The right bar was just elected as chair for the ensuing year and Danny Kalman was just elected as vice chair. And now we're in the process of nominating the secretary of the board. My apologies. I'll second that from any of the nominations for secretary. You're none. Secretary of the board for the ensuing year. I think as secretary of the ensuing year, please say hi. And I'm glad we hand over the meeting to Mike now. Thank you. Thank you much, Carla. We'll now move into conflict of interest policies and then rules and procedure. One minute. I could explain conflict. You do have a official conflict of interest procedure. And if you have not taken a look at I would take a look at it. Basically a conflict is that you should basically recuse yourself from any decision or act of this body. If you have any. Appearance, whether they be actual or even if it's there's an appearance that you could recuse yourself. Doesn't happen much. I know we did have when Mark was chair or, you know, again, someone with a business we might have someone. Those are typical scenarios where you have where your business has some input directly on some sort of thing that we're voting on. The second nutshell is what the conflict of interest. You know, you have to declare that you know you should you will save for voting, and hopefully thereafter we would have a forum to be able to vote. That's in that show. Any questions. I think we have a couple of questions. If you have a conflict, you should say it, even if you think you can do it to spite it, but then do you vote on that to order that person. It just was like a bit of a hanging loss. In general, just like if there's a conflict, you have to do it, but this one is worded able to act objectively and spite it. It's not being still able to put the board vote on that generally. Yeah. I think it is asking for transparency and asking for kind of bending over the back of this to make sure people understand what your interests are. And it's perfectly appropriate to say, I believe, in spite of this, I can act accordingly with the best interests of account in mind. But if there's some debate or issue, then the board could ask you to consider and accuse yourself on your own. It's a little bit easier if the board has to vote to say that you don't think you have a conflict because that's something that it's supposed to be self basic. My expectation is probably won't have to dust that off again after a while. Thank you. Any other questions on the conflict policy. I don't think we don't have to have a motion to. You need to approve it. It has to be approved every year. So, would someone like to make that motion. Obviously it's a conflict of interest policy. Thank you. We have a second to your motion and a second. Any further discussion on the motion. Apply to other boards besides the title. It's the select board's conflict of interest policy. I didn't read today. We had a long discussion about this last year was rewritten right a year ago. And I think all the board and some commission should adopt it and should model it after that. Yeah, and I would just say for discussion on some of these on the planning issue, we never talked about her adopted it, so we were expecting to follow it. I think folks did in good shape. And it's good to, you know, have someone know that because in any commission you can have something that where you have a clear conflict, you just refuse yourself. It's not a hard process. Okay. Any further discussion. If not, all in favor say hi. Hi. Any opposed motion carries. Procedure.  This is board follows our virtual order kind of like what we're doing now. We are all meetings of war. We, you know, we could go based upon that parliamentary procedure and that keeps everything in water. But also is really kind of important is that one it keeps us on track. But the second thing that I think is even more important is that as being considered a deliberate body. When in certain instances, right in certain instances we are. I think that's that's really important as a deliberate body that you do have those procedures. Has anyone has everyone reviewed those policies and procedures. Does anyone have a question. Is it Robert's rules of order or is it rules of procedure that have been adopted by the. Robert's Robert's Robert's Robert's rules. Robert's rules specifically for small. Yeah. Robert's rules. So technically in a, in a small meeting such as this. It's customary that the chair usually doesn't make a motion. It's, it's okay for the motion. It's okay for the chair to second it because sometimes there's issues with forms. And you might not get something on the table. So it is Robert's rules of order but there's a specific reference to small parts. And that's an important thing like for instance whoever makes a motion, whoever makes a second may not necessarily even agree with the motion, but it's to get into discussion. Any other question. It's rather in every select board, and I've worked with both towns that I've worked in. It's, it's always been adopted, and it's always been used to accept. In backwards on Robert's rules typically says that you make a motion to put it on the table. There's a second and then you discuss it right typically what happens here is the chair reads the issue. There's a long discussion about what's happening and what the concerns are. To the motion is made out. Yeah, and it really, you know, the proper procedure is for somebody to make a motion to get it on the table for discussion, and then you discuss and then you vote. But pretty typically here there's a presentation made either by staff or perhaps by a select board member. And there's questions asked and then towards the end, there's a motion made and exactly the problem. So, I think that, you know, Robert helps to guide there, especially there's a meeting public event involved. And clearly, you know, seconds and emotions and seconds are required, but we're not sitting around with the rulebook saying, are you going to do this right? But in large communities, we might have someone might have a point of order, or, you know, other things that are very profitable. It is good to be something you're not fairly familiar with. Any other questions. For that example, I'll move to accept the rules of order. Thank you. There's a second. I'll second. Any further discussion. If not. All in favor to approve the rules of procedure say hi. We'll move on to the consent agenda items. For the provider and Alyssa, if you're out for the consent agenda, the consent agenda is typically considered as one motion so somebody would make a motion to approve the consent agenda. And if there's a second, any member can choose without a vote to take something off the consent agenda, typically the consent agenda means there's not going to be this. Accept the slate and you simply vote on it. If someone says, I'd like a discussion about letter C, the newspaper of record. It doesn't have to be going to the problems taken out of the consent agenda. It just was one of the members has raised the question. So, don't be intimidated by the consent agenda. In tonight's meeting or any meeting subsequent. If there's something on there that you feel like discuss just simply tell the chair, I'd like to talk about this issue. It comes off the consent agenda. And the chair will put it. Your question. Hey, we have a motion. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you. We have a motion. Any further discussion on the consent agenda. If not all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. Just before I know we have now comes a public I just want to say, make a brief statement. One. Appreciate all the select board members on your. Guidance of me as being chair. I just want to say that the chair. This is for the public. I kind of don't like, I wish we had a better setup in this that would kind of place the public a little bit more, but all of us have equal votes and that's the chair. And make, you know, make sure things run right. I know a few people. Being more power. If you have something, especially as why I said before the public thing, if anyone to limit their time to two minutes or under, if you have something further to say. We, I would encourage you to get on them on the agenda to discuss an item. I also want to hope that. As is the thing that we go into in Europe that hoping we're seeing some more stability, the role of this body is primarily to run the business of the town. And I think that's what we want to stick mostly to, you know, there are everyone has issues that they advocate for. For example, to advocate them in the strongest way, but this body really has to run the town. And sometimes we have gotten a little bogged down as to some things. That's my little speech for, for today. So now I, this is the part of the meeting where we give the public a chance to make any comments they wish to address the select board does anyone. Right. It's not on the agenda. Does anyone have anything that they wish to breach us not on the agenda that they would approach either in the building or on a zoom line. I would like the newly elected and the incumbents for stepping forward to your board. It is public service that you're doing so thank you so much. Go ahead. Chris go ahead. No, I was just making sure the public didn't have anything to get on and then I was kind of preceding something. I think taking burden anyone has to say. I'll just take a moment and say, I'm not a writer. Stepping up and other things about serving. This is a project position. We appreciate that you do that you said, Okay, I like just take a brief minute. About specific individual in this room. Wasn't at the informational meeting. Kind of a little bit unprepared for this because it was the last minute thing but Mr. Flanders, I wanted to express the gratitude and appreciation of this entire town. For your many years of dedication on the board and in the community as a whole. Your institutional knowledge and your history background is, you know, is difficult to match. I think from a memory standpoint, you've probably learned to remember more about what went on in this town during your years here then perhaps even my uncle said Thursday and he could remember everything. Sorry. And quite honestly, I notice a lot of things in town. And one thing that I've noticed from time to time when I'm coming through the village is you out taking your stroll. At one point your dog in the past but the pleasure and the pride that I see on your face as you enjoy your stroll through town is in itself. You know, appreciated, because I know that that you feel good about the community you live in. And I hope to think that everything you've accomplished over the years. fits good in your heart, you know, there's been ups and downs I'm sure as there is with any elected officials but I just want to extend a gratitude and thanks from this entire community for all the years that you put into this community and I did manage to get up and get your your award that you have given for so many years to other people and now it's finally come back to represent probably the person that deserved it the most. So, here you are. Congratulations. Want to drive bill in here too. His award here at the last meeting. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you everybody you. You managed to do something I, I tried to do many times as surprise people. I didn't have any inkling where you were headed. We last year because of COVID we didn't do it and right things kind of snuck us up on us this year and didn't get to do it so. Yes, I do. Everything you said is accurate here and but it's not me it's everybody and what a great that works together to do it and you know, I heard Bill's story my first meeting as a water commissioner was Bill's first meeting as Waterbury's town manager and village manager so it's been what 88 got asked to be a water commissioner and went on to be the trustee and was Bill's first thing. March, there was probably today I started on March 15 and then the next meeting so it's right around now. I had electricity back then. A little fearful that with bills, deciding to retire and, and you, you know, as a board member of eFUD with possible potential of eFUD, you know, coming together with the rest of the town, whether or not you were still going to be part of, you know, the board and whatnot. I figured that I didn't want to miss the opportunity. I might have slipped by that you two probably deserve the Keith Wallace award is as much as anybody not receive on, you know, and I. You went through public power and you where we got it from the bills of all the years and things that I was down at Costco's yesterday and I still haven't got the plaque from Everett's name engraved there we always take it back afterwards and I pretty stopped in the other day to get that plaque engraved and another one you take. Yeah. So, thank you to everyone and I appreciate it and it's an honor. You're very welcome. Okay, just just to know, I just noticed no TV today. No. We have a report and I know that we usually have the oracle media people here. Okay, we'll move on to the next part of our meeting. It's joint meeting with the eFUD commissioners. We don't have a form at the moment, but we're a little early. Do you want a little bit scheduled for 740 Bob for new here, skips here, but, you know, there's three other commissioners and I don't know if they're planning to tune in at 740 if you want. You want to do the next go to the next we'll do that in 30 items and then come back to this to see if any other commissioners come. And that's by the same as anyone in the meeting have any objection to us moving to the discussion of the. If not, we will move in that direction. It just, I know. It's very volatile. Some discussion as to why the inclusion banner was removed. It was more of a procedural matter, because the existing so the previous select board added that it would be decided at the, when the new select board was chosen that it would be decided as to whether the banner will be continued. And that's the only reason it's not saying that we want to talk about. There's a little background noise if someone could mute themselves. So just to just be clear, Mike, the motion that was made stated that the band would be flown from December until town meeting there. And I had it taken down town meeting day because that's what the motion. I just want to make sure there was a direction there by the select board to get down in order to allow the new select board to discuss the issue. So that's where we are today to discuss should we put the banner up. I'll first, you know, I should put it out first with a select board and then we'll hear comments from the audience. And maybe if I can hear from each one of your, your, your opinions. My question is perceived role and I'm, I don't know, Phil's the person who has a more solid answer so I might wait on that. I, I mean, I, you know, made the motion to put it up. I'm full in support of having it. I don't think it ever needs to come down. I'm supportive of leaving it indefinitely. I don't imagine any reason it shouldn't be up there. My question is though, what route we take to not have this conversation annually and whether that's making a vote to leave it indefinitely as a board or if it's better to put as a ballot item to the town just something. I'm going to take personal responsibility for because I asked that last year and then forgot to follow through with it. So I take responsibility for getting to see about getting on a ballot. So, I guess I see those as the two routes and then, you know, the intermediate decision would be to leave it up to a time meeting that but actually put it on the ballot as time which we sort of got the ball on last time. I don't see why we couldn't have it. It's kind of like where a lot of motions are until, you know, indefinitely told, you know, withdrawn, and I don't see why we can't do that. I think it just the way as Bill said, the way the motion. Yeah, and it's that's on me because I need that motion with that wording but then forgot about it.  Any other opinions? What's up, Roger, Chris. In lieu of what's happening in Ukraine, I think it's even more important. I think it's important that I support. So are we not entertaining the ballot issue? Well, we could we could discuss that. I think I want to hear first from the select board and then I want to open it up to public comments, you know, people that they have comments. I feel like this town sent 250 soldiers during the Civil War to end slavery. I think it's entirely appropriate. There's anyone in the public whether on zoom land or in the audience have anything, any comments. Let's just step forward. First of all, I just want to thank all of you about adopting and now we adopted the putting back the banner up. I think I've shared with a couple of you about some of the new residents that have moved into our town recently. And I wish that to me talk about some of the reasons why they chose to move to that. And part of that includes the reasons that they did on the town, and knowing the work that we have done, electively select for and work to make this community more inclusive to the banner was part of that message. So I just want to share that with you all, because what we're doing here isn't making a difference. It's attracting new people. And it's, I hope that we will continue to do that because our town is moving in a direction that people really want to hear. And so I just want to thank you and share some of the stories. Thank you. Anyone. I just wanted to voice my support for the banner. It feels very timely. I'll just share kind of a scary incident from today I was walking to the post office and there were two stickers on a whole roundabout from white nationalist organizations.  So, as much as you know I think a lot of us wish that it wasn't such a pressing issue these days.  I think it's very important for the war to take a very firm stance against racism and that banner I think is a very key part of that. This one was my support there. Anyone else. Just thumbs up or. Okay. Why not. I'm not opposed to the state your name. Lisa. I'm not opposed to the banner itself because I think that it was a positive compromise that the town made to accommodate. My only concern is that we're setting precedence, or because my understanding is the policy is that the polls were donated for us to make announcements events, like what we have up there now. And I understand that exception was made to the rules and I don't have a problem with that. The concern I have is are we going to continue to have these types of requests made by individuals in the community for similar such events that aren't announcements and what is the board going to do about that and how much time is going to be dedicated to those issues or the matters that many of us consider to be more pressing. I think it's very clear that came out in the discussion that those banner polls are basically to announce events and we did take a very unique stance with this one issue. And I think it is unique. And I think it's a singular. Again, it's probably going to stay there probably forever. And because I think it's, it's making a statement about. I don't think anyone in this room could say that doesn't stop or whatever it feels we gave a declaration of inclusion. It represents that.  And I think that's the, as a matter of fact, I'm repairing and even the repairings made that point because that's why they provided the money to put up that that poll to announce events. And I think that's what's going to stay. So I think Danny's idea of putting that on the fall, it's a great idea. It would be a article, so it'd be a floor discussion. Right. If we ever have a traditional. So Mike Bill keeps jumping in and out. As a Rotarian. We call what policy, the banners. And can you refresh everybody's memory on what that was. And did we make an official change to it to allow for this exception. The official policy is just for to announce events and up for two weeks. And, you know, after the up to the event and then be taken down. So is there room for what for banners. That's okay. Mark has a stand up. Mark. Hi, thank you. I think one of the, this came out of the last discussion last year, but I think the important narrative to get away from is that these polls are property of the town. The, the banner being put up is not, you know, I think the policy is really for people that want to advertise events, but you could put a banner on the building, you could put a banner wherever the select board makes a decision. But I think this specific banner falls under the rule book of, you know, the polls. I really think the important thing here is that the select board supports it. Boats it forward and then, you know, it can stay on those polls. I think trying to say that this is somehow skirting a policy that policies for, you know, people in the town or other people that want to announce events, but it's property of the town and the select board to make a decision on what to put on those polls. So I think that's the important thing that came out of discussion last year. And I think we need to get away from the discussion like this is somehow skirting some kind of policy because it's, it's town business and the town is deciding to put this banner up, not an individual. Thank you Mark for that input. Yeah, so. What Mark said is true. The banner policy was adopted by the select board. It is the select board's policies. The select board has the authority and ability to change its own policy. If the policy had been voted for at town meeting, it would be the policy of the town meeting of the town and therefore only town meeting for changing. So it is within the select board's purview to decide what the policy is. And as Mark suggested, there was some conversation. I'll just remind everyone that I did seek at the board's request some legal opinions about whether this could be placed up there. And would that have an impact about what other banners might have in the legal opinion that was provided the town was that this is the select board in their capacity as the governing board of the town deciding what's going on the town's manifold. So this is not black lives matter. It's not the rotary club. It's not, you know, the booster club from our union. This is the town of watery saying this. So you have the right to put it up if you want. And you don't have to put up something that another organization wants you to put it up unless you believe that that speech is what you want to represent as, you know, the town's policy. So you have the perfect right to put this up. You know, and just to make a personal observation if you might allow me, I'm not not trying to step in it or cloud the issue, but I always wonder, and I felt the same way about all the American flags that told me was he used to hang up along on all the power poles and I'm a very patriotic American and I like the American flag, but I would have people ask me why are the flags? So we always have one and it's like, at some point when does the symbol fade into the background? It's not even seen anymore. So if the board wants to put it up and put it up forever, that's a fine thing to do. But it's, and I support what the statement is, but I just ask you and others, does it fade into the background and lose its significance if it's up constantly? I'm not suggesting it should be up again and it can, you know, go up for a while, come down, but if you're just going to paste it up there, at what point does it become not effective? White noise. It becomes white noise. That's just a question. I'm not saying that you have to not put it up. That's not what I'm saying. It's just a question. I've got people in the audience. You can stick to your name. Hi, my name is Jamie McKimmon. I can stop for you if you would like to. As long as you wrote it down. I did. I'm a resident town of Waterbury. I think in regards to your comment about it, things in the background, as a person of color, I think it really means a lot to me. It's something I notice, especially, you know, with the rise of anti-agent hate, it's been something that I fear every time I go outside. If I'm going to get harassed, I don't want to be harassed around town. And so I think it really speaks a lot to me for just being included in this town and being seen. And I think it also, it's what Maronia mentioned for visitors coming to town. It's not fading into that. But it speaks to how we are inclusive of other people and diversity and background. So it might be the background for some folks to be out in town, but I think in terms of visitors for other people of color, other people from diverse backgrounds, it's something that I will always look for as being something that this is my town and my community. And so, yes, I would just like to speak. I think it means a lot, especially the people in the other town as well. Thank you. Thank you, Bill, for bringing that. I was actually thinking about that. And I was more in favor of having any of their, you know, to that sort of period of time and taking it down and putting it back again. And I got to think about that. And that will just be symbolic of certain events. Right. We want it to be out there. So if the select board is sad, we should vote for it to be out there, whether the message gets lost eventually. But I think, yeah, it might for those of us who live here and see it every day, but the people who come here, that's a good thing. So I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing for people who come here. That's a good thing. So putting it like a certain thing will be like, I'm just doing this. Oh, for example, on February, black history, let's put it up there. Well, I don't think black history just should be celebrated just one month.  That would be more reflective. What I think our community wants to see. That's just my. Thank you. No, I would defer to what we said about just echoing that. Well, if anything, I think we're very telling testimony from folks here tonight, as why it's important right now. And I guess I appreciate your comment earlier that we have that somewhere to figure out what's that oscillation between not discussing it every month. So I personally feel it's important to get it up now. I think we also have to power up our board as community members. To figure out if we need to bring up another discussion, but I guess to me, I've written back to that conversation. What's the time? But my personal view is let's get it up and let's get it up next. I agree with that statement. I hear what Bill says about how things in the background, you become white noise. You don't notice them, but I'd rather keep it up until we feel it's, it's not effective. And I don't know if that day is going to come. But, you know, if we have the option to say, maybe in five years we want to do something else.  You know, I think I don't want to necessarily go through this process every year just to, you know, do something that to me is just. So great that we need to have a discussion every year.  Just saying, should we take the matter up or down. Personal. Could we move to better put up until the select board votes to bring it down. Second. We have a motion in second and further discussion on motion. If not, the motion is to put the banner back up until the select board chooses to take it down. All in favor say aye. And you pose. Thank you. Okay. I think we can move back to the joint meeting with it. I think we have a forum now. Yeah, we've rounded up the commissioners. Two of them are on Zoom, Bob, and Cindy parks or the next years. And we have lefty say it and Natalie how. Here. With that. Sure. Well, with a mask, I didn't recognize. I don't know. Just in terms of procedure, do you have to open a joint meeting with us or. Yeah. So I would call the meeting of the. Every for our utility district. From Monday, March 21st, the joint session with the water break select board. And we have an agenda. The agenda. We were going to talk about the four properties we propose to transfer along with that. There's also transfer of the UDAG funds. So I was going to give you a bill, give you a brief summary of the UDAG funds at the same time under that. So. Are there any modifications to that agenda? Other than that, I don't know. Maybe someone from your board should make a motion to approve that. I'll make a motion. Second. You're just adding a discussion about the UDAG funds. Yeah. That agreeable to the. Yes. All just have a vote all favor and then we're good to go. All in favor of the motion. The agenda for the joint session as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Passes. Who made the motion? Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Right. Yes. Right. Right. Right. Yes. I'll make a motion to approve the actual approach for the UDAG. We're looking at the costs for outside headhunters. They're probably very reasonable. higher is an ex municipal manager from the town of Williston, Rick McGuire. He was a town manager there for probably 30 plus years, so he was pretty long time. And he's somewhat like a bill. He's very, I know a little bit of him, very capable. He was at Williston a little less than 20 years ago. He had been in Middlebury, then he went to Connecticut, and he didn't serve one. Well, I know he's a longtime municipal manager, so he would have the expertise. And you know, I think both both bodies would probably want to meet with with them. We probably also need to decide if we, in addition to having select board members and E-Fub members, do we want to have a general, you know, resident member on that search in some way, shape or form. That serves all of us to discuss. But we probably want to move forward because time will slip by very quickly. And there are other key municipal manager vacancies out there. So we're going to be competing against those different markets. So I think it's, to me, essential that the sooner the better that we start that process. And that's why we've had the E-Fub commissioners here to kind of hear what your concerns are. I think if you think that's a good strategy engaging with the League of Cities and Towns, and so I'll leave it to any of the commissioners. Can you circulate the contract to nothing? I thought they got that at that last meeting. I think when we, when, didn't you get at the meeting that we had? I went to you guys, didn't we have a copy of that? No? I don't believe so. I think it's a good idea. You know, we don't have a copy. I'm like, I'm like Roger Clemens, I misremember. That comes with age. Yeah. I guess that's a factor of age. I thought that was circulated at that meeting, otherwise I would have gotten it. So is my, I guess before I forget here, is there a job description that if there's, if there's possibilities of somebody that might be interested in the position outside of the LCT search, is there a job description that we can get our hands on that somebody could review to see if they were interested in the position? That's part of it. They'll develop one, but they probably want our input to see what we want to have included in that. So it says step one, develop recruitment plan to find job qualifications requirements for the position. Before embarking on the process, it's important to discuss the desired characteristics for the position and develop a plan on how the recruitment process will be undertaken and who will participate. So that's whether you have a search committee, you know, I mean, watery is unique in some respects. There are other communities like ours, but, you know, I, I, there's, there's like four or five elected boards in town. So there's EPA, the select board, the library commissioners, the cemetery commissioners, and the listers, which I don't do any of the listers, but those other four boards, I, I go to all their meetings. Right. And, you know, most towns where they're going to hire a manager, have a select board or a city council, and there's one entity. So you're going to have to figure out, because both I was hired by the village and the town. It was one person doing two jobs. It wasn't a vote of the committee. Each select one had to vote. The village trustees had to vote. I'm sure they use consensus. But so the first thing that has to happen, and I would encourage it, as Mike said, sooner than later. But the next step, after you talk about characteristics of the plan, a job description will need to be updated. When I came, don't really give me a job description when I came here. I don't have a job description except for the general statutes of the state of the mind, which is a pretty good job description of what the municipal managers, responsibilities, roles and authorities are. Chief executive and financial officer of the community hires and supervises all the staff, purchasing agent, all that. So the specific duties from the statute are very clear. What other things I do here that needs to be flushed out, but they'll do all of this. And I recommended back in December that you contact the LCT. I think Mark Fryer did. And there's a proposal that Mike had. I'm sorry that you don't have it. I have specifically stated from the beginning that I don't want my fingerprints on this process and I don't want my fingerprints on the new person. I will certainly help the boards when it comes to talking about what things I do. I'm happy to do that. But here's, I kind of noticed nobody had one and I wondered if you all had it on your electronic devices. But the cost estimate is in the $6,500 to $12,750 range, depending on what services you ask for. So I would recommend that quite soon you contact Adam Friedman at the LCT, who is a water supervisor and tell her that you want to meet with Mark or she and get this process going. To me, that would be the first step is getting a couple of representatives from the slide board, a couple of representatives from ETI, then if we want to determine, we want to have a general representative. That's everyone's pleasure as to watch. But I think the numbers, we'll find out really with that first meeting with Vermont League of Season Towns a little more. And I can apologize, I thought that was sent at that meeting that we had that EFUD meeting. So for the first step, can you forward that to everyone on the EFUD and on the slide board? And then can you or would you like me to reach out to Abby and we can set up an initial meeting to see who would you like to? Happy to. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Sure. Do we need a motion? Probably would be a good idea when we contact Abby to ask her to get some dates so that you can then communicate it to the other board members. And I do agree with what Bill said in terms of I understand why Bill does not want to be, you know, I don't think he's not concerned about the municipality. But I think, you know, it's just a good, it's always, you know, when you've had jobs for 34 years, you kind of, you know, have certain ideas the way things are going to be done. And we all hope that they can live up to what Bill has done for this community. And, you know, I think even Bill would say, hopefully, the person being even better, maybe I'll be there for the next 35 years versus 34 years. But I think that's really the first step is the meeting. So are you going to send out this? I can do that as well. I have it, so I can send it to you. I just want to make sure that I thought that went out to, you know, all the P-Fund commissioners. So you're going to contact Abby about this. I'll get some dates and I'll ask her company representative. She thinks this is best for that first meeting. And then I guess from there we can talk about forming that. We want to choose two people from each board to be this initial meeting with Abby to kind of lay it out because if you have everybody, it's going to have more meeting and things. If I can have two people that's not a quorum, so that we meet. So I would suggest maybe we'll work on getting two people who will do this and you can, and then when we choose those two people, we can work with what's the approval that they to meet with Abby and get the process started, bring that back to the board. Now, do we want to have an, I'm going to pose this as a question. Do we want to have a race it in? Well, I think the core committee can, once you meet with Abby, you're saying the two of you and then the side app. Make a recommendation back to the board. That'll be a good question to ask them as well. So we'll come away with a little bit and we're on. I think in some of the materials, they say, you know, some do eat either way. So I think it's kind of what it seems like a good idea to contract with the BLCT. I think this is the right way to go. So we don't lose a lot of time. Probably eager to have this main official. So maybe we'll be prepared to go on that in the next meeting. Yeah, because we kind of didn't want to go ahead until we act.  And I think it was, you know, even though we had the information at our last select board meeting, it probably was not appropriate to go forward. Well, I think you can actually, without too much difficulty, both boards individually could vote to agree to move forward with BLCT, allowing the committee members to work out the details of whether it's, you know, the 6500 or the 2500 contract that I've got. There's money in both budgets to take care of all of this. And I think rather than have to come back to another meeting, if you agree to move forward with BLCT now, I don't think that's harmful. And then you can have that contract. Is everyone agree with that? Yeah, thank you for that. I'll move on to the select board to allocate our portion of those fees to move forward with contract with BLCT. Maybe and to move forward with and move forward with the thank you. Second, well, let's have a second first. Now we can start. Second, okay. Just had a question. Like contracting with BLCT, I guess I need to clarify, that doesn't preclude other people from applying for this. BLCT, they're not applying for the job. What you're doing with that is they're going to help you put together a search document. This is what the town of Walbur is looking for. And then they're going to they're going to market it. Basically, they're going to advertise, but it certainly does not preclude anybody on the select board from mailing their cousin in Chicago a notice that, hey, this job is open. So it doesn't preclude anybody. I just want to make sure it wasn't an exclusive contract. We're looking to, I think we discussed last time, because I know I've been involved in some pretty high level searches, dollar wise, this is pretty attractive. And plus, to me, the best thing is, they know about municipal government. And I think, you know, where a lot of individual headhunters might not have that specialty, I'd say. So, you know, that we're not getting something. And this headhunters are going to be, I know a lot more expensive. And also, Chris, just so you understand, VLCP isn't going to be recommending to the board, you know, here's what they're going to, they're going to bring information, they'll market it, they'll generate interest. And then, you know, all the resumes will be made available to them to the committee.  If the board says we want to see every resume that comes in, that's up to the board to work out with them, how much filtering you want them to do with it. David had a fee like you want to do credit searches on the applicant, they'll do that to ferret out, you know, some of them might. And on that, just as you all understand, we already do that when we hire people here. And the law in Vermont does not let you do a background investigation until you've actually offered the job and right. So, you don't get to do background investigations on 15 people. You narrow the field, you decide that you're going to hire Joe Smith, and then you have Joe Smith signing off a petition that says the job is subject to a successful completion of the background investigation, which includes all kinds of different things. So, just so you understand, you don't get to check into everybody's history, only the person that thanks for all that information. I mean, my only concern was making sure we get as broad of a sweep as we can on this, you know, on the search that we can correct that to where we like what newspapers and things that you feel, the places that you feel to advertise, that's part of what the committee will be doing is recommending those kind of things. You know, we're there to guide them into helping them to do the search, but they're the professionals that do it. I don't think we want to do this ourselves. Thanks to you all last year and Eva for putting money in the budget. But that's not actually what's more, I just wanted to thank you guys. So, I think I fully support the motion that's made to have Danny and Mike and thank you for being willing to be here and just wanted to clarify that we will come back to the full board to discuss the composition of the search any more, probably just an important conversation. But thank you all for being part of this meeting. So, the motion made in the second yet for the motion of second is we will read the discussion. Any further discussion? There's no further discussion. Motion to approve. Moving forward with this search. Everyone's everyone in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion passes. Eva, good next year's with me. I'll make a similar motion that we will we approve to move forward with BLDC for the search and initiate and make the initial meeting with two candidates that we will present when the time is made. I'll second that. I'll second it. Yep. Motion has been made and seconded to move forward with the select board with the BLDC as discussed in searching for a new manager. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes. So, I want to move on to transfer of the EFUD properties to the town. Yes. I have a handout here that we have put together. This is four properties that EFUD that were properties of the village trustees and the village of Waterbury and when we dissolved the village we became EFUD. These were properties that were used for the village purposes and things and we retained those as part of EFUD in a couple three months ago or even longer than that. We talked about transferring these to the town that they were critical to the use of the operation of the water system or the sewer system and things and we have met with the select board and put together an agreement. On the handout on the backside list these four properties. We'll start with the smallest to the largest. One is the little welcome sign at the head of the roundabout that's on a small piece of village property and things. The next one was the Elm Street Park and lot that the village developed in 99 and things and we retained ownership. The Rusty Parker Park upset the railroad station that the village purchased in 1930 from the railroad and things. The last piece is the 40 acre site that the ice center is on River Road that the village obtained when the interstate went through they swapped some village land that the village owned under the interstate and got that in return. It was part of the state hospital farm at the time. So all the trash that's very dear to come in this vehicle. It's actually been very useful as a material storage place for the highway department once it was filled in and the village forget what year but we spent quite a bit of money with consultants to investigate the chemicals there and it's been cleared as it doesn't have to be monitored anymore and things so I wouldn't recommend building over it because of the stuff that's buried there but it's safe for the material storage so there's no more monitoring that's happening but it's closed out and I want to say at least 15 years ago when he was in the state he had a board test that's been there. Yeah there were wells drilled you need the monitoring? Yeah. Tundle and always. And at the time we put together an MOU that we had come through the select board. Mark was the chairman of the time and those on the select board had gone over the things that we wanted to make sure one day you were willing as a select board to accept those properties before we went and voted to turn them over to you. Is the only change which is in red from what we previously got? Yes and what we were looking for at the time merger wasn't high and everybody's list it wasn't talked about at that time so we wanted in return for giving these to the town for a hundred dollar deal. We wanted agreement that E-Fund employees and things could have space in the municipal office without being charged rent that we paid for this building as town residents all the water and sewer customers in the town paid taxes so that was the thinking at the time that if we had agreement that you know 20 years down the road we wouldn't be charged rent that we were willing to transfer these to put it up to a boat to be transferred back. So we added in there in a little red in case mergers doesn't happen it still has to get voted in and things when we get to do that that if after it's voted in the water and sewer departments would have their own revenues and things to maintain the things that they wouldn't be asked to pay rent out of that that the same thing that was in enforced when we were E-Fund would be the same as if we were merged back to it. So what I'd like to do is we haven't talked about this invention as a E-Fund commissioners either we'll be meeting April prior to our annual meeting so I would just leave this with you that you haven't seen it before and before our annual meeting in May to have you have a chance to look at it and and kind of agree with it so that by the time we have our annual meeting in May we could report back that yes the select board has agreed to take the properties and this is an agreeable MOU before the E-Fund residents you know vote on the motion so did you want to explain why you were bringing it back in that you know there was talk a couple of months ago that since we were going to be talking about merger that we didn't have to do this and go through this exercise but why the E-Fund commissioners maybe think that it's a good idea to do it now. Well you graciously voted the $50,000 to study the planning of the thing and you know it's not critical to the operation of the water system and things and you know while we talked about the merger going down the road and things that it it seems like a good idea to do this now and we're also going to talk about the you guys money and things and that you were more you thought I think it was partly because of the manager search that you didn't think that doing I know that's the next item on the agenda. Yeah I mean if we just thought it was more useful to do this at our annual meeting it's coming up and all the E-Fund residents would go there. When I have talked in December when I mentioned that I was going to retire and then made the initial proposal about the money for the $600,000 and exchanging it for the due to that fund I talked about that doing this might need to a merger and then in January we kind of talked a little bit about the fact that merger you know maybe maybe it could happen there's an election in the fall but my recollection anyway at the last E-Fund meeting was that the E-Fund commissioners talked a little bit and said you know finding a new municipal manager is the biggest priority you know nothing is really going to change right now as far as how we operate the merger is a good goal but probably we should concentrate on getting a manager first and when they said that I kind of said well yeah maybe even manager might want to have some input into what the new charter and stuff like that said. That's my recollection as well I just think you know as much as at first I thought moving the fall forward would be a good thing but the search for me is a tantamount importance and I think we can get through this and again maybe new municipal manager may have some input in this area so the second part of the added thing is UDAG funds that I've asked them to put together a summary that the trustees managed until such time as the village that became the E-Fund commissioners managed and it's you know money that was loaned to we were looking for businesses and things within the village to manage these funds and bills put together a nice summary of the value and our loans here so I'm going to let him kind of explain briefly this would be transferred would be on a warning at our annual meeting in May to transfer these to the select board as well leaving E-Fund with strictly running the water and sewer system at that point okay so so this was again first broached in December at that joint meeting that we had back then and when I made the proposal that the town used $600,000 of capital funds to grant to appropriate E-Fund so that they could do water improvement projects outside the district's limits in places where they already are able to serve and do some upgrades in those in those places the quid pro quo that I recommended at the time was that E-Fund would get that $600,000 and then turn over it's two revolving loan funds to the town and this is a double-sided sheet there's the UDAG fund on the one side which is a much-known report and then a simple report on the community development block grant funds anyway for those of you who don't know $630,000 of the Northern Development Action Grant was granted by the federal government to the village of Waterbury a direct grant back in 1984 that money was granted to the village with the express intent of the village turning around and lending that money to Ben and Jerry's and that allowed Ben and Jerry's with other financing to you know leverage this $630,000 and they secured other financing and capital to build their factory and tourist center on Route 100 that $630,000 loan was deferred for about five years and then they will have an imprecision schedule paid back in about 10 years if my recollection is correct that $630,000 was lent to Ben and Jerry's at the rock bottom interest rate of 9% those of you who are old enough to remember Ronald Reagan and Jim Carter before him when you could buy CDs for 14% and more you just would roll for 18% you know why 9% was a really good deal at the time for Ben and Jerry's they paid that back to the village when they finished paying it back it was worth a little bit more than a billion dollars and the village has turned around and has been lending money to other businesses and not for profits in this community since that time. On the Towns of County software I can only go back to 2006 before that you have to go look into paper records and I didn't do that but since 2006 there have been loans made to 20 businesses or not for profit organizations my quick calculation says that more than $1.5 million has been lent out since 2006 of the 20 that received loans 12 have paid them back completely there's eight others that are still outstanding now and we had two loans that did default it's a pretty good rate that I think most banks would would be envious of there were two businesses that had been loaned about $75,000 all together between the two of them and they both failed before they fully repaid the loan and they were out of business. You can see looking at the balance sheet well it's not a balance sheet but the listing of assets and liabilities here as of December 31st 2021 is it was about $416,000 in cash about $230,000 in mutual funds for the total cash and investment value of about $650,000 that would be available to be lent out to other businesses there's $1.1 million outstanding in loans and accrued interest outstanding right now and you know the way accounting works all of those loans even though they're all performing the accountants consider that to be a deferred revenue meaning that we can't get our hands on that $1.1 million within a 60 day period the only way we could claim on that money is if those borrowers were in the fall so the fund balance is really what we have in cash and investments we have made a couple of loans in the past couple of years and the idea is that because the town has appropriated the $600,000 of aqua funds to EFUD EFUD will go to its voters in May at their annual meeting and ask the voters to turn this loving loan fund over to the town and if they say no then EFUD doesn't get the $600,000 of aqua funds. You can see we made $166,000 of loans in 2021 that goes to the beer shepherd and to the it's called Parry Hill Partners but it's the building the bell block of most of the money was sent to those two businesses on the other side of the sheet is a community development block grant fund the town has a CPD fund as well all of the villages or all of EFUD's money you see any one one project right now a lab hall affordable housing building down on the south end of that village of the $74,580 that was in that fund as of December 31st 72,000 is in a loan to a lab hall and and about 2,400 is in the bank the town has a CPD fund I think the balance of the thousands it's about 160,000 almost all that is into the lab hall as well the town has a non-performing a deferred loan I guess I would call it with the building up the Seminary Building Warbury Center the housing project that's in there the town had lent part of its CDBG funds there but that's deferred with the full expectation when the time comes that that loan will likely be written off just like EFUD did with the Stimson Grades building here on Stone Street so anyway that's that's the history and kind of the static so thank you Bill for putting you at the other sense I thought emailed him this morning if he could do this and I think the since Bill came at 88 it's his skillful management and financial skills with managing this fund that it's grown and contribute to the to the growth and development of Waterbury that it has so we look to pass it on to you folks at a mode of our annual meeting and we like I said kind of limited it to within the village during the village day so to look for you folks to utilize it within the town of things and continue in the way we have adopted a few rules that like with it that you need to look at and review again just for some notification the CDBG funds of both the EFUD and the town CDBG funds have some fair restrictive strings on so that CDBG money Ronald Reagan came into office and phased out the revenue sharing that Richard Nixon had put in place in the 1960s and early 70s and when they phased out general revenue sharing to municipalities they also phased out all direct block all direct grants to municipalities and they converted into block grants and the federal government made block grants to the states and then allowed the states to then make grants to to the municipalities so the CDBG funds the ones that have been lent to Lad Hall and the Stimson Graves building and and the Seminary Building there's a provision in those funds that says that when you make a loan to those two organizations you have to show that 51% of the beneficiaries are going to be low or moderate income eligible people so if you lent money to a business they would have to and they were going to be creating 20 jobs 11 of those jobs would have to be offered to somebody in the low and moderate income range with the hope that they would grow out of the low and moderate income range they don't have to stay there but that's who gets the jobs first the UDAG funds because they were made prior to the federal government changing its rules there are almost no restrictions on the UDAG funds when I came here and we were doing the closeout work with the federal government I called people who worked for HUD at the time in Concord and Hampshire they were the they were the office that oversaw what we were doing I had to make certain reports there and I said you know can you give me a hint about what we can do with this money and the guy said I can do one bet I can tell you he said the list of what you can't do is a lot shorter than the list that you can't and he's basically said you're really not supposed to use this money to do something for general government purposes so in other words you shouldn't use the UDAG funds to build a fire station but you want to give it to the ice center you want to lend it to somebody to do housing you want to set up the program to let people you know paint the facades of their houses you can do basically what you want so that UDAG fund is very well it's very nimble in that you can do a lot with it and you know the village and and and EFUD now have lent it to businesses they've lent it to organizations like revitalize the water break we used it to help purchase and renovate the railroad station they lent it to organizations like Downstreet for housing projects they've lent it to not-for-profits like the ice center so there's a myriad of things that can be done with it so I think it would be a great asset for the town no how do you set the interest rates just come to the right now to the EFUD commissioners and talk to them about it in the early days most of the loans that we were making were were kind of loans that put the project over the top in other words somebody wanted to do a particular project they needed a hundred thousand dollars and they went to the Northfield savings bank and Northfield savings banks say well you know we can take 75 thousand dollars but go see you know SDA and then they go to SDA and SDA would say well you know you got a revolving loan fund in your town go work with them so there's some loans that we're kind of in third position the bank is first SDA is second and we're third and oftentimes you know the bank's interest rate is going to be at a market rate the SBA's rate is going to be a little bit lower and and we've often worked to with the with the borrowers to say okay you know let's target this so that your velvet rate is a little bit more affordable so there's there's no specific formula to set that it's really I review the financial statements come and talk to the boards talk to the individuals we have rates right now ranging from a low of two percent to probably the highest rate that we have out right now is probably four and a half percent a lot of a lot of that Roger is dependent upon when the loan was given just like I talked about with Ben and Jerry's you know when loans that we made 15 years ago when interest rates were a little higher they have a little higher rates right now all of the loans outstanding are suspended for principal and interest payments and all of the interest rates are at zero percent right now the commissioners did that when COVID did in order to try to help keep these businesses going the ice center for example they have a they've got a loan with the with a with a commercial bank as well they the bank agreed to say to them you don't have to make a payment but they left the interest rate on it so if they didn't make a payment you know their $300,000 loan was going to be going up by six and a half percent so right now uh none of these loans are um we're not asking anybody to make a payment I'm expecting uh you know the e-fund commissioners did that they suspended it for six months and we re-evaluated they suspended it another six months I mean I expect by the time that this is turned over to the panel maybe they'll have started them up again and we'll probably talk to all of the borrowers out there you know we might um we might work with them to you know adjust their interest rates and even their their terms I mean there's there's some and I know they won't be upset if I use them as an example but Sunja's Oriental Foods for example um you know they were length originally probably $25,000 so they they paid on that then they borrowed a little bit more money and um you know there were times and the the policy and the way that I've always approached this and recommendations that I've made to the commissioners is you know we're not a bank we're we're trying to help these people succeed in a business that they can provide a business in the community so you know if they miss a payment we're not right there you know ready to shut it back and uh you know there were some businesses that had you know 10 year loans that took 15 or 16 years to pay them off but they paid them all off with interest so uh I think this is a fund that we have always tried to work with the um with the land with the borrowers to make it work for them because having their businesses or their organizations at the community have been worthwhile from the public's really on and some of the loans one of the phrases I remember was prying plus one is what we because we weren't secured and everything that we used to stop so anyway it'll be added here workload if it passes so I have one quick question for you Scott uh I do you have scheduled I know you have scheduled your DEFUD commissioners annual meeting is it going to be in person yeah okay it's going to be in but it'll be gone by joining okay a fiber kind of thing but you'll have it in person so you can discuss what we're discussing now yes yeah yeah okay that's all I want this is something that's difficult if it's just too if it's remote just a Australia ballot kind of a yes or no it's probably good that people understand we have had one public meeting on the transfer of the properties we haven't had anything about transfer of the UDAG funds right that's all yeah any other questions so the last item that we wanted to talk with you about was the potential merger and the charter and things that we we had our meeting last week um in preparation for annual meeting and uh you know you let them and talk to earlier meeting about the process of the manager search and everything and some of us have been through multiple merger events in the past that weren't successful and things and uh as commissioners and things we felt there was uh taking up the work the finding the manager was going to be a tremendous workload and we haven't changed our mind about um you know an eventual merger but we don't think it's doable to work on it this year um with the manager service so um we agreed among us that it would be put off for a year um you know we'll transfer hopefully the property and the loans we'll everything will be done with water and sewer that whether there's a merger or not will continue and it's something that you know fits the lady or two there's no uh no consequence of it and it gives the new manager an opportunity to kind of weigh in maybe we can convince Bill to work on a merger committee in the future once he's no longer manager and things so that's our consensus at this point we hope that you would agree um and things that it would be taken up after the new manager is hired and in the next year so college of the board I was just wondering is the manager and the new manager going to be the manager of the utility district as well well if we agree that's the intent yeah I would say that's a 95 percent chance it's not something we want to go out rather would have to be built into the job description okay you know stuff so I was thinking that perhaps you were trying to put this all together and get it through so that the manager had one slate to work off from uh before he was hired we're thinking that you were trying to simplify it that's what I had that was my vision I presented it back in December Chris and then you know even as we talked to budget times but I think as time went on it wasn't necessarily me from my perspective you know it it should be really simple right now but I think that in addition to the merger that that um could maybe happen without too much difficulty I think that there's been some discussion about including a charter for the town uh and that that becomes a lot of work so do those need to be done in parallel or in succession or can go either way I think parallel's the easiest way to do it when you know Stip talked about merger so there's been at least a half a dozen merger uh votes in the 34 years that I've been here maybe I'm missing one but there's been at least six and what what was what happened in every instance was the merger document was written in a fashion that it actually was the charter for the town so there was provisions at the beginning talking about one of the assets and liabilities of the village being you know uh subsumed by the town and the moral glide but then it laid out how the town could be run in the future I think that's the most efficient way to do it but it's still it's so Iowa what's the realistic timeline for that process well in the processes that we've done in the past we've had a vote usually at town meeting or a village meeting in March and it was always either bring it back to the next annual meeting uh there were cases where it was bring it back so the boards can make the decision whether they want to call a special sorry I mean the timeline like for doing the actual work of the merger and drawing up a charter well that's what I'm saying so at town meeting and at village meeting in March there was an article on the warnings that said shall the select board appoint a merger committee shall the village appoint a merger committee they passed the two boards appointed their committees and and at that charge at that meeting in March it was bring it back for a vote at the next day in the meeting one year we brought it back for vote in November because the vote happened when there was a presidential election so you know I think it's a it's a you know back then the first boarders that we were talking about was two full service municipalities and those generally took a year before they came to a vote and the merger committees met a couple times a month you know in the summer they took a little time on so it's it's months worth of work you know there's a lot of informational meetings that go on and you have to vote on it they go to the legislature and so you're talking like a 18 months two year process it could be as much and I think the only way the best way to do it is the town develops its charter which merges everything because there are some things e-fund wants to kind of watch out for and you know and that are our concern that I people in the town have already talked to me about some things they'd like to see in a town charter we've discussed the optional option chat of option tax in the past and then you need provisions to do that in your charter if you ever wanted to do it you don't have to do anything so it's plus we want to spend some time educating the select board on what the water department does what the sewer department does visit the facilities and you know how so we want to educate the board too by the time we talked about the merger so by the time we come together you have a good understanding of what we do and what and is there a possibility that you could be beneficial in the education of the pros and cons of a charter as well so yeah you've had one and that's now because essentially that's what the village did we wrote a charter for the utility district as we gave up the charter for the village and kind of merged it into the you know restrictions of what the utility district could do so just my opinion it's just as much as I think it's nice that if we could wrap this up in one nice little package I don't want to rush it I think there's too much at stake you know you don't get too many bites out of the apple when you've produced a charter you want to get it right so you know we're looking at even we're we'd be less than a year probably bringing it to the voters I just think it's too too quick especially with bill leaving you know if bill wasn't leaving you know not that I would want him to stay I want him to enjoy his retirement but I think that's really where the focus is and if we could make some of these other transfers it's just going to simplify things and my opinion what's your plug what's what's just forage pleasure do we have any nice motion but do we have any consensus that we want to give to them and watch the merger or anything that we want to recommend not we could just leave it at that I appreciate them coming forward and giving us their presentation I was curious about what the plan was for the merger and also thank this plan for the transfer of property and equipment for a quote maybe 600 000 for the upgrade of the water system that the old markup of the real flats it's a great deal so appreciate the information this is a big step forward compared to some of the meetings some of us have been to in the past you know yeah I think we're making progress yeah when you spent 34 years working on it what's another year we all want to be able to shake your hand and be happy that what happened was a good thing you know and we want you to see it through a long set the good things to take a little longer so this is one of those things anything else if not we'll move on to the next item update on personnel policy phil yeah so for most of the EPA commissioners this is uh this is something that they'll maybe have memories of and even Chris yes the rest of the select board didn't have to go through this process um but last year the library commissioners uh started they had some issues with staff and they were uh asking about the personnel policy the personnel policy that we have for the talent in EPA is quite old when it comes to personnel policies it goes back to back to back to and it really has had few with any modifications since then although we have tried a couple of different times uh the last time was shortly after the flood uh Chris and script and all the e-functions except for Cindy probably remember some of the meetings and as I said earlier in the meeting uh you know there's two municipalities here they have two different legislative bodies but we have one unified staff from me down I tried to basically ask the people who work here even though you get a paste up that's blue you're the town employee you get a paste up that's pink you're the villager e-fun employee we all work for the same community in the same year so we try to work together but you've got to get both boards to the policy and we kind of moved the personnel policy discussion 95 yards down the field and kind of fumbled out of the five-yard line that was back in 2014-15 probably and we ended up then kind of staff in particular me got sidetracked in that we were building this building and all of our energies went here and we kind of never picked it up the last item that was kind of contentious was you know do we want this to be an at-will personnel policy and we can explain later what that means or do we want to spell out progressive discipline that has to be you know it's stipulated in the policy that if you don't perform in a fashion that your supervisor thinks is reasonable that there's prescribed steps that have to be taken and we never got over that pump and then you know I was happy enough to just leave it and fortunately from my perspective we've had very few issues with employees here in my tenure I did fire two employees in the time that I've been here one was within the first year that I live I was a village employee and then one was a town employee back a couple years before the fight we've had a few minor issues but you know we've all managed to get along so having a personnel policy that that really works fortunately hasn't been necessary but when the library commissioner started asking about last fall I dusted it off again and I've taken the opportunity to send it to a lawyer his name is John Klesch he works for the legal firm of Stitzel Page and Fletcher which is the same firm that we use for most of our business for law right now and last week finally he's had some delays in his in his process he finally transmitted it back to me last week so my hope is that sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll meet with him to get the lay of the land and have him explain it to me and then I'm hopeful those of you who remember the ones that we looked at before at least when you look at this one you'll be reminded of the one that we looked at seven or eight years ago it's not very different except it's updated you know and that's really where the failure is is that you know labor law gets updated by both Congress and the legislature rather regularly so anyway I will be getting that information to you in the coming weeks and again it from my perspective it will be best if it if a joint meeting is held because I really think it's critical until we merge that everybody that works here works under the same policy even though there's two different boards that have to be so anyway that's the other questions I can answer now but probably easier when we talk about this attorney is he specialized in labor law he does a lot of work in the last five ten years it's amazing how if you don't have it in writing you're in big trouble it seems as though personnel policies are similar to zoning regs they're never quite complete they're also like zoning regulations and in that you don't need them until you need them exactly if not is there anything else we're done with the section that probably a joint meeting you're the commissioners are welcome to should stay but is there anything else you wish to bring up we look forward to working with you on these things and sounds like the beginning of a number of joint issues to work on even without so good partnerships are a good thing so I think with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the e-flag commissioners uh joint part of the meeting the second most has been made and seconded to adjourn the joint session of the e-flag commissioners meetings for March 23rd all those in favor say hi hi hi and we thank you for the pleasure of uh with you and thank you for the great meeting with all you guys it's always a pleasure to see the neighbors once in a while yeah especially these days yes and without a mask okay okay uh we'll move on to the manager's items staff supports on town highways am i yeah so um elissa and and roger are new and i don't know if you've got any complaints yet but the roads the gravel roads in town are in tough tough shape um they're in tough shape almost everywhere in the region um i have seen worse but it's been a long time since i've seen worse um and if you read the uh i was called out lisa printed the other day in the paper you know we're just up against mother nature which is always the fact but we've had a couple of kind of our curveballs last week or so you know we had 12 inches of snow back the weekend before last uh and then three or four days after the snow fell it was 65 degrees and sunny uh and unfortunately unfortunately we um we you know really since uh the beginning last week haven't had any freezing temperatures either and when month season typically comes you know a good month season has kind of helped the same way that sugar season is that warm days and cold nights and when i say warm days you know warm days like 42 or 45 are nice some cloud cover um the road crew worked um you know Celia was out and several of the crew members were out for almost 48 hours straight last week and they did take a little break but somebody was out at all times right through uh friday over the weekend um on friday in particular we had issues on both gray hill and perry hill where parents were actually stuck and we had the closed portions of the road uh on perry hill and everyone could get home from one direction for the other we just couldn't go all the way through on gray hill um you know we had people that really wanted people to get home it is improving a little bit today was a much better day you know it was you know well above freezing it was uh somewhat cloudy it only got into the low 40s and it was windy and and the road they are beginning to dry out a little bit we've placed our materials uh it's you know what he spent most of the day building woodruff the public works director spent most of the day on friday trying to arrange trucks to haul stone for us because all of our crew was working and we couldn't haul all of ourselves so i spoke to Celia this morning and i spoke to Bill Woodruff a couple times today we seem to be making some progress supposed to freeze tonight supposed to freeze tomorrow night which will allow them to go out and you know when it's when it's a little firmer they can scrape things a little bit try to get the ruts out i mean i can show you pictures of my road we're um when we're going down move the hill right now and that's bad enough but in the city of New Orleans the ones that i wouldn't try to you know i stopped both yesterday and today and looked and tried to pick up the high spots anyway if you get comments we've been getting a lot of phone calls here most people are very understanding there's some people who are like they want you to come up right now and put a steel plate on their road and help them you know feel where they want the worst part of it is that you know there's always some people who just even though they don't have to drive on a gravel road they're lucky enough to live on a paved road they have to go decide to see what it's like and make it worse so the school bus says the school bus is today and tomorrow they've been asked not to go on a gravel road so there's a little inconvenience with some of the parents of school age kids um hopefully by Wednesday they'll be able to do their normal routes but it is kind of wonder how many people that just recently moved up here in the last year let me get our step if anybody should call you and complain vigorously certainly direct them to talk to me tell them what i propose you do the best we can and it's just you're going to have to wait until conditions improve before it's taken take a look at some of the videos on the internet and your problems are probably not as bad as some of the other things thank you yeah tell them give them our thanks buy them a can't can't say a beer but that's why he's abiding the chips new board member orientation yeah i don't have anything for tonight um sporadically over the next couple of months i'll bring information to the board specifically i hope that will be helpful for elissa and roger but we'll do some refreshments for you um as i talked about early in the meeting um there has there been a lct training schedule yet yeah schedule schedule yeah schedule okay i would encourage even veteran members to attend if you can they're always very helpful but we understand that much of the training that they'll do at the select board of training sessions will be directed to the 240 towns that don't have town managers there's about 40 or 45 towns in the state that have municipal managers uh and uh not administrators true municipal managers and managers have authority to do almost everything that the select board has afforded to do in dexbury for example so in dexbury the select board hires the staff as a as a board and moderating the municipal manager hires the staff in dexbury they supervise the staff i don't have any problem with you talking to employees in the town to get a general sense of what's going on and stuff like that i would ask you don't give them any direction don't tell them go here and take care of this railroad or go there and do this or you know we don't want you to include in another regulation program your job is to set policies and procedures and point in a direction for the time to go and then it's my job to direct the staff to get the manager is the purchasing agent of the municipality the manager is the chief financial officer has the responsibility and the authority to manage the finances of the town and to execute the budget so we've just come through town meeting spent weeks and you know a month and a half basically from mid-December through january working with the select board with the budget i present a budget for the select board the select board asks questions makes decisions and the select board votes on the budget that gets submitted to the voters and then the voters prove it once the budget is approved then it's up to the municipal manager to execute that budget and i don't say this in any way to say that i'm a control freak i think those of you i work very collaboratively from a management style i am a very hands-off manager i don't like no managed people i pretty much believe that most of the employees know their jobs and what they have to do a lot more than i know what their jobs are i just want to make sure that they produce what needs to be produced so that we can run it out so if you have concerns about something if somebody calls you and expresses concern about not being satisfied with a particular service or with a particular employee i would encourage you not to engage that employee yourself come and talk to me let me deal with that but anyway that's all i need to say for tonight go to the training if you can it's it's good overall training but uh and feel free to ask whoever the presenter is you know how might this differ if it's a town with a town manager you know why we have a town manager and they'll be able to help but the training in general is good it's worthwhile you know i would encourage you to do it um pretty much what will happen going forward is uh i i try to make a financial presentation to the board once a quarter um some places do it monthly i think that's a little bit overkill here for a variety of reasons we have a pretty large and complicated budget we have a lot of different funds um so trying to you know present that information once a month i think it's too much but on a quarterly basis i will come to you um usually the the second meeting after the quarter ends sometime depending on the calendar it might be the first meeting after the quarter end so the quarter will end at my first first our first meeting after my first first will be able for i won't be ready again so maybe i'll probably make a present a financial presentation to you and i'll do that um every every quarter or at least attempt to do that but anytime uh if you have questions about something i would ask that you uh you know certainly call me uh if you want to be uh brought up to speed on the budget in general or any particular fund make an appointment i'm happy to meet with you my door is almost always open uh i probably know what you're talking about i can't listen to but um there's usually not a uh there's not a one for words and if you think i'm being too detailed tell me like my words yeah it's this kind of a new board orientation this is something that's to be quite honest always i'm always in a quandary we all get a lot of people will email board members anyone just one person but usually they'll email all five of us i don't know if we want to have you know i always tended not to i know bills sometimes and sometimes bills engage in that too bill won't respond i don't know if we want to have a protocol and how we want to speak to you know residents you know how we you know you know i hate that if i want to ask something and they get five different responses from all of us yeah you really need to be careful when somebody emails you right and and they send an email and all five select board members are copied in charlotte's copied in old copy um any one of you may respond but you should you can respond to all if you want but you need to take the other more select board members off because if you start if you engage then you run a file with the public meeting while or at least you can be accused of having a uh discussing public issues outside of a one day so i always recommend that uh you know if you want to send an email to mike and you want to send the same email to chris and to danny and to elissa and roger which one of you can send individual e-mails but you should not send an email to two people at the same time because then there's three of you conducting business by email and right that is already been found in provoked case law to be a violation of the opening right so be careful when you respond if and people often i won't say always are owed a response sometimes when they're mean and nasty and all they're trying to do is get out of your skin a lot of times i write the response and when i read it don't get that sent but but uh you know try not to respond to all and include the board members but don't be afraid to respond and if the person gets two or more answers about something you can always talk about it at a future meeting but you know they are your constituents and uh they have an expectation that you know listen to what they have to say and right if it's an opinion or something i know for sure i know the answer to i always reply something big i'll often just forward it to bill and say did you get this where i saw that you got this i don't really know what to do next yeah and that that's always that is that is also appropriate if if you get an email whether everyone's contacted or not if you feel that you shouldn't answer this or you don't have the information that answer it certainly for you to me and i'll do my best to answer it and typically i will copy you why i think it's really not right what i said i used to be sometimes excellent because i said is the chair going to respond or something you know for that and i'm not saying i want to respond respond to all emails and whatnot because i think every one of us is capable but you know sometimes if they get three for answers that concerns me too yeah just stating that sorry you know i was just gonna say i've already run afoul of this because constituent emailed all of us about the use of beat to juice on the roads to avoid erosion of cars and because it's more effective than just the regular salt grind and i respond into all like yeah it seems like an interesting idea but a quick financial analysis would give us some ideas to whether this is going to see the light of day and then i participated in the overmeeting series from the lct and i said never respond by email to everybody yeah it's it's a common it's a common mistake and you know it's it seems like the obvious thing to do because it's so easy to do it and most people don't think that they're in the meeting and i would agree i don't think you're really meeting but unfortunately the court is going to be under water so anyway um i don't want to take up too much time here just if we could i mean i i would uh perhaps mike you could step forward and answer on behalf of the or just if if you think it's appropriate for a response and then send it to each one of you individually i i just i don't know i mean it seems as though the the constituent is looking for a response it's inappropriate for any of us to answer for all of us although like i know from working with chris and working with danny i kind of know what there may be more extra pieces are and maybe just email chris or danny and say hey could you answer this one yeah that that's fine and you need you do need to be careful if it's an obvious answer you know uh who's the higher informant well you can say it's still your client yeah that's that's an easy but if there's if there's a if there's a question and you believe it's kind of a more of a policy question procedural question and you're unsure then the best thing to do is say you know that's a good question we'll put it on a future agenda and discuss it because you know mike's opinion of that might not be what the board's feeling and so just after you say all right and you'll you'll get the feel that it will become second nature to over time so before we move on robert just reminded me of something and uh i want to back up a little bit just make sure that i mentioned it because i was asked to mention it and so was roger back to the road issue concerned citizen was upset that the roads weren't in better condition we already discussed that but his concern was emergency vehicles uh his father hadn't had any units trying to get to his place and it was apparently very difficult and you know we can as humans control a fair amount of things in our lives but one thing we can't control is mother nature's wrath on us and uh this for the mud season is just a little drop in the bucket of what mother major if you read this as article you know she talked to gary fill in about that and gary said you know we do our best to get there and there have been times where you know when they have a call they call cilia they call the highway department somebody goes out they try you know but that that takes time i mean if you need to get a greater out there to try to push the mud aside we do what we can and unfortunately there's no perfect scenario and uh you know we there's no fast fix to this and you and i talked about a little bit this afternoon um i have i had occasion last week to drive into harbing fun and i was with my wife and we went in uh we had to go drop something off at somebody's house to live there and she said wow their road's pretty good i said yeah because their road was built to modern day construction standards and it wasn't just a road that was cut through the woods and we threw some gravel down there and there's no base and and the rest of it and you know we've got a lot of miles of road and it's a lot of money to do that we're trying to improve things as time goes by but it's a reality in rural life and it's here it's so quickly quickly one other thing that i need to tell you is that um i think they should adopt the motion to allow one of them yeah i'm just going to ask you to break this plan with the warrants and that motion yeah so uh so i told you a minute ago that i'm the chief financial officer and i take care of all of the finance is responsible for getting the bills paid carly is the treasurer we have a process in place where we make sure we try as best as possible to make embezzling difficult to do not that i think we have any investors on the staff but we've got systems of ways that prevent certain people from doing too many things in the financial process so when a when a bill comes in to be paid the department head or i will put that bill with an expense coding sheet directing the bookkeeper which line item on the budget to debit and make that payment for sheet produces all the checks and with the checks produces a warrant that needs to be signed up until about 15 20 years ago the warrant had to be signed by the majority of the select and it was typically done at a meeting but we pay bills and pay roll every week we only do have meetings twice a month so that was a little bit problematic and many times were that position the legislature changed the law a number of years ago now and will allow a town to legislate body the town to make a motion to the effect that only one signature is necessary on a warrant order and any select board member is able to sign the warrant so if that motion is made tonight if that means is that any one of you is able to come in every week and sign the warrants the warrant has to be signed i don't the warrants have to be signed before the checks are made by the legislative body so any one of you can do it but one of you has to do it and when we have meetings typically carlin brings the warrants to the meeting and somebody signs it before the meeting but on the weeks that there's no meeting somebody needs to come in the boards have always worked it out amongst themselves sometimes one person studied always i see the alternating people do it but i would encourage you to make the motion to authorize one select board member that that the warrant may be signed by one select board member and that any select board member may sign the warrant can i assume we can still do it carl by you know reviewing it and scanning you know a signed thing to your board we're not for that okay the warrant may be signed by one select board member and that any select board member may sign the right so move second we have a motion and a second any further discussion i'll just let people know i won't sign orders unless i'm sitting at the table looking at review and that's not going to be on the bill's individual that's fine and you have typically done that before meetings if you're willing to still do that absolutely i i'd prefer to come in yeah i was going to bring him tonight but he tested being said this is the long meeting but my so that on the other on that same no um at some point here in the next few weeks maybe unless the mac that already got some equipment out i'll start back up for my summer stretch so then was days uh so at that point i'll you know ask one of you guys to take that i don't mind resigning them during the winter because i've got time to do it once my summer stretch starts i'm happy to still email them yeah so that you can all see them yeah that's what i'm sending the emails here you can see what's being paid you can see payroll and if i i usually if i have if i see something that doesn't sound really right you know i don't need to see necessarily but it's something sounds i call carlin's paper which says you know there've been a few but not many you know i can figure out what what the things are sometimes i remember the first one i didn't know everyone who's on the payroll and i figured those were all the firemen so you'll figure it out after seeing enough of the warrants um and that elissa added something in this section for the first three oh yeah sorry there was a lot of discussion yeah uh so if we could have a vote all in favor say i hi hi and you pose no opposed uh motion carries and next item is authority protects anticipation bar okay so that's anticipation borrowing um our fiscal year starts on january first we don't have a approved budget really until the first week of april because we have went till 30 days after the meeting before people can petition up to 30 days after the meeting to have a special meeting called to rescind any action that has been taken so we're still in that 30 day window but once the once the 30 days passes we'll have a budget but even in some years not this year but our budget here starts january first and we have the expenses that we have to pay all your love about 70 80 percent of all of our revenue are property tax revenues and then you know intergovernmental transfers and fees and things that people pay for restoration or time court speeds and the like um so sometime we don't have our cash flow is such that we run out of money before we get our tax collection our first tax collection date isn't until August and on occasion in fact it used to be every but it's not now we need to borrow anticipation of taxes to do that um tonight what i'm going to ask you to do is grant authority necessary to borrow anticipation of taxes to borrow it from uh ifa a number of years ago 20 years ago i i talked to paul juliani municipal attorney on our blog caps and said you know we typically borrow from the people's united bank but we've got a system municipality here all of whom are town members you know roger leaves in the village elissa lives in the village uh danie used to live in the village uh they spent a lot of taxes we've had three anyway um i said you know we have a system municipality that has a lot of money in the bank can we borrow from them and pay interest to the to the village or in this case ifa rather than pay the interest of people should buy a bank yeah absolutely you've got to put a note together you have to charge interest um so um this year my expectations we will not have to borrow anticipation of taxes or if we do it will be very little uh at sometime maybe in may of june right now we have over a million and a half dollars in the bank that's unusual for this time of year the reason we have that much money in the bank is because we're sitting on $775,000 proper funds um so you know we can we it's funded county so we've got a fund that shows that money is there but we can use that money in the normal course of our cash flow spending so i don't expect that we will have to borrow from e-fud this year and if we do have to borrow probably only from e-fud last year it was necessary to actually go to the bank and borrow because we borrow all of what you can have and we still need more if that's the case i'll come back in a future meeting with with an actual bond anticipation note from the bank but i've given many i think we have a motion e-fud authorized this at their meeting last week to borrow to lend to the town and also if necessary to borrow from the town i'm asking you to to do the same function the favor so motion to authorize the town treasurer and municipal manager to borrow funds in 2022 in anticipation of taxes from e-fud and to authorize the town to lend funds to e-fud in anticipation of water or sewer revenues setting a rate for borrowing and lending at 2 per cent per annum second i'll second that in for the discussion it's not all in favor that interest rate is close to the market rate if we want to the bank here we all would be two and a quarter two and a half now so a little bit of this kind of rate but it's beneficial both ways if we have to borrow from the e-fud it's a much higher interest rate than they're getting on their money just sitting in the suite ground which is well less than one percent still and the town isn't paying quite as much as we would have to pay to the bank and we're also paying it to a system of this value so it's a good deal okay we can have all in favor again say hi hi so motion passes thank you thank you audit now um carla has the audit proposal audit actually it's ongoing now so i hope that you will maybe get the uh maybe get the document to be in still just last week but uh supplement powers is the permanent renews for our audit um and uh they are proposing to audit the panels books or yeah was there a change from last year or twenty four thousand dollars you know what the fee last year was was it was around around that it was 24 nobody no no there's so i would ask the board to make a motion to uh accept the engagement letter with supplement powers and if you approve it then both copies need to be signed by the board i'll make the motion accept the uh letter consoling powers thank you we have a second there's a motion and a second and further discussion if not all in favor fine just just say what those emotions are second to improve the engagement letter from supplement powers these are already been motionals i think yeah great so now the glory fantastic all in favor say hi any opposed motion carries and on the last page there's a signature all of you so is your week going well though is a good week are you here today and we're here last week all right thank you for your patience yeah cv for we yeah i didn't say you know my name is linda rebelle uh the agenda says i'm a car vell that's i don't sound so rebelle um yeah last september i'm selecting a point of need to be the delegate to cv fiver uh they appointed sister for shank to be the alternate the first thing i want to say is that he's a fabulous person to work with we are so lucky to have him he has handled the recruiting of our executive director who is coming on board very soon yeah has not been announced yet but i was on the recruiting for the executive director and worked with christopher closely and he was fabulous and his technical ability is beyond doubt he he's working on the planning and development which is the construction committee basically with me and is extremely the vice chair now of that committee um i'm the vice chair of the policy committee um i go to every single committee that cv fiver has gone except i don't go to the executive committees but i go to all the working committees and i'm the only one i'm not on is the finance committee i'm on every other committee which i'm trying to go to some of the meetings is that a lot um it's uh these tools yeah and special needs come up to so um i'm loving it it's wonderful uh very satisfying people's awareness and i'm also um i'm trying to get you guys to know who i am i am also on uh justice of the peace so i work with the select board on the um the civil authority board so you will see me there also i am retired i have a master's degree in computer science and management i'm at salare and bachelor's from northeastern university i worked in the software development and consulting type arena for my entire career including working for sovereign ed building the out the first southern part of the month with fiber um before i started working on this kind of stuff for the cv fiber and i also work for a cyber security um running the east coast office so i've got quite a bit of experience um i'm retired now it's hard to tell so um what whatever joined the 21 members of cv fiber municipal communications union district they're called cv's to do something it could not do itself and that is build a high speed 100 100 megabits fiber network connecting its unserved and underserved households in waterbury after experiencing the pandemic i need not tell you how important it is to have every household be connected to the internet or the kids education for our working parents to work remote for telehealth medicine and for especially communicating with family and friends on january 18th uh 2022 the vermont community broadband board it's uh called c dc dv issued the act 71 broadband construction program request for proposal to accelerate community broadband deployment by offering matching funds to the conference in vermont who would demand offered funds to high speed broadband development any applications for these matching funds must be submitted by september 15th 2022 that's the deadline funds will be distributed yes this is important there first come first serve basis until the funds are gone so you may put it in on september 15 only the funding funds are not there anymore and that's why i say time is critical waterbury has over 70 miles of construction for the cv fiber network the estimated cost for the network in waterbury is 2.95 million this is an estimate pretty close to three million dollars for which cd fiber will be short about half the cost at 1.5 million we are continually applying for more federal grants of all kinds we are hoping to get more money for this 1.5 missing part but if we don't then the funds have got to come from somewhere else besides grants this estimate i'm hitting you does not include direct connections from the telephone poles to the property owners homes that's addition fees the average connection cost that we can figure it always depends on how far the driveway is of course is estimated at about 1750 dollars per household not a cheap fee now when my husband i moved into waterbury we actually weren't connected to any uh contest or anything else and i had somebody give us an estimate for digging ours and ours is pretty close to the road it was about two grand they estimated and we went out and dug our own got up the specs for both engineers so it wasn't a problem for us to get up specs we needed for a very long time we dug a ditch two thousand dollars they've been charged to dig a ditch i was like wait a minute so maybe some of these homeowners can you know dig a ditch but they certainly can't wire it from the pole to the house by law cd fiber has no taxing authority cd fiber cannot use tax town tax dollars our funds come only from grants sales bonds donations and subscriber fees to help us accelerate the development of the network and to keep our subscriber rates as low as possible cd fiber is asking the waterbury select board to consider committee five percent of the waterbury offer grant funds to cd fiber to support the construction of waterbury's community broadband network five percent is about 75 thousand dollars and if you mind if i ask you a question absolutely go ahead is that for the five percent represent the towns cd fibers ask of the towns for the entire build out or is that just for this year this for this year so that we can get the matching funds for this year we are asking that the select board to apply for the matching funds and thus adding an additional 75 thousand dollars to the pot making it our total 150 thousand dollars to use in the construction of waterbury's network within town the select board to specify how the funds shall be used within what we have an opportunity here to double hard whatever you want to commit but it's kind of a time-limited thing one of the questions i got i got some really nice questions from you guys i'm sorry i had to put it out so late but i was waiting for my colleagues to put up their notes together presentation and i got some really good questions from you folks in the last 24 hours and so i encourage you to keep sending me those questions can i ask one clarification of what you just said i'm in this matching time you said the town would apply starting the town of waterbury would be an applicant for funding or is this that the communications union district would leverage hypothetical market funding from our town or you say that town staff in this theory would need to administer a break um there is an application process and i was going to talk about it at the end great then wait till the end you just you said that and i was trying to clarify what you meant so now at the end it's great thank you okay i'm like we're interested in that just the logistics these matching funds are a great opportunity for waterbury residents to ask the select board to use those funds to connect underserved households from the telephone poles to their homes while at the same time reducing the subscription rates for all the waterbury residents we want to connect everyone not just the underserved one of the reasons why all these cdu's got put together is because we the companies that provide internet saw that it was not a sustainable business model you know to connect to these people that had two month long driveways for example or we're out on ring road but you guys were just talking about and i went up there and to talk to owners this week and barely got out of there i wanted to do this to see what they had to say what the owners had to say and to go and look at what some of the addresses are that are considered underserved or no service but cd5 will not have a sustainable business model without subscribers from all over town which means we are going to try to get a subscription rate that is lower than podcasts and the other public you know companies okay that's a work one that if you're already a podcast subscriber you know you have a cable you know that's already run the cd5 or buy that line i'm assuming i'm not going to have to redate a ditch i was wondering that too um i don't know the answer to that i will try to find out okay that's a real important thing because a lot of us with a wired no i don't think we have to do that i think it's a connection if you want to change you mean yeah like like going to one property right it's like on Friday you know eating i think it's a connection yeah the the line to your house is your line so if you had it's like the telephone company you know if you had new and telephone back in the day and then it became fair point it's consolidated right and then you decided that you wanted to go with somebody you know come cast for your telephone it just gets switched out so the line to your from the polls to your house is your property right well like if you like we're on a road association there's lines going up to the main road i'm curious how that would work i so i don't want to i think you're answering the question Linda that i asked of you in my email yesterday and i talked about this morning but why don't you finish your presentation before i ask a question very good Linda what is underserved oh that's what i was just getting to she's perfect yeah um before i talk about that i'm gonna say that i think you guys are very interested whether the voters would be interested in spending money on broadband to try to get competition and cheaper rates in waterbury in particular that seems to be what i've found out from my petition and my talking to the voters and walking around and you've done a lot i can't have seen them the last two weeks just to go and visit people at the list of addresses that i have and i got a slew of people to sign the petition so i'm going to pass this around i got about 140 at people that sign the petition and you can read the petition now just send these around while i'm talking but i currently got 140 or so on the petition and i'll go back to your question because i knew that was coming on but this the definition of this is actually in the letter that you got from the chair of the board um at cd fiver why did he write the uh the letter is an answer to a question i got in an email from one of you folks that said basically um how are the other towns doing this um are they all putting up money and we haven't had a lot of towns um but they're all in the same situation that you guys are in because it came out the whole matching funds it wasn't announced till the end of january and everybody is finished their budget by then and so most of the towns are in the same situation to do that is right and so we haven't had a lot of response and i'm like why did the legislator finally get it to the end of january well they try to put it in as soon as possible first weeks i think that they were in session but we're still uh most of the town budgets were finished by then so not a lot of them are put in yet so we've still got an opportunity here uh an underserved location means a location that only has access to a reliable wireline broadband connection capable of speeds of less than four maybe for second download and one negative upload it's called service for desk one and an underserved location means a location that has access to a wireline broadband connection capable of speeds of at least four maybe for second download no oh i got that backwards 25 negative downloads and four maybe upload so that's underserved that's underserved is 25 three and the other one that was unserved and underserved means you got something but it's not it's like a dialogue well underserved sounds like i mean unserved sounds like dialogue and unserved is basically you know basically got nothing well it says for one it's like well that's probably not these days you know maybe yeah we want to ask what's um uh i think it was in here but a camera what made or not what um do we have the numbers or estimated numbers for unserved and underserved i know it's somewhere i just yes we do the one that stuck up to me was 86 single family right right oh that's on a safe page okay it's like commercial and campsite so yeah okay it's yeah okay all right so anyway i'll finish my presentation because we're getting to the good stuff here um the uh the voters all signed something that said we the undersigned of residents of water very request the select words from it five percent of the communities arpa funds to see if i were to be matched dollar for dollar by the state for broadband construction and water so i have quite a lot of interest in what it's saying i don't want to sign according to the arpa south vermont creative network publication on january fifth this year page 11 the final treasury rules state according to the vermont league of cities and towns that this is the quote the legislative body of a municipality is the ultimate arbiter of how arpa funds will be spent there is no higher authority or approval process so basically the select board has the authority to authorize use of arpa funds no voter approval is actually needed this is different from town funds that you folks put up on to the march town meeting this is federal arpa funds so we would be basically if we give a thumbs up we're saying you could use federal arpa arpa money not town money okay i cannot i can't use town money right only arpa funds or federal grants or state grants and that's what we're asking for okay here's thank you yeah and i uh sent one of the email the other day suspecting that that it needed voter approval uh but i have since confirmed linda sent me the information that she just read i spoke with katie buckley from the lct this afternoon who i i had written i had emailed katie earlier last week to say we've got this request we're already through the process and through town meeting and you know we've appropriated some arpa money can we do this i thought that we could but i wanted to hedge that we couldn't when there is absolutely correct the rules does state that the legislative body is the final authority towns can do whatever they want so we chose for the seven or eight hundred thousand dollars that we appropriately to do it through the budget process and there's nothing wrong with that so the select board basically recommended the voters the voters approved the hundred thousand dollars the i said the six hundred thousand dollars to defy it does not have to go to the voters i speculated one of the other day that if it did the select board could call a special town meeting you said that last meeting right uh it's not necessary to do that so it is would be your discretion to use the money but you know it is a primary resource and while the select board has the final authority there's also been lots of statements from the u.s treasury from the legislature across the bigger cities and towns that you should have a public process and i think we have chosen the most transparent public process so far that we had a number of meetings where we talked about the budget so we'll approve the budget sent to the voters so you can do this tonight i i don't suspect given that you have until september and while i agree with what about it would be not a good idea to wait until september if not a lot of other towns have made this appropriation you have a little time you know that's really decided tonight i did have one question and i think you answered it is the question that i asked you can you explain to me in order to serve the underserved the unserved population which ranges from 86 single family homes to what was it 220 camp sites this is 209 total underserved and underserved in the water there's 86 of those 209 okay 86 are single family dwellings they're called which could be a mobile home for us but um then there's a pile of other and the list is on the back of the chair's letter so like my question was in order to serve those 86 single family homes and up to 209 underserved and unserved members of the population cv fiber is proposing or suggesting that a network of 75 miles of fiber means 72 miles of fiber needs to be built and it seems that you just said you wanted cv fibers proposing to do that to give everybody a lot of opportunity to have some competition in a lot of places there is a competition right now you can have fair point well it's not fair point it's consolidated now you can have consolidated you can have you can have forecast and there may be maybe others um and initially when cv fiber came to the board last October and talked about the priority was hopefully maybe by the end of 2022 to serve to get service to these underserved populations i was figuring that what would happen was ring road for example you know i live on ripley road podcast and consolidated go right by ring road that the idea would be string a cable up ring road from ripley road um whether it's fiber uh podcast or fair point but get the infrastructure up ring road and then let people up there who might have long drives or not do what they did with the electric company but it seems that you're suggesting in order to serve these 200 properties that we have to spend three million dollars and why are we why are the whole camp and so we cannot use what compass has fiber up they have some paper all the way down right we can't use theirs well no you can't use theirs if the idea is that cv fiber is going to become the purveyor of of internet our money could be appropriated or funding through cv fiber i mean but i guess what you're saying is that cv fiber wants to operate an internet business as well as sort of the underserved i just i just want everybody to know that it was before the flood because it was we were still in 51 south main street uh burlington telecom came here then and made a pitch to the select board and said you know we're going to make a municipal telecom in in burlington and we can run it right down the interstate and you know you don't have to have a podcast anymore and you know the cost was pretty high and there was a lot of talk about grant funding and everything else but i just wanted to make sure that we understood that i'm not making a judgment that this is a good or a bad thing but what cv fiber is really talking about is spending three million dollars to make a duplication of infrastructure that's already out there to compete against the private businesses that are already providing this service in order to get it to but businesses won't do everyone it's not they look at it as unsustainable and by the way i've been looking at this too going to all our financial meetings i'm not arguing with you i agree with you it's not they didn't put it up Ripley road because it's not a business it doesn't make good business sense for them to do it that's right but we need to do school lunches how how much how much would it cost if it's three million dollars to stream 72 miles of fiber all over the town how much would it cost to run fiber up ring road and if the town just started up there by the way okay Comcast has ring road fiber going up that road well in mark fryer and why why is it yes in ring road mark says he has literally zero it's he struggles to have internet um is it because they don't want to pay i went to mark's house yeah and he lives to mile or he lives and i had a discussion while i was canvassing all the houses up in a minute so he doesn't pay the cost to get it from the telephone call up to his house most of the people are there i'm struggling is that sound right yeah but that's not a part of the definition i wrote it's not considered that they have what the definition is they're considered underserved out there so when we make a build when you guys make a decision hey bill can i just chime in for a second we're here on sweet road and back you know when i moved in in the 90s it was i think it wasn't adelphia forget exactly who it was before uh fair point if you recall i don't um but they wanted 35 000 to run it from the cable drop out to where we're at here so i think for ring road there's somewhere about that same number um i guess the question i have is like are we actually all subsidizing that as community now and then why didn't we do it back then so that was it i just wanted to share the sets but i'm not subsidizing it now i mean all the you know the the new england telephones of the world and then they became fair point now they're consolidated and adelphia cable which became comcast uh they they to live this point they they strung their cable and their infrastructure places where they believed they could make a profit so whatever if they i don't know what their what their number was but if they had you know 20 houses per mile they would think that that was profitable to do that but if they had less than 20 houses per mile they wouldn't do that and i'm sure the number is different than that but they made business decisions the town did not subsidize any of that no i'm sorry let me step back bill i'm not suggesting that the town back then did or didn't what i'm saying is back then that was the cost of those private entities said that i would have to cover to bring that cable drop out here right so fundamentally what i'm saying is for us to all pay to bring the cable drop further up ring road i think is the question here right because i think if we look at it and say well how do we overlay the lack of service with maybe you know an economic statistic as well or sorting filter that's maybe not 200 homes or whatever that number was that might be less and i think if we're looking at optimizing the funds that we publicly put towards this we have to identify those properties and not necessarily be thinking about extremities like i'm not asking for service out here you know we actually have starlink i think i could be wrong but i thought mark had that as well and it works beautifully we have great service so i just there are options that we don't have to hit all the inch hinterlands of this community with full fiber is it nice sure can i get it now yeah back in the 90s i couldn't and you know i just have zeroes focused on instead of like wire 100 camps all i'm all i'm trying to the question that i'm trying to ask and i just did the math here is that in order to serve these underserved populations the non-served and the underserved populations 200 properties in town cv fibers proposing $2.95 million for 72 miles of cable to do that so if you do the math it takes three point i mean 2.95 million divided by 72 miles it costs about 41 thousand dollars a mile to string cables in that so why wouldn't we simply take some apple loving or why wouldn't cv fiber try to string a few miles of cable into the town where there isn't any now and then say let let fair point or comcast bid on who's going to provide the service there why do we go i see your point yeah all right why does cv fiber have to be the one in the business is my question yeah i was going to say what if you if you know the shortcomings you know the shortcomings with comcast and consolidated i can't imagine creating another internet provider is going to be any more uh what's the right word i'm looking for you know better higher quality provider than than the two that are currently there because so much of it relies on quality staff right and everybody knows that there's a huge shortage of good quality people out there now to do any of these things um to your point i you're right i'm not understanding why we're not so i i had a lot of questions that i wanted to ask so of this 50 million dollar project lotterbury's portion of the 72 miles is three million dollars plus or minus so what we're saying is to reconstruct an entire new system that another provider is going to take and provide uh and be another competitor in this market when our goal is to truly provide internet for these outlying homes why aren't we going to one of these other providers that are already in place which you're suggesting and say what is it going to cost to get from where you are now up to the top of the ring road right uh and provide because you're right i deal with it in the developments that i have done where Comcast or the provider won't go in unless there's a certain number of residents to offset their cost and provide them with profit uh so that's why the residents like up in shamanjin they had to dig up i forget how many thousands of dollars it was to get them to provide internet up there um because the numbers weren't there for the company to do it so they had this so the people that the residents had to subsidize part of that to get them up there and we should be doing the same with our arpa money as opposed to building out a whole new system i mean we did that more i mean we were going to use aqua money you know i don't know how many miles but i mean linda's here asking for 75 thousand dollars that will be leveraged to get another 75 thousand dollars and nobody's suggesting that they're going to come back to the town maybe they will i'm just so it might caught if watery were to do it alone it probably would cost more than the 75 thousand dollars they're asking for because there's probably more than two or three miles of cable that has to be strong but all i'm trying to see from the big picture is why isn't somebody who has deeper pockets than water right there's all this money around that can be used why not go to Comcast and Fairport and let them bid on say we'll stream the cable we'll stream the cable if you you bid on who's going to provide the service up there and that's people with big pockets like the state of Vermont are doing that in the northeast kingdom so just to say like this communication junior district and to be clear i have no i have a lot of questions before we want to prove nothing so i'm not trying to say like this but i think in the northeast kingdom they were one of the first ones to have a fiber district because everyone's super underserved in the pen tech and the model ended up being in some cases the best option for the state was to take something that meant some federal definition of an underserved plot and bid it out to Comcast and that's what's going to be constructed first even though the NEK fiber network is building their own network so just to say there are cases where people are doing exactly that and what everybody's not one of them and that's not why but just to say that model exists in the state of Vermont and people are doing it and then again if it's the right fit camera size who's willing to do the work i think is about discussion but that bidding out this service area you need to serve everyone here because we think insert town of a thousand in the northeast kingdom needs adequate internet service that come has to reverberates on is happening at the same time and if we do it why did this get decision was made was three years ago when i wasn't there so exactly why they don't they have decided to go in this route i don't know no i and um this is i it's not my personal it's just it's just trying to ask questions and we were late coming to the party because water grade compared to a lot of communities in this area is very well sorry there's places you know if you go to helmore and places like that there's a much higher percentage of people that are uncertain or underserved than in water so water ring didn't when cd fiber first kind of came into existence we didn't even search out to to join it was there were a few people kind of last year that said and some of the first locals that came here from cd fiber was like well we've been working other communities and you know you might be kind of the tail wagging the dog you might be kind of last so i'm not i'm not trying to diss this or say that it's not something that we should do i just have some questions about boy why are we building something to duplicate what we already have and if it's if it's to get one more competitor is for the people for those of us who are served is it likely the price is going to be significantly less if weightsfield telecom is operating this for cd cd fiber than if you know car point can already do so it's it's just to me it was this weekend was a little bit an eye opener that i think we're being asked to help duplicate something that's already in existence to get a few people more i think you're gonna get a lot more if we can keep our subscriber rates lower than comcast but i think bill has a very valid question why duplicate even you go to somebody's underserved you build the trunk up there and why doesn't cb just lease from comcast part of their line to so you know you can get there instead of creating this