's a bunch of land in part of the things my player as you come here You guys know more about this bear I do one's land up parallel to the Irish show trail. Yes, and I didn't get the feeling from the email We had that they'd probably be won't let us cross any of that either You know, I mean, that's you know, that's their private I mean, yeah, I was so part of a lot. I believe is on their land that there's right there's part of that there And which is another thing there like I point I swarmed by there. There's a couple of cars there The trail there I oddly enough, I mean I grew up in Berlin I knew there were trails everybody didn't know that there was an actual official ATV trail up through there I was surprised to see that sign when we first started looking But if we like if I may and a guy that I usually ride with him and his wife and mine If we pull in with our two trucks and trailers and things and park in there and get on there there as opposed to starting here We're pretty much taking up most of it There's not a lot of room left for anybody else to come and the last thing we want to do is be interfering with things that people are And with the grooming going up over the hill when start running the machine up there You know, you usually start seeing snowshoers and cross-country people can really make make use of the groom trail So really you're you're a big concern just getting Use of some of the town roads Right currently Now I don't know the whole bits. I've heard That for the other parts that I were sheltered we actually talked to them through their management group I would assume for as far as anything that would go on there And I'm thinking that they're the ones to talk to because there is part of the town forest out here somewhere Beyond that that you would crawl But it was my feeling anyway Would they will be the ones that we would be talking to as opposed to talking with you folks here and for all I know You guys are all in the same. I don't really know About the conservation commission, right? Yes That I don't know Josh Walker who lives right up the road up here It's been pretty active with us He's been around talking to the plan owners and stuff and talk to people and he knows somebody on the commission And they were going to talk about it at one of their meetings, but I don't know in the summertime apparently they're Looks like the rest of us. They don't meet regularly things They would be the group you need to talk to about the forest. Yeah In my understanding is that north fielder is very much like Berlin as far as being really recreational Recreational wanting to have those sorts of things that Small piece of Norwich property that's involved in there, but we've already got a vast trail on Norwich So everybody's thinking that they normally they'd be amicable to just make an extension of that We've talked with the folks at the forefarm And they seem to be more than happy and kind of glad to hear that somebody might have it a little more organized Because apparently some of the people are wanting into their dear yards and things that they're they don't want people being out there They just don't want them in certain places But but the key part of it is to be able to get from here none of the interstate You know there and they connect on to the Irish hill trail So you're talking about this part of the road but Right we've this we stopped with a GPS there, but we would be coming Let's see around up in the That's the four corners, right? So we'd be coming right up above the water here from underneath Picking up getting out into the field, and this is the end of black road right here I don't know if it's easier to see on that one there. I drew Sublime and black boat comes down. Yeah, the straight marriage black road down in here And that's where it intersects with yep It turns up into here. We were initially going to Only be looking at it over here just to get down to the interstate and drop down here and along the edges an old road down in there But that's all city mob they are down there Real or imagined, you know if people are nervous about the water supply you can see where you would We cross the water shut up in Berry town and have her God forever without any incident up there So the only place you'd really need to be on town roads other than you're allowed to cross in 90s would be from Cobra down here. Yep where the old road comes in and then underneath the throughway and then And down the stretch of black road and then a little bit of I think of this as the pond road But I don't know for sure what the official name of it is What's that per field road? That isn't the lower one So you'll be on crosstown road go under the interstate Yeah, you're going cross lots then over to black road and back of houses still on crosstown road going up the hill I'm trying to get where I am up here, right You come out of the the old road the original route there And turn left in your own side road once you go to the bridge Just like if you were going to turn to go up pond road if you look there's kind of a cut In the ground where people about I'm sure they must access that at one time or another up over that hill Up over there and then through there's two or three landowners there that Josh has talked to And come up. There's a little little teeny It's like a five-foot bridge there now That they use but the update that so we could actually get over it with a groomer come up and down the edge of black road And then intersect and swerve and go up to pick up Irish Hill up through there for with the sled traffic and Which ever was preferable for you guys to be able to get some way that parked in Appleby's with his ATV around here without causing too much of a nuisance to get on of the same trail I'm right up through there in the summertime so With that map, you're not really using a lot of the road a lot of the town road you're using what may be Corp of a mile That's a good guess. I didn't even think I should have measured it when I was out there doing that But I didn't today when I just know before I came here Yeah, there's not that much of it because you jump back up into the road over here by the dry hydrant I can't picture where that well, I guess it did away with that with the water system The hydrogen right out here where they the road goes into the little field At the end of the shed roads. Yeah So you come into the road there go across the culverts under the through way. Yeah, and then over to the L and then out Through and pick up to the old dip where the bridge washed out down there in black road and then pick up on the end of it And that's pretty there's a lot of a lot of shoulders there so he probably you'd be well into the right way down through there and then Around that little bit of the Brookfield road to get that section there on the scale No, that doesn't bring there's a pretty scale About an inch and a quarter mile in here. So Something with the terrain is like right there. Is that steep? Well right before you turn Yeah this section there is a Drop down as you're going out on the left-hand side drops down quite a bit, but the road is pretty wide there I'm sure there'll be some snow build up there and on the inside There's a bit of a ditch and then it goes up there. Probably I was driving along estimating four to five feet Where it rolls down and then goes up Figuring that the snow usually as it goes over there fills that in pretty quick and it makes a pretty flat surface Because the slides are only 48 inches wide You know the groomer itself is much bigger But usually if Usually if the ground's lower just the natural winging of the snow Well as it ought but if it's not they usually will drive along with the groomer just like one one track on it He'll squash it down and make a trail up the side of the road and for this we need to have our Snowbillard. Yeah, we need to do an ordnance That was just I heard a rumor about effect like that and chances are at least one of us was thinking about this then that You were holding on that We tried to get the word out of the time and but This is something that as it may it's already happens. Yeah. Yeah, well Dana Could you take and get a hold of the LTC and see what the other towns have for for their snowmobile? Ornances sure try to draft something up. That'll be agreeable to everybody What what are we thinking about summer time traffic? Is that was that something that you would really prefer us not to try to go down shed road or what? To get from the parking lot around to pick up the trail there for the 80s, you know, I have a concern with shed road Gates locked Parking lot for the town shed anyway over here. Yeah I mean we have I think my concern is Obviously, we have a lot of traffic in and out between highway trucks and the police cars and citizens coming to the town office. Sure So I have a concern about that as long as you have permission from the landowners. I don't see me I mean it makes more sense to probably just use the trail you're maintaining for the snowmobiles Right, I think but I don't know that that's viable out there It goes fairly close to one of the houses that they were my what I heard was you know in the winter time I didn't mind too much. I wasn't sure in the summertime I mean that would be the optimum all the way around but I wasn't sure that was something that we would be able to do so we're Looking to see there, but easier in those down down a piece of road that has a snow machine Yeah Would it be something that would be viable for them to just come out of the driveway and go to the four corners and down for us down road That'd be a better alternative Something probably the less you're on the road the better it is for everybody. Yeah, what kind of volume are you talking about I? Mean it if if you're allowed to do it There's no restriction on the volume And you suddenly you got 20 or 30 ATVs going down there because they can now and that's going to be a problem No, no doubt First one good thing is the snowmobiles and ATVs are nowhere near as loud as they used to be Well, yeah, I'm actually wasn't thinking of loudness as much as just safety You know this road is pretty busy sometimes out here. It is. There's a lot of traffic.  Can you I believe so I don't need you have to the operators. I see you do yeah, and I I Don't know at this time that you're required to the past to go through a safety course Like you are with a snow machine, but they certainly encourage it. They starting to hold those around but Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 16. I think over in New Hampshire where we go I guess 14 over there. You see they they use that I always quite a bit for connectors and stuff and Go surprisingly well but The my guess would be that the most likelihood where they'd be any sort of a traffic is most likely on a Saturday or you know It's Sunday afternoon when go figure. I mean that's when hobbyists are out have to do things most of the rest of time Not a lot happening Because they're they're all got other things to be doing I Mean, I would agree that I would think going out through the four corners was was the least viable of any often there would be there and you know What are we saying that we're not thinking the shed road at all is a viable possibility or is that I was going to suggest that Maybe I work on a model Ordnance so that you can see it at your next meeting and then you can discuss at that time What you feel about shed road and in the meantime, I would speak with the police chief about Yeah, what his thoughts are Yeah, well, that was one of the reasons that seemed like an odd a bad idea because usually when you're driving past the police department People So I could bring that back to you on the 20th All right on it certainly sounds like as we would have thought it would be ideally if they followed the same Way that the sleds went and we can talk with those like a notice or more to and see can we take this So we'll bring this up again Certainly and I'm sure you're from it as you've already got them from us from the past angle. This is what the Copy of the four-wheeler permission slip, which I'm sure they mulled it from the L and it looks very similar to that Thank you Okay You're next Mahandra and Jim are in About they are working on the exit seven project that we've discussed in the past, which is a bridge that's being replaced over the access for exit seven and cross-count roads They You have a copy of the email that Mahandra sent me with some options that they'd like considered I hope you said we need I They should have it but hold on to them in case we need that and I have your Map that you gave us and maybe you'd just like to explain the project to the board and and what your preferred option is Yeah Let me go So yeah, we're replacing four bridge decks Over 62 and over crosstown road I think during the scoping phase Somebody from v-trans came in here and was talking about doing a temporary off-ramp Onto the highway and we scratched that idea. We're now doing crossovers on the interstate So the big issue for the town is Whether or not during demo of the two bridge decks over crosstown road is if it's feasible to do a short-term closure To get those done expeditiously and maybe at a cheaper cost And what that entails whether it be at night whether it be On a weekend if it's feasible at all And so that's why we're here to discuss that with you So when you say short time We think we can if it's during the day We think we can do it in two days But we just leave it closed overnight as well and maybe there's an eight-hour period the contractor can't work So we think they can demo the deck in two days If it's at night, we would probably need three nights and we can reopen it during the day So would you detour?  Yes and detour on Airport road. Yes That's what we had talked. We've had discussions about sure. Yeah, and it would be the same They wanted to detour through downtown Barrie. Yeah, we're not gonna do that Okay, if we can detour through Okay, I mean those those few days of inconvenience are gonna save a lot of time on the bridge Yeah, it would be So there's two breaks so it would be and actually one of them has to be done in phases So it actually would be three times during a two-year period where that would happen Before they were doing crossovers. We're talking about six weeks Right So the local access to that neighborhood there you have to go over by Stuart expect You know the road's better than me. So yeah, I'm I'm just afraid Stuart wrote it's gonna become I mean, I think it will I mean if there's a school bus that needs to get over there Yeah, I mean preferably we're not gonna be doing this one school buses. They're going to be Is your plans to do it in the summer of 2020 It will be 2020 and 2021 So it'd be because it's two construction seasons we're gonna shift traffic over to southbound or northbound however the contractor decides to do it and have and have traffic on that Barrel the interstate for one year and then shift them over The next year so So if we're talking detour it's to detour people because cross-town road is close, right? And that would only be Like we said a 40-hour window or at night if that's preferred I know there are a couple of residences close by and noise could be an issue. So So if I were on the other side of the over-underpass, whatever we call it, I'd have to go up down sewer road to get out Or the other way So if you were Heading north and you had crossed the northbound traffic onto the southbound lane. Yeah, how would you exit? That's why one of the bridges is phased Okay, because we got to keep traffic on that side to get them off Correct. So we're gonna have one lane of traffic still going in that direction. That will be the exit per se. Yeah, yeah So I mean we're we're here because we're getting towards final plans And we want to find out if we can give the contractor an Option to do this now. He won't have to bid it that way because we have shown the plans phased construction on Crosstown Road now The feasibility of that is a little tricky because you got ledge on both sides and widening the road to get traffic around And it's going to take longer to do it that way if we can get traffic completely away from the area It's gonna expedite it but so You know if the town says No, we're not gonna allow that then, you know, we won't give them that option, but We think we can save. I mean again, there's no town money involved. It's on the interstate But you know from a state perspective, we think you can save like ten thousand dollars a deck. So forty thousand dollars And everything stays up there It might get dropped on the road and if it does any damage that's done the contractor will be required to fix it So basically what we are trying to do is we are giving five different options to the contractor And he's going to pick what is cheapest for him So we want to make sure that all the options that we are listing on The drawings for him to pick one is okay with you guys If we have a good time to any of this we want to take that out I don't see any problem. I mean if it's if you're going to be able to get the decks done and Would you say 30 hours? Yeah, so in that 40 40 hours, but in that I Mean, I would think they would sock up them from the top and then just lift them out because they're not gonna be doing any Crane work above traffic So if we can't close the road then that's not gonna be an option for them They're gonna have to do it more manually and they're gonna have to shield underneath To make sure that nothing drops down because you're gonna have traffic under there so It's easy for me to say but two days doesn't sound unreasonable to me All of these options are better than the original Yeah, yeah, I would worry about traffic going underneath with it working Yeah, I mean that's on the contractor That's that's why I said they're gonna bid that risk if they are if they cannot shut down traffic On cross-town road, and they're gonna bid that risk into their bid if something happens, you know Yeah, right, right, right, right, I'm just saying if you guys if you don't know if you don't allow it Yeah, it's probably the safer the options to other than trying to take a shield of Underneath the bridge from dropping down, but if nothing's there you can't hit it. That's right. That's true Yeah, you can try I think it's logical And so is there any objection to Night work, I don't know. I mean obviously we'll talk to the property owners in the area. Yeah, I was going to say there I don't see anybody live here. Yeah But if you sit out let us do them or yeah, we definitely would do that. Yeah, so it's night work favorable for you Actually a preferable would be during the day because that night they're gonna have to bring in all this lighting in right There was no other plans really to do night work because it's not gonna be accelerated construction They're just gonna do the decks and one one construction season on each barrel So the other thing is during the day nobody's home They did night work on 302 years ago Yeah I Yeah, so if we don't want night work we can just tell them no night work and we'll do it Well, and it we can leave it up to you We can tell the contractor that it has to be a weekend if there's or if it's preferable if you have a days in mind You know Affecting work commutes, I guess and you know if that's an issue then we just tell them to have to do it during the weekend Well, of course, I mean think the more important thing would be that they can figure out When the work is starting to stop Yeah, and we'll have public outreach on this so you guys they'll know well in advance I would say at least three weeks prior to when we do that But I mean if you're going to take in if the option is be able to close crosstown People getting to work and want to be out of the air By seven right just get out of there early. Yeah Give a contractor for 435 Yeah, and we can spec those hours. I mean we thought we would probably need a little longer days Because we were thinking maybe like To 16 hour days and keep it closed that night. It was on the weekend But if if we want to do it during the week and we need to get people in and out We can certainly do that too. It just might take three days instead of two Yeah, I guess I would defer to what the residents right there would say whether, you know Night work is feasible or you know what the impacts of the timings are on them. I Mean it it's not the residents right there though, right? It's a whole community. That's going to be shut off Sure, but it's in terms of the you know the implications of if you're starting at, you know At a certain time or if you're working at night and there's somebody that's right there They're going to be much more impacted by this Presumably we would be able to hear the construction here. Absolutely. Yeah, it's gonna it's not going to be pleasant. So that's why we either You know talk about Relocating people for two nights and do a hotel or something We always have that option, but he tells her people People don't like that you'll probably hear it there too. Yeah exactly. I was thinking Bermuda looks Because So I mean if they day is preferable to us, too, we just if that wasn't an option we wanted to consider night So During the week people are gone or more activity fewer people around If you're gonna do that I got a suggestion is is to close Crosstown road from Riverton over to through traffic Because that's going to put a heavy burden on Stewart Road and Hill Street with all that traffic coming from that side of the mountain. I Mean just like we do in the spring of the year when it's mud season he goes it to through traffic Then you're only going to have the residents that you're gonna have to deal with up here on the hill and do away There's Norfield Street will be done by then that's correct I mean a couple days I'm not gonna kill anybody that if they got to go around But that would be one thing that the state would if they could sign it and close it to through traffic Starting in Riverton Lot of the traffic What are you gonna have all your options listed out to a contractor? Well, we will be We'll be getting our final plans together shortly And then we will be and we'll have a whole contract plan phase. So I mean we're Are we talking nine months from now? I was just thinking when you take and get the get the final The final plans are gonna give the contractor to bid on if we give you a set the data so we can look out on them yeah, and then we'll ask them to provide us with a A traffic control plan right early on in the construction phase And they also provide a schedule which can obviously fluctuate depending on where they're at But we would require a three-week notice if that's Good enough for you guys for the closure So and and there would be a couple message boards that would go up to say that So did you say there's still five options out there? I think it was four and Mahindra listed them in the email Yeah, yeah, though that was more of a grand scale now we've got traffic control figured out So we're just crossing over on the interstate So we're not doing any kind of off-ramps to town roads or anything like that So all the exits are gonna remain open. So this is just the smaller details Right and you have public relations you have someone that would get the word out and advertise We will have a public relations the neighborhood office Officer on this project who will do that because we also have an issue where we have to kind of shift traffic on 62 and we're gonna have to go down to one lane When they do the demo of those bridges, so they're gonna be a light there Certain times of the day so or flaggers however They choose to do it, but So yeah, we'll definitely have a public relations officer who can communicate all of that Sure, absolutely. Well, we can send the town once we have final plans complete. We'll send the town a set of those plans All your options. Yeah Does the board? Thinking that they might allow that to happen for us down road to be close. I just just from my I think so You know, I think it makes a certain amount of sense So they could go and plan on that when they get options are putting up without their solicitation Because I mean it's either A chronic or acute sure. Yeah, I think a lot of people probably appreciate what I'm doing Thanks. I just wanted to yeah, so it would be down to one lane probably for Just guessing like a week or two or you could just get in and get out Be done. So and it will be cheaper because they don't have to worry about Well, it just makes sense And Okay, so I would ask the town to just what we'll send you final plans and at that time if you would consider Hours of the day that you would allow it if you want it to be back open Or if you want it done on a weekend, just just consider what what would be best for you And we'll we'll try to make that work. Hopefully by then we'll hear from some of the residents. Okay Great Thank you Think thoughts and mirror like room. I don't see mr. Dodson. So I would go to the next speed limit change request on Browns Mill Road And I guess mr. Winter is talking about that as you know, we've been working on The speed limit change on Browns Mill Road. I wrote letters to All the residents owners that's Browns Mill Road. I did hear from two Residents Well three including with the winters We've had the police down there twice to kind of monitor the traffic at your request we put the speed limit Lighted sign down there We The the traffic count is very low there It's a road that you have to want to go there if you're going to be on it because usually it's just residents coming and going And I guess I'll put mr. Winter Sure, thank you. Well, I'm Chris winters I live on that 36 Browns Mill roads the house right on the corner off the route 12 and Browns Mill We moved there several years ago. We have property on both sides of the road right there shed and basketball court on On one side and the house on the other So and we have four kids And the speed limit is at 35 we checked into the town a couple of times thinking maybe that was a little high You gotta be pretty challenging to get to 35 miles an hour from route 12 down to where it hits this narrow bridge and makes a sharp Right turn basically tease right there It's a fairly narrow road And we've checked with the town a couple of times as I said and for whatever reason it kind of kind of felt through with the previous administrators over the last several years like we started in 2011 My wife has checked back in with Jeremy a couple of times and he's brought it up again and Dana most recently And we'd really like to kind of see this through I think the chief of police agrees that that's kind of a high Speed limit for that road There's several you wouldn't know it, but maybe you know it But there's several houses on that road a lot of children on that road Gets more traffic than we ever thought it would a lot of cars going through different times of the day plus it's a school bus stop, so During when schools in session we have I guess on average about 10 kids come from that road and from Lord road and further down the road to Comprehended that spot. So we just really love to see it drop down 35 to 25 That would I think that's still too fast, but Understanding that I think 25 is what makes sense there based on previous traffic studies and speed limit studies And I guess I've heard When that was done several years ago So we're just asking to have the speed limit lowered from from a 35 to a 25 And we appreciate trying to see it through this time What was the result of the police going down there did they find a lot of people speaking they did not I Asked him if they was visible obviously to see a police officer careful, but He did not he went down one early morning and he went down in an afternoon And he did not find people speaking the 35 Right, and I think the highest someone was going was 24 miles an hour But again, it was a very limited Look at it, you know, I look at normally on a street you do like a hundred the state recommends like a hundred Cars it would take a while to get that would take quite a long time No, I don't think anyone is going over Yeah They got a really punch it to do it, but they do I was just gonna say I mean Lowering it to 25 that seems rational off to me, but We'll make a difference. We'll make it Is it right the same speed that I yeah, I don't know because if they're not going over 25 today I think put into 15 would work either So what what does it entail? It's a ordinance change Again, we have to have the public hearing It's a 60-day Look back at the way before the ordinance takes that but you'd need to have it in the ordinance in order for the police to enforce it And then of course the big point is you'd either police down there in order to catch someone who is Exceeding 25, which is always a difficult thing because they're never where you want them to be at that exact time Unless it's you driving I'm not sure how much of a difference it'll make either, but it's ridiculous that it's 35 really it's just You feel out of control if you throw 35 miles an hour in that room So for the post it would just sort of be a steady reminder Well, it'd be posted for for 25 and then For the ordinance to be enforceable we'd have to have it in our It's a housekeeping I don't know I've heard different things about the Efficacy of children at play signs that whether that slows people down or distracts them or I'd love to have a children a place Yeah Have the children a place on you know we talked Last time yeah, yeah, so 25 children play. Yeah Think it would help That doesn't seem I mean changing the ordinance. I mean as you say I don't From what I'm understanding from you you're not looking for someone to sit down there and enforce the 25 No, I know it wouldn't be worth any of the time I think it's it's a couple of people It may not change their behavior, but it just will bring some awareness Right, you don't have free rein to go 35 miles an hour. That's right The other residents that I heard from I heard from two other residents and they're both encouraged it to be lowered to 25 Everybody here in favor of just Stating the public hearings on this Yes, sure Then we can put up the children place on the deep time ramp. Yep I'll have that I'll redo the ordinance and the schedule the public hearing for the next meeting Thank you, folks. I really appreciate it. Sure thing Yeah, there's two I have two issues with that One is The first is the maintenance agreement that with East Coast signals to maintain the traffic lights we've had East Coast signals is really the only vendor that we've been able to find that can fix those lights for us when they when they happen We had a gentleman before and I guess he retired him. Am I right and So East Coast signals has done it. They've been cooperative. I think their pricing is is favorable They have asked for an agreement which I gave you a copy of it's the same agreement that they have with the town of Essex For their lights, I sent it over to Rob. Helbert He did not have an issue with it So the first thing I'd like to ask the board is to approve the maintenance agreement with East Coast signal That would Ensure us that we have a vendor to fix the lights and I guess I would assure them they have a customer I'll know that we approve the Chair to sign me Made this agreement with East Coast Include a discussion Hearing none those in favor seem quite the same aye aye those closed Motion carries Thank you, that was the easy part the next part is we had budgeted twenty five thousand dollars to replace those lights and Obviously we are fooling ourselves because it's a lot more money than that the latest estimate is eighty two thousand five hundred dollars That is including the motion detection for If you're on Fisher Road turning into the mall And you're in the left lane it would decide that there's a car there and it needs to Signalize you to still you can get in we are losing that With the work on Fisher Road because they're going to be milling that that area and right now It's underground wires stop me, but there's a going and no problem The new state the new system would be In the light itself We wanted to have the cabinet replaced that was a 1983 cabinet and the electrical services also 1983 vintage And then he's also given a price to replace the signal heads most important right now is the turn detection and I'm wondering if we could either Find eighty two thousand five hundred dollars or if we could face this over a period of time So right now we have twenty five thousand dollars budget. That's right Is it so is it strictly necessary for us to have the the left turn detection the side street detection That's what runs the whole thing But couldn't it just be on a just be on a fixed timer instead Actually once if I'm sorry Tim. It's when a grind when they take away the loop They will have to put it on a standard where it just turns on whether there's an automobile there or not Right is what you're I think you're at. Yeah, so yes But I'm just saying is you know, can we can we live without it shave this down and not have a left turn I cannot have the sites side street detection and save on some equipment perhaps at it later the Or the cost I don't put the loops and temporarily until we can afford a camera. I Don't think we got a price on having that because the loops cost like nothing compared really yeah cameras The problem with the loops is every time you pay to get replaced No, and we've had trouble in the winter too with the 82,000 is everything right there. That's right Yeah, yeah, so if we did just the cameras, it's not gonna be Well just the cams would be 23. Yeah, so well you do the cameras plus the cabinet He said did he thought they would he did say that he thought they would obviously $50,000 there Could we find 25 and do $50,000 worth and then come back and do the upgrade change the signal that's next year I don't I don't understand what he's seeing my signal hands because when we went when we met over there He said that the signals are fairly new and that the only problem there is is now They've gone to LED lights and they're not they are when they change them now, but But he said other than that the signal heads were good. I thought he said and The crosswalk thing Signal is already there So they didn't have to do anything with that because they got the thing when they push the button then it changes like I Was under the impression that we could do this in steps Could we find another 25,000? Yes, we could. Well, I just think that I Could be all wrong, but I think that you will need new components in the cabinet to be able to use cameras versus loops So all I'm saying is I think it's logical to do that on once the cabinet and the cameras So you're talking 50,000. That's what I'm saying. So you're gonna find 25 But we're not throwing anything away Right, but the or if we just replace the cabinet the electrical service the third item in that there We get it right around 25,000 replace that and then just not have not and just have for the fixed time as It is around then phase in the other cameras when we can maybe increase the budget in for next year well, the electrical service has never been a problem, but we've had problem with the cabinet and And They were able to get parts, but now it's getting to the point where they Peter to pay Paul there on some of it No, everybody is It's I guess the way he talks is is it's just It just sends the signal So it causes a set of contacts and does the same thing that does but it's a different It's a different voltage and frequency than the loop So I just think that they're gonna have to put parts in to make it work So why not do the cabinet at the same time because you can do it eventually you don't talk about it up, right? And end up spending ninety two thousand dollars because we had to buy parts to make it work So do we do only the two parts the controller on the cabinet this year Because we've never had a problem with the electrical and he says that the electrical service has been the original service But I mean it's we've never had a problem with it. So I think he's suggesting that since they're in it Yeah, that now's the time to I see Or the heads in the electrical service for another time expense. Yeah Just to get the detection in in the new cabinet But is it gonna be more expensive than to go back into to take out the old electrical service Because it's just a few from the meter. Yeah, there's a meter there and they just got it Going to up that goes up and into the panel box. I I'm for if you can find 25 I don't we're doing those the cameras in the cabinet, okay But I don't know what everybody else feels like I just I don't have any delays The hospital gets out you know, and I just think that if we can find 25 we'll know what's working properly Just does this include emergency vehicle preemption? Do you know where they can essentially turn the turn the lights on or off? No, they don't know. Okay. I don't think it does but I certainly can ask that question Whether that might be something we should think about Yeah, so they usually there's no light you get in there before the lights, but I would ask We have had issues in the winter with the hospital traffic being held back because of the lights Well, the problem there is it's it's The cabinet said now it's time this whole thing and you can't change the time And then of course the hospital put the new entrance in over there and they move everything back Because now all their tractor trailer trucks that are wanting in there to Deliver or whatever come up and use that they used to go in the other lower So they had to set the traffic way back So the trucks could make some string in there, and then it doesn't give them time So we had a problem over there and the guy that retired came And he had to change one of the boxes and he had him he had one in the cabinet and we changed it So when he was there he said There's no way to go know what we're doing here, so he added time to it. We haven't had a problem with it since It gave the gave the traffic coming out of the hospital truck a lot more time And of course it does them all too because those both run off the same Yeah, same control Because right now what sets the light on and off to change is the left hand lane That's going into the mall and the left-hand lane that's going into the hospital That's what changes. That's what does the whole thing to change and of course when they mill they don't take that leap out of there But he said it will still work But the only problem you're gonna get is somebody's gonna be sitting over here. Why is that light green over there? There ain't nobody there But you know if we And they're not they were supposed to start a cave in last night Because they run they're working at night. You're gonna start Sunday and night and mill it all and then pave it tonight They're being with the rain and stuff. They got out of sync with your schedule. So now we're off until 1st of September So that's why being and I talked about this to bring it up to you guys So that maybe East Coast if we could come up with the money East Coast could get the new detention system in there Before they come to pay even so there won't be a no issue when they do it because it'll be rolling on new detection system So where do we find this 25 grand? We have a few reserve But keep hitting it's not gonna happen. Yeah, so we don't have a problem to be electrical service We don't have a problem with the existing existing signals other than the fact they're incandescent He's changed quite a few bulbs, so we got quite a few LEDs in here already. So all I'm saying is We don't replace the heads now. We don't replace the electrical service That should be around $50,000 if you can find 25, I think yes Here that was a motion. Yes, please Any other discussion all those in favor I Will talk with the vendor and I think more about we're getting the other 25,000. Oh sure. Well, Tim will be happy to contribute Great Don't look too closely Okay, that's the Signals Award of sandbid last time that we talked about the sandbid As you know, we had some questions on the quality. I think Tim has done some research with the Successful the lower bidder from the sandbid Hebert excavation corporation and You're satisfied that the quality issue that we had last year has been addressed So we're suggesting that the board grant the bid to Hebert Excavation corporation for $8.50 a cubic yard. Can you can you remind me what the issue that we had last year was? I was it was more dirt than I was seeing and we had a lot of trouble with it going in through the sanders and Then freezing and putting it down and the cars packing it on because it was no grip to it And then we had to re-send because the roads got supper again So is he going up a pile of sand now that looks okay? What do you have down there? Yes, so and don't go sample. So what's coming in here now? I've just seen a bunch of big trucks or is that that's gravel gravel So what was it? What was the issue? Well, I didn't I didn't want to accept his bid until we had a sample Because if he gives us the same same we had last year, it's it's not worth it because it cost us a lot of money To do what we're not getting To be honest, we should have complained. Yeah But last winter wouldn't have done any good to complain because he doesn't have a sand pit He strips the field they scream Take all the top off it and then it's sand underneath So he they screen it and then at the end of the day they fill that hole back in So that's not considered a pit That way they don't have to go through and Shawn So what was happening is that we were getting some of the extra bits that he was No, it was just it wasn't it wasn't good seeing it was too much dirt in it But he's in a different area this year and the sand is much better. It's like the first year that we got it from I've already talked to Larry about it. I said because he doesn't have it all put up yet for us, he's done a little He was trying to finish the job I guess some Rochester or some where Before he started So that's why you could get it at the time frame So, so let me just be the we'd be the paranoid guy and say Couple months in or a couple loads in the way he's delivering is just junk. What's the chance that I'm using one putting it up So I would see it so Are we going to be able to react quickly enough to find to go back to Taber and be able to Well, if it comes to that we can get sand for the same price $8.50 a yard from the pages and it's good seeing the pages will not bid because he has antique equipment and He's so afraid that Something's gonna break down And he's gonna be out of commission and he's not want to be able to produce the same for us and that could Cause a loss of course, and he doesn't want that on his shoulders But he told me that if we needed seeing that we could come by our sand at 850 a yard And take as much as we want, but it's not gonna be a bit where he's held responsible Perfect. Thanks. I'll move that we award the same Any other discussion Hearing none those in favor Okay Letter to encourage participation in sewer income survey I was approached by the Administrative person in the sewer division to if the board would support sending a letter to residents Asking for their support in filling out the survey that was sent out by the Rural water association that's doing the work for the sewer commission. This is for USDA Loan on the project going down pain turned pike north. What is happening? We've had a very low response to the survey People are concerned with their personal information Getting out there Rural water is we don't see any of that. We don't know so it's nothing to do with us. Rural water is just tabulating all those figures they have literally pounded the pavement knocked on doors and They're really trying to get 50% Response and and right now. I'm not sure what the percentages was quite low And this was the Tom the this was the suggested letter the town gave me So they're not even responding to some of their door No Are we and some of the doors that he's gone to probably he should know but Are we asking them something they might not know I Don't think so. I think it's just people are and I'm same way I mean people at when you ask about your personal income and what it is you Feel a lot of easy some time stuff. I don't know if this would be The magic bullet to help them. I'd like to think so one of the things that I think probably makes sense to add in here Is to make it clear that Having this information makes our loans cheaper Well, we got what a million dollar grant towards the water system because Yeah, so this is People responding to the survey Poverty taxes or is this sewer cost right right? reduce the cost of sewer sewer usage or sewer So rates rates in the town these went to all the sewer customers. Am I right on that so in other words? For example, I got one of the other in the town if someone this new sewer line go down paying turnpike to the chamber is a Probably 12-year payback Just in maintenance cost of that forced maintenance So this is going to save people in the long run that are sore users whether you're in Riverton or you're in I think that's a good point We can say that there's a reason why we want you to do this and and and I and I you know Definitely respect what Tom put together here, but there's a lot of words There's not a lot of motivation for me opening a letter and seeing law If we can have maybe some so I see some some underlining in here But if you can sort of in the in the same way that you would write like a press release Just get to it first thing. We need more responses to read to lower Pretty much both. Yeah, just straight away right there. The rest of this is good information Don't don't get me wrong. No, if you why should I give you my personal information? I should give you my personal information because it will save money I will work with Tom and we'll rewrite the letter including that information Which I think is a very good point and then I what the benefit is for if I do it I really do like Assurances that it's confidential and that it's just a still down to a single number because that's that's clear, right? If you're giving this letter, this does affect you Yeah, yeah Everybody on the sewer on the sewer system is paying in I spent I build it out So But it's only residential Right. That's yeah on the town sewer. Yeah, so I do and And I guess we're just sending it even though people that have already done it So we'll have some explanation of why they're getting You know, they might not need to you know Have them ask their neighbors or talk about it or something like that because it will you know, ultimately drive the costs of the So you would support signing that we'll rewrite it Yes, thank you approval subboard meant from 618 2018 625 2018 222 18 and 725 18 And we are missing one set from 723 that we don't have yeah, so The June 18th minutes there were a couple of agenda items that they just don't have any Anything written there did you skip? Let me find where we are very yeah the very first page. Oh, we just didn't say what we did. Yeah, so that was just saying Yeah, so it's like I don't know that in yeah, I mean, it's not I guess it's not critical if there's not any action But I was I just didn't know if that was an oversight or if that was just intentional that there wasn't anything I don't think it was intentional. I think it would just happen. Okay, you know We usually put no public comment and the treasurer then we make up gave you a report My office I will move to approve the minutes for the June 18th 2018 Yeah This the next meeting the 25th is the meeting that Jeremy was attended via telephone Brad and Angelina we're not here Yeah, I'm looking sorry. I'm looking to approve the minutes of June 25 second Any further discussion? You're not those in favor Motion you weren't there I don't Move to approve the minutes for the July 2nd 2018 meeting as presented second Those polls Motion carries And now for the Wednesday, July 25th minutes and their appointment of employee very town Yeah, is it two words I could look to that a hundred times I'm not seeing it. Okay, thanks Extensions Motion carries License permits and vouchers I'm going to approve general fund accounts for 19g 0 3 the checks 18 278 18 326 in the amount of 69 405 dollars 44 cents We're going to check 18 279 As well as payroll warrant nineteen dash zero two for payroll July 8th 2018 to July 21st 2018 in the amount of forty two thousand eight ninety one oh nine as well as payroll warrant nineteen dash zero three For payroll from July 22nd to August 4th in the amount of forty two thousand eight hundred eighty six dollars and four cents Your second Any further discussion Hearing none those in favor seem like we're saying aye. Aye those polls motion carries see here Town minister report, thank you. Um, I've got some news on the mirror Lake Road culvert John Grenier our engineer has Told us that we do not need a wetlands permit to install the culvert and we don't need a stream Alteration permit to install he heard back from the agencies in question that we don't need them He is waiting to hear back from fish and wildlife regarding any other restrictions the lead time to order a culvert is six weeks He encouraged that we get it ordered as we've discussed here before I was surprised that it is an Illuminum Culvert what is and and so I said John Are you sure it's a loon among and he? Told me that he fell The life-stand is better with a loon among over concrete or galvanized steel 35 to 50 years versus 50 to 75 years for aluminum What's the cost the cost a hundred four thousand which the Content which the vendor installs it It's a little box culvert. Yes, it's an aluminum. Um, so that's less money Well, that's that's the call. Yeah, that's just the culvert in other words This which they still have to put the contracting of the job out But the there wasn't that what's the cost of a concrete culvert? I don't have the cost recommended Yeah They were somewhat similar, but I was thinking it was a hundred twenty five or something So we're going to take out a steel culvert and replace it with an aluminum box culvert That's what it looks like Rocksbury did on It's what they do is a poor Concrete floor floor and then that that bolts down to it what it saves a tremendous amount of money on this crane Yeah, they do boys did that one on And they just picked the whole thing right up and sit it down on there and then they go to the concrete Just a drill and put it anchors in or they anchor it for J-hooks in the concrete I think they drilled an anchored Yeah, it's mainly just to hold it so when you're back on it you can't push it You just make sure straight Well, that's interesting so click it isn't a little bit of box culvert rather than a circular A lot less and we would have the rule we have a good chance of having it completed this year So we'll go forward. I don't know who maybe he could suggest As far as the construction work as far as the ordering of the box now, he's suggested the fender piece it is Are there any other vendors? Concat or are we recorded by purchasing policy to put it up to bed? That's what I'm saying. Okay. I think we are I don't know either, but I'll find out who do you suggest contact engineering solutions and they are from Well, they're not from here I mean just doing my I can't tell you what you will search there. I found it there. There's a number of vendors If we find that the When I asked John about this because obviously I would be asking our engineer about this if he says that He would not he doesn't have any better Would be interested if they're too far away. I'm just saying a hypothetical here here I'm concerned about getting this ordered and getting it here on time. What I think you're gonna find is that that's the manufacturer and they have 16 Vendors in New England to sell their product We can ask those 16 vendors to give us a price, you know, they would say Dave McChain. Yeah Yeah I'm just saying that probably EJ Prescott's is a vendor for that You know and so is I mean this is one of those ish. This is one of those things in my opinion I realize we have a purchase policy, but it's a bit of a single-screen I don't know. I think you'll find that there are multiple vendors that sell their product I just don't want to hang up our right process Because I would have to write the you know the proposal we'd have to advertise if we do it the way we're supposed to do this so The idea was for us to buy the culvert and then to hire someone to This vendor would Would install the culvert not do the construction work Install the culvert and I've asked John why that is and it's because they want to install it so they can assure it was stalled properly So all the contract has to do with poor Smith sly over cross Think they call it. I would say that would be what they and then you're actually But once the concrete slab is down it can be used time and time again for different if the culvert should fail Yeah Well, let me get some answers and then I get back and I'd rather not wait till the next meeting But I thought it was good it was a good news that we didn't have to go through the permit the expense of the permit So it's bring it in to the job When you get the information it's email, so we'll just hold another meeting to vote on it. Okay Oh Yes We have had an incident Recently and we've had more than one incident where the police have been pounded vehicles and they put them in the highway garage because they have to be secured and It's a problem Having them in the way and so we have Bet it around the idea. We have some supports that could be used right Kim and we could build a car poor with a chain Area to put that we could have an impound Area, so they have three other cover They don't have to know cover. They have to be but I mean we have yeah, we have I didn't get over there today There's got to be 16 18 20 foot eight by eight pressure treated so There's your expense, so I thought that if we put them in the ground I mean I could work with a contractor and dig the holes with the excavator and set them and then just put a roof on it and And then have somebody put chain link fence in one bay of it So they can they got a place that they can secure a car But on top of that it's going to put the police cruisers under cover Yes, but where they park out here and You don't guys don't know I've seen it a hundred times those four guys come in because of an emergency and they got 15 18 inches of snow on their out there cleaning them off and trying to get them warmed up so they can go I mean they gotta get them warmed up but I mean It would put them under cover Make it so much easier for the police department I mean I built a lean-to at home It's 36 by 45 and that's what I used So this will be I Yeah, I haven't measured it out there yet, but I know I have enough eight by eights over there And what happened was is back when they replaced that bridge up to John Maloney's I won't mention any names with the town administrator that was here over Double order did everything and then he didn't want nobody to know about it. So he didn't get them back through East Montpere home center in time and they wouldn't take them back So they've been stacked Since I was before I came here. So they're still in good shape. Oh, yeah, they're up on They're up. They're all stacked with with stickers and everything So they've been hanging around over there for what? I've been here almost seven years Well, half of them are still left Well, could we get a price You and I could work and getting a price of what it would cost. Yeah, I mean if we could have just a I mean, I think everyone agrees it's a great idea. All you're gonna need is a carpentry You're already got you got them the money it's right here. It's all been paid for long time ago Yeah Yeah, because I mean all it's gonna take is two-by-sixes and stuff to Make make a roof and put tin on it And then you know then someday if they got some money or somebody budgets some money you could close it in completely But I mean just to get them undercover I feel sorry for those guys You know ice storms and stuff. They were over there trying to scrape ice off the windshield Bill feels about me Well, I mean It's not it's not it's not a by rough lumber to do the roof Good tin on it and something that's gonna last It's not gonna cost the town much money, right? It's gonna be rather cheap for what you're gonna get and then and I mean I don't want I Talked with bill the other day because We had a drug car and over there and We had to put the pick up outdoors and clean everything out of it because we have chainsaws and anything else We can't leave that outside, so we'll steal it for sure and this last one was that actually on Group 12 down there that they had to impound the car because they felt it was done intentionally and It's set over the inner garage Almost two weeks they took it today We got a huge I had to make them to keep the oil from going into our floor drains And it's not exactly impounded when you have the highway through yeah It's just kind of a pain in the butt And the winter time we had quite a few drug cars last winter and Mark is the only one that can move anything he can move a dump truck and he can move the loader So if he's not around They just cram it in the air and we come in in the morning, we can't get out So and that's the end of what I have to tell you tonight We're talking about chain-link fence I'm gonna come over and Grab you guys and even Dan and go over there. I want to build a fence from my hotel over to my berm I'm not saying that your garage is ugly.  I want to build like a seven foot fence with the fabric over to it All the way across there and put a gate in where we put that temporary road in In case you ever need to use that again, because that's what that gate was there, but right But they plowed it all over with the loader plowing snow So I don't have a problem with it at all Determine We know where we know where your boundary is because there's a cement marker there right and where the gate should be In case you ever wanted to use it. Yeah Garrett Gary told me they did that for the sewer department So that if they had trouble with it with the manholes over here that they would be able to get in on the weekend I'm just I'm wanting to get that up before a full inch that's all and Daniels is supposed to be here He hoped to be here by the end of this week I'll call him tomorrow and find out and then they're gonna fix that ugly mess on the front of that salt shed So that'll look a little better, but now that we know Dan has got some more money. Maybe we can build a brick Well, that might be a little more of a struggle Oh, that's all I got. I just want to get together So the work he's done in Rawhill Looks good. I haven't heard you feedback yet. I'm not quite done down there Nobody's making big ditching stone And I don't want to put the ditching stone that we have because it's not big enough and With the mountain water that's going down through there. It's just going to tumble it all down I talked with Northeast course they have our gravel bed so we get all our material at the same prices with the gravel bed is and They are going to be up and running here shortly because they got their permits to open back up up there So we haven't been able to make it because they didn't have a crusher big enough to make it But I talked with Eric last week and he said that he said within a couple three weeks He said we should be up and running up there with a big crusher. So let's get the bigger stone yeah, because what I want to do is is is I Made that ditch from the cemetery to go down and dump all the bank and exactly the same place that The culvert that goes underneath the road there. So it's not before we had two different places water was going over that bank and that's what caused it off and And Then I want to put some big rock down over there where the culvert dumps and stuff so that it's gonna hold that and not wash wash out anymore and We were very lucky we hauled rock from here and I had rock that was so big I couldn't move when the excavator had to drag it and I just kept working it down over there and trying to place it and Then the state came to me and they were doing ditching in taking berms off route 12 from Riverton to player and They took off some awesome top soil So we kind of kept that aside Till I was done with the stonework and everything and then I put the top so over the top of everything And we've seated mulched it in the grasses growing nice already. Yeah, it's really and What's his name the farmer? Nate Nate Rogers said we did an awesome job. He was very very happy Glad he was happy about that. Yeah And I'm glad you were able to easily get in there and get access and it wasn't I just just had those guys keep dumping And then I just made myself a road and just got down over there with the excavator and and just brought everything back up Shelfed it all the way up through. Yeah. No, that's not going nowhere is now. Thank you Yes, please and the personnel


Our next speaker is Dr. Stella Yeh. Stella Yeh is an assistant professor at the Department of Population Health at NIU School of Medicine. She's a chronic disease epidemiologist with a research focused on policies and community programs to improve lifestyle behaviors in immigrant communities. Stella Yeh is also Hopkins alum, Yeh, having completed her PhD in epidemiology at the Green Book School of Public Health. In a presentation today, Stella will be discussing how research analyzing enhance can help to address the growing diversity of the United States with a particular focus on the Asian American population. Stella? Okay, hi. Good morning, everyone. Let me go ahead and share my slides. Okay, great. Is the slideshow showing up? Not yet? Okay. Great. Okay, good morning, everyone. I know a number of my colleagues and trainees and other people are on the call today, so hello, everyone. So I'll just get started with a brief outline of what I'm going to cover today. I'm going to start with talking a little bit about racial, ethnic diversity and research. We'll touch briefly on the model minority stereotype, and then we're going to discuss NHANES and Asian American representation, and then close with some summary thoughts. So many of you are familiar with the fact that the U.S. population is rapidly diversifying with regards to racial, ethnic makeup, and there have been several reports published by the Brookings Institute in the past few years that have highlighted these demographic trends. In fact, this transition to being majority minority, meaning majority non-white, has already occurred for 22 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. So this is a map that displays the most populous minority racial, ethnic group in those 22 cities, with the number and parentheses illustrating the percent of the population that is white. So, for example, in New York City, where I'm located right now, the largest racial, ethnic minority group is Hispanic, and 49 percent of the population is white. And it's likely that the racial, ethnic distributions of these metropolitan areas represent a microcosm of the future diversity of the United States. Sorry, I'm having a hard time advancing my slides. Okay. Now, some of the growth of the population has been driven by the growth of the Asian American and Hispanic populations over the past 50 years. In fact, the Asian American population grew faster than any other racial, ethnic group in the United States between 2000 and 2010. And Asian Americans make up 5.6 percent of the U.S. population.  Now, I include this slide just to remind everyone who we are talking about when we are talking about Asian Americans. There are a number of different diverse ethnic heritages that are included under that monolithic category of Asian Americans. On the left-hand side of the slide here, you can see a list of 20 countries. This is not an exhaustive list. But, of course, if you label yourself as having one of these countries of origin, you would be categorized as being Asian American once you're in the United States. And I'd like to point out that this is not different, particularly for other racial ethnic groups. So, for instance, if you're immigrating here from Guatemala or from Mexico, you'll be categorized as Hispanic in the United States. Or similarly, how blacks from the Caribbean are grouped together with blacks from Africa or black Americans. So there is a lot of advocacy being undertaken by many of our colleagues supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, pushing for data disaggregation within racial ethnic groupings, which is beyond the scope of this particular presentation. So I won't go into depth. But to some degree, much of what I'm saying throughout this presentation with regards to disaggregated subgroups really applies to all different racial ethnic and immigrant groups. So just to kind of close out on the quick stats about Asian Americans, there are about 17.3 million Asian Americans in the U.S. as of 2010. The largest groups are Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. And I highlight these six groups because they make up approximately 86%, 87% of the Asian American population. Now, the shift in racial ethnic diversity is troubling for healthcare and health research because we also know that current health knowledge, treatments and evidence-based practices have been developed primarily with white participants and patients. And despite calls to diversify research and recruitment, we are still lagging behind where we should ideally be. This brings us to NHANES and other large national health survey data sets. So you took up previously referred to the declining response rates over time, which is a larger concern for these types of studies. But I'd also like to spend a few minutes unpacking some of the key features of most national data collection efforts and the implications that I might have on the population capture and therefore diversity and representativeness. So first is the use of random digit dialing or RDB. Random digit dial recruitment relies primarily on calling those with landline telephone access, although there have been more recent designs and efforts to include sampling of wireless users. But RDB really fails to capture specific individuals. So for instance, those without any kind of telephone access, those who are medically underserved, or those who are unavailable at the times when surveys are conducted. So for example, working class individuals that have non-standard work hours. So RDB has really come under criticism for generating data that is representative primarily of older and white Americans. Another key feature of national surveys is that the geographical distributions of different subgroups, racial ethnic subgroups are not fully accounted for. For example, this map that I have here on this slide depicts a geographic distribution of Asian Americans across the United States. So the different colors represent the largest Asian group in that state. So for example, in California, the turquoise means that Filipinos are the largest Asian subgroup in that state. Or in Texas, the largest Asian subgroup is Asian Indian. But this distribution is often not accounted for in study design, recruitment, or sampling. So the result is that the Asian American racial ethnic category across different datasets can actually represent very different Asian subgroups with differing social determinants of health and health outcomes and cultural norms, etc. Which really makes it difficult to actually understand the current state of health disparities for the Asian American population. Lastly, another key feature of most national surveys is that they usually only collect data in English and Spanish. This is particularly problematic for the Asian American population because 33% of the Asian American population compared to 9% of the total US population have limited English proficiency and 75% of Asian Americans versus 22% of the US total speak a language other than English at home. So moreover, these linguistically isolated individuals tend to have lower income, less access to care, and worse health outcomes. So since these individuals are systematically not being included in large data collection efforts, our current understanding of health disparities are likely an underestimate of the health needs of Asian Americans. I mentioned before, I want to take a quick aside and mention the model minority stereotypes because understanding what it is and the consequences that it has on health research for Asian Americans is really critical. So just very briefly to define the model minority stereotype, it's this idea that Asian Americans are believed to have high educational attainment, low crime rates, and a lack of juvenile delinquency, a lack of mental illness, close family ties, they're a law abiding and have a hard work ethic. Now some of the consequences of the model minority stereotypes in particular with regards to health research is that Asian Americans are not considered a community of color or a disparity group. And in fact, Asian Americans are the most understudied racial ethnic minority group in the United States. And analysis showed that .01% of Medline articles included any Asian Americans in the study sample from 1966 to 2000, and .17% of the total NIH budget funded research studies that focused on Asian American or Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander populations from 1992 to 2018. And you would at least anticipate that these percentages would be somewhat close to the overall US population of Asian Americans, which is 5.6%. So there is a clear disparate amount of funding being allocated towards these populations. And this prolonged disparate funding will lead to worsening disparities over time. So I wanted to just show a couple of examples of how this actually looks in the real world. The first is a paper that was published in JAMA looking at prevalence and incidence trends for diabetes a few years ago now. But when you look at the graph stratified by race ethnicity, you can see that there are blacks, Hispanics, and whites on the graph, but Asians are missing. And this is something that you will often see in the literature when you're kind of trying to dig deeper and figure out exactly what Megan was talking about, like setting up your research question, what data actually exists, what analysis already exists. You'll see this absence of data on Asian American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders. Here's another example from the American Journal of Public Health. This is looking at the effect of Obamacare on racial ethnic disparities and health insurance coverage. I know this graph is a little bit small, but it is also stratified by racial ethnic group and Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders are also not included in this analysis. And this was using census data. So this would be presumably on everyone. This is a line in their method section. We focused on whites, blacks, and Hispanics in line with much of the literature on health disparities. So it's just perpetuating the idea that Asian Americans are not a health disparity population. So turning now to NHANES, an Asian American representation in NHANES. NHANES really recognized the important gaps in representation in health data and surveillance. And so NHANES started oversampling Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, which you took referred to starting with the 2011-12 survey waves. Just to go into a little bit more detail about the oversample. In 2011-12, the sample size for APIs was increased to approximately 750. In prior years, it was approximately 100. And they have been included as an oversample on every subsequent wave starting from 2011-12. And there are some health outcome measures for APIs that can be conducted using one two-year data set. But many of them require multiple combined waves to get point prevalence estimates, for example. Asian Pacific Islander is now available as a race ethnicity category. However, disaggregated data are not publicly available. That's something that you would need to access through that limited access data set process that you took over for two. So, however, while we are seeing many publications that now include the Asian American Pacific Islander data, so this is an example. I purposely did not put author lists on this. We are also observing the fact that newer analyses that have this new data in it are actually still not including Asian Americans routinely. So, you know, part of these patterns are somewhat attributable to the fact that these analyses are trend analyses that have baseline values from 15 to 20 years ago. But this also points to a larger limitation of the data, the NHANES data, that despite having been added, it will be several years or even several survey waves before meaningful trends can be presented for Asian Americans using NHANES, let alone any kind of longitudinal analyses with linked data sets. So, we have also undertaken a comparison to assess the difference between NHANES and other national data collection efforts and our locally collected large-scale data collection efforts that we perform in partnership with community-based organizations that serve the Asian American population. We refer to this as our CHERNA, or Community Health Resources Needs Assessment. So, using data from the 2013-15 CHERNA, we found that our community partner and collected data captured more Asian Americans that were lower income, lower education. They were more likely to be on public insurance or uninsured and to report fair or poor health compared to the NHANES sample. So, this points to the importance of complimenting national data, which may under-represent the linguistically isolated and Asian Americans with lower socioeconomic levels with community sourced data. So, I wanted to offer a few suggestions for best practices for analyzing NHANES for NHANES data for minority groups. As I mentioned before, some of these lessons learned don't apply only to Asian Americans, but also apply to other racial, ethnic, minority, and immigrant groups as well. So, number one, suggest presenting all available data in its most granular form. This is a recent analysis using NHANES where we assess disparities in sources of added sugar and high glycemic index foods across racial ethnic groups. And as you can see, we presented data on all racial ethnic groups and in the most granular form available, this is particularly important at a national level for the Hispanic population where those coming from countries other than Mexico, for example, those coming from El Salvador or Cuba, which has been a large sending, large sources of Hispanic immigrants in recent years are also contributing meaningfully to the growth of the Hispanic category. Okay, number two, it's really important to contextualize the data using language, basic language in methods in the discussion. So, for example, in this added sugar analysis, this was included in the methods, data for Hispanic and Asian American subgroups were unavailable due to limited sample sizes. So, you'll often see, you know, data are not presented on Asian Americans or data are not presented on other Hispanics because of limited sample sizes, but here we actually present those data, but we just kind of qualify the fact that we didn't look at subgroups. Also, in the discussion and in the limitations, we added a few sentences in the discussion. We said, in addition to important differences in demographics within Asian Americans by subgroup and country of origin, there is also large variability in cardiometabolic risk. So, just kind of contextualizing the findings that we don't have subgroup data, but, you know, it's something that should be considered when interpreting these results. And then in the limitations section, we believe our findings are largely generalizable to U.S. children. However, prior studies have determined that Asian Americans included in NHANES are skewed to higher income and better educated individuals, as such, the results may not represent low income and less educated Asian Americans. So, a couple other best practices, number three, dig deeper. So, understand who has actually been included in the analyzed NHANES wave with regards to socioeconomic status and subgroup. So, just looking quickly from the NHANES site, they have this sentence to facilitate oversampling of Asian Americans, which began in 2011. Selected survey materials were translated into Mandarin Chinese, both traditional and simplified Korean and Vietnamese. So, what this tells us is that NHANES may adequately capture and represent Chinese and Korean Vietnamese speakers and potentially English speaking across all groups, including Filipinos and South Asians, which tend to have a higher level of English proficiency than those other groups. But it may also be less representative of some South Asian subgroups that do have limited English proficiency for Pacific Islanders, for example. You may or may not want to actually include this kind of detail in your manuscripts, but the contextualization is important to kind of more meaningfully make comparisons with published literature, other published literature, which you often are doing within the discussion section. So, if you're trying to figure out why a result is kind of strange or off, it may be because you're comparing apples to oranges within your different subgroup population. And then number four, if possible, present in tandem with locally collected community data. So, we have sort of taken this approach where we'll use national or other administrative data sets, but then we'll also kind of make comments about the community-based data that we have. I'll just add a caveat to that, however, that this strategy has been met with mixed success. Some peer reviewers don't really like this and they don't really understand why we're doing this. So, if it's not possible to do that within your manuscript, you can always publish that separately and then you can refer to it within your analysis. So, just to kind of summarize, as we see now through these three presentations and Haynes' analyses are an important starting point to planning, resource allocation, and policymaking. And to illustrate this, I put together this non-exhaustive and sort of crude representation of a cascade of events that really starts with a primary data source like and Haynes. So, for example, you may do an analysis, which could lead to a publication. The analyses across some kind of topic area are compiled, maybe in the form of a systematic review. This could lead to further study, maybe in the form of funded grants. The compiled knowledge can actually also directly lead to evidence-based policy and practice, or it may also be fed into complex models such as AI or other micro-simulation models. And so, the idea is that if racial ethnic minority groups, including Asian Americans, are not included at this outset, then it essentially stymies the representativeness of the entire pipeline of future research and practice. And it's the systematic lack of data that will perpetuate the continued mismatch between the health research literature and the growing diversity of the U.S. and ultimately the health of the nation. So, I'll finish with my acknowledgment slides and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Stella. So, we have a couple of questions that have come in. One relates to datasets of other under-representative groups. So, are there any other national datasets that have indigenous representation? This question is finding that they have largely been left out of these kinds of national surveys. I'm guessing by indigenous the person means like Native American and Alaska Native type of population. That I don't know the answer to, unfortunately. I think that a lot, so like I mentioned at the beginning of the talk, there are a lot of limitations with the national datasets. I think that there has been a lot of progress in terms of those indigenous populations with sort of like one-off cohort studies that have been developed sometimes mostly in partnership with those indigenous communities. And so it's kind of similar in that sense with a lot of the themes that I was talking about with the Asian American experience that we found that it's really the community-based local data collection that is informing a lot of the grant efforts or informing a lot of the publications. And again, you'll sort of find this absence of you'll probably find most of those indigenous populations like grouped in the other category in a lot of the national analyses that you do see. I don't have a good answer for like a catalog of indigenous population research because that's not my area. But again, I think some of the themes really do cut across for Asian Americans and for other smaller underrepresented groups. So another, thank you. So another question relates to sample size. So the question is, what is a good minimum sample size for a minority subgroup for inclusion in analysis? And what number might be too low? Say if you're wanting to have a Asian American subgroup. So I see, I don't know if Josh or Yutaka have a better answer for this. We undertake a number of different strategies in our section. We always try to like look at the data that's available. And that's the first kind of strategy that we do. We also have adopted a strategy that is used by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which involves flagging estimates that are potentially unstable. So maybe those that have a large relative standard error, we will often sort of flag those estimates. And then if we find that if we're doing an analysis and you know, a lot of our estimates are really being flagged and they're, you know, we don't feel comfortable with sharing the results because it just doesn't seem very reliable. You can also combine survey waves. You can combine across survey waves. And of course, that's limited, right? Like, if you're looking at, if you want to look at the prevalence of some phenomenon and you have to combine six years of survey data to get the sample size you want, then there's a limitation to that too. So I don't think that I wouldn't put a, unless Josh or Yutaka or Megan have like another idea, I don't typically put a number on a minimum sample size. I usually, it's usually like a sort of like a more comprehensive exercise that you have to go through to, to, you know, feel like whether or not it's a reliable estimate or not. I completely agree with what Stella has said and endorse what she said a hundred, a hundred percent. If I could endorse it more, I would. And it also depends on what's the scientific question. Are you trying to get a prevalence estimate or are you trying to get, let's say, a logistic regression coefficient? And in that case, it depends also, what is your outcome? If your outcome is a low prevalence outcome, you're going to have higher standard errors there just on the virtue of you're looking at something that's low prevalence to begin with. So if you've got a low prevalence outcome to begin with and you're looking in subgroups, that compounds the problem. So it depends a lot on what you're trying to learn and what the scientific question is as well. Yeah, so I, something I can add is that so, yeah, Stella mentioned, you know, we, these things, we can talk about how, you know, what reliability of estimates as opposed to what sample size we need. And for the NCHS, National Center for Health Statistics, have some standards for these sort of thing. And for prevalence, there has been a couple of years, maybe two years ago, we put a new guideline for reliability, how to assess, how to, how to assess the reliability of a prevalence have been published. I'm going to detail about that. But you can look at that. And also, there is, for, that was for prevalence and the other estimates, which usually takes as a form of mean for means. Traditionally, sort of cut off is we'd like to have the relative standard error, meaning standard error divided by the point estimate of the estimate point estimates should be maybe should be 30% or less. That's sort of that. Then we don't worry too much about it. But it's not a very strict, you know, we publish some of the quote unquote, unreliable estimate with RSE of 30% or 40% or more. But we flag it, you know, tell the user's result, these are not reliable. So that's one way to go. And there are some very sophisticated mathematical manipulation, these RSE or other one, other one prevalence guidelines, they would be somehow translated, could be translated to the minimum sample size. And sometimes there's statistics called depth, design effect, those could be used to do those sort of translation, but it's too, it's a loaded question. So I'm refrain from going into the detail, but you can learn about it. But one attitude is, you know, you already have the data, try to estimate, and then decide if it's, once you estimate it in a correct way, you can get the idea of how reliable it is, and you can make a decision, or this is too, too unreliable, we're not going to publish it, or it may be published because as Stella mentioned, the meta analysis, you know, if it is different, you know, if there's a collection of estimate, each one may be unreliable. But when taken look at used as a whole, as a set of estimates, then they may be pulled and combined to produce more reliable estimates. So anyways, I guess I stop. Yeah, I think I would just advise like, thank you, thank you, Yutaka, for adding that. I think I'll just also advise like what we often see in the literature is that the Asian American sample is just not even presented, right? So like at the minimum, just look at it, include it, look at it. If it's not great, like we find ourselves in our group, like sometimes we can't include it either, right? And it has to be that sample sizing. But the problem is that if there's this sort of perpetual sample size, sample size, sample size, and it's like never reported, then there's no use in NHANES spending all this money to do this oversample if nobody's going to publish on the data. So I think that's part of it too, right? Like just look at the data that's there and then it becomes an exercise of deciding as to whether or not you actually want to present on it. Thank you so much. I think we need to take at least five minute break. Thank you Stella again. You should really come back to us because I know your talk is over an hour's seminar and the same thing to Yutaka, I will invite you later. I think we're going to take five minute break, right? Or six minute break. So please come back 10, 45, and don't be late because we're going to vote for our next symposium topic. We're going to choose the data. So let's take a break. So sorry Stella again for cutting the great conversation. Don't worry. It would have been very nice if we're on site as we originally talked about. Yeah. Yeah, that would have been great because I'm looking at the chat box and the I'm looking up the project for you right now. It's being led by the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum but it's really for data disaggregation that is an effort that started in 2015 and it was a collaborative effort between PolicyLink and Sir Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and it's about data disaggregation across all racial ethnic groups and in fact you may be familiar with the fact that in 2017 or so they made new proposals to change the way that the census data collects racial ethnic subgroup information and unfortunately the OMB turned them down. So at the federal level and so if you were to take the census now or if you've already taken the census you would have seen that the collection of subgroup data is not really represented well in the census 2020 but the health forum has continued the work and is looking towards data disaggregation efforts. I want to say right now they're focusing on four states. I think it's California, New York, Michigan and Nevada in terms of working with the state government to improve the collection of disaggregated data for different racial within racial ethnic subgroups but this is the more information on the project. I'm excited to have this conversation. All right let's move on Kevin. Do we have the winner for next year's symposium and he is the winner. You know it's a library and I found it surprising because I will say number one question that it has been H-Cup but and this is definitely the winner I cannot argue with the data.