The country's heart is breaking for the people of La Loche, Saskatchewan today. There was a shooting in the community, five people were killed, two others are in critical condition. The situation is no longer active and the suspected shooter has been taken into custody. I was immediately in touch with the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Ralph Goodale and the Commissioner of the RCMP, Commissioner Bob Paulson, and I am being updated regularly. I have also spoken to the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, the local MP, Georgina Jolibois and the Mayor of La Loche, Kevin Jean-Vier to express both our sympathy and our support. I want to thank the first responders who have acted swiftly and bravely. We all grieve with and stand with the community of La Loche for all of Saskatchewan on this terrible tragic day. All Canadians' thoughts turn to the people of La Loche in Saskatchewan today. The community of La Loche was a victim of a shooting. Five people were killed and two others were seriously injured. The situation has been defamed and the suspect is currently in detention. I was immediately in touch with the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Ralph Goodale and the Commissioner of the RCMP, Commissioner Bob Paulson and I am being updated regularly. I have also spoken to the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, the local MP, Georgina Jolibois and the Mayor of La Loche, Kevin Jean-Vier to express my sympathy and support. I would like to thank the first responders who have acted swiftly and bravely. Canada shares this debt and stands by the community of La Loche and all of Saskatchewan on this tragic and terrible day.


My name is Amare, I'm working for International Livestock Research Institute based in India. Today I gave a speech as part of the International Water and Food Forum held in Pretoria, South Africa. The theme was on principle and the practices to integrate livestock into rainwater management. The idea behind this is actually in Blue Nile Basin we have a very complex setting in terms of resource distribution, in terms of resource uses, and in terms of also the user's impact on environment. Livestock as part of the system uses the resource, also is part of the resource and also affects the resource distribution, quality and sustainability. And particularly this is intensifying in response to the ongoing global livestock evolution. Henry has recognized in this respect the role of livestock in terms of water use and the role of livestock in interacting with water and how that affects overall system sustainability and also the livelihood of community. Early has been working in this direction since 2002 and we developed a framework for indicating the livestock, water and interreaction. Then after we proceed further to more detailed tests on some of the practices. Now we are in position just to claim that livestock, water interaction and productivity must be based on principles of improving the water productivity of feed and improving the efficiency of utilizing the water productivity feeds. I can give you an example and probably underline also what I mean when I say integrating livestock into rainwater management. Just we were working for example, Verti-soil drainage as part of the practices that farmers must adopt. And just we run a small model and in that we recognize that as a result of improved Verti-soil drainage like 40% improvement in milk yield as result of residual flowing into the livestock compartment. And the thing what I'd like to say is integration as far as we don't recognize clearly the ability of the livestock, the cause to convert the residual produced as a result of this intervention into milk and that benefits goes to the farmers. It's not an integration, it's rather a physical association. I think in that respect it's important when we say integrating livestock into rainwater management it's important to consider both agricultural component and also the livestock component. This is one example. The other example is also improvement in for example the feed quality. Probably when you see it when I say feed quality one can say has little bit to do with water but just improvement in one unit of energy content of a feed can save as much as 120 meter cube of water per cow per year. This is a very important amount of water which can be used for ecosystem services and also other livelihood activities. Therefore, more or less this is the area where I was focusing and we listed out, we identified several more than 40 practices and this must be targeted to farm household level and also to the landscape level because different landscapes respond differently to the different practices and also the capacity of the farm household determines which practices they fit into because of resource allocation problem and also because of access to land and what are those kind of things.


and welcome back. We're so glad that you're here. I'm just making this assumption that you joined us yesterday for the kickoff of Nonprofit Power Week. We are thrilled to have Beth Farley, CPA, and partner at Ida Bailey joining us every day this week. If you joined us yesterday, you know she is such a whiz and expert in this sector. So thrilled to have you back, Beth, to talk to us more on Back to Basics. And today it's all about what is that critical information that we should be documenting. And for those of you watching and listening, this is really from that finance accounting standpoint. So every day, we are thrilled to have Ida Bailey supporting us for this Nonprofit Power Week. This is a dedicated, unique week. We don't do this very often, but when we do, it is special. So thrilled to have Ida Bailey with us the entire week this week. So here we are on day two, Julia Patrick. Thanks for being here. Of course, Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, and I am Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. We are so extremely honored to have the Nonprofit Power Week and also the continued support from our amazing sponsors. So a shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Fundraising Academy at National University. Also, thank you to Bloomerang, your part-time controller, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, as well as Nonprofit Tech Talk. These companies have been with us on this journey since March of 2020, helped us to produce over 900 episodes. In fact, Ida Bailey has joined us almost annually for a Nonprofit Power Week. So you can go back and listen to those episodes.  You can also still find us on broadcast platforms and podcast platforms. So wherever you choose to consume your entertainment, just speak into that device and ask to call up the Nonprofit Show and you will see more than 900 episodes, including this one that we are having right now with Beth Farley. So again, to reintroduce you, Beth, for those of you watching and listening, Beth Farley joins us. She is a CPA and a partner at Ida Bailey. Welcome back. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. We appreciate participating and we love serving the Nonprofit Community and everything. We don't do your programmatic work, but everything else we can help you out with. You know, I gotta believe though, given how we were talking yesterday, you know, the folks at Ida Bailey, when they come in to do an audit or to do whatever, they probably are learning and advising about a lot of things, not just necessarily the finance and the accounting, because it seems to me like you bring the expertise and the knowledge and experience from your other clients and it kind of amalgamates somehow and you end up sharing that. I mean, is that a fair assumption? I would agree. Yeah, we aren't boots on the ground for your program. So we've seen a lot of programs operating and how do those tie into your grant and your programmatic reporting and what requirements are there. So yeah, we've seen every type of non-profit out there, you know, manufacturing, food banks, service base, so lots of different things that we can talk about definitely. Lots of resourcefulness awards that is an annual award. We've been part of that. I was a judge a couple of years ago, such a great opportunity. So you're reading the programmatic proposals, the innovation that the organizations are providing. So that's always a fun one. If you're not familiar for those of you watching and listening, look up resourcefulness awards through Ida Bailey. It is an annual grant award that is given and it's really fantastic. And it's going to be announced this week, so the winner. So, you know, we'll keep that under wraps for now, but we're very excited about where we're at with that award. Yeah, you know, it is one of the coolest things that gets done. And I was really privileged to be on a board of a group that won in the very early years. And I went not because of my work with this non-profit, I went just because of, you know, it was a community thing. And I remember that when our organization's name was, um, you know, announced, I screamed. I like jumped up. I got, it was like the Academy Awards.  But it was, it was like, I want to say Beth, it was like $10,000 that we won. Yeah. And it was, you know, talk about it was, I think it was like 2008, 2009 when things were tough. That 10 grand was like a hundred grand, right? Yeah. At that time. And so, yeah, resourcefulness awards. Super cool. Great idea. Something that everyone can learn from. Okay. Well, Beth, now we got to get down to the meat and potatoes of y'all. Talking about documentation. Definitely. But what do we document? So we want to document. There's very specific things we want to make sure we're documenting. And I like to always say if it's not documented, it didn't happen in my world. I like that. It's kind of like photo or it didn't happen, right? So document or it didn't happen. Okay. That's, so you want, yes. You want to make sure that what you've got documented shows that what you posted into your accounting system or even what you put on your programmatic report, whatever it is, as you bring that information forward that it's, you've proved that it's accurate. So that supports the accuracy of the recording and the number. So say you're saying that you've serviced 600 clients. How did you collect the data for those 600 clients? So it's not just financial data. It's non-financial as well. What is that that you've got that documented? You didn't just guesstimate that you had 600 clients.  So does it support the accuracy of the information? Can you support that? That was reviewed because, you know, we all, we're humans, right? And so if you write down a number and then you don't double check it, I, every once in a while, I'm a little dyslexic and I'll write, you know, $21 instead of $12, you know, so you want to have a second set of eyes to make sure that the numbers are accurate that you're showing. And so was it reviewed and was that reviewed documented? And then can you support who's responsible for that? So if something doesn't happen, does your documentation procedures and policies show who was responsible to make sure it got done? So those are some of the key areas I'm really focused in to start with. I'm fascinated because you're talking about, and I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jared, but you're saying we need to actually almost document the protocol. Like how, not to your point, we just fed 600 people, but how did we, did we use a clicker when they came through the door? We counted the number of plates. Is that what you're saying? Go down to that level? Absolutely, absolutely. And the reason why is because you have individuals who change within your organization. And so, you know, when you have somebody new come on board, or maybe somebody, you know, didn't even leave that they just got promoted. Now you have somebody coming into that position. What are those things that they need to make sure they're documenting and recording so that at the end of the month, at the end of the quarter, they have the information to properly report it within the accounting system or within whatever, you know, non-financial data they need as well? Well, so my brain automatically jumps to grants. That's where I spend a lot of my time is fundraising. And so whether it's a grant or a government contract where there's a reimbursement, you know, tied to that. And I can only imagine having this supportive documentation would really help in all of the processes of compliance and reporting back through this grant process. So to me it sounds very tedious and exciting because having this, you know, information at our fingertips, I think would really strengthen the report and then the narrative for even a proposal in the future. Absolutely. And also when you're doing your grant applications and you go, okay, last year we had 600 that we served over the year and it costs us this much. We know that if we want to double that, what does that look like for us to get new grants for? What do we need to fundraise? And if you've not documented that, and you don't really know how many people you serve, then or how much it costs you to do that, then it's going to be really hard to determine. You're just kind of picking a number out of the air to try to guess how much you want to fundraise for. Right. And I know that happens, sadly. So let's just pick this random number. Let's go to a documentation policy because this is something that really caught my attention. And you talk about it from a 3C perspective and those 3Cs are concise, correct, and current. Tell us more about this documentation policy in the 3Cs. Yeah, definitely. You want it to be direct and to the point. You don't need to go on and on about various things and left and right and all these different things. So let's get to the point. We need to make sure that we're documenting how many clients we served. Okay. Step one, let's do this. Step two, let's do this. Step three. Don't make it overly complicated to where you're reading a paragraph and you're kind of getting lost in what you just read. Do one step, do step two, do step three, do step four, and that'll give you the end result. And make sure that it's accurate to what actually you can do or you are doing. So there's best practices, right? We say you need to have two signers on a check. What if you can't physically get two signers on a check? Let's look at something else that maybe is more correct of what you are, what you can and can't do. So make sure that it's something that the organization is actually doing and physically can do whatever that that may be. So that's kind of the correct piece of it. And then current, don't write it, and 10 years don't look at it again. So make sure that you're accurately looking at it currently on a regular basis, no less often than annually. Well, and Beth, yesterday you shared that, you know, I Bailey was going in and maybe it was you personally to do an assessment on some documentation and some policies. And actually the policy that was written was not even being followed. And so this current, like, let's sure it is current, if your process has changed, that's okay. But the documentation should also change. Absolutely, absolutely. Make sure people know what they should be doing in whatever position that they're in. And if you don't have that documented, they're just going to make it up as they go. You know, they're not going to have that information to do it. And they're going to do the best that they have. And if they don't have experience, they might not cover all the bases that they need to be covering. Yeah. And I really appreciate the concise because I can imagine, especially if someone's new coming in, they might want to be very verbose. They want to fluff the narrative. They want to make it like, I wrote two pages on this. And it's right. Okay, but in those two pages, there's six steps could have been bullet pointed. Right. So that's part and parcel to that.  You used that word champion yesterday, which I love that word. But is this an accounting and finance championed kind of concept? Or should this come from the CEO's office? Or who who is doing this oversight is the only word I can think Not doing the work but making sure that we are managing the documentation policy. I think it you can delegate it a little bit. Again, I think that there's one person that needs to make sure it's happening and driving it just to make sure that it's occurring. So if you don't have somebody who says, okay, annually, you need to go check in with all these people. But the CEO, the CFO, whoever you put as that champion to make sure it's happening, the CEO is not going to know necessarily the exact steps that the boots on the ground programmatic person is to count the clients that they're working with, or the accounts payable system that that maybe they're using, they have a general idea, but they don't always know the exact steps. So they can't do it alone. It has to be a team effort. And, and that's why the policies, you know, they're financial and they're non financial, it's not just the finance team that is looking at that. It's going to be your programmatic people, it's going to be your fundraising people, you've got special events, what are the policies over that? So it's going to be everybody in the organization. But I think one person who says, it's my responsibility to make sure that we've looked at these annually. And that can depend on the organization. And then one more follow up to that. Is there like a golden month or quarter where this gets done? I mean, is this like a end of the year beginning of the year? I mean, how do we Julia, are you asking where on the compliance calendars this should lie? Well, so my favorite thing. I even told him about it at dinner last night. He was like, Oh my God, that's brilliant. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't want to add that in. But I mean, do you see what I'm saying? Like, absolutely. There's a seasonality to this, right? Or do you just do it in the middle of the year? Or how does that look? What does that look like? I love this word. These two words. It depends. Let's look at why it depends. You know, obviously I think at the end of the fiscal year or the calendar year, whatever you have as your year end is a good time to re look at all of these things because you're closing out the end of the year. But we have a lot of organizations with June 30th year ends. All of their grants end in June 30th. So you're looking at July and August is close out month. They're closing their fiscal year. They're closing their grants. They're starting new grants. You know, that's a very busy time of the year for them. Maybe you've got an organization with mostly summer programs. They do after school care and it's not as busy, but their summer programs are very busy. They don't want to be doing it during that time period. So you may choose a month where you're slower, that everybody has time to spend on it and get them updated. So it may not be your fiscal year end, but that's a good time to check in and maybe make sure you've done it during the year sometime. Yeah smart. And as you said, Jared, what you that's why you use that compliance calendar. Yeah, yeah, definitely leave that on there.  We know that's a heavy lift as well, finding the right time to put that in there. So I appreciate all of this. And again, I just think this is a best practice that probably goes beyond the finance team, right? Documentation in all areas. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I know we also are talking about the who, what, where, when and why, you know, they know that's kind of coming too. And so making sure that we understand why we're documenting that. This is where the concise part can come into play if you make sure you've addressed all of these things. What area are we documenting? When should it occur? So that also does your compliance calendar. But even though it's not on the calendar, you've got, you know, when are we paying bills? Are we doing this every as soon as the bill comes in? Are we paying bills only on Tuesday? So you need to make sure you get it to the AP department on Monday so that it can be paid by Tuesdays. And making sure that everybody in the organization knows when that's occurring. Where's it happening? Do you have a finance location? Do you have different programmatic locations? So where are the pieces happening? And most important, why? Why are we documenting this? Why do we need to know how many clients we're serving? Why do we need to know particular information? And if you put in there that we have to pull this report on this date and is being used for this, you're explaining the why so that people don't go, oh, well, that's not important because I don't need it today. Yeah. And I, you know, you mentioned something yesterday that I think is really important, you know, as we stand today. And that is this major change in labor. You know, we don't have the same profile of folks in our accounting and finance departments as we once did. I mean, they're not, they're coming in and going out and changing. And so we don't have this institutional knowledge with our department so that we once had. So I can see that it becomes even more and more important. And I like that you can boil it down to those five W's to say, what is it that we're doing and why to kind of navigate that forward? And I think it's, it's really a basic way to approach anything and it makes it easier. But also making something more complicated or more manageable is how we do this. And this is like my big question of the day. And I can't wait to hear your comments is like, how do we do this? Are we putting this, you know, in a notebook, in a three ring binder? In word, like what is the process? Well, when I started my career, we were definitely doing it in three ring binders and they were being printed out and handed out. But I don't know that we're there anymore. But I think what you want to consider is consistency. So there's some, there's some programs, accounting programs out there where you have your ability to upload QuickBooks online, you can easily upload an invoice. So that's where that documentation of maybe those invoices sit. There's a program called HubDoc that can kind of serve as a document server, right? And so you've got all your deposits in there, all your bank statements. The biggest thing you want to say is that you want consistency. And so if you're doing your bank reconciliation through your accounting program, once they're done, once you put them, they're in the same spot in the same format every single month.  Is that done in Excel? Is it called the same thing every single month in the same spot in the same location? There's some softwares that can help with this. Of course, Word and Excel. I mean, Word and Excel are, you know, especially Excel, it's accountant's best friend, right? So I tend to put a lot more things in Excel maybe than you even need to because you could do that in Word. But again, have that consistency. But you've got to also have it accessible to your whole organization. So are you guys all in the same place? Are you using a cloud-based system or do you have a server still? And making sure that it's very clear where those policies are and then where each documentation of the policies being followed are being maintained. Beth, this probably is a very juvenile question, but I'm curious if the accounting finance team has multiple staff members, are they all involved in this process or does it really reside within, you know, the CFO or the top person or maybe even the admin person? Like, is this shared amongst the team members? What is the best practice? Because I'm thinking of inconsistency, right? Like, how do we make this such a consistent documentation process and how much of that do we want to share within that finance team? Well, you want to share in the discussion about what's happening where because an AP person that is just across an AP or an AR person, they may know the program better than the CFO does. But in essence, the CFO is responsible for that for that department, right? And so maybe this, if you have a CFO and controller and then you're an AP person, so you've got three layers to do the accounts payable process. If they aren't all participating to make sure that it's updated correctly, maybe the AP person is doing something differently than what the CFO is thinking they're doing and they're not double checking. So if the CFO doesn't speak down to the controller and their role and the AP person is their role, then there might not be following what they think they're doing. Interesting. Yeah. And then the CFO has to, you know, have their responsibility to oversee what the controller is doing. The controller has their responsibilities to oversee what the AP is doing. And so you're kind of, there's that, that train to see, to make sure that that responsibility is being followed all the way down. And it starts with the board of directors. Let's not forget about them. Because even though you may have a board of directors who's not doing any of the actual recording because you've got a big enough staff to do all of it, they're responsible. They have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that the organization is following best practices.  So yesterday you brought up the, the accounting effort, my favorite effort, fraud. Is this a part of helping to manage that? I mean, does this kind of help mitigate some of those issues? Absolutely. Because if you don't have any documentation, so say you have an organization that has a legitimate, a lot of expenses that could be considered personal. Maybe there's a lot of travel costs. They, you know, they do protests.  So that was legitimate. The board had approved it. But if you didn't have that supporting documentation that was reviewed by somebody, you go, why are you, why are you doing this? You know, why are you buying that? Was the travel legitimate? Did you really need to go? Who approved that? And if you don't have the documentation of the actual detailed receipt, the person who approved it and then it got paid and posted appropriately, then you would never know. Is that really fraud or not? And then it's just one person's word against the other without the documentation. Right. You know, as much as we don't necessarily like to think about fraud in our sector, we know that it happens, right? One of the questions, and it goes back to documenting, you know, the workflow, the process, but it also goes to our labor shortage. How much should we go in and change the documentation when we have a temporary absence? So we know that we are looking to hire team members that have recently resigned or been let go or for whatever reason. Like, do we still wait for that annual review, Beth, or should we make that change immediately so that we are sticking to those Cs and we have a correct policy even during that interim time frame? You may have a short-term policy that's being followed that you're not going to integrate into your long-term policy if you know you're about to hire somebody else and you're just waiting for that person. And the short-term policy would be like, if you had the AP person who entered it and then you had the check signer, you don't want that to become the same person during that time period if you had that segregation of duties. So you may just have, okay, during this interim until this person's hired, we're going to handle it this way. This person's going to step in and fill that role. But if you go, okay, we're three months in and we have not found this person, you know, we really can't find that. We're going to outsource now. You know, outsourcing is something that a lot of organizations are doing certain pieces of their financial accounting process because they just can't find that. You're going to have to change the policy at that point. Okay. You know, that's a big a-ha too because I'm just thinking we have one policy, but we, what I just learned from you, no, we might have a short-term policy, a long-term policy, you know, and how those really integrate with one another. Even though our best laid plans is to hire someone as quickly as possible, we know that it takes longer probably than what we would like it to take. So I think definitely. Yeah. And if you guys didn't talk about who is going to do it, it just doesn't happen, right? When you have a change in that person personnel, it just, this one person just takes on more work and doesn't say anything to anybody because they still got to get done. Right. We've all been there. You know, this, yet again, our time has flown by and it's amazing. But I have one more question. And again, get your catchers made up because it is somewhat of a curveball. When we're talking about all this, which I think everybody can agree that these are good ideas. But should we look at this in the perspective of budget in terms of the size of an organization? Where does this make sense? When does it make sense in terms of that piece? Or are you going to tell me start with good habits and they go with you as you grow? I mean, what does this look like in terms of a frame? Definitely. And best case scenario, you can go and address all of your different areas all at once, right? But that takes time and it takes, so if you don't have any written policies, you want to start with your riskiest area somewhere that you can see the most chance for misinformation to come through the organization, the highest risk for fraud, the highest risk for, you anything like that.  And you want to document that first and then get in the habit of doing that and then you can go to the next thing after that. And maybe you have a grant that you can hire out and do some of this documentation and determining best practices by having somebody assist you if you have some funding that would allow for that. But you can't ignore it just because we don't have time or money. It doesn't mean you just don't do it, right? And you need to make it a priority. I'm not getting you off the hook there. Even wondering, does this roll into performance reviews, like documentation, whether it's been done, whether they're accurate or current? Like, does this also roll into, do you see that, Beth, into performance reviews? Good question. I believe it does because if you've put a position out there that says you need to do XYZ and XYZ keeps not happening and then you can't report to your grantor, that does affect your organization. Those are important things. But if you don't tell them they need to do XYZ and they're not doing it, whose fault is that? And so it goes from both sides of it. In policies and procedures, I say protect the organization, but it also protects your employees. As a team member, you want to know what your role is, that you're not getting in trouble for something you didn't know you were supposed to do or not do. Right, right. I love it. Well, you have really helped us to figure out what we should be doing and what we need to be doing and how and why we should be doing it. Beth Barley, CPA, one of the partners over at iBailey joining us today as part of a really special non-profit power week. Beth, this is fun. I've learned a lot. You've kind of rocked my world in some areas. Things that I thought, things I had never thought about and things that I thought were, you know, just kind of part of what's getting done, but not really understanding why and how we can execute these ideas. You can get a lot more at the iBailey.com website. There's so much information specific to the nonprofit sector. So go ahead and check their website out. It's www.eidebaily.com. And there you can learn all about the things that your non-profit should be thinking about. Really interesting.  It has been fantastic. You know, I witnessed yesterday. I will probably witness every day this week. Accounting and finance is not my jam. So I love when there are accounting nerds to join us here on the show. Of course, that's a compliment coming from the non-profit nerd. So this entire week is hacking a punch of back-to-basics, really to lend success to your organization, regardless of the size. So we have fantastic topics. Yesterday, documenting your way to success, setting up documentation protocols. We also have getting your staff on board with this documentation, which we touched on just a little bit. We're going to talk about even more. And then monitoring that documentation and the strategies that you're using. So, Beth, it's been truly fantastic. We are so grateful to have you. Again, for those of you joining, Julia Patrick is here. I'm also here. Jared Ransom thrilled to have this topic with us because we only do a handful of nonprofit power weeks every year. And this is a dedicated week to Ida Bailey. We want to say thank you to our sponsors that allow us these weeks to really go deeper in a certain topic. So thank you to Fundraising Academy at National University, to Bloomerang, to your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, American Non-Profit Academy, Staffing Boutique, non-profit nerd, as well as non-profit tech talk. Cannot wait to have you back tomorrow, Beth, on Wednesday. Yeah, it's going to be another great topic. Thanks to all of you that have joined us. Remember to go back and watch the Ida Bailey Non-Profit Power Week from last year where we talked about cybersecurity. So, again, thank you for joining us. We hope you'll be back tomorrow. And as we end every episode, we want to remind all of you to please stay well so you can do well. Thank you, Beth.


The study aims to evaluate genetic resources for future sweet cherry breeding programs and fruit production stability by using DNA molecular genetic analyses, eliminating duplications, and characterizing genetic relationships among 123 current, old, and local sweet cherry cultivars from checked genetic resources. The results show that the accessions can be clustered into three main clusters and 10 subgroups based on genealogical and geobotanical characteristics, providing valuable information for breeding programs and fruit production stability. This article was authored by Joseph Patzak, Elena Henekova, Frantisek Parsdine, and others.


So first on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Did anybody have any. Anything they want to add or amend. No, I'm all set. No, I'm all set. I move we accept the agenda as written. Okay. All in favor. Hi, hi, hi. And public comment inquiry. Is anything that's not on the current agenda that anybody would like to talk to the board now is the time to do it. I have a curiosity about the guys that are marking the street. Yes. Are they done? Marking the street. Yes. I doubt it. I would think that piece of more of that this week. I don't know. I couldn't weigh in on that.  You're talking about G W. I see a lot of orange marking. I see a tiny bit of red. And I know there's a lot of electric in that street. Yeah. I don't see enough red comp to, for that to be covered everything. Okay. I'll mention that to them. Maybe they use the orange for something. I don't know, but. Okay. So you'd expect to see more red if it's for electric. Yeah. Okay. I don't remember, but I think there's some conduit. I know some of that stuff's mostly marked as conduit. There's something that comes across the street. In front of. The hardware. They got nothing marked there at all. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It could be there only doing the piece. They're starting down by the feed store down by our feed store, green mountain feeds. Excuse me. Maybe they're just doing a little bit, but I'll ask. I would say the streets mark from the feeds all the way to the parking lot. Is it? Okay. All right. I'll ask him because I don't know. What would orange normally be? That would be orange is like communications, conduits and fiber optic. Okay. So I'll let him know you and now see what they have to say. Thank you. We don't want anybody digging into any of that stuff. No, no, we don't. All right. Anything else? Nope. Okay. Here and none will move on. And we don't have any scheduled appointments this evening. But we do have the central rock quad runners. We have a map. That would like. Permission to use the same roads as last year. And Teresa, do we play have a map? Yep. Yeah, we have a file. I think you send us the same map every year. Don't you Chuck? Yes. Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. And nothing's changed. No. Okay. Okay. Probably an easy one. I'd entertain a motion to. Accept the central Vermont quad runners permission to use the same roads as they did in 2019. Move. Second. Okay. All in favor. All right. All right. Are there any complaints or any issues you guys want to address that we need to know about? Do you guys have any issues that you have to deal with with the COVID situation? Yeah. The state has given us permission to. Work on our trails starting. May 1st. Given us permission to open our trails the 15th of May, which is normal for us. And they've given us guidelines. We're not supposed as of right now, we're not supposed to have any club rides, big rides like that. And if we have work details, we're supposed to wear a mask and stay six feet apart and be in small groups of two or three. That's what we've got so far. Some of that could change as we go along a little bit. Yeah. That makes sense. So it's pretty much. What everybody's having to do. So that kind of makes sense. Yeah. But I haven't heard anything. I haven't had any complaints, any issues, nobody, nothing. I know that I talked to Alex Reister and he was interested in maybe marking some of the trails. Getting 911 addresses. I know that the snowmobile club has access to vast, which has, you know, an app so that if someone gets lost, they can figure out where they are. Have you guys had any requests about that? So our. Trail system in Bethel is not on the map. But our stock bridge trail system, of course, is on the map. And that trail system in stock bridge. If you go to Polaris ride command. It actually gives you GPS coordinates for each intersection. Nice. We would like to do that with the Bethel trail system. Eventually, but it's not to that point yet. So. We're working on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good to know. I wasn't sure. I know that Alex, I guess they've had some times where they just want to make sure that if someone gets injured, they know. You know, they can figure out where they are. Especially for snowmobilers. That's probably right. They're probably a lot out of status where you guys are probably more locals. So you know where you are. We get a lot of different people. Do you? I wasn't sure. Snow machineers tend to ride a little faster because they can. It's a little hard to go very fast on a class four road or, or a trail, you know, with a four wheeler. It's, it's a little different riding. Yeah. Not saying that people can get hurt. Right. I haven't heard a single complaint or issue or anything about it. So. We'd just like to remind you if you ever have anything, please call us because we would like to know. Sure. Last year, Dave brought up something that we had neglected about some signs and I think we did a pretty good job last year. Getting those up, but that's the kind of things that we need to know about, you know, Absolutely. I'll just give them your phone number. I'm not hard to find. Is that it? I think that's it. Yeah. Thank you very much, guys. Yes. Thank you. Be well. Can I get the minutes off from the town site? You will. Yeah. Okay. Cause I need it for. Yeah, they'll be. Oh, sure. Yeah. They'll be up by Friday at the latest. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks guys. Good night. Stay safe. Great. And next up we have the. Okay. Motion to reappoint Oscar Gardner for one year as constable. So yeah, he mentioned to me the other day that his. Anniversary was May 15th. And so I said, all right, I'd put on the agenda. Obviously you have a report here. And once we meet again in person, we'll have them come along and. And see it. So I had Kelly pull some different reporting for you this time. He's been doing good. Obviously I talked to him today, or we exchanged an email. He was looking into something for me. Some just complaints about. And about animals. So he was dealing with that. And he still continues to work for Royalton and seems to be able to fit us in just fine. So. You don't have a lot of people banging down your door to be constable either. So. Do we have, do we have a schedule for him? I think it's, I think it's on the website. Yeah. I think that Kelly keeps it on the website. So if you. He uses a software that he developed. So I believe it's on the website. If I need him, I just email him or call him. So I don't really go on to scope it out, but I'm quite certain someone emailed me the other day and said they knew he was on because of the white website. So. Okay. So if we're good with that. I just entertain a motion to. Accept the reappointment of. Oscar for one year. Move. I can. Okay. All in favor. All right. All right. And then next up we have. Okay. So. So. There. It's a permission to move some capital highway money temporarily. So that she can get some work done. Tail into this. We had appropriated the money and then. So I think it's just a matter of from what she's saying is. Borrowing from the capital fund now. Early. And then. Once the new budget season comes, she would return it back over. To the new budget. To the new budget. To the new budget. To the new budget. To the new budget. To the new budget. Well, that mess that was created up by the dry hydrant on G birdies. So. The contractor has time to do it now. So, and obviously I don't have the money in the budget. So I was hoping for permission to just spend the money now. And then as soon as when July rolls around, I'll just put the money back. Because we have budgeted for it in the budget past. I just, I need the money right now. And I can't wait till July plus two. Yeah. I can't wait until July. I can't wait until July. I can't wait until July. I can't wait until July. I can't wait until July. The buckle behind us. Now. Based on that. Do we have a. Written agreement. Between. Them and us on this work. Nope. There wasn't one before either. So. This has come around, you know, again. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have any emails, but I can, I will definitely make sure that I have it in writing. And just get them to sign off on the agreement. Because right now they've agreed to. We'll dig it. We'll put in the culvert, but they're going to pay for any material. That we need. Replacing the up sizing again. The culvert. Obviously we need to buy the drain for the pond. But at the same time, we're going to have a meeting on site here and I'm hoping. Later in May or early June. And then, and then once this work is completed. We're done. That leaves the town harmless. Now. Yes. We are done. Yep. We just, you know, again, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Again, we just may want to get all that writing and. No, it's a good idea. No, because I know. Yeah. Who's doing the work trees. Derrick alljorgetti. Okay. So he's doing the work. Ryan Slack was kind enough to, he's. I'm hopefully going to get a piece of 30 inch culvert from and obviously we need to go back to 30. So I think I'm gonna be able to get a piece of culvert from him for no cost. And hopefully that the ground was where the culvert went in was good material, but if it's not, Gea birdies have agreed to pay for the material that goes in the ground there. Then for us, we just need to come up with a system to actually make it so the pond drain works. So, but before we do any of that, we're gonna test the dry hydrant. So if that doesn't work, then you'll probably see my head explode from the town office all over Bethel. So I'll at least hear me yelling. I'll let you guys know if it hits. Yeah. There goes Streese's head. So, but that's a great idea, Chris. I'll make sure it's in writing and that we sign, you know, they sign off on it because we can't keep going back and do it. I mean, I understand why we are where we are because it wasn't done correctly, but I don't wanna go back at this. Once we're done, we're done. That way they're gonna be there so they can sign off on the work as it goes along. They chose the contractor. So, you know, kind of everything to give them some comfort level there. Right. Yes. Yeah, we spent enough money there. Yeah, amen. Okay. So that's why I wanna spend the money now and then put it back when we're done. Yeah. Or when the new fiscal year comes. Any of the board members have any issues with borrowing the money here a month ahead of time? I have to ask because only select board members can sign off, can allow authorized capital fund spending. Now we just gotta think of what we need back from Theresa and exchange. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm sure. Do we have any projects we want done? Bound to flesh. Yeah, I'm sure. So, so I, you know, I don't know if you need a motion or not or? I think so just for they would look better for the minutes. So I would entertain a motion to allow Theresa to borrow $20,000 from the capital highway. I don't think we like that wording. Theresa isn't gonna borrow any money. Yeah. About to spend money, to spend money from the capital for a project. I don't know that's a little. So I'd entertain a motion to move 20,000 from the capital highway fund to be used in projects prior to the 2021 budget. And once the 20, 21 budget come, the money would be diverted back into the capital highway fund. So that's on rate. Yeah, that sounds better. Okay, all in favor. All right. Did you get all that, Lisa? I can tweak it, Lisa, if you need. Okay, so I've got motion to allow the town to spend money from the capital highway fund to be used in projects prior to the 2021 budget. The money will be reimbursed in the new fiscal year. Linley, did the motion and Paul did the second? Was it Paul? Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And then we had the discussion on draft DOG ordinance. This is one of those things that we needed to update. One of them, the other one is the personnel policy, but that's a bigger project. But I thought we've had several DOG complaints. So I figured this would be a good thing to start with. So as I said in my report, I had DTRI, I gave her the VLCT ordinance, draft model ordinance. We went over that. And I had her read some of the other ordinances. This also takes into consideration one of the issues that Chris had brought up. And Linley, I think had agreed to. And I know that DTRI has over at the rec field, which is failure for people to pick up dog waste. So I actually thought it was good. I read it after she did it. I had a couple of minor questions. That was it. She left a couple of blanks where things to talk about. And certainly she had picked some prices from other ordinances about the offenses. And so she wasn't sure about, you know, how y'all felt about that. But I don't know if there's any specific questions. And obviously it's going to be easier to do an ordinance once we meet in person. And then we can have the hearings put in the paper, but I figured we might as well get the process started. Can you explain, you know, where there are fees, there's sort of the two columns and one is the actual offense and one is the waiver. What exactly is the waiver? The waiver is that they could pay that in lieu of, if they didn't want to fight it. And I think I'm looking through it because I feel like that's defined somewhere in here. Or maybe it was defined. It was defined, but it didn't make a lot of sense because it was as though they didn't want to litigate it, but wouldn't the offense and the fee be like a ticket, pay it. And if you chose to fight it, then you could have the waiver fee. But the way it was written, it sounded almost backwards from that. And that was my confusion. Okay, I think, yeah, I think what they're saying is basically, yeah, if you agree that you're wrong and that you have violated the ordinance, you can pay the waiver fee. If you want to fight your ticket, you're going to pay the larger amount.  And you lose, you're going to pay the larger amount, yes. Which is the way it is if you get a traffic ticket. Yeah. And I wasn't sure if anybody, you know, maybe the fees were a little high. I wasn't really sure what people were thinking. These were just similar to what other towns, you know, obviously we wanted the first defense to always just be a written warning. Well, hopefully that will just correct the behavior. Who's going to enforce? So part of it is the, is Oscar or myself. I think it says right here, enforcement officer means town constable, police officer, town manager, animal control officer, humane officer, any other person designated by the select board. So generally it would be most likely be myself or Oscar. And how are you going to get payment? You issue a municipal ticket and it goes, gets filed with a judicial bureau. So it's really just like a traffic ticket. Do we get a booklet of those? You do? No, yeah, you can. I thought I was like, is she kidding? Yeah, actually you can that they can, but for him, obviously he already has a ticket pad. So he would deal, you know, he could do that. Well, Neal Fox had mentioned at one point that he was dealing with a lot of getting calls, excuse me, getting calls about dog bites and things like that. Is he part of the- Actually the health officer is the first call because if someone gets bit by a dog and they go to the emergency room, then the emergency room always contacts the health officer first. So he would be the first person to get a call, but he's not in a dog, he's not animal control officer, he's not a dog officer. So he doesn't, he's not named in here because we wouldn't expect him to enforce this. All right, so he would turn it over to Oscar or you? Yep, yep, he calls and more, yeah, because if it's, there's an investigation that needs to be done. And the health officer can do that, can investigate, you know, a dog bite. Sometimes that, you know, he's called before and sometimes it's a dog that has, someone has come over to the house and the dog's bitten them on, basically on the dog's property. So that's a different, a different thing. And I think too, it lays out for you is, you know, neglect, it also lays out if you have, you know, dog bites on town property and all that because there is, that's a process in half.  Obviously that's nothing anybody rushes into, but if it becomes the situation where a dog is loose and attacks somebody on town property, then, you know, that's a big deal. Then you're dealing with a public safety issue. For the most part, it seems like our complaint, what was that Mo? Or on personal property, not just town property.  If my neighbor's dog comes over to my property. Oh yeah, then, yeah, absolutely. That's the idea of this so that everybody has got their dog rabies shots updated so that it's a lot easier for a police officer. Well then they also have a civil legal angle too if they wanted to pursue that. Yep, that's true. There is always a civil matter. But for us, I think the biggest complaints we've got is obviously dog waste. That's been, you know, a problem for people not picking up dog waste. I've had a couple of issues about dogs, but really they've, the one in particular that I've had is really just been kind of a landlord tenant dispute. So that kind of goes both ways. I think that if the, I think in hindsight the landlord should have put in the lease that he didn't want pets. And we had many issues with dogs. I mean, I remember when I first got on the board at that time, there was kind of an ongoing thing between two property owners and the constables called up there quite often in regards to the animals. But, you know, does Oscar have a record on how many in the last year he's dealt with? I think right now he's dealing with two different ones that I've given him. And they're both the same sort of thing, Chris, where it's the two neighbors and that have been kind of going back and forth. So that's what he has right now. I really, since the initial one, when I came to work for Bethel as finance person, that one was, I heard about that one. But I haven't really had a lot of dog issues, no. Are there many non-licensed dogs in the town now or are we caught up on that? Probably right this minute, there's a lot that aren't just because of COVID and everything, you know, what's going on. And we have not, I'm not aware of Bethel doing a dog census either.  But I think that's pretty difficult. So it's really gonna be kind of a social media push, I think, is gonna be for Pam after, you know, once everybody kind of opens up a little bit, it's for her to start putting stuff on Facebook, reminding people that if they have a dog that it needs to be registered. She also can send a postcard out to all the owners from the prior year and remind them if they have not registered their dog. I assume she does that, but I don't know, but I can find out. I think they did that a couple of years ago, didn't they Chris? I can't remember. You're supposed to do it every year. So I'll ask her about it. I'll make a note, send postcard to unregistered dogs. And that's how you find out if somebody has moved or, you know, unfortunately, a dog has passed away or something. So I'll make a note to send postcard to unregistered dog and have her do a push on Facebook to get dogs registered and to maybe remind their friends to register the dogs. Will they be offering another rabies clinic? I don't know. I think I heard Tim ask Pam the other day and she didn't know. So I think everybody's kind of waiting with bated breath to see what the governor is gonna do on Friday. So I don't know if she is, but I do know some people had asked about that. So I'll put a note for her also rabies clinic question mark because maybe once the governor opens up a little bit, maybe the Bethel vet will be willing to do that. I do think that's a good deal and people take advantage of that. And I know from personal experience from hosting those myself in another town is you get a lot of people who come in and do that and cats, dogs. And so I'll see if she can reach out to the Bethel Animal Hospital and see if they'll be willing to do it. So did anybody have any, is there anything wrong in the ordinance or weird? Or there's obviously a couple of blanks we need to fill in. Back to my confusion about the waivers because this is part of what my confusion was if the first offense is a written warning, why is there a fee if you choose to wait? Oh, it should be zero. That's a good point. I'll make a note. Do we bump all of those down a tier? I think it looks like they do half. So I can, I'll take that out. I think we bump them down a tier. Okay. Yeah. I can see why. I mean, $100 we're doing half for 50. For all those, yeah. I think that might've just been why I was so confused by. Okay, no, that makes sense. So you want to bump them all to the waiver. So it's $0.25, 50 for no matter what the deal is, no matter the... And I don't know, I'm of the mind that if somebody's done that offense twice, they should be paying a fee for it. They clearly were warned once and given the freebie. Why make it only $25? So you think the second offense, the waiver fee should be 50? Yeah, I'm fine with leaving it at that. Okay. I agree. Yep. Okay. All right, I'll make a note. And then on page two, public nuisance violation number four, a dog that disturbs the quiet comfort repose of others by barking, whiling, for a continuous blank amount of minutes or more. I know in Brookfield, I think it's 30 minutes. I'm not sure what your feeling is for a amount of time in there that you wanna hear somebody's dog carrying on. I don't know, Chris, what's your... I'll go along with 30 minutes. How long does Brady whine and cry and carry on outside? He's good outside. He'll whine inside. He's a big whiner, but outside he's good. You have to put up with that. Yeah. That's right. Your neighbors don't care. Right, they don't care. Is 30 minutes what people think or? Well, I think 30 minutes is good in general. I mean, we haven't even with a dog over my way here that the issue is the time of day as opposed to the length of time. Oh, geez. It's a 530 in the morning and quarter of 10 at night kind of thing. Nice. Try 11, 30, 12 o'clock. Yeah. And then on page three, it's under penalties and cost. So for violations, basically they wanna know a subsequent violation that's identical to and that occurs within. So basically they wanna know if somebody fails to pick up their dog waste and then they get ticketed or talked to for that and then they do it again within a month or something of a previous violation. So they wanna know when you wanna step up from the first offense to the second offense. How many weeks or months in between of a previous violation shall be considered a higher offense? Any subsequent identical violation that occurs within blank months of a previous one shall be considered a new first offense. So for example, we could say that if you got the first offense, which is the written warning and then the second offense occurs within a month or two. Or three. Or three. Then that's considered the higher offense. So you wanna do three months? No, I say no less than that. Yeah, I was leaning more towards six months. Okay. I think somebody that's gonna be a chronic offender of not picking up after their dog, if they learn that they can do it every three months, they're gonna abuse that system. Okay. So we could do six months there and then any subsequent identical violation that occurs after so many months of a previous violation is considered a new offense. So do you wanna give people, so if they did the offense, but then they don't do it again for two years or 18 months, or do you just wanna remove that entirely? So it's never a new offense. It's always builds on the first offense. Yeah, I would wanna take that out of there, I think. I mean, I think if somebody has an offense and then say two years later has another offense, that should be a first time offense rather than a second. Okay. There should be a timeline in there. I don't know if maybe we say it's all inside a, it's kind of like, you got the hands-free law, right? And if you get two within two years, it jumps up. Third one could be imprisonment. So maybe it's all tied to within a year or, there should be an option to restart the clock. You think there should be after a year? Well, I mean, whatever that time is. Well, we need to decide, yeah, because there's a blank there. That's what we're trying to have. Any subsequent identical violation that occurs after blank months of a previous violation shall be considered a new offense. Now, we're saying already that if they do it, if they don't pick up dog waste and then within six months, they don't pick it up again, that makes it a second offense. So how long are you gonna give them until they start the clock all over again? 24 months. 24 months? I could agree with that. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of more of a year person, but. So somebody that doesn't follow these instructions don't need to have a dog in OS. Does this go for children too? Yeah. You can pick up after your children. Pick up their waste on the sidewalk. There you go. All right, let's see. So I mean, what happens after the third offense, if it happens again within six months? Within a year. Within a year. Yeah. You can pick up after the third offense because. You've gotten to the point where you've cited them three times now. Right. What you can do is you have it, it's a section nine kicks in the town of Bethel retains the right to impound a dog as a last resort. If all other means to rectify situations listed in the ordinance have been exhausted. So you could then impound the dog. So if we put a number in that, you know, a year or two years in that last slot. How does that impact that time period between the third offense and that. Well, basically if someone is, if someone is a regular.  You have the right to impound a dog. But frankly, if it's dog waste, you know, you're probably not going to go to that extreme. You're probably just going to keep the finding these people and making them pay. I had asked each tree after looking at the municipal or VLCT is model ordinance. The last thing you want to do is to trust me is to impound a dog because we become responsible for that. And then we have to pay the vet bills and we got to pay the vet. And it's a whole thing trying to get it back, especially if the owner doesn't want the dog, then we eat all the charges and then we have to send them over to the Lucy. Lucy, what Lisa? Lucy Mackenzie. Thank you. Lucy Mackenzie's. Society. Humane society. So. Last resort is impounding a dog. We had one a couple of years ago that cost us a thousand dollars in town. I remember that dog. I actually have spoken to them since and now they call me.  They were like, they wanted to do a couple of things to the dog. And I'm like, oh, let's talk it through because I'm not paying for this. Because, you know, our luck, it's a dog from another town. Somebody picks it up. On, you know, just as it's crossed over the border into Bethel, all of a sudden we're responsible for the dog. So. Yeah. Good. Could we add a piece to section nine that basically allows us to, you know, take that third offense and continue that instead of going to the. Resorting to impounding on a fourth offense. And it doesn't say we will impound on a fourth offense. It says we retain the right to impound a dog as a last resort. So. Yeah. Yeah. Third and. This is sort of to answer Paul's question of like, yeah. On the fourth offense. So basically. Perfect. That's the perfect word. Subsequent. Great. I'm just wondering if we put a number in that 24 months or a year or whatever. How does that impact? You resetting the clock. Basically. And you're, you've got a time lag between the last offense and, and that number there, what happens during that time period if it occurs again? It says here that. So basically identical violation that, that if they keep doing it, it's, you know, within. In less than 24 months, and it's going to continue to build on it. But basically what we're saying is. If, if the first, if there's a distance between the first offense, and then it doesn't happen again for 24 months, we're going to start the clock over. If it continues to happen, the set that section just never kicks in because they're always going to be in violation of the ordinance. Okay. Yep. In other words, the 24 month time clock. Resets at every offense. Right. Okay. Can we put something in this that if we impound an animal, that the owner's responsible for all costs. Yep. And it is in here. It says that the public notice will state that unless the owner claims the dog and pays all the expenses incurred. Then the town may place the dog and adoptive home or transfer it to the humane society. So that's what I'm saying is they should. Be financially. Responsible for any, any, any, any, any money that cost us the town. Right. It says under release from impoundment to owner, any impounded dog shall be released only after payment of all the penalties and impoundment fees. But they won't pay. More. And they don't get the dog back. They're responsible for it. Right. We basically, yeah, but most people want their dog back.  We usually hold the postage. You know, you may want it. I mean, unfortunately, there are some people out there. I mean, what most trying to get at is, you know, if, if an animal. Does, you know, let's say racks up a thousand dollar bill with the town of Ethel and the people say, yeah, well, we don't want it. You know, there should be some sort of penalty on there and regardless if they're going to keep the animal. So, so basically, even if the dog back or not, they should, they should be responsible for the actual charges at that point. All right. So let me look at, let me see the wording here.  It does say here though, that the owner of a dog transferred to another's care shall remain liable for all expenses incurred by the town for treatment and boarding and care of the dog during, for the duration of its impoundment and any other. So it's still, even if, even if I give the dog to somebody else, the original owner is still liable. So we could go to small claims core and get the money. Is that what you mean, mom? Yeah. We should have a recourse, whether it's civil or whatever, to get our money back. Yep. And that's what it says here really under the impoundment that they're still liable. So I would take someone to small claims court based on this ordinance, but I will double check the language. I'll double check another ordinance for the language to make sure that that's enough to get us into. I'm not sure anything's enough to get us into small claims court, but make sure we win if we go. So, um, yeah. All right. I'll make a note on here to make sure, um, if the language is strong enough for small claims court. Um, and I would, I would say now that I understand that the, the second set of, um, months that we were discussing, that only gets reset if they haven't had a subsequent offense. I would go with, um, Chris's idea of a year. If they've managed to not have an offense within a year, then you can reset the clock versus if they've had a subsequent offense, then it resets the clock for another year. Okay. I mean, I agree with that. Okay. I'll change it to 12 months. Yeah, I like the year or two. Yep. Okay. I will change that. Um, anything else. Okay. Those notes to recent, then we'll take another look at it. Yeah, I figured we'd wait till we're back in session, just like the trash ordinance, Chris.  We got to put it in the newspaper because ordinance. Special that way. So that was good. Any further discussion on. Dog ordinance. Okay. Moving on to the COVID-19 discussion. Trees can get us caught up on. Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure I can anymore. Um, so all the employees have been trained. We took all the, the, um, They took the 20 minute, what our online class, I took the AGC class and Lindley took it, right? So Lindley's a trainer. Chris Jarvis took it. Yeah. So that was interesting actually and gave me some additional information more than the, just the quick, um, You know, 20 minute slideshow. Um, I have ordered. Net Gators for people because, you know, the on off of the mask, at least it's up and down for the neck because it's really was hot for the guys out doing, um, roadside work, yeah. So that was a recommendation that kind of came out in the AGC class. Um, Feetrees in the process of creating signs right now for the rec field, which were in the governor's last order basically. Um, play safe. And, um, so basically arrive, play, leave, and clean up after yourself. So we're still waiting at this point. The pool has not been, um, allowed to be open at this point. So we're still waiting to see what that's going to look like for us. So she was busy today, but she's going to get some signage out there tomorrow, basically letting people know if you're going to use it, it's use your own risk and you need to clean up after yourself and you need to wipe things down and that sort of thing. Let's see. I have spoken to the contractor, so I'm hoping that the sneeze guard, that's a horrible word, but are in place for the front desk and the town clerk's office before we open on May 18th, that's the hope. And at this point, we don't know what the opening is going to look like. If it did say in the legislation recently that town offices can require people to wear a mask, we do have signage prepared to go on the door that basically says we're going to have one person in line at a time. So if you see someone at the desk through the window, please wait outside until it's your turn. I'm going to take the chairs out of the lobby so nobody sits there. I'm also going to remove the mailbox. So I'm going to have the employees, I think, come in the handicap entrance to my office versus going through the front door, I think. I'm going to try to figure that out, but kind of see what the governor has to say on Friday. The other thing that was part of that was, you saw, I put a copy of S344, which the governor has signed, stating that select boards have the authority to establish grace periods, decrease or waive interest in penalty, that sort of thing. I think at this point, and this is my opinion that the government flooded Vermont with enough money that there is, people are getting unemployment, even subcontractors have qualified for unemployment. There was a payroll protection. So I think that there's going to be some people who did not qualify for that, who would certainly deserve assistance, and they could certainly go to the board of abatement. But for the most part, I don't think that's the case. And I think that you should stick with the 8% penalty, 1% interest. I do think that when it comes to our August 15th taxes, that is probably going to have to change since the governor moved the Homestead Declaration to July 15th. The statute is clear.  So I mean, and obviously we can cross that bridge when we get to it. But right now, I ran an admin newspaper for three weeks saying that taxes were due Friday, they could drop them off through the door, they could mail them post-barking by Friday, they had a sign out front, which somebody actually ran over with their car. So it's kind of mangled, but it's still there. But again, that's my opinion. I'm not sure how you all feel about waving the interest in penalty. I will say I had a gentleman speak to me the other day. I emailed him a payment arrangement and explained to him that he could try for an abatement, but I didn't see him getting it because he has an asset, he has a house and he has acreage. So the BCA is not going to consider him having the inability to pay his taxes when in fact he probably could sell a piece of land or he has options, a home equity loan or whatever. But I did outline the process of abatement for him. So I'm not sure how you all feel about moving forward with the interest in penalty charges. It'd be on a case-by-case basis, I'd think, wouldn't you? Whether you grant abatement or not, but the penalty basically was voted on. We all know that's the current regulation is. It's 8% penalty, 1% interest, and we usually charge that. Obviously, right after it's due, if they missed their payment and they didn't send in a postmark, they're immediately charged 9%. And the ability of the select board to make those possible changes is only to the municipal side of the tax bill, not the education side. No, actually, I thought that as well because I was completely, the wording of it is crazy. I thought the same thing, Paul. So I actually reached out to someone at VLCT and asked her because I said, why in the heck did the legislature tell us we could do one or the other because our software won't let it divvy it up. And she said the way it was written with OR, she said it's both. So you would have the ability to move both the municipal tax and the education because I read it exactly the same way you did. Yeah, I don't see that in the wording, but okay. Yeah, that's why I emailed Gwen and asked her at VLCT and she said, yes, us as lay people would write it and OR, and she said, but that's not the way they wrote it, but that's how she said we can interpret it. Okay. So, Therese, can you clarify, let's play out the scenario that we as a board choose not to do anything with penalties and interest. Could an individual go to the BCA and ask for the penalties and interests to be abated, not necessarily the taxes, just the penalties, or is that really just our decision and the BCA is only about abating the taxes, the amount of the taxes? No, the Board of Abatement can do any interest penalties or the taxes, any one of the three or a combination or part of any of those. So essentially what Moe was asking, which was could we do it by case by case basis, that would be going to BCA. The BCA can do it by case by case basis, but we can't charge interest and penalty by case by case. We have to go across the Board and do that. But there's also very specific reasons why you can abate property taxes. If somebody died at solvent, if there was a manifest air of the Listers, if they had a mobile home that was moved out of the area, if their Veterans exemption didn't go forward, there is one that says if they can't, basically if they can't afford it. However, that would have to be, that would be to me would be, have to be a really egregious situation that they would have to really prove that they couldn't afford it. Because obviously if you own a home, you have property, you have a big asset. Yeah, and it's actually not the BCA. It's actually the Board of Abatement, which is a little different than the BCA because it has the Listers as part of the Board of Abatement and they're not part of the BCA. He's right. So it comes out, it's all of you because your part and it's the Justice of the Peace and the Listers, yeah. So what do you think, Dave? I think we leave it as we already discussed this, 8%, the 8 and 1. And if they're not happy, they can go to the Board of Abatement. But I think to have it across the board, dang, I think that works fine for me. Okay. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I agree too. That's what the Board of Abatement is for, if somebody really does need to go, then that's the channel to do it. Mo, what do you think? I didn't hear you. I should. I agree with that. Okay. All right. Then we'll revisit the August topic. It'll depend on, I've spoken to Louisa a week ago about how many people haven't filed their Homestead Declaration. So if we can get people to get their Homestead Declarations filed, then we may be okay with issuing tax bills and sticking with August 15th payment. But last time I talked to Louise, she still had quite a few people who hadn't filed and it's a whole thing with current use and it just becomes an issue. And then people get very confused when you're sending multiple bills to them. So isn't there a cutoff period for the Homestead, wasn't it? It's July 15th and that's when I would have already had tax bills in the mail by then. So we'll see. We'll have to kind of play that by ear, which is I think what I said in the, I just wanted to let you know. I hope we don't have to, but I don't know. We'll see. So as far as COVID-19, I feel like it's going pretty well. I told Kelly the other day that there was no porta potty. We'll go in this year at Pevine Park because if you put a porta potty in, you're going to clean it. You have to clean it twice a day. So that's not going to happen this year. So there won't be any porta letts. And last year, I'm not even sure how much it was used. We had somebody who was living down there, stringing their laundry from the door. So I don't know how much it was used for any other purpose. But unfortunately, that's just one thing that's come from it. And other than that, everybody's got hand sanitizer, masks, you know, we're moving forward with the, got the net gate or order I've got, you know, we've, everybody's been trained. So I don't, does anybody have any specific questions about COVID or what we're doing? Okay. And that's all I have for COVID, Chris. Okay. Oh wait, no, Chris, we were through a meeting, the meetings, future meetings. I don't know what's going to have, we have to wait for the governor. So it, you know, our probably starting in June, our meetings will be able to have them in person. But that depends on what the governor changes. If it's only 10 people, maybe we still have zoom available for people that can't case we have over 10. I'm not really sure we're going to have to kind of play that by year. Yeah, right now it's 10. Yeah. So we don't know what he's going to do on Friday. This work, this works for me. Yeah, if you come to our meetings now with a thermos, we'll be, we'll be sniffing it. We'll have Oscar checking it for you. Yeah, yeah. You'll be sharing. We'll all taste it. That's right. I'll bring a big thermos so I can share. There you go. All right. Anything further on that? Nope. Okay. And we have the update in the waterline project. So, G.W. Tatro and Aldrich Nellie have started last week with just a couple of guys and they've been working with Tim to create a plan. We have done all of the first round of the lead testing for all the galvanized services because as you know, that's part of the con, part of the deal is we get the 100% replacement for the galvanized lines. And if a resident has a lead hit that's higher than the state average, we're going to have to go all the way to the house. That was part of the agreement and replace it. But we're hoping obviously that's not the case. The plan looks pretty simple right now. There's going to be a flag and crew two employees, basically two in the whole, install in the pipe, one form and excavation officer or excavation guy and operator and then two to three dump trucks with the drivers. They're hoping that the dump trucks are kind of just in town one at a time. They're going to have about 100 feet open at a time, give or take and one lane of traffic obviously open as much as possible. I'm working to with Aldrich and Elliott, they're supposed to be getting us some information as far as a tentative schedule to get out to business owners. I'm hoping in the next when the water bill goes out next week, it's next week. It'll be the consumer confidence report that we have to put out every year. It'll be the new rates we always issue.  Also, it'll be some information about the schedule for the project. As I noted in my town manager's report, nobody can stop by this job site because of COVID restrictions. They have to test people if they have a fever, this and that, so if you have a question about the job, give me a call, give Tim a call. Either one of us would be happy to answer your questions. When they were marking the sidewalks on the street the other day, I went through town a couple of times and the two fellows who were doing it didn't have masks on and they were in close proximity to each other on a couple of occasions. Are they required to wear the mask and whatnot? Well, each contractor, GWTATRO has adopted their own plan. Whether or not they adhere to it is really going to be the issue for their superintendent. If they have an outbreak of COVID on their site, that's going to be for them to deal with VOSHA OSHA. There's language in our contract, certainly with them that protects us, but I will certainly let Pete know. That's the foreman that and I'm not sure who was marking, but I will let Pete know that he had guys that were within and told him. I saw them twice when I went through town going in and coming out and right next to each other talking and no masks. I wonder if it was them or do you think I wonder if it was Digsafe employees? It was whoever, no, because I saw them at the Tatro truck, which was part of the in the town. All right. So then it was probably okay. Perfect. I'll let him know. But they certainly that was one of the questions that we had asked them, you know, to make sure and they had adopted their own plan. The Association of General Contractors, AGC is one of the only people that have a plan that the Agency of Commerce and Community Development have signed off on. So we did ask GW Tatro and they said they had adopted that standard. So I'll mention it to them. But yeah, they have rules and they should adhere to them. Well, I'm just concerned that it does any town liability or anything. No, no, we made sure that that's work in our contract. So, but I will let them know. And so just so you know, if you have questions about the project, call me, call Tim, but you can't stop by the site, which will be the same with any project going on in town this year for sure. So the other thing is obviously there's going to be some change orders. I mean, I know, you know, as Tom Andrew, I have the authority to sign contracts, but I just wanted to make sure you were all aware of that that you're okay with me signing change orders. Obviously, things are going to come up in the field. But what's going to happen is they're going to go through the chain, obviously, Aldrich and Elliott will review them with GWTATRO with myself and Tim. So there's obviously a process by the time I'm signing a change order to affect our contingency, several people have looked at it. So I just want to make sure everybody's understands how that works and that everybody's okay with me signing the change orders. You don't have to be in motion in a minute to make that good or not. You know, we could. I feel like it comes with the territory, but I think we should just to cross all of our t's and dot our i's if you don't mind. I would move that Therese be allowed to sign change orders for this water project. Okay, all in favor? Hi. The only thing I would just ask for Therese is if you could just give us an update on any change orders that do get processed. Yeah, no, once we get what it was for, what the dollar amount might be, just so that we have some knowledge of it. Yeah, absolutely. And no, I agree. They'll be, we'll keep you updated on the finances as well. So Therese, you're gonna be letting the business owners know what's happening. Can you also let the folks up on Avon Drive and up on the other side roads there? Give them an update too. We'll let everybody know because when the water bills go out in May, along with the the link to the CCR, the new rates, we're gonna, I'm gonna put the update in there. That way everybody on the water sewer system gets the same update. Okay, because I know the lady at the top Avon Drive is planning on having some work done up at her place and she'll need to try to coordinate the scheduling and maybe put it off until after, depending on when the, when they're going to be working up in that area. Right, well, tell her to call the town office and we can make that those arrangements with her because depending on if it's the property, I think it is, there's bigger issues that you and I could talk about on the telephone. Very typical. But certainly, they could, you know, if someone has questions about that, tell them to call the town office. We'll do. Thanks. And then the last last thing that we have this evening is just moving our next meeting, which is currently scheduled for May 25th. So typically the options that we do is either the Monday before or the Tuesday afters usually kind of look. I can't see my calendar from here. Is that May 18th, next Monday? Yes. So, you know, I guess the two choices at this point would either be the 18th, which is next Monday or the 26th, which would be the Tuesday after the memorial day. I would like to do it Monday the 18th just because I want to get tax bills out. And I have, Tim and I have the water sewer budget done. The only thing I was waiting for was for two phone calls back so that for calculating the EU. So it'd be nice for us to be able to have the rate set, even though it doesn't affect the next bill, it affects that letter that goes out. That way everybody gets their bill and it's kind of nice, neat little package. So if we could do Monday at six, that would be great. We would have to do it via Zoom, as Chris and I discussed today because we don't know what the governor is going to say on Friday. And we need to advertise it prior to that. So if it may be our last Zoom meeting. And if we do that, how long before our next meeting? When in June is our first meeting? Our first meeting is the 8th. Okay. That's not so bad. Yeah. There's five Mondays in June. Okay. So how does people feel about the 18th? Are you available or? Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm not going anywhere. Who knows, Paul? The governor could rip the Band-Aid off Friday and it could be a free brawl. Yeah, I doubt it, but okay. Even if he opens up our state, where is anybody going to go? As a self-employed person, it's not the governor. I have a lot of work. I don't have people that are willing to let me come do it. Oh yeah. The governor isn't stopping me. No. Well, hopefully everybody feels a little better about that. And once the governor opens it up a little bit more, Dave. We'll see. Yep. I know. I don't know. I know some people have said they think that he's just going to lift the band entirely. But I don't, I mean, he's slowly, I can't believe he would, that he's just going to let everybody go. But I don't know. Guess we'll all find out. He's going to extend the stay at home order. You don't think he is? No. He's getting too much lash back throughout the region for that to happen. On his top today, he's talking about extending the not letting debtists to do routine work after the 18th, which supposedly the 18th was only the last day. But they're talking about extending that today. Yeah. I wonder. I know there were some businesses that didn't appear to be opening maybe till the middle of June, but I wondered, I guess we'll all have to tune in and find out because I don't know. Sorry. Well, I appreciate that doing it on the 18th. So it'll be, like I said, it'll be Zoom again, just because we have to get the agenda out and everything. And it would be to be too crazy to try to do it in person when I don't know what the rules going to be yet. Okay. And manager's report. I think we went over a majority of that, but I think so. Yeah. The most, like I said, the roadside mowing RFPs out. I submitted my structures grant today for the watershed bridge. I'm hoping to have my contract signing for P vine this week. The contractor was just getting the bond documents to me. So I think, yeah, I feel like that's all underway. And I think we're making some good progress. I did speak to my FEMA representative. And I think that Pinello bridge will go in in the spring of 2021. So I'll need an extension, but as I just had to give an extension to the hydraulic study. So, which I don't think will be the end of the world. It'll give me a chance to get it. It'll give us a chance to get a bridge, somebody on board to design it. And we're going to have to fight with FEMA a little bit about it. We already know that. So I just don't see it going in this fall. I mean, maybe we'll see what the hydraulic study says, but an extension will be no problem to get. But due to COVID, we certainly have had a couple delays. So other than that, I feel like I'm all good. And just kind of wanted to go through just quickly the FEMA sheet that you had set in our packet. Oh, sure. Yep. Let me flip to it. All right. I'm going through my packet. Here it is. Yeah. So obviously we're sitting, we're waiting for a bunch of money. I mean, that's pretty much what it boils down to. We've got paid for part of the Geico and we got paid for the federal highway money, which was terrific. Obviously that was a chunk of change. So I signed off on something else again today that I had to approve through my FEMA module. We've been dealing with Jaren Borg. I know that they were some, you know, once Jessica puts in the project, somebody down the line reviews it and they had needed some more information that she got from our river engineer. She was looking for some permits. So everything looks like it's in the system and all this stuff. If I go into my FEMA portal, all says that it has been obligated. So it just takes a while to go from being obligated to being for us to get paid for it. So, you know, we've done all we can do on our end. And if I read the sheet correctly, currently of the work that has been performed, our share, that's around 31,000. Does that sound right? Oh, okay, sorry. Yeah, I'm looking at the wrong column. Yes. 12.5% of our share. Yeah, exactly. So that's what we're looking at right now. Obviously we don't have the big ticket items in there, like the slide or in Federal Highway was 100%. We lucked out there. Obviously the big part is going to be Pinello Bridge. And so this is what we're sitting on right now. And I have sent, as I've said, when we get the money, I send the money to Mascoma. So currently, we've sent a little over 600,000 to Mascoma. Yep. So we're about halfway paid out. Yeah, I think I, gosh, I should have looked. I think I took a draw of... So that 132... I think I took a draw of 650,000, I think. So... Okay. So that was what you'd asked for. So I would have gone through the module and those are the numbers. So where are we at? Where we're at? The other thing in here. Go ahead. I'm sorry. And you may have already said it, but do you know of FEMA-wise what the time frame is on receiving the rest of the money that we did last year? No. I asked Jessica and I asked, and she just... We don't know. They obligate it. Once FEMA obligates it, it's really up to the state. So I don't know if they've been busy with COVID or what. I don't know, Chris, what the turnaround is. Yeah, I just didn't know if they thought maybe we'd get it by whatever, July 1 or... I have not heard a peep out of them. So I'll make a note. I'll send Kim Kankenara a number, email and ask Kim when we can expect FEMA payments. Okay. All right. The other thing in your packet was, I'm sure you guys straw, the Bethel Strong started the community teaching garden and offers free at home garden kits. So I saw Dylan had already took up some topsoil, so people can get started doing that. Obviously it talks about anyone interested in growing their own food can come to the garden to learn how to grow produce. So obviously you have a mask. I'm sure they'll do lessons through social distancing, that sort of thing. But I thought that was a great, a nice thing. And I really loved the idea of grow another row, grow an extra row. I thought that was terrific. What a great idea. Except for zucchinis because you'll never eat all of them. Yeah, that's right. Trust me, I'll have a whole bunch of zucchinis in two months. You can donate them to the food show. You believe with an unlocked vehicle, it's fair game. And you could donate them to the food show. No, we got enough zucchini down there. Find someone who likes pickling or making zucchini relish. Yeah. So that's all I have, Chris, for that. Okay. And we had the, lost my spot here. Select meeting minutes from the 27th. Anybody have any questions in regards to those? Oh, look good. Okay, entertain a motion to accept the meeting minutes as written. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor. And then we have some other, we have some reports in there by Oscar. Oh yeah, I asked him to pick something different because you'd want some more information. So this told you about many tickets and how many warnings and contact stops he'd had in it. And then when it says, gave you the date and times of the stops. So when he writes down here, total tickets, nine and total warnings, 15, is that just between those dates or is that year to date? See, I don't know. I don't know. It says Sunday, March 1st, Friday, March, May 8th. Yeah, I saw that.  But I do see him and right. I think you see that many people over, you know, so I was didn't know if maybe that was a running total year to date or I think that I'm reading it the way Paul reads it that that's his that that is who he pulled over. And no, that's how many people he stopped in eight days. Gotcha. Okay. He's definitely got a pretty good presence. And if he's pulled that was the way I read it. I agree with Paul, but I mean, I could double check with Oscar. But let me see. He also gave us another. Well, if you look at the detail, here he has this. Oh, this is racial data. I don't know. Racial data for the state. Yeah, so that's one. It's first date is all the way at the bottom. It's March 1st. Yeah, so that's only like seven stops. So I don't know. So maybe it's today. Let me see seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. Yeah, so I just like five confused on that. No, Chris is right. 29. So I just counted them all. So this is from March 1st. That's even weirder. Oh, yeah. Okay. No, so it is. So it's from March 1st, 2020 to May. So it is how many stops he's made 29 stops since March 1st. He was there. I just counted them all. So, so great. So Teresa, on the assessments, $2,343. If all those go through, how much of that does the town get? I bet we get maybe 12%. Yeah, it's gonna say 200, 300 bucks. Yeah, we don't get much of it. And that's not if you can test it and you and you go to court and changes it, you know, he can always reduce it when you get there. So yeah, pre adjudication. Yeah, we get diddly. I haven't. I haven't had many complaints this year so far, not to say that there isn't going on, but it's, you know, I know when he took over at the beginning of the year, we had a couple of certain individuals in town that were doing things they shouldn't be doing. You know, drug activities at certain residences. And I haven't, I haven't heard as much. I mean, has anybody heard, you know, good thing, bad thing? I haven't had anybody complaining recently about tickets or anything. I had one a while. I've had a couple, but usually I watch the video and it's amazing to me is how many people think what happened, say what happened and then did not happen.  I'll just tell him, let me see the video. And I know what the complaint is. I watched the video and then have the discussion with them. But I have not had a complaint recently knock on wood. Well, I know last year, last year at this, well, not quite this time, but, you know, last year, early last year, we had a combination of quite a bit of speeding issues and, you know, especially like on the corner of church street and pleasant street there. And then we had a couple of individuals in town that were known drug dealers and some questionable, it doesn't seem like at least I haven't had as many calls this year as I did last year for making headway there. I think so. I think that, well, I think that's part of it is probably COVID. I'm not sure, you know, probably you're pulling over less people right now, but I haven't heard any complaints. People could be just getting used to them. I will getting used to Oscar in general. I think that there was a totally different personality between him and your prior constable. I have heard a lot of compliments on him, the fact that he follows up with things and people have been happy with their interactions with him. Like today, he sent me an email to say and said, you know, you need to publicize that the bridge construction headed towards Gilead is back. It's a 35 mile an hour speed zone. I will be enforcing that. We did get some complaints last year about him ticketing people, but it is a work zone and it doubles the fine right there. So some people were upset that he was sitting on that area. They felt, but that's the job. And so I did give that information to Kelly. She wasn't in the office today, but I am going to ask her to, you know, put that on Facebook. And so I thought that was decent of him to kind of forewarn people that he'd be doing direct and patrols out there. Yeah, I had one person complain to me about that. And unfortunately, that person decided to go cruising by him at about 50 in the 35 zone. So you don't really have much of a leg to stand on, but they were pissed off because he was there. Yeah, you know, it's still beffle.  It's dangerous, you know, people that are taking their lives in their hands by working out there. So you need to be minding the speed. So well, there used to be a couple of places in town where there was obviously drug traffic going on, a lot of people coming and going. And I haven't heard about those situations still being there at this point. So either they've moved on or whatever. They're confined to their homes, Paul. Is that bridge construction area marked? Yes. Inside the signs. Okay, boy, I missed them today. I went through there today and I was thinking that same thing. And I didn't, I remember seeing construction and possible flagger head, but I saw nothing about 35 miles an hour. Yeah, it probably won't say anything. Well, I didn't see it because in Stater Mott, the speed limit is as posted. That's the last I do a speed reduction, which I don't know if they have on that project. I think they did before. I don't think they have had the 35 mile now signs up since they shut down. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, they'll definitely have to be posed down by the drive-in. Yeah, it is. Mo, it's marked by the drive-in. It was last year. Yeah, they're probably going to put a backup now that they're starting back up. I mean, I agree. I think that's, we can do it, but I think we need to, again, dot our I's, cross our T's, make sure those postings are up. Yeah, all for mine, Tim. I'll send him an email tomorrow. That's up to the contractor anyway. I'll just ask him if he's sure they're up. Thank you. You bet. I can hear Brady. He must be getting, getting ready to Mallya. I can hear his collar jingling. No, no, that's not Brady. He's sleeping. Oh, somebody else. That's Abby. Oh, I can hear somebody. That's Abby. Well, now that you said his name, you'll probably wake up now. Come on, Brady. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to Threese's house for the night. So. All right. Anything else to come before the board? I'm good. No. I move we adjourn. Okay, second. Okay. All in favor? All right. All right. We'll have a good night, everybody. Thank you. You too. Thanks, guys.  Have a good night. 722. Oh, Lindley. Bye, Lisa. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Yeah. I'm getting an exit. Cancel.