to approve the agenda. Anybody have anything they want to add to the agenda? I want to add an executive session at the end to discuss legal matters. Okay. Executive session, they call it at the end. We'll need an item here to, at the last meeting we set the increase in rates for the town's employees but the clerk was left out so we can add an item for the clerk rate adjustment. So we'll do that. Let's just put it at the bottom after for us little graphics, what it's called. Item for, can you do a word? Setting the clerk's rate. Pay rate. Setting the clerk's rate. Pay rate. Okay. Does that work for you guys? Yes ma'am. And we also want to add an executive session as soon as we reveal these sling board member applicants. We'll talk publicly about it and then go into an executive session so the board has the opportunity to talk about the applicants and look at that. And all four applicants are here for discussion. Okay. Any questions? Thank you. That's all I had. Anybody else? I move that we approve the agenda as amended. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Second. I can't hear it, it was probably me. Let's just go with that. I don't know if it's right here or something. It'll pick it up. Anything public on the agenda for this evening? Anybody with an evening? All right, hearing none. So typically, we'll move on to the applicants with the slide board position that is open. This position would be appointed until the next meeting. Then it'll be, I think, well, his term was up anyways, I can't remember if it's a, I think it's his three year term. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be filling our major in the three years term. I've been through a couple of these. So typically what we'll do is we have all four of the applicants here tonight. So usually if you want, we'll give you the opportunity to stand up and be recognized. Any small, little tidbits you want to throw out there. And then after the board will go into a second session and kind of go through them and then come back out. It shouldn't be too long with a second session. Anybody want to pull first the poll? I'm the poll, I'm from East Ethel, and I like living in Buffalo. It's a nice place. When I heard about this vacancy, I was interested in it because I feel like I could help. I genuinely know that I commit to the second and fourth Monday of each month until family to sit and listen and help the select board, help the town, help out. Selecting a position to open up a crop muscle. Grew up, lived in Bethel, went to school here, started to raise a family here. Two children, two, and three months old now. Interested in the position. I've always kind of drawn politics in Bethel. Just would like to give a shout out to Bethel. So, you know, open the opinions. I don't think we all work together as a team, you know? Kind of go forward with the town, you know, the town's right in the right direction. Keep it going, that's why. Okay. The Bay of Dairy's application. And David, I've recently completed a tour of the school. And I'd like to, I think I could bring in some experience with working with five person board, which is here on the U of the town of Bethel. And I serve with them. Okay, thank you. Anybody got it? James? Yep. Professor Adler, I do have an end up. My background is in finance. And when I look at what's going on in the town and it's on across what feels like a economic rebirth in Main Street is turning over. The town faces some very serious financial challenges. And I care, much like all of the candidates here and I'm quite frankly, you can go wrong with the people that made the effort. But I think maybe I bring something different in my professional background. And I'm very comfortable with numbers. I'm an engineer by training and I try to approach problems all in that way. I'm a footed out of the D.S.A., so where do I? That happens. So what we'll do now is we'll have a second session before we'll talk about the applicants and then we will come out and make the decision. I think we can step out instead of making all these people step out, can't we? What about them? Downstairs. Are you in the boardroom downstairs? Okay, I can speak to that. You want me with you? We need a moment to point because it's here. Oh, yes. We'll be going into the next session to determine new member of the SWAT board. Second. We'll be going into the next session? Yeah, after a move. Putting your name in the hat, it's always easy to say you want to do something so that it's a raise your hand and actually move forward on that. It was good to see that we had four candidates, which in some of the past, it has many. So, and it was good that probably each one of you have a little different something to offer the board, which was nice as well. Regardless of being appointed or not being appointed, we definitely would like to make sure that be a part of the community. You can select board is the direction you want to go on. There's plenty of committees that could help between now and seven months from now. In this position is a seven month position, so it will come available at town meeting. So we had a chance to deliberate downstairs and it took a little bit of discussion with the board, but the board feels at this time what we'd like to do is move forward, be there. So for tonight, Dave, you're more than welcome to join the board. You can't vote on anything this evening until we have an opportunity to be sworn in by the clerk. So you're more than welcome to sit on the board tonight or make your seat. Again, thank you all the other hand. If we had the ability to put four people on the board, then we would do that. Unfortunately, I picked one, so. So the next item this evening, you go over to the mask on the note. Everybody got that. Do you want to go over that at all? Line of credit? So you can go over, it's just something we can do. So you have to drop, or you gave a drop in a packet. These are the actual ones. So there's a resolution, obviously, and then the loan paperwork. It's a simple tax anticipation at Line of Credit. We want every year just to have running out of money near the end of the fiscal year in between tax installments, so, which is where we're at right now.  So it's pretty standard, I think, the stuff you guys have done before. The interest rate is on there, and obviously we only take a draw if we need it. We had one before, and we actually didn't even take a draw. So we don't need, we don't draw. Oh, was that the previous one that we did? Yeah, and in spite of, you know, they even knew. Dude, we did this one for a year. I think when I came in last time in September, I realized that you didn't have one, so we did one maybe around December. It had a lot of success. So this is for the full year, so it's nice to have it in place before you during that time. Glad we're going to take the motion to allow fast-formacy in the bank to be there and to choice with the task and the space you require. And you also have to do the resolution. So we have to, the resolution as well. Yeah, the resolution is part of it, and basically you don't have a copy of it, because I didn't have the resolution from the attorney act. So the resolution is first, and then the document, so if you want to make a motion to sign the resolution, and the loan papers, you're good to go. So move. Yeah. Second. Second. All in favor? All right. Is this one second, Joseph? All right. Um, I think it asked for everybody. Sign all of it. Yeah, right, but it's really at sign points. No, we're inside two separate points. Does he have the original? He does. Page two. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Four. There's three spots, errors and omissions, and the disbursement request and authorization. Well, so what we did was we, fees that were strewn all over the place in the office for different items than they were, because they're kind of all over the place, we had, they hadn't been revisited in a long time, so a lot of them were antiquated. So we put them all together on the one sheet with the intent of having the board look at them as a whole and approving the entire fee schedule as a whole. So we compiled everything and we kind of got it all jotted down and we looked at some of the other towns around us for some of these items that we wanted to, to either increase the fee substantially or try to make it on par with everyone else. So the third sheet in your packet has, so the zoning fees. So what we did, we went, we found out that we were actually collecting way less than what it was actually costing us to do zoning applications. So not only were we not collecting enough to come, but there's postage and there's other cancelary type things that go along with subdivisions that were not being collected on it. So applicants were coming in and they were essentially doing these subdivisions for free. So we corrected that with this fee schedule so that they are paying the fees for all the, for the tasks and the items that come up because of their subdivision. In the past the town was paying this. So postage for example, if you did a major subdivision you had to send certified letters to your butters while the town was actually doing that for the applicants. And those are like six dollars a piece. We have since corrected that and now the applicant is doing that themselves or they can't deliver them. But just as an example, there were a lot of things that were that the town was eating the cost for when they should. So when somebody comes in and does an application for a subdivision or any sort of a zoning application the town and the taxpayers of town shouldn't be foot and bill for anything. The fees themselves should be adequate and have to cover any costs that the town could incur. So that was a large part of what we did with this fee schedule we took, the zoning and we itemized it out into different types of zoning that we have in our new zoning code. We combined some of the development review here in stuff. For instance, it had a major subdivision cost and then it had a cost for if you go to a hearing. Well all major subdivisions go to a hearing anyway. So we consolidated those and combined those into one line of it. We actually, and then we just kind of raised some of the fees so that they were on par with the voters in other places. We looked at the pool. The pool is great for the town. The kids love it. It's a great place to go. It's never gonna make money, but the fees that we're charging now are very low. They've been historically low for a long time. So we looked at that. We looked at Randolph to see where they, and we proposed fees that were on par with what they got. Now these can all change. The idea of this is here they are, we can negotiate. You guys can choose whatever you want for a fee. But that's kind of the idea with this whole thing is to consolidate all these different fees. Everything from large subdivisions down to making copies. Anything that costs the town money and anything that we should be charging a fee for, we can solve it into one fee schedule. So that we're not trying to track down what we're supposed to charge for this. What we're supposed to charge for this. It's all right here. It can all be approved as one clean, ease adoption. So that was really it. We just took everything we thought that we might be incurring a cost to it, whether that's labor or postage or whatever, and we're trying to get greater costs. The idea is not to make money at all or a nonprofit, but we want to at least cover the cost of doing business. And this also goes with, we've seen with rates, we talked about water rates and sewage rates and things like that on costs per 1,000 gallons that we were charging when it cost us three times that amount to treat that water. So I think to continue on with just kind of updating and getting us to the present. We did talk about the zoning and the things that last meeting doesn't look like anything's changed from those that the board had any issues with the zoning fee structure that we had there. Just a question. The comparison sheet that you're working on. I'm looking at it. Right. Well on the comparison zoning fee, if you take up major subdivisions and add a hearing to it, you're saying, right? So that's 270. We have proposed a 250. Right. Yeah. That's where we combine it because a major automatically gets a hearing. So we just combine those two and said, okay, you're gonna have a hearing regardless. So this is the cost. Yeah. And what we saw before for anyone that wasn't here is the fee structure that we had for zoning was a third or fourth of what everybody was charging, which you can clearly see that, let's say for instance, a residential zoning application of $20 or $22 down. You know, once you sit down and break charge, the timing that goes into doing that application is of course in the town more than $22. Last time I believe we had a number that was somewhere around $60. Right. Exactly. So what was happening, and this was a fee that was set many, many years ago, that may be $22 or 20 years ago. This is the right number. It's clearly not the right number in our case. Yeah. And communities have identified that as well.  Randolph is at $80. So there's, we're proposing to go to $60. So we're, you know, trying to get our revenues to match the cost, which was a trend in the town for many years on why we got into the situation that we are in now. Now, this is kind of the easier low hanging through things now, but you know, all these $2,000, $2,000 items all that, not too big of a deal. Especially if you get into the hearing, like the DRB, you know, just dollar down all those types of things. Right. Yeah. I think it happened again like that. The cost was just, town was eating all. So the zoning, we went over pretty heavily last time. I had to ask some questions to Greg, and I don't know if you got them or not yet, but under the administration sections were like weight permits and things, those are set by the state. Those are, yeah, and Theresa, those are set by the state. Which is just, you know, my opinion is ridiculous because you charge someone a $10 overweight permit to travel down the road that does a lot more than $10 with the damage. You know, that's not what we can do. The next section that we can, there was some, the fee structure for the town hall that changed, there was some add-ins in here in case someone wanted to use the projector screen or things like that, that wasn't the original price to be for. Right. There was some all renovation or hookup fees for the van shell. And the idea for that is that currently, whenever you reserve a park, you just, we put a sign out that says reserve, but it's still first come, first serve. So if you have a reserve and somebody else decides they want to have a party, you got luck. What the reservation does is it actually, we give you a plocker that says you have actually paid for this and you're reserving this space. And if there's an issue with anybody else being there, there's a number you can call, which is me, and somebody will go out and they will make sure that you are giving, giving access to that space. That's what the fee's about. So it's an actual, it's an actual true reservation of that space. But if you get into reserving a spot, town, and you can't just see that. You're still reserving it. It is public space, you're right. But if you get into more of an issue of policing and, you know, by reserving it with someone else's there. Right. It's a Sunday afternoon and you want to be bothered to come down a Sunday afternoon to that. And it also makes the question, is there enough conflict that this is even necessary? I don't know. These are just, they're proposed, and if you feel that they're not needed, they're not needed, but it's just something that I know in other places I've been that we did that and how there might have been more demand for the space. If we're not seeing the demand, then we don't need them. That's very important. It's like a part of a different ban shell. A ban shell. I mean, the ban shell might make more sense if you want to observe the ban shell for a period of time. You know, it does have more to it than just a part of events, you know. So you want to schedule it and make it more. There is an electrical, you can look up, or you can use fuel to electrical at the park if you want to do it. At Peaveyne, yeah. But it isn't quite the venue, you know, it isn't a venue like the ban shell. So how does the board feel in regards to potentially doing reservations for the Peaveyne park in the ban shell? And again, it was just as proposed in case there's a conflict. And if there's not, yeah, I think the ban shell, like you said, it's a different venue. So if that ban's come in there on a Wednesday night, you know, it's usually an organized event that's going to happen there. Let's see that that's so much of an issue. Peaveyne, we had a lot of conflicts about it? No, we haven't. That was the question I asked after we proposed this. And I asked that to Mark and of others. And he said, no, not really. We don't really see that. So go ahead. I thought Kelly said you were currently reserving it. You just weren't getting money for it. You were reserving it. No, she said we reserve it and she puts a sign out. She goes out on Saturday, puts a sign that says reserved. But it means absolutely nothing. And she doesn't get paid and there's no money exchange. There's no money exchange. But it's still a first come. Technically it's still a first come, first serve. You're doing it now, I'm not getting paid for it. Yes. I thought I thought it was a good idea. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I see both of those locations as fine if we're already offering reservations. Why not have some revenue from it? But also if a group knows we want every second Sunday of May, we want to host our big family reunion gathering. They can always set that date and reserve it. It's kind of a nice thing. And maybe more people would take advantage of it if they knew it was an option. Sounds good. Yeah, right now the reservation is just a board that goes up and says it's reserved. There are no contact numbers. There's no information. It's just reserved. The idea was with a fee, we would actually have a reservation permit, if you will, that would show that it's actually reserved by this individual. And if there are any problems, any issues, give this number a call. So there's a little more, another element to it if there was a fee assessed. Right now, I mean, Teresa's right. We are going out. She's spending half an hour or whatever it is going up. But the sign up, we're not making anything on it at all. And it's costing us half an hour worth of pay. But right now, we're also not policing it as closely as we would. In my opinion, if we had this and we had an actual reserved card with the person who has reserved its name on it and all the contact, there would be more involved in by the town if there's any issues. So the workload could actually go up? It could, yes. In certain circumstances. Yeah, now again, I don't know if there's a huge issue with it. I don't know if people are knocking down the door to use the ban shell every Friday. I don't know. About the recreation center, and at some point wherever it is, the center is going to get a larger goal or at some point it's going to be here around. Right. You know, bring out it's mostly the seasonal establishment. But I thought that was kind of a little bit of a jump. So that is a jump to what Randolph charges. It's right on par with what they charge. Again, it could be a slower rise if you propose it. I mean, it could stay where it's at. What we're trying to do is again, the swimming pool loses money. It's going to lose money no matter what. That's just the way it is. It was just this was just an attempt to kind of close that gap a little bit and get us on par with some of our neighbors. It is basically. Our labor cost grew up now two over 20 years ago. Sure. And I don't know when the last time the raids were raised out there for the pool. I think it's been quite a while. We actually raised the rates at the pool a couple of years ago. But it wasn't a significant increase. It was slight modifications. And the recommending was here at the time that proposed the rates. I can't remember why they determined the rate. Our rates are significantly lower than Randolph's. And there was a reason for that. I think they feared membership there due to, I think, at that time Randolph had a larger schedule. It was more open and there was a reason for that. They went from, I think, the 60 and used to a free set of lessons. And now we get like a reduced amount on less than that kind of thing. Mine, but if I'm going to mention it in between. Another change that actually didn't get here that we're proposing is there's a different fee for resident and non-resident. And we're proposing that we eliminate that. We're trying to pull people from different towns, non-residents. We're trying to pull them into our pool. I don't really want to feel that I need to penalize them for being out of town. That's kind of the idea. Others may think that if you're non-residents, you're not paying you taxes to help support this pool in the first place. So that's why you pay it. Would you sort of level out? It would be the same. The idea is to be the same. Again, we're kind of following what Randolph has done, their model. They eliminated a few years ago. They eliminated the resident and non-resident. Right. I guess I'm asking right now there's a differential between resident and non-resident. Eliminating that. Right. But which rate would you be going with? We would be going with the resident. Yeah. What about the non-tax revenue? Yes, I have. I was wondering, what is the benefit of really wanting to get out of these facilities? Is it about putting the town together and having people come down to the need? Or is it trying to get a little extra revenue, which is really, I think, going to be tremendous when it's all said and done. And there's a danger that we're alienating. When people come down and see half of Randolph's own market, or people, I think, Randolph charges for their gun range, and we know it's the people who want to Randolph to come over and use our guns. Right at the end of the day, these costs are not covered. Taxpayers are still paying for these facilities. To draw a notice station between someone who comes from out of town and does not pay taxes, and somebody who lives here and who should enjoy the property, doesn't make sense to me. And I understand we need to raise revenue in the town. I'm not sure raising the pool fee is going to get us where the town needs to be. Well, the intent of raising the rates of the pool is not to fund my entire town. It's to good, good, qualified lifeguards. To pay for them is somewhat themselves. I'm not going to build a road off of pool revenues I'm going to make. That's not the idea. It's just to try to close a large gap and make it function. We all know that the pool is not going to be self-sustaining ever. But if it can also not be a large burden financially on the town and the taxpayers. Well, is there a danger that you lose that some people in town actually drop off? That's true. There may be. You may very well be right. I don't know. And that's why we're talking about this. If this is a good idea or not. If we did that, I think that would mean change. Right. But I mean, you're talking right now it costs you $40. Is that what it is? $60 for a family of six to swim all year long. That's $10 per person. Lifeguards make on average $12 an hour. So it's just an attempt to try to stop a little bit of the bleeding. Now, I don't know if an increase. A doubling of the rate is probably excessive. I mean, it sounds like that's kind of the consensus here. And we can leave it where it's at. But these are all just proposals to try to stymie some of the issues that we're having. I know that increasing the rate is not going to fund other items in town. It's not going to even cover the cost of the pool. It's just to try to make it as self-sustaining as possible. Now, if it's maybe possible, or maybe true that maybe an increase of 20%, 15%, maybe that will put a lot of people off. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It seems to me that if I'm paying $10 for my son to swim for an entire summer season, I'm OK with that. And that's what it is. A family pass is $60. And that's up to six people. I just wanted to pull the folks back on. If I get to do that, because at the end of the day, I think it's around me. And focus on, these are assets that, with the time of the second benefit, there's a variety of non-monetary benefits including your townspeople together in a recreational environment where they can actually talk about things and bond. And that, to me, far surpasses whatever that's an outsider to me. No, I think everything that you gather has about a point where we do have to be careful on.  A lot of these things haven't been touched.  Things change a little bit, so maybe we should take advantage a little bit on the revenue into the things with someone. But I think that the intent with the board would be to continue to have it be a resident focus pool. Is there some way that you can cross check against other programs in town and provide passes for people that otherwise couldn't afford the pool? Great. I think there's some opportunities that, again, in our society, there's an opportunity here for some of the fee skenders to go up. There's probably a different, you know, maybe the body raising the fee schedule. Maybe there's an opportunity to have a free swim night more often to bring more people down rather than once a year or whatever it is right now. So I think there's some opportunities. I personally think that, and again, this is just a conversation piece. I think the doubling is way too far. I don't know what the rate should be. It's 30 down. So it's 60. It should be $40 or should it be $25? Even if it should be $35, it should be $30. But I do think that we probably ought to keep a, there ought to be a benefit for being, whatever that fee difference is, $20 or $10 or $100 in the past. I don't know. I mean, I personally would probably like to get some more information in regards to the recreational fee structure and maybe some guidance from the record department on we did raise fees, would we lose membership or if we did raise fees, if there's some opportunities to open up some other events that might pull more people out of the land and put out an answer or something. Because they're not changing forward with that. From looks of our budget that ended July 1st, we didn't seem to be running out of deficit. So evidently we're, from last year, I'm not certain our budget is this year offhand, but we didn't seem to lose money last year at the rate we got now. And I know right now, in the time that I had, it seems like almost every time that they honest with you there's someone that never had a pool pass. And I can tell you that a few people that have seen like pool pass in there, do you and I, $30 is probably not a whole lot of money, but I can tell you that a couple of times I saw it was $30, so people had to think about it. Yep. So tell me what happened over the last couple of weeks. It seems to me that in adjacent property, it's going to be a building of a construction shortly. And maybe there's an opportunity for the new owner of that adjacent property to enhance the rec center as a normal course in improving their property. Yes, I know. It would be like a pseudo-sponsorship program. There's always those types of opportunities. The day I outside the house. Well, the only one I was looking at was the water baby blessings session. Do we have a lot of, is that a single, that's a one-on-one session as opposed to that? I don't know. I don't know what the water baby, I just know it's in.  It's, it's. It's a parent child thing, isn't it? I think so, yeah. It's what? I think it's like a parent child. Right, but I'm not sure that, because yeah, I'm not sure what, is it a one-on-one, though? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. That's a very multiple. Multiple people attending at the same time. As opposed to the water baby per class. There's another one on here for water baby lesson per class. Maybe they're giving you a package deal. Right, there's a, there's a session. A session right first. Which is, a session is multiple weeks, multiple classes, and then there's an individual class. Yeah. Yeah, they do all the lessons by session, which is, I don't know, four weeks or something like that. Well, I want to say that maybe the, my recommendation would be for the record committee to look at some of the structures. I mean, just some things, you know, I would think that whenever you came up with it, the water baby lessons would be at least the same as the daily path, some of the sort of instruction. Well, I'll be attending the rec meeting, was it Thursday night? And I don't know if you've ever seen it, but you know, maybe if you have a family passed, and if you have a family passed, you get a discount on multiple lessons and they like that. Do we do that currently? There's, I believe it's a 10% discount if you have a family pass. It might be an opportunity to get more family passed than the other, in terms of law, as a swim lessons, get the knowledge for two weeks when it's passed, sometimes it takes. Yeah, we're also, we have family fun nights, which are these, they're nights for the whole family to come and do all sorts of activities and things like that.  So there is that also kind of going, there's a lot of arts and crafts and they had boat races and they have baseball and we're gonna have a luau and so what if, but there is no fee for that if you're a pass holder also. So there is that incentive, but we can definitely, I'll talk to the rec board, see what they think, see if they have any ideas of what maybe is. I know there was a few years ago I was in the National Academy, there was definitely some strong consensus on why the fee structure will be like $2. You may want to get some feedback from them on why we can or can't do that. How many were there last night? The town clerks, how much, is this all set by the state with the licenses under the town clerk? Yeah. So everything under there is set by the state. Greg, just on the rec center, when you meet with them, I'm curious if there's, and they may already sort of collect this data of resident versus non-resident and what the usage is. Is there a way for them to, throughout this summer to look at it so it could be a more informed decision? We're already doing that. Yeah, we have everybody, when they come in, they check and they check out and they, I don't know if they say if they're resident or non-resident, we can add that to it, definitely. Because what I'm trying to do is collect data to find out what our labor need is. And then that was part of this idea with this fee. We can definitely add that element of whether you're resident or not and just collect that data and see where we go. Yeah, because I think that would be my biggest curiosity to sort of your earlier point of making the resident versus non-resident the same. My first thought is, if it makes it that much more crowded that then residents are less likely to go. The whole point to me is that it's the Bethel pool. And then if we can clean a little extra revenue from non-residents using it, whether it's somebody here visiting for the summer or whether it's Randolph or a Barnard resident coming over and using it. No, we'll see if I can collect that data. Any other discussion? Who cares if the fees? We'll just stand by a little on one. Yeah. It's kind of a long document. Yeah, totally. I don't even want to talk to that. So it seems like the board's pretty good at discerning. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I also thought that we didn't change much other than being on the part of the ranch show and then putting some more information on the guys at the Rec Center. Did these fees, if we use that number, they go into effect, does that mean part of the future? Well, you would approve them and then they would go into effect after that. So there's just no, I mean, huge hurry right now, I guess. We're not seeing a lot of subdivisions coming in. That's where we were. Obviously, like the Rec Center ones wouldn't. No, not till next year. Not till next year. Yeah, because we've already sold the majority of our passes, so we're not gonna. So anything in regards to discerning town hall or people in the part of the ranch show usage, if we did go ahead and... Well, the idea is to kind of approve this in whole and not just parts and pieces of it, because that's kind of what has happened in the past. We're not seeing any significant subdivisions where we're losing. We saw a lot last year, a lot of things that were coming in, minor and major subdivisions. And it's a lot of them now, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. At the beginning of the race away, it's kind of fun. So, I mean, if this takes another few weeks to get cleared out. Again, I'm meeting with the Rec Board Thursday, so I should get some feedback from them pretty quickly. I can get it back to you soon. I'd rather approve it as an entire document. That's fine. So we'll print back on the HHSF for... Probably within two meetings, depending on what sort of idea, how quickly or how the... So would you make it for the 20th or 30th now? Just depends on what I get from the Rec Board. Yeah, the Rec Committee. It's nice to actually have a conversation about it. Maybe policy. So it's just the same as last time that you changed that and back home that you're going to do, but you want to expose marks for the utilities. So it's a tax policy that you had last time, except for... Just trying to make it for both taxes and utilities. I would entertain a motion to accept the policy procedure collection of link with tax and utilities. So moved. Second? All in favor? All right. All right. Sure. So this is just our printer for our tax maps that we get every year. This is just a contract with him to do the next year's tax maps. We do this every year, same company we did last year. He does a really good job. Just allows him to come in and use any resources we may have inside the building. Then he prints us out, I believe, two or three large maps and then the smaller maps you see in the clerk's office with all the tax information on them. So that's all this is. And the fee structure here is consistent with what we've paid about. It is, and this is what we budgeted last year or for this year, because we knew it was gonna be the same. So this is the cost. We need to have those updated every year. I think they're supposed to be updated every year. We need to just statute it or something. Yeah, because things change, new ownership, things like that, so yeah. But this, the amount was budgeted, I believe Luis budgeted the right amount pretty close. So it is in the budget. And it's just kind of something we do every year, so. I was just curious, is there a particular reason? I only said that their principal office was out of North Carolina. I didn't know if they also had a locally based office or if there was a reason we went with a company that was running away in the summer. You know, I can get you an answer to that. I don't really know Luis or Lister. She's the one who really does all the work with this guy and does all the negotiations with him. I'm not sure if he has a local officer or not but he's just, it was maybe the lowest and best that we could find, right? I'd be curious to, I'll ask her. I'll ask her why. Maybe he does all over the state if we're not. Yeah, but I'm not sure. So they just don't want to do them anymore. And so I think it's hard to find people to specialize in them. I've seen other towns that utilize them and he does all over the state. Whether, maybe he used to be here and then moved, I think he comes back and does them. So he has some ties, possibly. I can find out, I would be curious to know too. He definitely does several, he does a lot of towns in the law. Yeah, and it was more, sometimes there's a lot to be said for sticking with somebody who already knows your system. It's more efficient, but it was just a curiosity. I think, like I said, a lot of local surveyors don't want to get into the property tax map business because it's... Yeah. And he's done it for, I think, at least the last two years that I've been around. And so this will be the next year. So, but that's a good question. I can find out more. Cool. Does he review all the property transfers and then adjust them out? Yes, so he comes in, that's what this kind of talks about. He's allowed to come in free of charge to do records requests and look through all of our records and all that without us charging him anything to do that. So that's part of what this contract allows for. He and Louise were pretty closely together. She updates him on all the changes and makes them happen on paper. Does it feel like that, word-wise, that the clients, $2,675 to have this service and yearly for a local source with an option? Or is it... We should say that. I'm not sure if we're gonna... This bill is for the last year. We already have the tax maps. So, I think it's meant for, because that should be saying, asking that you and I got coding it to the budget. You know, because I'm a 68-year-old, so we have these tax maps. The way it's written is he has it for two years, too. It's from 17 to 19. Oh, so today must have already... Oh, she said that the select were already approved for this once. Yes, so this is essentially for next year. Yeah, so about the next year, have her do the whole thing out. When you saw this last year, it was for two years, but the amount was just... It was a little confusing. It was for two years, but the amount he was asking was for one year, for that current year. But it's just for the second year. I have no issue with going forward with it as it's in this one. We do have a purchasing policy now that we... And it even stipulates that we go out to a bid process, and we can do that next year. We can go out to a formal bid to see what we get. But no problem with that whatsoever.  On the bid next year. Oh, I thought this is for next year. This is for 19, which is kind of next year. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, because it says the completion of each map update 2018 and April 18 and April 19. The new maps just came out. Okay, so that's a... So this will be for the next set of maps. Okay. So after April 19, then we could... Right. Mm-hmm. Go out to bid. Yeah, I'll see what's out there. Okay. Yep, that's wrong. And I would entertain a motion to approve Russell graphics in the department of that. Second. I'm doing it right here, yeah. The map in the background. Yeah. So we proposed a 2% cost of living, and then a 1% merit. So that's what everybody else was kind of running off of. Yeah, so 3% total. And the motion. I move that we use... Second, I think he's on vacation. Yeah, no, I've got to keep... What was that big vacation? I'll give them tomorrow. I have a key too. Both of them, one more thing's not working either. Trust me, there's somebody in town that's told me many times. We're working on that. We're working on some fixed location ones that are silver powered through a grant. We're all waiting to get the money. Just waiting on the grid? Waiting on the money, and then we'll go out and go buy some. And one more thing you want to be on by the school, which is a hot location, be a fixed location with a silver panel on the top so that it runs, and we'll have to worry about the batteries dying. And then, I don't know where else, but it'll be nice to have something like that. But I will fix the batteries and put new ones in tomorrow. Before or after the pool? Well, it's probably before. Fix the light in? Yeah, yeah. Town may need to be forwarded. Yeah, so my report is in your packet. Just a couple of little highlights here. I sent everybody some information. We're looking at doing a planning study and a grant through the state. I know we've done a lot of different planning documents in the past. I just sent that out so I can kind of start to gather any information or any ideas from any of you or anybody else for types of planning grants that you might be interested in seeing. I've gotten, Mo has given me a couple ideas, plus I had a couple of my own, but I would like to hear if there are any ideas for any types of potential planning grants that you would be interested in seeing in town. Have you touched faces with the plan submission or they'd be able to help at all? I haven't touched faces with them, but I can. Do you get to reach out to them? Yeah, yeah. I haven't gotten to their meeting yet, so. But if there's any ideas that you may have, just let me know. The town hall painting, so I have been in contact with the painters. They're still on track to get it done by the, or at least start by the end of July, finalizing the actual contract documents. For them, so that we can get them under contract soon, like real soon. But as far as I know, barring some unforeseen issue, they should be here in July, the end of July. Worst case, in July. Just start working on that. Should take them, that'll be a full scraping it down and repainting it with a few coats of paint. And then doing the white all the way to the top, so it'll be from the bottom, by the bell tower all the way up. So I'm gonna do the whole thing. And then we'll just have to find somebody who wants to recreate the equal on top, because that fell out the wind blew that off and it broke it. So the question, is this going to address the future problem? It doesn't. Well, according to Benjamin Moore, it will. So they're giving us, we sent out, before I started, the previous manager had sent out the specs and the material that they thought it was, and we assumed that it is. And the paint is supposed to hold up to that and there's an issue with weeping, they think, through the flashing material. That's something that these painters are gonna, hopefully, that we've talked to them about it, that they're gonna address that issue too. So there was concern and there was kind of two things going on. It was the paint was failing because of the type of metal and the paint wasn't the adequate paint. And there was actual kind of weeping coming in from failure in the flashing material. Right, because this was done in a not too recent past. Yeah. But we got here for not that long. Yeah, you're right. And I'm sure. What you were saying about, since we made it out, we're all working on it, so we know what we're doing. Well, I was in touch with the Ben Moore guy. He was one of my Ben Moore contacts. So I got him hooked up with Keith and he came out and they voluntarily came up, took chips and did investigations and tried to analyze what was going on with the paint and then suggested obviously their product that could be used to rectify the situation. Can we get them to warranty if they can use this in an advertisement? I was trying to get them to pay for the paint. But I don't think we've gone that direction yet. But yeah, I think that would have to be part of the contract. I would assume that to be a warranty. I think there's been a lot more discussion in regards to the painting of the tower this time around than there was probably the initial time. Now, will 100% correct the issue and not come back again? I think it's like any other thing, probably we live in Vermont. So I don't know, six years now we might be talking about painting the tower again. I don't know how long it's been last. We didn't get any guarantee of this is the last year, 15 years type thing. So we hope that it lasts longer than it did last time. Is there any opportunity? Is the historical society committee still around? Emotional? They are. Or I'm sorry, the town hall committee. It must be. I think it's really just a sample. Is that right? Yeah. So I wonder if there's any opportunity for a grant or? We have a grant. Any money's debt. We're getting historic structures right now. You're going to talk maybe? Oh, for the, that thing was made of almost paper from the shade. It was kind of fiberglass, I think, or something. I don't know who. Is there any opportunities for donations to get a nice brass one or copper or something that would be last longer? I think you can stop and see. Yes. Maybe a one. Yeah. Because it's technically Dave and Nick, I don't know what it is, but I think Nick hasn't had the energy or time or something. Right. I'll stop and see and maybe get something together with that address. Okay. So Water Master Plan is about 95% done. It's been sent to the state and myself to review. We're hoping to have that finished within the next couple of weeks. It looks really nice. It's got, like I said, it's got the current system. It shows like it gives us a capital improvement plan. It talks about the lifespan of what we have. It categorizes the median by three different categories. Gives us a timeline to mediate and then there's intermediate, which is five or 10 years. And so it spills everything out really nice. Talks about our hydraulic issues that we have. Talks about the modeling that was used. So pretty thorough document. Has a lot of the stuff in it that I wanted to see. We've met with, Tim and I met with the state and our engineer on this. I had about 90% review two weeks ago and everybody was impressed even the state. So we're really kind of just waiting to hear back from the state at this point and their wheels move a little slowly. But as soon as we get them, get them on board, we'll have a finished document and then we can start looking at a capital improvement plan for the water system that we can put together and start figuring out how to fund it. So I know before we were talking September, October, we were hoping to have everything back. Oh, easily. So it sounds like we'll have it back sooner than that. I think so. I mean, if the state could kind of move on and I think we'll be ready to go within a month, I think it'll be a finished document within a month. It's finished and approved by the state. And then next steps really are figuring out funding to address the issues. Yeah, well, we'll put together an actual capital improvement plan. So with this year and then out years and then yeah, how are we gonna fund it? Because the hope was to have the plan together and it was budgeted for the... It'll be ready for the budget. 19, 20 budget, so, yep. And is, are there opportunities in terms of grants or other sources of funding that this document can help us with those or is it really just all internal? There are grants that the state provides that we can look at that will, one of the prerequisites would be to have the water master plan done. The main reason, I will tell you, the main reason we're doing it is because our operating permit that allows us to actually provide water requires it. So we didn't have a choice. We needed it anyway, we really did, but we didn't have a choice. So what'll happen technically, as far as the state sees it, the next step is that we pick up a project and then we go and start doing engineering and design. And we've already got our application, we've actually already got approval from the state for a state revolving fund loan, which is a, I believe it's gonna be a 0% interest loan, long-term loan that would allow us to fund one or two or however many of these projects that we fill fit until we could find other ways to fund or put money in a capital plan or whatever. So the money is, the grant, or not the grant, but the loan funds are kind of sitting there waiting for the finalization of this and then the board to pick a project. Anyway, we go. Yeah. Bridge 33, which is Lillieville Bridge, I don't know, High Bridge, Tidwell-Hussell-Hentanyms. It has, there's a wing wall we've had issue with, we got a structures grant, we've actually received two structures grants, one for engineering and one for the construction. Finalizing the design on that, the project will go out to bid next week. So we're hoping within the next few months we'll have that project finished up and have it done. Like I said, we've got a structures grant, we've already been approved. The money has been budgeted for this year for our match. So we just gotta get the work done.  But we'll make it work, we'll make it work. Did you get your easements all straightened around? I did. Yeah, I did. We had a small easement that we had to get. It was just a maintenance easement that we had to get. We talked to the owner, didn't have any issue with it at all. We just have to put together the document, have them sign it for the easement. So not a big kick at all. So no cost with that other than just reporting fees. So the project should be, if you're good to go, we'll get that thing fixed up and abridge the last row. Road crews have done a lot of tree trimming and picking up trees. We've been seeing a rash of trees falling down. I don't know why. I don't know if it's the wind or I don't know. If there's been a lot of trees down. So the guys have been busy doing that. They finalized that project out on, at least the portion that's refundable out of the four corners area, that part is all done. We met our threshold with the state. I will be putting together our cost estimate and our reimbursement request for that, hoping to get the funds back in two, three weeks for that. There's still some more work to be done there, but it's outside the scope of that project. It's something that we would have done anyway. Some retaining, we had some barricades that we need to put in and some grading of the roads. So that'll get done in the next few weeks, but the rock lining and the culverts and all that has all been done. Looks really nice. State was real happy with it. So yeah, should be seeing the money coming back from that in the next month or so. Other than that, we're just trying to stay cool. Any questions? There was also, it was the end of the fiscal year budget, staff report. Does that take period 12 long? Usually I don't even remember to put them in your packet, but I think it's time. Does this take period 12 at the top, Mom? Yeah. Period 12? Yeah. Okay, so there's super, super preliminary numbers. You have 60 days, any money or expenses that come in that will go back in this fiscal year. I'm still working on end of the year audit stuff, so they're just really preliminary numbers at this point. Everybody wouldn't put me stock into it and I haven't even had a chance to review those yet. Usually you see my initials on them and obviously they're not. So you'll see a little bit, I know Chris, you're anxious to see how we're gonna turn out and projections and all that. So we'll concentrating right now putting tax bills out tomorrow and then we'll see a little bit as it comes in. But I think you're gonna, our hope is that everybody lands where they're supposed to. Certainly, since September, everybody's been coding their own bills and really realizing that there's a bottom line there. So for our first meeting in August, we'll probably have everything backed by then. Possibly, I mean they give you 60 days, but yeah, I will have made all my audit entries for that. Yeah, you heard? So. It was a fourth Monday in August, we can. Yeah, so we'll have that final line. Oh yeah, you'll be, yeah. What would be nice to do is have a dummy down version that we can present to the public. Maybe just kind of an estimated revenue versus actual revenue, budget-based and same for the cost. And then maybe separate out any, let's say any state-funded products that came in after the fact. We could see some grant. Cost versus revenue on that. If the revenues haven't come yet, maybe what we're anticipating. And then a line item for collected back taxes. So I mean it would just be nice to see what our true budget was. Exactly. For estimated versus actual revenue and cost. Any extras, any extra grants or stuff that we took advantage of after that. Sure. Yeah, because by then we should have anything that's outstanding. Greg's always really good about repositioning his money right away. So is Mark, I can't really think of any big outstanding that anybody else is running right now. So I think within 60, it's usually the state's pretty good if you get it in. So yeah, we definitely have a better idea. But those are, like I said, I haven't even looked at those numbers that you're holding. Very preliminary, so. Like for 3D men, so let me turn the attention to, Lisa does have sheep going. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's a comma missing. I think she's got a four. I'll make a motion. Can we accept the minutes from 6.25? Second. All favor. I think there was a solid waste forward. It's gotta be amended a little bit. I haven't got an idea right now. There's a couple things in there that needs to be amended that weren't actual happening down there in the minutes. One of them was the, it was stated that the money coming from Green Lantern was going to the solid waste facility, which it isn't, it's divided between the two towns. And the other thing was we voted to approve Green Lantern, and it was voted down, and it said it was tabled, but it was voted down. The voting in the Green Lantern down was. 3, 4, 2 against. Being your, your solid waste board. Yeah, solid waste board's involvement. Right, but it was, as you know, that's not a, that we're just a tenant, so what we, what we say doesn't melt anything. That was all I could see that was different in that that should have be, it's gotta be changed. Yeah, and this is sort of what you said, but my one question was the line that tax money from the project goes to the town of Royalton, but lease money goes to the transfer station. Right. And that just seemed a little odd. It doesn't go, that's what I'm saying. That's gotta be corrected because it doesn't go to the facility, it goes to the towns. And the other one was, there was support, I think, they were asking for the joint board to support. Right, which I just said, yeah. Okay, yeah, they said it voted down, but then it said it was voted down and then tabled. That's fine. Or, yeah, which is not, it was, it wasn't. You don't take, you don't vote something down and tabled that. So I've got a question about some of the other committee. Yeah. Greg, we talked about having the rec committee come in, talk about the skateboard again. Yeah, so they, I had asked them to come into this meeting and they were a little hesitant because they wanted to meet themselves before, and they meet tomorrow. No, they meet Thursday. And I'm going to that meeting also. So they, we will have them on the agenda at the next day, the 23rd, 23rd, they'll be, they'll be here for that to discuss this skateboard. And the energy committee, it doesn't seem like we've heard anything from them in six months or more, maybe. I think it was maybe before the meeting, even. Yeah, I think there was momentum a little bit. I think they, I think they had a couple only two members that were pretty active and I think that that slowed down a little bit. Well, we had approved seven grand for a matching study of some kind.  Right, and it has a gunny word. I talked with Jose a little bit and did so and they really had a lot of activity going on with anything, but I can touch paces with them and see, it's time for me to get back out. Every, I don't know, four or five months I try to make it to all the meetings. I won't do that again. I'll start making it around there really as meetings and kind of see where we're at this time. I don't even know if they're having meetings. I don't think that they are. I know the appendices that meetings have been down. Yeah. I know that the vision committee is kind of spotted to have a slow crawl that's pointing to only two active numbers. Right. So. Well, on the record, it's the same way. The answer is four now, three. Maybe it might be time to put another advertisement in the paper about getting active in the committees and community type things. And maybe just listen to the committees that have openings because the involvement hasn't quite been there in the past. The only active one we've seen is the conservation commission. They seem to be meeting regularly and giving us a report. Well, I can do another round if you'd like me to with just a participating in your town, your early committees. Maybe even asking the individual committees to put together sort of, I don't know if it's a flyer or just a little blurb about what it is they do but sort of sell themselves and then give that to you to then put out if that might, because I think especially people newer to the town that don't know what committees do wouldn't add in the paper that just says, join the energy committee, might not mean anything or resonate with them or is it they learn a little bit about what the energy committee is doing or about then they might be more excited. Okay. I think we were looking for an update from the planning commission too, Chris. Yeah. Maybe try to catch up with them and maybe next Wednesday, so. I think they, as well, they had some change here in the guards there and I don't think they're a flyer or an awesome one but I don't think they're a flyer or an awesome one. They need to have something done by. But their main thing right here, right? Yeah. Their main thing now is working on the questionnaire. And I think they got that survey completed. We have the survey at the office right now. It's done. I think the impacts from, because they usually send it out in fall. So that we had to. But we've got a survey at the office that they completed. That's, I think that's from. So. What's one of the things that happened though, is that confirmation? Yeah, the one we have at the office is, the one we have at the office, I think is the planning commission. Okay, I know. That's their question. We have a shelf and something going on in the tax bills. I haven't seen that one. You think that one might want to go out on the tax bills too? Excuse me? I don't want to go out on the tax bills too. Yeah. Isn't that something? One of them is, but I don't know. That's the same one. That's the planning commission. I just seen them fold it. I have not read it. I don't know what it is. It's just the, that's the money. Okay. Survey. Yep. Any other business? I do. So we had an issue over the fourth July weekend with an animal that was left in the trailer and the gospel took the animal and had it taken to a vet emergency place to be checked out. It was super hot in the place it was in. So anyway, the dog is now in a main society and the person who owns the dog has been given a ticket. So they, in order to get the dog back, they have to pay the fine and the boarding costs and the fee when we first took the dog and take it to the emergency if you will. This individual has some financial issues and it's more obvious that there's some financial issues there. And so they have asked that I come to the board and ask the board if they would be willing to either waive in whole or at least in part the emergency fees that we incurred from this dog. The total for the small animal emergency and specialty vet was it's $527. And this individual is currently required to pay 100% of that. So, but they asked me to come and talk to the board and see if the board would be willing to compromise either way of that in whole or in part. So I told them I would do that and with no, not making any promises of any kind, but I would bring it up and see what you thought about it. This individual is trying to move away I think save some money to move away and this is going to significantly damper that ability to move out of the way. In whole this could be close to $1,000 by the time they pay for all the fees and they're living at about $1,000. So I'm asking for any discussion any ideas you might have, yes or no, no way. Yes, I'm fine with that, whatever. The bill is $527 and do you feel that any sort of compromise is more? What were the circumstances of the? I can't get into too much of it. That's why I'm really trying to think before I talk right now. Okay. Which is hard for me to do. So it was just hot. Well, as far as our possible goes, he did everything in accordance to. Yes, he followed state statute. Your signature. Yeah, he, yes he did, legally he did. There was a complaint. He checked out the situation, there was enough circumstance, it was 95 degrees outside. And he forced his way into the premises, I don't know if it's locked or not, but got him, got the dog to fill up to the emergency, the dog emergency room. And it kind of fell open there. And this isn't somebody that there's been known incidences with before. And I'm assuming Mark would have known that if he's got calls about this. There was this dog. No, I don't think he wasn't aware of any other incidences with this owner of this dog. Was the trailer opened up for ventilation or was it just airtight? Yes, the windows were open. Okay. I don't, that's a whole other thing. It was hot outside. Mark had enough probable cause in his mind to take the dog. The reason I asked is like a dog in a car with the windows up when it's hot out. You know, I was wondering if it was just a stifling area where there wasn't any air coming in. So we utilized the state police. They have an officer who is kind of a specialist in dogs, I guess. Mark utilized him after the fact to kind of, you know, justify what he did. And the officer said, yeah, he felt that the dog was in imminent danger too. Was? Was, was. Yes. And I've seen Mark in action a couple weeks ago, my kids and I were getting a scream down there and it was a dog that was in the car when the windows were up.  So when he probably could have been justified by riding on a doe and causing people to stop, you know, knowing Mark, I'm sure he did everything that he could possibly have done. Yes. He had a complaint with the owner. Was there some trouble? However, you know, when you have a pet, you know, different than a child, there's responsibilities and, you know, I'm speaking for myself anyways. I mean, you have a responsibility and, well, he was within his rights for a state wall to do what he did. Was this a travel trailer or? I think so. Okay. I think so. That makes a difference too. I think it was. I don't know all the details of it, but I believe it was. So anyway, just not, I'm not gonna take any questions for any comments right now, just because I just want to keep it at the board level in regards to this request, you know, not saying that what you have is not valid, but I just want to keep it at the board level on this. So our, our ordinances as well as state statute says that when a dog is taken, it is a responsibility of the owner to pay the fees, whatever fees that would be, whether that's fines or fees or whatever, it is their responsibility to pay that. That's understood. The idea here is that this is more of a financial hardship. And I'm not petitioning one way or another, I'm just giving it to you. They had asked me to discuss this with you and I told them I would bring it up and see where it goes. I'd say our statutes say that they're responsible and that makes them responsible to pay any else. That's a tough precedent for us if we make an allowance here, it opens a door that we might not want to open. I agree. It's unfortunate, but. I understand. Thank you. Any other comments, have any more comment now? We just, I didn't just want to have. I was just in case. I was gonna ask the person who had it still that you'd work it off. Yeah. I just, you know, some of these cases that you've had anything else before the board? How do you want that noted in the notes, just to pull it away that one is responsible for the cost? Yeah. All right, I will, at this time, I'll entertain a motion to go into executive session. Yes, we will. So move. Seconded.