I read it's 5.30 we'll call the regular select board meeting to order first on the agenda is public comment. This is anything that's not on the agenda currently. Hi, this is, this is Josh. How you doing. Good to see all of you. I wanted to just mentioned. Some of the work that the working communities challenge whatever valley team has done. And we, we completed our planning phase recently and submitted an implementation grant. And I have a summary document that I'll send around to all the select board members tomorrow. So I'll refrain from going over the whole thing. But we worked, you know, the summary of, you know, we worked with individuals from communities all across the way River Valley over the last several months. We have individuals from Braintree, Bethel Brookfield, Chelsea, Granville, Hancock, Pittsfield, Randolph, Royalton, Rochester, Sharon, Stratford, Stockbridge and Tunbridge. And, you know, we came up with a vision for the proposal. And we are going to be interviewing with the jury from the steering committee on October 23. We are one of eight teams that were awarded planning funds. And so hopefully we'll find out in November, what the outcome is. And that makes certainly put some challenges into our work. And, but I think, overall, you know, bringing so many people together over so many communities for the first time ever was was successful. And we, we have some some activities that were in the, that were still in the planning phases that we're looking to execute over the next couple months to use up the residual planning funds and to help increase the collaborative nature that we've taken this approach with to with a goal of really identifying collaboration in the valley and working towards, you know, making things happen and identifying us as a, as a region. So, I just wanted to give you guys that quick update. We didn't put together our summary here in quick enough time to get on the agenda, but it was important for me to give you guys a little update on where we are and what the future holds of the working community's challenge waiver team. Thank you. Just for the minutes, we have Devin that just signed on. Can we get a last name. That's not the right name. This is Emery Mathias administrative assistant. Okay, the hat must have thrown me. And we have the 3903 number that called back in. We could get a name on that please. If you're giving us your name you're on mute. We're not going to get any cooperation there. So, let's move down to approval agenda. I move that we approve the agenda. I'll second that. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. Stained motion carries consent calendar. This is meeting minutes. From September and warrants. The, my apologies. The date for under consent calendar for meeting minutes should actually be 17. Those are the minutes that the select board has already approved September 10. So it should be September 17. Move to approve. I'll second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries. New business. The first item is a candidate review for the Orange Southwest school district board. I assume that's what it's here for. Yes, we do have members of the school board. I believe Lane is on the call just in accordance with state requirements. The board is required to at least consider a candidate that is proposed for appointment and you have received the candidates material and Lane is on the call to share more about the candidate. I can give folks a little overview and try to answer any questions that that you may have. Paul Parsons, who's served on the Orange Southwest school board for the last six years and has represented Randolph has resigned. And on behalf of myself and the OSSD board, we want to thank him for six years of service with his resignation. We advertise the opening and received one response. And so we're seeking input from the select board as we consider the appointment of Megan Salt to Paul's open position. If she is appointed, she would serve in that position until the end of Paul's term in March of 2021. She's a graduate of RUHS and lives on Crab Apple Ridge in Randolph. She worked in various positions at Gifford Medical Center from 2007 until 2020. She is currently a marketing specialist for the National Life Group in Montpelier. She possesses an associate's degree in behavioral science, crisis victim advocate, and as a tobacco treatment specialist. Recently, last year, she volunteered to help run the tobacco cessation program at Randolph Union High School and is thought of highly by the high school staff. And I'm happy to try to answer any questions folks may have. There was a flurry of activity out on Facebook today and yesterday centered mostly around days that the schools open and when are they going to go to more than two days and whatnot. And in that it came out that the select board was going to be considering this tonight, and there was a whole lot of angst about we didn't know there was an opening and be known we would have been applying and whatnot so I'm not sure how this got advertised but do you feel like there was a process open enough by which parents impacted by the various schools would have known. There was an open or not the various right they have to be from Randolph, but the parents in Randolph would have known this opening was out there and had an opportunity to submit interest. Yeah, not only was it discussed that our school board meetings it was published in the paper. It was published a month or two back. And we had to wait a little while after the closure of that that opening I think we had it open for about 10 days which was what was required, because we had to wait for the legislature to determine the process for ensuring how to submit a person kind of midterm as we're attempting to do here with Megan. So I'm sure there's probably recent recent interest at this point in time but this position was open properly about about a month and a half or so ago. I assume that I'm a parent or an interested person and I don't tune into the school board meetings and I don't buy the paper how else might I was it in a parent newsletter or anything like that. Yes. So if they got their newsletter they should have known. And one of the things that I found in coming into the district. Early on one of the big discussions I had was about the best way to communicate with the members of the district and buy and far their comments were the local paper. That's what what they read that's what they check. Any questions. Comments thoughts. I'm fine with what's going on I'd make a motion if you want it. I'd make a motion to recommend that they put Megan salt on the school board. The remainder of the term. Second that. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Motion carries you have a new member a new recommendation. I think thank you very much for taking the time today. Can I just say for the record that they're on the school member who's leaving his last name is putting. Yeah. Oh sorry sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. No that's that's my bad it's been a long six months. And I know Paul very well they've worked very closely with him. Great. Up next is new business under new businesses town policies. First is a proposed time policy. Sorry I muted myself and I. Never thought I would do that but I was muted. Sorry everyone. The the nexus of the calm time policy came from a conversation that started between Cliff and I several months ago. We had discussed a way to potentially improve the quality of life of our salaried employees. Based on existing policies that exist for our hourly employees and several of our departments. What we came up with was a potential for allowing staff that work you know for example. I'll give a wreck director for example. She puts in a great amount of hours outside of the standard 80 per pay period and you know many of the managers and directors do but.  So we're attempting to find a way to allow the salaried employees to keep track of the extra hours that they put into their work. And potentially use that calm time as calm time first. Before they start using vacation time. One of the strategies that or one of the options that we have is to not necessarily make this calm time not not attach any value monetary value. So that it is encouraging to staff to use the time to improve their quality of life, but not become a financial drain to taxpayers who are understanding that we hired somebody on a salary, which now sometimes leads to more than 40 and 80 hours in the paper. So just some background on this from the state side of it when we have folks that are in management positions. We cap them out the same value. We're allowed to take 80 hours of of comp time for work we do above our 40 a week. But that's for the full year. And then last we can only carry it for six months beyond the end of the fiscal year. And it has to be pre approved. So, when we have a major event like Irene, believe it or not, those of us that are in management positions, we only got 80 hours extra for those type of activities. So, the 80 hours is a standard for for how the state looks at this if anybody's looking for a comparison. Is the six month the six month cap. After the end of the fiscal year what what you would recommend it also that we consider. I think that works well we're trying to remain as good as consistent as possible with models that are out there. I think the model that Trini talks about on the state level works great so this way if there's ever an issue we can always rely on consistency and models that already exist. You know the nail that sticks out gets hammered is one of those, you know, exists out there but in this case, we want to make sure that if, if something is in place with the state that we can, we can try to mimic our policy to that so that there's less. There's less of a divergence and there's less of an issue with us creating a violation with HR regulations. Yeah. Adelpho, could you explain the last sentence in the longer paragraph. Let me get up here. So, what we're trying to again do is, I'm assuming pat that you, you mean the, however accumulated and unused. Yeah. Yeah, what we're trying to do is we're trying to encourage the use of the time and not the ongoing banking of the time. So we're trying to not attach any monetary value to it. So in other words, staff can't then say well I banked 80 hours of calm time. The town needs to pay me 80 hours worth of work. So we're trying to essentially say there's no monetary value attached to this time. We want to make sure that people use it and its intent is to be used for. You know, for just to be away from work to recharge batteries as opposed to I'm comping all this time so that I'm paid an additional 80 hours cash value at the end of the six months or the end of the year. What what is the unless as approved used as approved leave time mean as an exception. I don't think I get it, but I just want to be clear. Can I speak to that. What that's getting at Tom is that the approved leave time means that you're taking the time off from work, and you can get paid for it for those hours are very much like using vacation time. Okay. Yep. Yeah. I don't get it. What would be a circumstance where someone might be eligible to be approved for something like that. Let's say they, you know, for example, a salary director, banks, 80, you know, whatever it's eight hours, and they want to take the use of calm time. They essentially have to they can't just disappear for a Friday and they get a three day weekend. They would have to come to their supervisor or essentially to the town manager at the time and say hey look I've got eight hours of calm time banked. I want to turn in what we have we have a leave sheet that staff turn in for whatever day they're going to be away. So essentially, when they do that, they're essentially asking for permission to use the time to be away.  If they check calm time and I approve it and turn it into finance that will trigger that employee to continue to be paid for those eight hours for that day, even though they are away on complete. So that's the approval mechanism is that their supervisor or the town manager is approving the use of calm time and also approving that the town will pay them for that day, even though they're not at work. So going the other step. What does an employee have to do. That's above and beyond what the salary that was set for that position. Look into consideration knowing they would be working different hours and whatnot like the rec director. What do they have to do to allow it to be credited towards an accumulation of calm time. We know what activity is that person going to do that then triggers them to be able to bank some portion of that 80 hours. Well, as much as possible, we, you know, a lot of a lot of this will be left to us trusting the directors to know what they're doing and to not violate, you know, the trust of their supervisors. We meet with staff regularly. And during those meetings, I learned of projects that are coming up, you know, again, using the rec example will learn that planning for soccer events are coming up. And so those are going to take extra time or a rec committee meeting is coming up and the employee is working their normal 40 hours and then has to participate in a rec committee meeting that'll last two or three hours. So it's those type of activities that we know that we can bank. We're also not, you know, something that we could continue to one thing that we can do to strengthen this is put in a clause that says any banked time must be pre approved. So then it's, it's an overt action by the employee to say, look, I'm banking these four hours. Is it an approved four hour bank? I think Trini I understand that the concern there is that there is the potential for abuse. If, if you know if we have an unethical person that just deciding they're going to bank multiple hours every week, we hope that wouldn't happen but but yeah maybe we could find a way to strengthen the content policy so that we know when people are banking comp time as opposed to just trusting them that they're banking appropriate. We currently do have a form for that adult photo to for the supervisor to sign off for the hours to go into the compound bank. We could maybe use the same form right cliff that that's for our hourly employees correct. I would say if I was a citizen looking at this that not to pick on Haiti but if you applied for that position, we probably explained that there was a rec committee and they would be expected to be at those meetings and that this doesn't be the traditional nine to five schedule. You know, lining up soccer camp or going to rec meetings I wouldn't think would classify as above and beyond what that was set. Now if you had, you know, a tournament coming to town, for example, and you had to put extra time in to coordinate that that I would think would classify as above and beyond what the job expectation was, you know when you took it in the salary was set. You know, I think when we look at it at the state level, we're looking at something that happens it's above and beyond your normal required duties. Right, so I could be in Burlington until 10 o'clock at night on a project meeting but I'm expected to be at these project meetings so that just becomes part of my normal work hours. But I can have an embankment wash away and need to go in the middle of the night to figure out how we're going to keep a road from going into the railroad or whatever. Those I can count towards accumulating my 80 hours for the year. That makes sense. Yeah, I agree that triggers that little bit of extra above. You're on you know, you've got COVID hit, and you've got to figure out how you're going to sort out summer camp and keep a certain number of kids and keep them apart and whatnot that's going to require extra hours that would trigger an above and beyond. Yeah, if you're at a or any state employee is that a let's say at a meeting until 10 or 11 at night. Midnight whatever are you anticipated to be back at your desk at nine the next morning. Okay, so, so you don't have flexibility within that.  Then you automatically fall into the time and a half so the major our employees in the town level that are not managers fall into the same category kind of as the state employees do so you get your time and a half your. You follow the normal when you get into a manager position. That's when we fall into this and I think that's what adult was looking at with this policy is our managers who are paid a salary versus a per hour rate. And they have to do something above and beyond what the scope of their job was when that salary was set. So these kind of odd off tasks that take more time than what they kind of expected they would to begin with. And so at the state level when we have things like this that happened, you have a set value which is 80 hours of comp time that you can take. There are instances where the governor will step in and then sign a document which then pays the managers for the extra time so we got into. I'm going to guess here but I bet we were six seven weeks into Irene when that document got signed. And so at that point then we were allowed to go and track out go to track hourly for those of us that were living it day and night but on an ongoing basis, it's an attempt to try to differentiate between what happened. You know when your job scope was set and your hours and your wage were put to it versus these oddball things that come in. You know, and to continue with like the the wreck example, you know, a tournament coming into town or an event taking place that's not a normal event we started a whole new thing a summer solstice event or, you know I don't know what it is. That takes extra effort, you know when they started coordinating for the winter fest, for example, that's above and beyond what was in the scope when that position was hired, and the salary was set. Right. We need some language added to this document to reflect this sort of above and beyond requirement for this time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, we just wanted to make sure that Cliff and I, if we worked on this, we're not working on something that the board was just vehemently opposed to. Now that we get a good sense of what the board understands and wants us to focus on we can certainly also the language work on it and bring it to a future meeting. Okay, it sounds good to me. Yeah. It's fair because we're asking them to give up time that they would otherwise have with their family and friends and doing things they want to do his work. There ought to be some way of recognizing that. So more time off to do that makes sense. Yeah. It needs to be as clear as possible so everybody's treated equally though. The word needs to be as clear as possible. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Thank you so much for those comments. Thank you so much for those comments. Thank you so much for those comments. We'll see that one come back. Amendments to the purchasing policy. Yes. I'll just give a quick intro and Cliff has been doing yeoman's work on this. So we have found that there are some just general issues with the purchasing policy that we've had in place for a number of years. And I think that we would introduce some amendments and. Cliff, you're still on the call. Take it away. I am here. I think the biggest thing is, you know, I think it's been about five or six years since this policy was updated. And the biggest thing is the threshold for initiating a purchase order. And what's happening is that we're getting into the realm as pricing goes up on various needs for the town. We're getting into the realm of we're having to fill out purchase orders based on this policy at $500 for what I consider routine purchases like maintenance of trucks or getting somebody out to repair some electrical circuits. And things of that nature. And the other thing that the other piece that's that's really a change is adding the end of the second paragraph by making it clear that if an employee goes out and purchases something on their own, that they're not going to get reimbursed the sales tax that town would not have paid. As I said, I think the biggest thing that I'm asking for and a lot of the changes are related to this is moving the trigger for needing a PO from $500 to $750. Given the process that you have to go through for a PO, why would we not increase that more and make it that they need manager approval to a certain level and then an official PO after that. Well, I actually would like to see it go to $1,000. I'm not sure that I would have gotten the board to go for that big of a jump. The reality here is that if you went to $1,000, we would eliminate we've made over 200 purchase orders in fiscal 2020 and fully a third of those would have gone away if we were at $1,000. And it's a fair amount of work to go through the process of generating generating the purchase order both on the department head. And do the to the legwork to get there and also on the finance department to actually generate it. I would fully support that going to $1,000 and having another level of just where the manager signs off on the invoice also. If it's a 500 to 1000. I would agree with that doesn't take long to burn up 1000 bucks in the truck repair. Now you can see the purchases right now would have expensive certain items are following COVID. Nails in a day. Cliff if I may ask how would this work with something like the arts and culture committee's proposal for the downtown mural project for which we've gotten a $6,000 challenge grant from the burn foundation. project is estimated to be $12,000. So we're trying to raise $6,000 match. But the artist has already been chosen. It says here under item four on under categories of procurement that purchases over $10,000 of taxpayer or ratepayers dollars must be subject to open competition. I think we've already fulfilled that to some degree. But I just think I think the key there Tom is taxpayer ratepayer dollars. Okay, you know, your number of things is, you know, because you're not expending taxpayer dollars, they wouldn't be necessarily subject to these. I still would like the purchase order. Yes, you indicated that to me. Yeah, from a from a management standpoint to make sure that we're not spending more money than what we've got. Right. Okay. Okay. That's pretty much what I anticipated. I just wanted to get clarification on that. Yeah. Any other comments or questions on this? What is the if we read if we increase to $1,000 what does this do to all your other values in here? I would I would move them to reflect the additional dollars and jump. Yeah, I would work through it and make sure to see the other values made sense training. Okay. Unless anybody has any opposition to that, I'd like to see the purchase order requirement be for $1,000 or more. I'm okay with that. I'm fine with that. Good for me. Me too. I will read. You are worried for nothing. What's that training? I said, see, you were worried over nothing. That's true. No faith. So with that, we'll look for another draft of that one and move on to the delinquent tax policy. Another one of yours probably clip on. Well, I started it. Yeah. This is, you know, as I worked through this and I and I actually, you know, this was my first year as delinquent tax collector. And as I applied various things, various pieces of this, going through the tax collection process and writing writing payment agreements and essentially holding people's feet to fire to make them to get them to pay. I realized that from an administrative standpoint, I didn't always necessarily like how the words were in the document. And some things weren't really clear as to how the process was going to work. And, you know, I got some pushback from some taxpayers regarding the recording of the lien on the property when the tax bill went delinquent. And some of the other things that were, you know, there was some surprise out there when I actually required payments on the payment agreements rather than a deferral. And so I wanted to be very clear that a payment requirement required monthly payments, not, hey, we'll wait until next March to pay you. And so the language, there's a lot of wordsmithing in here and some tightening up of the requirements. So when we look at the waiver we gave with the last property taxes due and we've got another tax bill coming and we haven't talked about whether we would do anything with that one yet. How does that impact a policy like that? Should it make any changes in what we do or do we just still go with the, if it hasn't been paid in a certain, does that push any dates out for you or make this more challenging? It depends on what the motion is training and what the waiver is. If you actually move the tax due date that the legislature this year or the governor's office made clear that the Select Board could do, that shifts everything down and makes the policy start from when the new payment date is. Last year the Select Board didn't move the payment date. They only said we're not going to charge you an interest in penalty for 90 days for three months. And so the clock was still ticking. They were still late but they just weren't being charged for being late. And if we change the due date then that makes it easier on you, right? Because you don't have just a delay in interest in penalties. It delays everything. The whole process kicks in at a later date than it would have if we hadn't made a motion to do anything correct? That's my interpretation of it, yes. I'm not sure if it's any easier or more difficult. It just delays you happen to do it. What's that? It just delays you happen to do it, right? That's true. Our goal is to have less in there that you have to do by giving a delay at that point. And actually this year worked pretty good. I went to Ann and Joyce this past last week after the September 30th passed and we had one page of outstanding tax bills. And they're all but one are on payment agreements. How was that compared to previous years? Well, Joyce and Ann said that they've never seen it on one page. That was better. So, I think we're in pretty good shape. And I've been chasing down people who have been missing payments and allowing letting them know that they're in default of their agreement and if they and that the collection process will continue if they don't make amends to cure the default. Yes, surprisingly, just add to what Cliff had mentioned. We found that the help given by the select board to folks really helped those that just needed the little bit of help. They still paid those that could paid on the second deadline that was issued by the board. So, we found that just in substantive conversations that we had among staff that we were not very far off where we typically are year to year with outstanding payments when all was said and done. And even though there were folks that did not pay payments, even let's say the dollar amount was still fairly high on folks immediately after the normal deadline. Those are folks that we knew were going to pay. They were just fighting their time a little bit trying to see if you know there were some some businesses that had high dollar payments that needed to be made. And as soon as the next deadline came around those payments were made so dollar value-wise we weren't really that far off and it just seemed like the select board really helped those that needed a little bit of a push. So, we're sitting here a few weeks ahead of the next payment being due. We have a new policy in front of us to consider tonight. Do we also want to consider any type of action on this round of property tax payments? Well, we haven't, Cliff, you probably would know more than I. As far as I've heard from residents, I haven't heard anyone come to us to say they're anticipating trouble in paying their taxes. So, you know, that's not to say that folks are usually open about, you know, missing a payment but Cliff, I don't know if you've received any forewarning of folks not being able to pay. I have not gotten any inkling that there's been any kind of delay in payments and in fact so far our tax collections since the bills have gone out has been very robust. We've probably collected about a half a million dollars so far which is in the short time the bills didn't go out until September 24th, 5th, something like that. And so we're two weeks into it and you know people were just waiting for the bills and I think that there's some of that going on that they got the money for their taxes and they've gotten it out of their hands and into ours. I wait so I can come trick or treat when I pay mine. I think the least I can get is a chocolate bar. When you mail them to me in a Manila envelope, the least you should do is include a chocolate bar. I wonder if all the bills, I'm a delinquent tax collector, not a tax collector. You can send a chocolate when you send the delinquent bill. I wonder if considering how the extension did seem to work for a relatively small group of people but for those people it seemed to have been important and that it didn't affect overall collections in a significant way. Given the fact that for some folks unemployment benefits have been cut and having some other problems even though we haven't heard from people saying that they're having problems doesn't mean that there isn't any suffering out there right now and seems like a really a small thing that we can do which might have some you know pretty big impacts on maybe even if just a small number of families but considering it's going to be it could be significant because as you said Larry you know with the unemployment situation and that extra money not there anymore you know in a couple weeks that could become a bigger deal here. So I wonder if we if we do an extension like we just like we did last time it's hard for me to see why we wouldn't you know do that considering those are very sort of small costs to the town. If it's helpful at all what what you know I could commit to doing is over the next you know a few days and even the next week or two is reach out to folks that do provide social services to folks in their community ask if they have received any kind of inkling or feeling or actual more direct verbal communication from the community that they serve us or even just in general from the community of a potential need for not paying their taxes on time and then once I have that information I could share with the board and potentially if it's that dire request that a special meeting be held before the deadline of the 31st to take action and I suggest that because I because it's not on the agenda now would be I wouldn't say it would be a challenge it's anything's possible but you know one can say well it wasn't on the agenda to be considered you know whatever the case is but if we have a special meeting it could be the primary thing and then it could happen with with more information that staff can collect from residents. Any other thing to consider too is that the October deadline that's coming up on us does not have a penalty attached to it the only thing that happens when that one goes delinquent is is the interest kicks in the penalty doesn't happen until the March 31st deadline passes. So we can waive the interest right or delay it and I would argue that delinquent tax policy is on the agenda yeah no that's true it's proposing to be there and I would much rather deal with this tonight than have a special meeting that we all have to commit time to I mean I'm more than willing to entertain a motion that we do the same thing we did with the March payment. So moved. Before you could I could I just interject. Not that I'm going to oppose it but I want you to consider something else is that the this delinquent tax policy also covers the delinquent water and sewer bills. So to that point it is the administration on the tax side is much easier than it is on the water and sewer side. I will say that. The we'd have to have a separate water sewer meeting in order to delay that or defer those. I don't believe so because we were just talking about water and sewer. It's in this delinquent tax policy. All right just want to make sure we got our bases covered. Right this draft says including water and sewer. And the and the motion would be different than the one for the tax. Correct because you've got a different billing cycle. Right because because we've got a quarterly billing cycle that is rolling which is what makes the challenge. Correct. And what are we seeing so let's take care of the property tax piece first. And then let's have a conversation about what we're seeing for delinquency in water and sewer. So looking at the property tax piece we had a motion in a second for the treat the October payment same as we treated the March payments. We gave them 90 days correct or did we just say a date. I think we should say a date. Okay. Yeah don't recall the previous motion I think. I think you remember if it was a deadline date. Yeah. We said we said July 1st is that how we put it before June 30 period. I think it was 30th. Yeah. So we're looking October November December December 30. That's we need to do it on the end of a month. On the very end of a month. Yeah. 31. The end of January. In the end of what? In the January. In the January. That's right. Right. The end of January. So you'd give them until January 31st. Yeah. Okay. That's part of my motion. January 31st is a Sunday. So maybe January 29th. Close of business on the 29th. Yeah. No. Please. Please get the end of the month. Oh really. Even though it's a Sunday. I'll tell you why because the date statute says each month or part thereof. So if you all right. So that's yet. So January 31st. They can drop it in the drop box on Sunday. So just to be clear what we're saying now is that we're going to waive interest for late payments until January 31st. We're going to start. We're going to just like we did last time. We're going to encourage everybody to pay theirs on time. But if folks are having a hardship and you need to turn it in late for whatever reason they can do so. No questions asked until the end of January before we will start assessing any kind of interest. Correct. You got that motion to dofo? You got that written down? I got it down. Okay. Okay. So we still have a motion in a second. Right. With Perry and Tom. Perry and Larry, wasn't it? Perry and Larry. Tom was in there originally. Okay. So we're switching. Sorry. Lost track. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Stained? That one's done. Water and sewer. What are we looking at on that for a delinquency rate? In terms of what we're not collecting, Trini? Yeah. So looking at what type of relief we should provide to folks similar to the property tax, are we seeing a high demand there for that? Are our revenues lagging behind there? The collections are by and large in line with what they've been. You know, I've been monitoring that pretty closely and our delinquency aging hasn't grown has not grown significantly, which is what you would expect if there was an issue with collections. You know, there's the, we have a list of probably about 20 customers that we are, we chase them whether there's COVID or not. And for the vast majority of these folks, the water sewer bill is much smaller than property tax bill. Yeah, it's probably more manageable. So that's probably easier for them to pay than it is to pay their, you know, half of their share of their bigger tax bill. And the delinquencies that a lot and many of the delinquencies that we see are as a, what I attribute directly to the slowness of the mail these days. Oh, wow. Because we're not, we're not a postmarked town. Maybe we should become a postmarked town. We could. I mean, if it's gonna, if somebody mails their bill on the day it's due, and it saves all the hassle of adding interest in penalties and all that. It seems like that's pretty minor. But my concern on the water sewer is that we not do something that impacts the revenues given the bonds that we have to pay out of that special fund. So if we're not seeing an increase in folks not able to pay their water sewer bill, I'm not really hearing the need for any relief on the payment due date unless somebody's picking up on something I'm not. I sent out, I think, eight or nine, 90 and 120 day letters this month combined. Oh, that's not significant then. And I think I had six others of people that hadn't responded the previous month. So a total of 15. Yeah. So I think that one's probably not, not needed as much as the tax bill. I agree. Anybody disagree with that or want to do anything? Hearing nothing. Anybody want to make a motion on the delinquent tax policy draft that we have? I have a question on it. Should we be consistent on what's delinquent because the tax policy says it's the close of business and water and sewer says 430? That's easily changed, Pat. I don't care what it is, but I think that would be easier if they were both the same. I think 430 is clearer, more specific. Sure. That's okay. Any other comments or questions? Motions? Question I have. Is it going to go to 430 or close of business? I don't care. You're the one that's going to administrate it. What would you prefer? I think, Cliff, just a suggestion to that. And I just make it easier for folks who, you know, I'd hate to put it any other way, but just less sophisticated with what close of business means. You know, we're in a community where people work at random crazy hours and you know, working at different times. So their interpretation of business hours is different than the standard office hours. I think if, and if we do lean towards just a specific time, people will know it's 430. Good for me. I'd like to ask a question about the postmark. I think the statement was that we are not a postmark town. That's correct. I'm not sure many people realize that because that's news. It's right in your bill. Yeah. Well, I've seen the bill. I've seen the bill for four years and I never read that closely. So I'm not sure everybody understands that. So I guess my question is, is there any reason why we can't be a postmark town? We can be any kind of town we want to be, John. Right now, though, we're not. We're a pay the clerk by 430 on the date it's due town. And the invoices are out so we can't change them this round. Well, I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about in the future. Definitely something we can consider. I think it, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't that have to come up on the town meeting we vote on when property taxes are due? It's voted on the floor. I would imagine that that's where the motion has to say not that they have to be paid on that day, but that they have to be postmarked by that day. Well, we've always been a, you gotta have your taxes in by this particular time. I don't think it's been a problem for years. I don't know why we would need to change it. And you get four to six weeks to figure out how to get it there by that day as much as we all like wait until last minute. I'm guilty. I go in on the last day. Me too. And I've been caught once or two years. Anyways, but that's all I believe on the motion from the floor. Yeah, I think you're right. I'm not sure 100%, but anyways. All right. We've made the change in the policy to 430 instead of close a business. Any other comments or changes folks would like to see? Anybody want to make a motion to adopt it? Don't move. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? I'm assuming that's an aye, Pat, because you're on mute. That's an aye. Yeah. Motion carries. I don't like the changes and get a clean copy to you for signatures. Awesome. Town meeting and town report. Well, we've had a time of year where we are going to present dates and times and ask the select board to start thinking about the end of year and town meeting. So Emory was kind of putting together new dates, new requests to make to the board. And in your packet, you have the documents created by Emory and I'll hand it off to him so that he could share a little bit more about the work that he's pulled in. And Emory, I'll take minutes while you brief the board on this. I appreciate that. Let me get my own video going again. So yeah, I've been going through Shannon's old files, the old town reports. The dates are updated. I've double checked them with Joyce. They're all good to go. I'm in contact with our printer briefly. We reached out to the Randolph Center fire association that it would need to be gained to gather petitions to get back on. No response from them yet. And then I'll be finalizing the general letter and sending them out tomorrow. The letter to all of the standard NGOs. Great. So from a select board perspective, we're kind of on easy street for this meeting, but in November, we need to be ready to set extra meetings in December for the budget. Right? That's my understanding. Yeah, that's correct, Trini. There's also the selection or the consideration. Any questions? There's also the consideration by the board for the dedication of the town report, also selecting a member of the board to draft the message from the select board to the town report. Yes, Trini, just to confirm you're correct. Next meeting, there will be a lot more requested of the select board. Okay. This is great to have dates, Emery. Likewise. I'll be working under the same schedule. As much as we don't like to be tied to deadlines sometimes. Yeah. Just also, if I may like to point out that Emery was kind of thrown into the fire on this one, just timing wise, he came in right at the perfect time to just be thrown right in. He's jumped right on in. He's communicated well with Joyce, worked on the state statute mandated deadlines, and yeah, so far he's been really kept all of us on task with creating this list. Thank you. Make sure that with the board. Awesome. That's great. Thank you. So next we have the review of the request for bids for Beanville Road Culver. Yes, we finally determined that the federal government is not going to provide any additional aid for putting people back to work. You know, just it's still, it's been a, I wouldn't say a nightmare, but it's been challenging to navigate the COVID support for towns and municipalities. So we're now at the point where we have revisited the issue with A&R, revisited the issue with VTrans. At this point, you know, we would like the select board to consider, if it doesn't have any comments with the RFP that's in front of them, we could then release it as quickly as possible to schedule the work that is needed on Beanville Road for the spring of next year. We have the funds identified for the project and really would like to take care of it as quickly as possible. I might be missing it, but I haven't seen that RFP. No, I don't see it either. Because it's not in your, It's not in the email. So let's talk about the funding for this culver. What's our engineer's estimate on this? The initial engineer estimate was $381,000, which, you know, it was a bit high. We have since worked with A&R, we've identified funds to cover that potential cost. We have worked with A&R, I'm sorry, with VTrans on the specs that were presented to the town. We feel that if we do release the request that we encourage potential bidders that we say, look, this is what was presented to us. Options that deviate from the specs that are in the RFP may vary, but any any varying bidders have to be cleared by A&R. A&R is who's driving the requirement at this particular section of Beameville Road with the new culver. So we want to be clear that if any alternative is presented to what we're sharing in terms of engineering specs, that the bidders know that if they're deviating from the specs that were presented by our engineering firm, that those specs have to be approved by A&R in order for the town to select them. Okay, so we have an engineer's estimate of $381,000, and how much is the grant from VTrans? It has been increased to $175,000. And the balance is coming from where? From our reserve funds. From the town. From the town. We did receive notice today, it actually came in today, that we were not approved or we didn't receive a Better Roads grant that we had applied, which would have been for $60,000. And I think that was just a competitive process, and we didn't receive it. And we have at least the 206 in reserve? We do. Conversations with Chris at the VTrans office, were they able to increase that grant at all? They did increase it. It was initially $157,000, and it was increased to $175,000. Yeah, so were they able to increase it yet again? So each year, just so folks understand, I'm really serious about this because we allocate funds across these projects, and some come in under budget. So there might be $12,000 here, $10,000 there, $5,000 there, $7,000 there, whatever. They have the ability to reallocate that. So I'm just wondering if they happen to have some that come under budget that they could reallocate to this project to help us not have to make up as big a difference. That's all. I could absolutely reach out to Chris again and just to make the inquiry, make the final ask before we send out the request with the specifics. Yeah, just tell him I'm being a stickler. Come on and know that we've wrangled every cent out of him we can. We'll do that. Any questions on the project? I'm putting it out to Bid. No, I think it's long overdue. We'll see the Bids when they come in. Yeah, I'd like to see what we get for sure. Yeah, absolutely. The Bid process, let me start over. The Bid form specifically spells out the process, and in that process it says that the select board is to consider and select the winning bidder. So yes, the board will see the Bids before the contract is awarded. As a matter of fact, the board will award the contract. Any questions or motions on this? So I just need a motion to move forward with the RFP? Yes, to go ahead and put it out to Bid. Okay, that's my motion. I'll second that. Before I bring it to a vote, just a quick question. What do we have for a completion date on that bid, Adolfo? Thanks, construction season. Yeah, it has to be completed next construction season because the existing grant that we have will expire next year. I'm only asking because some of the work that we're putting out right now that has to be done by December timeframe, we're getting outrageous bids on. Okay, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Stained? Motion carries. Thank you. Next up is grants. Not just, it's just more of a comment and we had an issue. I wasn't an issue. I'm sorry, news to share that I put in the managers report section, but it does relate to grants. I had received word from Josh, our economic development director that one of our previous grants had been increased and it was a grant from the let's grow kids. I believe the grant had been increased by $20,000 for a child care project that we've been working on for the better part of the last year. That's the only news that we have for grants. Okay, so we have one more actually. The East Randolph Valley group has raised about $7,000 in funding to go towards an architect study. The study has a quote from an individual, but in all honesty, they have not actually seen the building that comes in around 12,000. Another group is around 15,000. They're asking if the town is willing to match the funds that they've raised so far on that architect study on a dollar for dollar basis. So for every dollar they've raised, will the town kick in a dollar? This will give them the report they need of the work that has to be completed on that building to bring it back into public use and allow them to start their capital fundraising campaign to actually raise the money that's needed to do those items that comes out of this list. So they asked tonight is whether the board is willing to match on a dollar for dollar basis up to I believe it's $7,500 to get that architect study completed. This is a huge stumbling block on them doing their capital raising. Freddie, I think they've been working real hard, so I would move to the town will commit to match up to $7,500 for the architectural design. I'll second that. Before we move to a vote, are there any questions from anybody on this? I would just question where would that $7,500 come from in the budget? I have no issue with it except to try and understand. It's not something that would have been funded or is that correct? That is correct. Yeah, Tom, if we are to find the $7,500 it would most likely have to come from the facilities reserve fund. It is possible that we would be able to find the $7,500. So if you feel comfortable to make the motion, I would work with Cliff to try to find a way to make the match. I know you could do it. All right. We have a second and a motion. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Next up is old business. Trini. Yes, Betsy. Trini, I just want to thank you guys for supporting this. We certainly have our $75,000. We've got the $3,000 from Lampson Howell and we've gotten just recently had the rest come in so that we can match the $75,000. And we know that if the bid is, for some reason, more than $15,000, we will work on getting that money to supplement or support or add on whatever it's called. When we have the money, do we just let Adolfo know? Do you want a check? How does that happen? We just coordinate it with Adolfo and Cliff. Okay. And so we'll go out the bid for the services and then the coordination will take place as payments are due. Lots of times you have consultants say it's going to be X number of dollars and it can be less than that what they actually invoice once they figure out what they're really into. We don't want you to transfer the funds over because it may come in at, it already only has to kick in 5,000 or 6,000. It's an up to motion. So that can all be coordinated with Cliff and Adolfo. I have a quick question for John and Betsy, which is just that the architecture you're reaching out to, are they specialists in public facilities or in historic facilities? Or are they general practitioners? Well, my understanding about bids is that they are announced and then once the people see what's in it, whoever is interested submits a bid. Okay. Tom, one of the architects that has responded was through the preservation trust. Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at, John. I would think a person with that kind of historic preservation expertise might have a leg up on some of the other more general practitioners. Sure. That's to be clear. That's exactly what we're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. And we might have somebody that's attached to Randolph that will look at it with less money. Does this RFP then have to go through the board before it goes out to bid? The board votes to allow it to go out to bid and then we accept who the preferred selection is. So we're, I'm thinking of a timeline training. So it looks like before anything actually gets published and where the RFPs get published, it will be after the November select board meeting. That's right. Okay. But I'm guessing you'll probably need that time to put an RFP together. Okay. And by the way, this is a banner hanging from the hall that our fireman put up for us Monday night. So if you get a chance to cruise through East Randolph, things are happening. Great. Thank you. Thank you guys a lot. Thanks everybody. Next up we have old business. Nothing under old business. How about other business? Nothing there either. Yeah. Go Pat. We got a letter from Dennis Brown. Were we gonna look at that tonight? I just got it and I haven't read it yet. So I'd prefer to read it on that if it's helpful to the board. I did speak with Dennis today. So I've been working with he and Mimi to try to make sure that eyes are dotted and teeth are crossed. He did mention to me today that he would be sending a message to the select board. I shared with him that it's best to have the select board have time to digest information that's sent to the board. He was perfectly fine with this coming to the board next month as an official agenda item as opposed to something occurring today that that's helpful to the board. And I haven't received anything. Presumably you're referring to getting it through your select board email, Pat. It's late this afternoon. I think late afternoon from Dennis. I don't see it in from Dennis directly. I don't see it in my email. So if someone could forward that to me or ask Dennis to do so. I'll do it for you right now. Okay, thanks. I'm happy to wait. I just wanted to acknowledge check your email. It sounds like it arrived. All right, given that it's not on the agenda and everybody hasn't had time to digest the information and nothing else under other business, let's move on to the manager's report. I know I always say this that I'm going to keep it brief, but this time I will. The just first thing is it's one of the it's a good thing we've had a bit of a musical chairs on Merchant's Row with regard to our businesses. We've had Black Crimm move move into a much larger space and everything looks like you know they're they're enjoying their bigger space. People are enjoying being in the bigger space, which is great. The move so the essentially the growth of one of our businesses to a bigger space has allowed the space to Black Crimm's previous space to now be occupied by a new business that is going to be going in relatively soon. I don't think it's confidential information. Their name is on the doors. I believe it's the Taco All-Stars that are going to be moving into the Crimm's old location. So it's diversifying the dining options in Randolph, which is a good thing. We again I did previously mention the increase in the grant from Let's Grow Kids, which is a good thing. The I've been working with folks over at ACCD to try to bring back the in-person meetings. I know Larry you you initially talked about having in-person meetings again. It's definitely possible. I just want to make sure that if we do have an option for the board for in-person meetings that we have options for folks that you know in case we do have a mass audience of 50 who want to attend a select board meeting on a second Thursday of the month that we have the capability of not having to shut the meeting down because there are too many people in one location. Can we adult folk to do that? Can we have a meeting where you know the select board and you and maybe Emery are in a room together and the rest of the meeting is remote for folks? I don't want to say yes because I don't know that if we have a meeting that it has to be open to the public at a physical location. I think that was the purpose of the legislature's being allowing us to do this remotely and all the rules that they put in. I think once we advertise a physical location or if the board chooses a physical location that we have to have people with access but I'm not 100% sure that what I'm telling you now is correct. So I like if it's possible to do that absolutely you know I will share that with the board and then Larry you and the board can make the decision to be able to do that. So I could certainly explore whether that option is possible. It seems like logistically it would be a lot simpler since now we're in pretty much an indoor season you know to have a space where if there was just like seven of us who needed to be there physically that we could be you know spread out enough to maintain our distance and we wouldn't need a you know a gymnasium to do that in. Yeah yeah absolutely I will explore whether that's possible and I don't think it's not possible I just I don't want to say yes or no about having the facts but yeah absolutely I could explore that. You're not loving the comfort of your home? I do actually like it quite a bit but I really think it's good for us to have that it's just it's just the conversation is just a little more difficult I feel like there's certain communication which maybe doesn't happen which would happen if we're all in the same space together and I just think it'd be good for our deliberations for us to be in the same space you know zoom's okay but it's a little it's a little awkward getting easier all the time you're just not zooming enough maybe that's all in my head from a time management perspective how quickly you can change meetings is awesome and more than one at the same time and there is some value there is some value to the mute feature too yeah there is I think they could use it in the debates going back to the to the merchants row when does construction start there on the effort at the end towards pleasant street in the um sidewalks that was supposed to be this fall yes that was my next my next topic there were issues reported to us by d&k initially we had discussed postponing the project because we wanted to not create any problems for our businesses during COVID and outdoor seating um since then d&k reported to us that they did not have as successful conversations that they would have wanted to have had with uh contractors that were going to do the sidewalk work so they have since recommended to us that we go out to bid so that we can receive bids from contractors to do the work to do the sidewalk work with d&k's engineering um so that's it's it's been a challenge managing that project um now because we initially were not planning to go out to rfp d&k was going to manage and hire someone to do it but now we have to we have to go to rfp uh to select a contractor because of the advice of d&k so the company is they have two contractors yeah we're going to get two contractors right we have two that have submitted bids one doesn't use an internal concrete company the other one does a fair amount of it internal is around if i understand correctly around 15 thousand more because they do some of that stuff internal and take the risk of it but that the work could still be done this fall i'm i just want to understand i mean it seems like it's a project that we should do the entire project as scope and if there's a way to save it and do it this fall that should be our focus i that would be my preference i trini i think you have information that d&k has not shared with me what was shared with me was that they they didn't well i'll be honest they didn't tell me that they had received any information from contractors other than they were not having success in speaking with them so i could reach out to our project engineer d&k and ask him to give me everything they have so that we could potentially miss this year unless anybody has a problem with it i would as long as we're within the budget that was set i would much rather move forward with this fall and get that completed you know i think at this point we are not doing outdoor seating because it's a little bit nippy out there and windy but you know if we could get it completed now and get that done the only challenge i believe they have is with any plantings those would have to be next spring and i i understand that part but if we could rescue this project and get it done this fall i think that's a a great thing to do yeah i i would agree with that simply because i think you're going to find you're going to have less traffic disruption if you do it this fall versus if you try to pull this off next spring i i agree yeah treaty absolutely i would be more than willing to join you in those conversations at all there you go i'll let you know the next time it happens awesome okay what else is in the manager's report the last thing is that a and r had provided two solid waste districts or you know like trash districts in our case mountain alliance food composting buckets to distribute to local schools with the understanding that some students are no longer going to cafeterias to have their meals or eating in classrooms our allocation was 58 buckets uh we distributed buckets to orange uh southwest school district we gave them 36 buckets and the remaining buckets were given to uh northfield middle and high school so um they can have composting in the classrooms and that's it that's all that's all i have for the manager's report for tonight can we can we have a does an update on where we're at with the manager time manager search uh well we have uh the resumes and cover letters that have been shared with the board are the only ones that i've received um yeah i've shared them with the board if there's any preference the announcement that was posted does indicate that the position is open until filled it also indicates that um the select board has a discretion to consider candidates and interview them as as people you know submit information so if the board wants to interview someone it can that's where we are where did we advertise uh position is posted on the town website so at this point we received from Adolfo uh the resumes and cover letters that were received with no advertising so i think it's um a good idea for the board to look at those i saw at least a couple candidates it would be pretty good to explore um so maybe we look at those candidates and decide if we want to have some discussions with them interviews however you want to call it uh and if we do let's get those scheduled and if not we can go on a more hardcore press of reaching out to more of the regional national organizations but um you know i think there's it's pretty impressive the number of people that have come forward with absolutely no advertising already um and i've had conversations with a few of them that have called some are prior town managers um and some are uh very well disciplined project managers which i think is a big piece of what a town manager does is manages a whole variety of projects that are going on throughout the town um so you know i think we have some folks that have expressed interest that have the skill set and the experience that we need um so before we assume the and i'm not saying it's not worth the investment to do the advertising and go larger if we need it i'm just saying i'm not totally convinced we need it at this point um and it's out there and people came forward without even any advertising whatsoever and that's the list you got forwarded to you so i would agree treeney i i just gave cursory glance to the cover letters and the resumes but there were at least um there were a handful that really stood out on paper at least as being very worthy of further exploration uh so yeah and we we did a training one time with employees on how to write resumes and you can take the cans back on sunday to get your money back or you can be a recycling engineer on your resume so like what it shows on paper is one thing and we've done this before and had the interviews and been like oh man you're just the guy that picks up the cans on the side of the road and takes them back but you know it's worth our exploring it because we do have some local folks that have expressed an interest that understand the dynamics of the town and have been very interested in your three process and building and and looking at what we're looking at doing so you know i would encourage everyone to look at those resumes that are there and see who you might want to interview and maybe we set those up on a day that everybody can do and or if you say you know what this is just too small a pool we really ought to go out with a national search we can look at what the cost of that is i think it was around 10 000 that we spent on the national search so um that'll give you some idea of of what that expense would be but and so maybe we look at those resumes and then come back i don't know what give a week to look at those and decide if there's someone there we want to interview uh and maybe get dates back of when everybody could do that well i'm gonna tell you right now i'll look but you aren't going to see me again until November so i'm happy to let you guys take that on yourselves we would do you in a tree stand parry you would do what we would take you in a tree stand it would be okay well yeah i got an internet service there but yeah i could do it remotely i'm happy to do that but i won't be in physically i won't physically be here so and i think these are gonna have to be remote first level is probably always remote so yeah yeah i don't i don't see a problem with that okay we can do it by zoom sounds perfect to me that's good at this point we have five resumes is that right uh i believe so yeah that's that's what i saw in the email from the dolphin yesterday or whenever it was do you want to coordinate it through you do you want to coordinate it through you training with our comments on each one or how do you want to how about if by wednesday we send a dolphin the names of the ones we would be interested in interviewing and then we'll correlate that and figure out the ones that everybody's interested in interviewing or at least the majority yeah and see if we can schedule and send dates that you'd be available to do those interviews and then we'll take that data and compile it into what the candidates are able to accommodate and see if we can get a schedule for the ones that have expressed interest so far and we'll do the interviews and at the end of the interviews we'll have a chit chat and decide if we want to go out on a bigger search or if we think we've found the magical one mm-hmm seems fair yeah do we do we want to do uh this is going to be a full full board interview yeah did we do that last time did we i think was just part of the board that was in on the interviews when we did both there we did uh we had a committee uh there was a group that joined us that we had selected along with a couple board members we did the first round interviews and then we presented them up to the board so we can create a committee to interview those we did have the board and some others review the resumes and come up with the short list with that committee reviewed or interviewed right we have such a small list right now i think would be probably premature for us to go that route right now um i'm i'm comfortable with with having all of us sit in an interview with a couple of candidates if we identify well that seemed good yeah yeah i'd find that okay so by wednesday if we could send adult photo the list of who we would like to interview and dates that we have available that we could commit to doing those interviews then we can try to coordinate all that i'm presuming we would do them in the evening i mean i could send out a doodle poll and everyone can just you know pick the times that work for everyone that's right yeah and then we can sounds like a good idea yeah sounds good i'll have a real background like larry's there when i probably see you next thing and where will that be where will that be where are you headed somewhere's between i don't know utah and arizona new mexico wow so you want middle of the day because prime hunting is the morning and evening i won't be hunting for the first week or two all right doodle polls good everybody send their candidates and dates that would be good too um any other topics i have a question where are we at with the fire station in the fire truck which fire station pat well yeah the new one are we are we settled on insurance with that and same with the fire truck with brand off center no the village department there we're still arguing with the insurance company on both yes it's actually in court oh sorry pat you're referring to the the subrogation suit yes yeah um trini's correct it's still in court uh it's from what our attorney has shared with us it's gonna be several years before this is settled it's already been several years and it's gonna continue for a while of course it's gonna be no doubt oh and what's the issue because i didn't know about this i guess so what's the issue oh the you don't want to pay yeah and we want them to right what's the what's the issue that we'll disagree on we disagree on the issue of the cost of the new facility and the demands that current law and requirements put on us so they don't want to pay for the two properties that we had to take to make parking which is mandated by zoning which was mandated by the state legislature and they don't want to pay for the size of the building which is mandated by all the rules that came down from the feds and everybody else that you have to have all those clearance around trucks and you know the the amount of you know those of you aren't aware we had to have a certain size bathroom we had to have certain size locker rooms the men's locker room has to comprise of the entire capacity of the department the women's has to be at least 50 of the entire capacity of the department and we went through all this so they don't want to pay for that that's on the building side and on the truck side it's still the whole issue of who's responsible for the part that failed that caused the fire to begin with thank you that's good explanation thanks any other questions under managers report wish into adjourn