Everybody guess we can call to order our first meeting for 2019 it's January 7th and Welcome everybody. It's unusual to see the number of people here tonight that we've got First first thing in order is to approve our agenda Are there any other additions to the agenda at this time from anybody? I'll make the motion that we approve the agenda as presented Okay, I'll second that all right motion has been made and seconded all in favor say aye. Hi. Hi Consent agenda items minutes from December 3rd meeting Liquor license for the RG Blake Enterprise craft beer cellar and the hen of the woods Somebody like to approve that consent agenda With the motion I'll make the motion that we approve the consent agenda items as listed Second that Motion's been made and seconded any other discussion It all were prove say aye. Hi. Hi The public anybody from the public wish to make a comment at this time Okay Yep, we step up to the mic there, please and state your name You guys in email last week of the letter about the pedestrian safety Crosswalk signs and paint for his prompt response And the public works or the highway supervisor for her prompt response The highway crew will be installing signs soon last week. They were delayed by snow and as a skier I hope they're also delayed by snow this week But it's a pedestrian. I hope that they are played put in place soon particularly between TD Bank and Prope that is a very dangerous pedestrian crosswalk for pedestrians and drivers Furthermore, I hope that comes springtime when paint can be put down on the roads that the highway crew is able to do so There's enough money in the upcoming budget to do so the highway reconstruction project is slated to begin in April but those pedestrian crosswalks won't be Immediately addressed and other ones in town are not being addressed by that project So I just ask that the signage be put in place soon and then the paint be maintained so pedestrians and drivers can See where everybody's going. Thank you for your time. Thank you Emily Hi Mary Cohen, I also came with that issue in mind and I Walk a lot in the village the Not often at night, but it's still very difficult for cars to see and I echo what Emily said about helping there in this consideration in the budget for the coming years I would also like to bring up and I don't know bill you can answer this or if it's something that It's totally in the hands of the state, but Many of the crosswalks are not Accessible for anyone with mobility issues even Someone using a cane in the mind of wheelchair The one in front of the Catholic Church goes from one snowpile to another snowpile so one in front of the daycare Which you can use to go to the state You know walk around the state complex. It's on the wrong side of the sidewalk So I since those parts of town are not going to be in the first year for the Main Street Reconstruction, I don't know if they can be moved. I don't know if there's any consideration for making those more more accessible for everyone My piece to add to what you said Like to comment So we will have money in the budget. We paint the crosswalks every year And when I responded the other day, I said, you know If we maybe had had this conversation I want to but I don't Sometimes you just take for granted and and don't see what the public sees And if if this conversation had happened earlier in the year, you know Maybe we could have touched some of these up in the fall. Unfortunately. It's too. It's too cold and The pavement conditions It would be a waste of time to try to paint it now time and money The signage You know, there's there's many things about crosswalks Main Street in particular that will be hugely improved once the Main Street project happens The the crosswalk at the prohibition paid It really doesn't need any proper standards now because the crosswalk almost goes into a driveway on the on the td bank side of the property On the prohibition pigside The crosswalk is really closer to the To the elm street than it should be There's no easy place or good place to put the required signs there now down by the catholic church When you say it goes from a snow bank to a snow bank I haven't looked at it It would be helpful if we got some help from the public sometime who could like shovel out hybrids and Maybe shovel out the crosswalks the The sidewalk plow doesn't typically cross every single crosswalk But I'm not sure what condition the roadway will be in The entire length of the road will have construction on it Assuming the project starts in april and goes through october I'm crossing my fingers that you know, the federal shutdown doesn't delay this project We haven't heard that it will but we have the conversation today about that in my office So the entire length of the street is going to be torn up Um The storm drains and Uh water mains well at least the water mains and the sewer lanes will be put in this year Um, probably the storm drains as well. I'm not sure of all of the scheduling um, and The contractor will be required to I think put Crosswalks back We'll do our best to make the crosswalks as Visible as possible Us as the town highway department And us in our relationship with the state and the contractor to try to get this to happen Looking forward to when the project is done Crossing will be much easier everywhere. I imagine because There'll be bump outs that come out from the sidewalks that will put the pedestrians out Um outside the line of parked cars that are parking along parallel parking along the street So you'll be able to be out where cars can see you The lighting along the whole street should be much better than it is now And we won't have crosswalks any longer that go from one place into a driveway. They'll all be properly built so I appreciate your comments and your email and We'll do our best to make it as good as we can As soon as we can and as you said those signs are coming up Let the gentleman behind you there Mary speak first go ahead come up jet short come up to the mic State your name Can't show that work just okay. Oh look concerned about The propane specifically with no sign there at all a tourist You know teach skiing and tree bush and tourists come to and fro and They don't know there's a restaurant. There's a parking lot there. No one no one knows that's going on. I understand Miss mark crosswalk some guys top signs and you know Actual stop lights with that that one a tropic is extraordinarily dangerous and someone's going to get hurt and it's it's going to be a bad thing They they're over there drinking they burn across the street, you know right from a car. No one's stopping. It's It's a concern. I understand it's a concern. I'm not sure what I'm Being able to do a lot. You're saying there's no room for signage though. There's no signs So take take it down take the crosswalk down and they can walk around if there's no signage. I'm just concerned It's off Well, you know if you if you pay attention to what people do people cross where they feel like crosswalks Crosswalks don't mean anything to a lot of people. So is it better to have a striped crosswalk there?  I think that a sign is needed either way I mean, I understand you know So she's living to do what you You're basically saying the town has no interest in solving that problem. I didn't say that I didn't say there's no resource to solve it. You're saying so it's just I'm concerned Thank you. I understand Just a couple of questions to clarify bill you said that In reference to Larry the science. Are you talking about those? Sandwich like signs that used to be in the crosswalks. No, I'm talking about the signs that are on the Behind the sidewalk or Next to the curb that point to the crosswalk. Okay the sandwich bar voids in the street So Because it used to be one by the Catholic church that disappeared. I don't know. So those those are no longer recommended. Is that What signs disappeared? There used to be one of those the crosswalks offer. Yeah, we take those down because we have to follow the roads So it's because of the winter. So you so what you're looking at putting down Would be ones on the sidewalk Right, okay My other question is so today also walked to the post office. So All of the construction and the curb cuts and everything that we see Close to the roundabout is what we can expect when this whole project is done Is that part of what you're saying and there'll be thought put into where the crosswalks are there'll be curb cuts for Accessibility for everyone is is that what we can expect because it's great Yes, yeah, so on main street the number there will be a The curb will be here and then where a crosswalk is there'll be an island if you've ever crossed the street in one pillar Of barry where there's a peninsula that comes out from each sidewalk And then, you know, it will be a handicap accessible Ranked down to the road and there'll be a crosswalk and then onto the other side. So yeah, it'd be very much improved And who decides where they're going to go? You said that some of the standards have changed like for the project somehow What is this there that's already designed it's been designed by the engineer taking into consideration all of the the traffic standards that you know signage standards the Manual for uniform traffic control devices So it's it's all designed and it's Clearly in different places it sounds like I'm not certain they'll be all in different places But the street will have a different cross section and it has now and it will meet standards Yeah, when we did the the walk through a year ago And went up and down there was discussion over a couple of the crosswalks where they were proposed and where they currently exist But as bill has said The design work's been done Absent looking at the plan. I can't tell you exactly where they are But they're you're going to be designed to modern standards and as bill mentioned with the bump outs and everything that the The presence of where they're located and everything will be much more clear than what currently exists One of the advantages of the bulb outs is that they're called our bump outs At the crosswalks is that it shortens the distance for pedestrians. Sorry Yeah, the other underlining problem And this crosswalk issue has been an issue for me for a while because I almost hit a pedestrian one One night coming through town over here by the bridge The pedestrian was where it was in completely black clothing it was raining and I happened to see him at the nick of time If I had my drathers, I I'd like to see those areas lit with some type of illuminated Reflective tape paint whatever on so that you know, it highlights that The one of the big issues is keeping up with keeping those areas painted Um It doesn't take long before the paint in the crosswalk and a lot of other painted lines just disappear from From the harsh environment that we have here So it is it is problematic You know, it's uh, it'll be addressed with the new construction process I don't know whose responsibility it is to Request the repainting of those is it the towns or is that something that the state would Repaint them every year. So so this section of town as far as the line painting That's our responsibility I guess that's what I'm asking the crosswalk painting is is ours, but some of the other painting is not The centerline striping the state does Okay So I appreciate the concern and um to dan's point You know some of the crosswalk designs from what I understand were problematic in deciding even by the new standards Where they were to go because um, there was conflicts on either side of the road. So You know it's because of the the past design of our downtown Street here is uh, you know doesn't meet a hundred percent of What they'd like to see so you got to kind of improvise. Yes, sir I'm bill. I'll see 11 Winooski street question and a comment Question is are there plans available that we can To the public I don't know if there used to be a draft plan. I think we so I think we have some I think we have a set of plants here I'm not positive, but I believe we do Yeah, when prior to 100 reconstruction, uh, there was a set of plans You know this thick sitting in here on the on the bench, but we haven't gotten to that point with the With the new reconstruction of main street, you know, I'm sure at some point those would be available Yeah, the plans I'm sure the the final plans if they're not available will be available here soon Uh, we had uh several mark referred to the walkthrough. We had public hearings. We had uh, right of way Takings All of the all of that has been done There's no No more opportunity to change the plans The plans are final and their construction plans now and they're going forward Okay um, so I guess just one thing that I've noticed is that Snow removal is an issue with the letter time on the crosswalk to people who already mentioned that Just curious how Howard if that's going to change with the reconstruction It's going to become more difficult Because of the bulb outs I suspect Snow removal along the streets will be more difficult because of the bulb outs the trucks will have to go around them Um, and you know, we do our best now To try to get the sidewalks plowed or blown out um I I won't State categorically that every crosswalk gets Um, you know the sidewalk plow doesn't cross at every crosswalk Um, even if we did that it wouldn't it wouldn't be done immediately. I mean it would take several days after a storm um When the When we have large storms and the highway crew Comes in to remove the snow along the curbs then everything is open again That's where it would be helpful for You know residents and businesses that That were proximate to the crosswalks if they could shovel out those snow banks so people could cross it would be Better. I know what the at the west lead Methodist church Crossing over to about where 51 south main street the former office is I cross at that crosswalk often I did today and And uh, you know, there's snow banks there. It's it's not easy. I understand You know, it's it's typical you got to understand we live in vermont Winter winter is a given and with with that comes a bit of inconvenience at times. We can't You know, we can't stay on top of it. We just number one don't have the financial backing to do that We do the best we can When we feel like the snow's gotten to the point where it's becoming a real Problem then then we spend the money to clean it up But it's just one of those things that there has to be some give and take In from the public to I think practically speaking the easier for me to clear a sidewalk then The entrance to the crosswalk just because it gets plowed in and frozen I think it's gonna happen for some residents, but Well, I mean if you own a shovel you're welcome to help out But I know it's just it's really nice. It's really not that hard to do. I mean not trying to That myself on the back, but I have coffee on stow street almost every day and when there's a snowstorm And I go into the bagel shop. They've got a shovel inside there And I shovel a path to each of the doors to the businesses on stow street on that side of the street It's not that hard to shovel it out. I think there's some special care taken on stow street though possibly like I think about the crosswalk over here by henders Gosh just would have to chisel through six feet of Slush and frozen ice to Open that up and then on the other side There's certainly challenges. I'm not saying that you're not trying or doing a good job It's something different than years ago. I can tell you that The way things are done now Anybody else? Yes Follow up to bill's comment about the pro pig crosswalks being quite difficult I echo that because it goes the edge of the pro pig building the sidewalk and then the crumbled up pavement So I understand that it is tricky for them to find a spot to drill a hole and not conflict with Where the cars park where people have to cross and fit the sidewalk plow so maybe Hanging a sign from the building if you could get the property owners permission or drill something temporary even though it makes the Sidewalk less than optimal creating that safety visual for vehicles on the other side there is The median between the td bank drive aisle and the parking lot which is grass And their former sign is there but turned off So it might be easier to drill a sign into that frozen ground if you've noticed in that td bank spot, there's a stake driven in there now and they've been They've been asked to put a sign there That has a double-faced sign one in each direction so it won't it won't be as good as having one right in front of the pro pig but You know, I can't figure out a way to get the cars that decide to park on the side on the crosswalk in front of the pro pig Not to do it Yeah, the double-faced is definitely better than nothing and I look forward to that That signage and I want to thank you guys again for your time I think it would be good if we could you know get that set of plans as soon as possible You're probably here Because There has been a bit accepted for the project. So it's moving ahead When just so you know when the project is ready to start we're hoping that on the Wall of the vault that faces all the The workstations here that there will be Set of plans length of that while they'll be you know, what the street will look like So the public will be able to come in when they're paying bills or of seeking information Signing up correct programs. They'll be able to see that and they don't know what's going to be happening where great. Thanks Okay, if we're all good we can move forward here on our agenda All right, appreciate it Little discussion with a library director. Oh me Come up and have a seat Give us what you got Hello Those of you don't know me yet. I'm elmi landauer. I'm the public library director since about september 1st Hello Thank you for Your time and attention for giving me a spot on your busy agenda. I appreciate it My goal in wanting to be on your agenda about once a quarter is to Give you an update on what's happening in the library But since this is the first one I thought that I would Give you more of an overview this time About the library's function and also some facts and figures And um, I ask for your patience in advance because I'm still recovering voice wise from a cold so So libraries in 2018 provide many more services and resources and opportunities for taxpayers than ever before We are a community gathering space. We are a hub for lifelong learning networking and economic growth Surveys actually nationwide show that live public libraries are one of the most highly regarded and trusted institutions in society We are a cornerstone of democracy Providing equal access and reliable vetted information to everyone regardless of their status The library needs your sustained support in order to continue to expand the ways that we help promote and Sustain a robust and economically and culturally rich community So what do we do? Well, sure we have books in all formats, of course Many print books. We have large print books. We have downloadable ebooks downloadable audiobooks Digital magazines available. We have books on cd for all ages We have dvds available for all ages Um, I'm continually surprised at how robust our dvd collection circulates Even in this day of netflix and amazon and all of the other streaming services that dvds still go out a lot We also have reference service and what does that mean? Reference service in library lingo means basically answering any question from anybody that walks through our doors Um, and it may vary from can you help me find this book? Which is sort of the obvious one to all kinds of questions about How to access information how to access? local state and federal social services Information about what's happening in the community about how to contact people in the community So we really really answer a lot of questions every day All right In addition, I was able to find some savings in this year's digital book bed budget by switching Providers that will not affect what we offer to the taxpayers And I'm because of that savings. I'm able to Hopefully starting in february add some new services Which will include online college test prep classes Great courses, which some of you may be familiar with Indy flex, which will be digital movies for streaming acorn tv recorded live concerts and a whole host of spanish television shows and movies. Excuse me, only yes Apparently you did you switch to a different contract with somebody else? For that service Sort of it's a little more complicated than that. But yes my question. I guess the point I'm trying to get to is Will this savings continue? Is the contract a five-year contract a one-year contract? Yeah, it's a one year offer these services and are able to sustain those Yes, it is a one-year contract that you sign each year, but the savings will continue. It's yeah That's a good question. Thank you Um I don't have page two some real reason So let's see We um, we also offer Many other types of services besides things that people can borrow For example, we have a between 15 and 25 public classes events and programs every month that most of which are Completely free to anybody who wants to sign up We have an average of about 15 one-on-one tech help sessions per month with with our technology librarian Which can be anything from how do I use my new cell phone to? Help, you know using a complicated excel spreadsheet and everything in between We We do what's called interlibrary loan, which means we borrow things from other libraries for our Our customers and we also Loan out things to other libraries for their customers in 2018 we Borrowed about 2,600 items for our our people and we loaned out about 780 to other libraries We also have about 120 website visits per week And we have over 600 facebook followers who see our our posts every week every day and We had I think we had Trying to for some reason my page two didn't print so and I didn't notice that so I'm going from memory here, but I believe we had about 52 that over 52,000 visits in 2018 to the library Um, and our circulation was somewhere north of 36,000 items for the year of 2018 So those are pretty healthy statistics for a town this size Um I wanted to share a couple of stories We that illustrate some of the ways that we help people we had a recently A taxpayer come in and wanted suggestions for Um a book group that she belongs to and the the parameters that she gave us she needed help deciding what titles She said she wanted good books Both fiction and nonfiction for a group of retired professional people They couldn't be too new and they couldn't be too popular in case people had already, you know read them And they needed to be able to find about 20 copies of each of these books for their group So our our circulation and intro library loan librarian Jill Chase was able to Do some research and find a nice list of possible titles for this person and she was delighted We also partner with other organizations in in waterbury and We work with the school librarians as well We had the one of the librarians at the middle school Was looking for titles at a third grade level for a student that also tied into a movie title And our youth librarian was able to give her a list of what we owned Which was about eight titles that we owned both the book and the movie and she She and her student were able to decide what they would read and view And they were very happy that we could provide them with a list of Age-appropriate titles and movies that were easily available to the student So We have a beautiful facility here that allows us The opportunity to expand the services and the information that we provide to the community And in order to do that I'm I ask for your support for the 2019 library budget, which you will hear about in detail Next week when the commissioners come before you at your first budget meeting And I also to wrap up I would like to invite you if you don't already to come and get a library card And you can see for yourself why we have about 4,500 visits every month Thank you for your time any questions Or okay, I've actually got two and I want to apologize for interrupting you before that other question But if I to let let it you go on I would have forgotten it. So that's why I asked you then Are you aware or have any knowledge of possible membership increases? Since the new library came into function And or any extra additional donate donation funding as well any Any idea of that or that would that be the commissioners? I can tell you that there there was a surge of new members when the new library first opened I don't have the exact figures at my fingertips, but we do keep track of those statistics And The as far as the funding I know that the The friends group is currently in the midst of their annual Fundraising campaign, which is basically a letter that goes out to people in waterbury And I know that I was at their meeting this evening and they're running about the same as they were last year I'm not sure I wasn't here When it went, you know 2016-17 when they moved into the new building. So I'm not sure If there was I know that you know, obviously they had a successful capital campaign To help build the new building I'm not really sure if you don't if you if you take that out of the picture How it's run from year to year for the last couple years that would be a question for the friends That was my only questions and if the rest of the boards All set So I'll see you in a couple months, and I'll give you another update. Thank you very much. Thank you Okay, bill The rest of the night's in your hands Okay, it probably won't be too long of a night I don't have a lot of 2019 numbers to talk about tonight Up-to-date figures as far as 2018 are concerned I will pass this out and This does relate to the 2019 budget for it's the My recommendation for what we Asked Duxbury to pay for its fire contract with us. If anybody wants one of these there's And Just for I guess especially for Thanks information The the town of Duxbury does pay a fairly hefty Contract payment to water break for It's the service that we provide for fire Services there in Duxbury And last year Duxbury paid water break a hundred and seven thousand five hundred and seventy dollars What I'm proposing and I've already sent this to Duxbury. I try to get it To Duxbury as early as I can For a variety of Personal reasons this year. I wasn't able to get it out to them until Last week oftentimes I I try to get something out the last week of December, but The way Christmas fell and then some travel that I had that I Couldn't get it to them Before the first of the year the way the contract works And if you read this to page contract, it's a fairly self-explanatory, but What we do is we look back To the past year to see what our spending was and then Duxbury pays the percentage of that spending amount to waterbury and What we do is we take the equalized education grand list that the state publishes Uh, the most recent data that we have is from early 2018 And you can see there just down like two-thirds of the way down on the page that I gave to you Waterbury's equalized grand list for 2018 was seven million five hundred eleven thousand two hundred dollars And Duxbury's was one million six ninety one seventy And waterbury's percentage of the total two point. I mean nine point two million Is 81.63 and Duxbury's percentages 18.37 Is a further discount given Duxbury Because the town of more town covers south Duxbury. So there's about 17 percent of Duxbury's grand list that more town covers so we take The the two point nine million dollar grand list and we remove that 17 percent From um from the equation and Duxbury then The the grand list drops down to 1.4 million you see that on the second to bottom line there and um Um Duxbury's equalized grand list drops to 1.4 and then the total is 8.9 million so Duxbury Duxbury's share of the budget the way this contract is written is 15.74 percent And um And then you can see that on the budget page that's attached When I did this The amount that waterbury had spent was seven hundred and thirty thousand Dollars and I knew when I did this that The spending for waterbury would go up Some and it may go up even more I think it ended really With the up to date numbers that I have now Waterbury actually spent seven hundred and forty two thousand dollars about forty eight hundred dollars more than budgeted But I would recommend that we offer Duxbury the contract based on this seven hundred and thirty that I proposed to them One it's been the way we've done it from the beginning We use a number I make a an estimate at the end of the year And send that to Duxbury so they can consider it In my rationale for that is two Two things one I want to try to get them early information So they're not put up against the wall When they're trying to finalize their budget And then I also understand that you know this this contract is I think it's a good deal for Duxbury but it's also a good deal for waterbury and Duxbury doesn't get to vote on our budget So to give them the benefit of the doubt if you will you know if you added Twelve thousand dollars to this budget the incremental amount that we would get would be Very modest, you know But that fifteen hundred dollars is More money when you look at Duxbury's grand less compared to ours So um, and then there were some things in in the 2018 spending that Um When you look at The budget that you'll see in a few minutes when we look at 2000 Us We budgeted 66 7 10 for dispatching we really spent about 69 300 this This budget that I used to establish Duxbury's rate I used the 66 7 10 Uh, again, uh We got caught a little bit blindsided by capital west. They changed their formula. We used to just have a A straightforward formula based on calls and grand list In 2018 after we put our budget together They decided that they were also going to charge us for the number of Pagers if you will that we have out there. So the ambulance and the and Fire department together have about you know 66 or 70 People all together that get toned out and they added that into the formula. So there's a few reasons why The budget was a little bit higher. Uh, one of the things that I did Um Not on the budget that we've given to Duxbury, but um the fire department budgeted 161 835 dollars to To transfer to the capital fund where we pay For the debt service on the fire trucks We used to transfer the money for the debt service for the building From the fire budget to Capital budget for the fire building itself But since only the fire building is in that it doesn't make sense to Make the book you for balance Two different funds. So there was uh, you know of 1500 or an $1,800 deficit in that fund that I wanted to eliminate So I just transferred enough money from the fire department there To zero that out and you know, that's money that's staying with us And it's really not for the operation of the fire department. So Duxbury shouldn't have to pay that So anyway, I'll stop there if you have questions. I'll try to answer them. Um Marie is here from Duxbury. Uh, are you the chairperson of the board or yes? I am. Okay. So welcome And uh Marie is new uh to the to the board Were you elected last year? Were you appointed this year? I was elected last year. Okay, so, um I think this is the first time that she's going to be going through this process Um, I met with her and talked with her a couple of times when we met with the folks from wassey Um, and then we had a couple of conversations about this when I sent this budget to her the other day She responded to me by email with some questions. I've answered them. I'm not sure I've answered them through her satisfaction, but I did answer her um So my recommendation is that we asked Duxbury to pay a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars to waterbury in 2019 for the fire budget I'm not quite a seven thousand dollar increase for them And uh, uh quite a seven thousand dollar increase for us from what they paid last year But um, I think it's reasonable and fair for all these Yeah, anything you'd like to comment on marine you? Well, first I'll start with Don't mean to put you on the spot, but if you'd like to talk May as well be comfortable I was okay over there I'm marie pratt. I'm the chair of duxbury select board um Don't really have questions bill was very very informational and helpful. I am Looking to see because if you only cover The 17 18 percent Uh 85 percent the 17 or 18 is not covered by you and you go by an education list I am doing an overlap It's going to take time. So that's why I This is nothing an overlap to see if dollar wise It can be adjusted because if the fire department Waterbury fire department only covers 75 of duxbury via value Which made I don't know if that makes sense or not well It does I understand the question We've been using this formula Boy probably back to 2008 or nine. Maybe I don't remember exactly And when we put the formula in place It was the town of duxbury who sent to us and said this is what you're covering. This is what you don't now at the time it was What we were covering wasn't 70 It's not 17 of the land area. It was 17 percent of the grand list that more town covered now I've just assumed that as the grand list in duxbury grows that the town is growing the same way if you have different information and you want to tell us that Well all of the all of the increase in value over the past six seven eight years however long it's been Has happened in the 17 percent of the I mean in part of the town that we don't cover You're more than welcome to give us that information, but the information where the line is was established by The fire department more town fire department with the concurrence of the duxbury select board And then the duxbury tom vickery was Doing the appraisal for duxbury And he did the appraisal here And he put it all on paper and he said this is what the grand list that you're covering in duxbury is so It could have changed Over time, but I don't have that information and I don't Want to go over there and try to put it down It won't And that's why I said I was doing the lake work I you know, it doesn't mean it will change and it I don't even know if it anything that's is doable I because I don't know exactly where the the line is as far as like What capital west recognizes and and the other ones like that, you know That's badger and in the more town and the actual fire department What they recognize is the proverbial line So I I can't point it to you on a map right now, but I'm sure gary gary dill And I mean I am working on investigating that but that still doesn't mean it alters You did an awesome job explaining this when I did come to you with those questions and that made it a lot easier I mean, it is a big jump plus with wasi this year. It is kind of rough That is most of the thing, you know, we we have the same Wasi as We have our share of wasi that we're going to exactly And, you know, our costs go up as well Yeah, no, I I understand that so you're looking to create some kind of a formula based on um Grand list value like per square mile and then Per coverage area like that's what I mean for well say they don't cover Well, I guess I wouldn't call it square mile. It's as much as The grand list based on the land Okay, so if you cover This was never That water recovery covers 83 of the land area No, it's always been the grand list Put where the line is This added up to 83 of the total value and this added up to 17 percent So The line is in the same place. The only thing that could have happened is that either More building happened in the In the 17 percent area in this area rather than in this right and that's That's what I was right and that's why I said that's why I hadn't come to you because I I know this is going to be very difficult Work and I wouldn't ask anybody else to do it. I understand what you're getting at. Yeah That's all Okay Thank you. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you Um, the only question I had bill again was back to the lossy in this and I'm sure it'll come up in your Papers, you're probably going to hand out. But was that originally if I remember right? Is that a 44 45 thousand dollar estimated cost from Gary back when When he first brought it to us. So that yeah, that's a pretty good jump Okay I'll set with that if anybody's got any other questions jane. I would I would ask if If the select board wants to propose this contract You're looking for an answer on that tonight then Okay Anybody have any issues or concerns with the contract? No, the math seemed to make sense Okay, the explanation was good And in light of that I would make the motion that we approve The fire protection contract for the town of ducksberry as presented by bill For the day of Well, the draft is 1 3 19 and it's for the contract year april 1st 2019 through march 31st 2020 okay, is there a second second that all right any further discussion Seeing and hearing none all those in favor of Supporting the fire protection contract for the town of ducksberry for the ensuing year. Please say aye Done deal. Thanks This is really There's there's no 2019 numbers on here. I started work on the 2019 budget But I haven't really gotten far enough into anything That would be worthwhile talking about tonight Next week on monday the expectation is the library commissioners will be here to To pitch their proposal to the select board for a budget I'm hoping that Celia will be in as well as bill woodruff to talk about the highway budget and the park's operating budgets and By that point we should have a good reasonable handle on The highway infrastructure Budgets we'll talk about those next week And then the following following week on the 21st So the blot speech will be in to talk about the planning and zoning budget Nick NATO will come in to discuss the recreation budgets And you know, maybe by that time I'll have I'll have enough looked at and enough input from you folks from next week that I can make a kind of a stab at an overall Budget you may have questions and changes to make on Either the planning of the recreation budget Harry Dillon. I'll probably try to get him to come in on the 21st as well and then I'd like to be able to finalize everything on the 28th if that's early month of trial So the the ups and downs here bill reflect through the end of december Yeah, this this budget This information that you have here today Is everything that has been paid today and posted through Hosted to december 31st through things that were signed in the orders today, so You know, there were a number of bills today that That included expenses that had to be posted back to 2018 It wills there will be additional post backs We'll get fuel bills We'll get Elected bills We may or may not get bills for maintenance of highway vehicles or fire vehicles If we bought salt on december 30th and haven't got the bill yet that would be posted back I did I did add into this. I think mark the The full price we haven't paid the state for the For the last quarter of the State police contract, but I did I know what the number is going to be so I I filled that in I did I think you saw the email I sent to Just asking for it and the response back was that well, we always sent the bill After the quarter ended, but they sent it before the quarter ended the first time I decided I didn't have the point All right, so on the first page, um, there's a couple things that are going to that will change and the first page is revenues We haven't yet closed out everything as far as posting all taxes So I'm hoping that the property tax line there comes up a little bit from what it is right now It says that we're down $235,000 It's a little bit of a head scratcher to me because we don't have $235,000 of delinquent taxes So I'm hoping when final adjustments are made Uh, when we adjust balance sheet for deferred revenue that Will pick up some numbers in that line Um, excuse me bill. Is there a Uh, guesstimate off the top of your head of the amount of delinquent at this point Less than 150,000 I believe Um, moving down the page. So that's why there's a question mark next to that arrow that points up there I'm hopeful it's going to happen, but I don't know for certain Um, the state grant for the v-trans liaison that's the money that They reimburse us for the time that barb fire is spending doing work for both the route 100 and the main street project Um, we have not billed the state yet for the final Um For the last month of the year. So that will go up a little bit Um, and don't worry about that line if it's if it's under right now. It's $8,500 under what we anticipated Um, if if that was really the last number that would mean that barb didn't she you know, she didn't work That amount of time. So we have been reimbursed for everything All the time that she's worked on those two projects. We will get reimbursed. So Um, that's kind of a line that we'll wash out Um, moving down the page. There's shows right now a $13,500 deficit from the historical society Um Tracy heather is the archivist that we hired last year We pay for her time And this week I will Determine you know the the final posting of the Payroll from 2018 just happened last week So I'll add up her pay and All the benefits that go along with that and we'll send the bill to the historical society. We'll post that back to 2018. So She didn't work quite as much as we had budgeted. So that will be Something less than 13 five but it will be Much closer to 13 five and it is to zero. So that's going to go up Um There may be some other minor increases on the revenue pay on the revenue page And whatever changes are will be made Um, flipping over to page two, let's ask one question. Um, the mini camp Um Lost there is that just a wash because that's a situation And I'll get to that in a in a couple minutes, but Most many of those lines, uh in the service fee Especially with recreation If we didn't take in the income we didn't have any expense, you know, so we thought we were going to have $25,000 worth of income for winning camps and if we did we would have had A lot more expenses people didn't find in service. We did from the program I'll show you in a minute that Any other questions on the revenues Okay on page two, this is the general government and the public safety You can see there that, you know, the the red numbers are where we spent more than budgeted Um, nothing real out of the ordinary except, uh, telephone and office supplies I'm still looking into office supplies a little bit Some of that may end up getting spread out to other departments or other funds, but We still spend the money. It just may not end up here The telephone the utility telephone internet line throughout the the budget you will see or spending in that line We put a new phone system in this year. It was not It was not completely in the budget We had money in the in the budget in the municipal building operating fund for new server and new computer system We had an analysis done of our phone costs and Putting in a new phone system that's tied to Comcast if anybody Has at home, you know internet cable telephone with Comcast as opposed to We ended up doing the same thing and we actually put a phone system in So there's a considerable amount of Of upfront Expenses to buy and install that system And in 2018 we'll end up spending more money than was budgeted in that line But moving forward the cost savings will Pay us back pretty quickly for that and it it wasn't anything that I felt was so Egregious or out of the ordinary that I had to come and get permission to do it Any sense to do it? So you'll see those telephone lines are Somewhat higher in in every department Even with the telephone and office supplies being up in the general government We spent about $15,500 less in that than we had budgeted The public safety line Department I should say could I ask one question about the audit? I'm sorry Yeah Why do we have such a large remainder? Yeah So the audit didn't didn't start until December That's going to be a carry-through. Yeah, so we'll we'll pay it and that's going to be an overage But I think I'm going to talk to the auditor Whether we have to post it all back to 18 or if I don't know so anyway They didn't come until December and They're bid even though we have $10,000 in the budget they're bid and they were the vote later was 22,000. So we're going to overspend We knew But they unlike the previous auditor who just sent us a bill when he was finished They send us Portable billings as as they go along. I think they build monthly. So we've got a we've got an incremental bill in December and we'll probably get Last one January. I'm sorry. I'm a little where are you on the page two Three quarters of the way down on the commercial audit The 89 48 figure. Okay. Thank you So public safety, uh, we've paid as I said I uh I Put in the full cost of the police contract And You know the special events that those are the things we pay the county sheriff for the fourth july not quite independence day probably the River blight parade things like that The fire department's budget we talked about that that's on the top of page three The biggest overage is in part-time pay Uh, and that's just a function of cost. Um, you know, we make our best estimate You know the the year of the flood That was we budgeted 60 something and we spent 100 You know, we're usually not off to that magnitude, but Up or down, um five or six thousand dollars is not unusual And it's just a function of how many calls happen I already talked to you about the dispatching Equipment and vehicle maintenance both were higher than anticipated We can ask Gary about that when he comes in Um, and the fire budget as I said Right now shows about 48 49 hundred dollars more than We expected it's probably going to go a little bit higher. We'll probably get some Additional diesel fuel bills, uh, we may or may not get, um, Vehicle maintenance bill for equipment maintenance There will be no more pay there I like to get their pay so they can do their Christmas shopping So we pay them from December 1st to Whatever 30th 2019 for them Um health and social services a little bit under budget there Basically because we don't have an animal control officer that takes any money evidently have we heard And then in the pool and We can look at page three and four kind of together because these are all wreck programs and pool and wreck administration and parks So we we spent Almost $6,000 more in the pool budget than we anticipated But if you look back on the first page We expected 28,500 dollars in coolant come and we took in almost 43. So You know that we paid more for pool expended Reptures What i've handwritten in at the bottom of page four I the left hand column there says budget so we budgeted Um 380,695 dollars for recreation all together so that would be pool programs wreck administration and parks If you add those four totals up it comes to 386 95 We anticipated 133 thousand dollars of income So we thought recreation would be a net cost to us of 247 695 We actually spent About 28,000 dollars less than we budgeted for recreation for those four programs We took in a little less money than we thought We would take in but proportionately we took in more So the net cost for the recreation was really 223 So we didn't make money on recreation, but we had a lower net expense than we budgeted That's a good thing at least you had an added in the right direction. That's good And that on pinch four there is a note there that says You see the circle around regular pay parks Regular and part-time pay for parks is for the Grounds maintenance that happens. So Dylan Haskins and Bradley Roy did They work in the cemeteries the parks Dylan's a highway employee and His pay was supposed to start posting back to the highway department at the end of November Michelle and I forgot to do it. So It's a little over here. Some of that will be put into the highway department. Unfortunately the highway department You'll see in a minute. He's already over spent on His payroll so adding more to it isn't going to help but it will make the net cost of the recreation Page five is planning Special articles Planning budget we were almost right on the dot. We were $2,000 less than we we thought we would spend The zoning administrators pay is higher than we budgeted Moved dina up from 30 hours up to I think we've moved her up to 30 hours and she's been working more than that I'll have to look again at What her hours are but based on her time card today she took Six hours for holiday time. So I think our budget for her is 30 hours a week Three quarters and six is three quarters of an eight all day pay. So So we may have to adjust that line up next year You can see I think Part of the reason why We paid more for dina's time and she worked more than anticipated if you look back on the first page again In the service fee section right in the middle of the page you look at planning We budgeted $18,000 for planning, but we took in $25,300 of planning fees, so We're still Things haven't slowed down here. Yeah Interest rates are rising a little bit. There's A lot of turmoil in the stock market right now. There's a lot of turmoil in terms of the federal government being shut down Border walls and all kinds of things I don't know if that will translate We paid more for For her time But we also took in considerably more than we anticipated for Rather than for planning Um And we took in more for revenue and when you look at the whole planning department all together it's A couple thousand dollars less than budgeted all together so That again the net was better than we The debt management That $109,400 just gets shipped off to the fund 76 where we pay the municipal building operating Fund debt service for this building the library kicks in today Well, I didn't print out any of those reserve funds for tonight. We'll look at those next week as well You see the interest expense there for $2,500 under debt management That $2,500 was to pay for tax anticipation borrowing We didn't have to borrow anticipation of taxes not even from the village this year Um, so we didn't have any interest expense Uh, we've been able to pay all our bills with the cash that we had on hand and our cash flow throughout the year Special articles It looks like there was a big savings there, but it's really kind of a Disguised savings, uh, we at town meeting the I think maybe chris made the motion but a motion was made by the voters to Add 37,500 to the budget You maybe try to Buy 51 south main street from The village or contribute that toward Mr. Parsons proposal That didn't go anywhere So when it came time to set the tax rate We knew it wasn't going anywhere. So I eliminated that It didn't raise that 37,500. Just for the heck of raising The fact that we're I think 94,600 going spend 55 We didn't raise taxes for that 375 anyway. So it's really You know, we spent 100 percent of what we were anticipating spending in the special articles So with all of this the general fund We ended up We And this is where we're still kind of aloof in the dark because the auditors haven't finished yet and there were some differences in When they posted all of the 2017 adjustments to the To the 2017 year end, which is already more than a year ago now um It looked considerably different than I thought so We had 138,864 Dollar fund balance I thought when we started the year But I think they have to combine certain funds that we don't typically combine The fund balance that shows up right now if you look at 2017 is Over $200,000 and I haven't talked to the auditors about it yet but even with the with the Reasonably good spending we budgeted $2,698,000 as you can see including that 37,500 for that budget imagine for the parking lot We spent $2,604,000 almost 605 so if you added that 37 in there You know it would be up to $644,642 or something like that So we spent less than we budgeted by probably Probably about 55 or $60,000 less than we budgeted but because the revenues right now are showing that big Loss on the property taxes. It appears that our revenues minus our expenses were really You know, maybe with 279 Not too worried about this yet. I think we're going to be I think in the three operating funds, we will have a small deficit this year going into 2019 I can't tell you right today what it is. I'm hopeful that By the 28th of January when we have to Finalize everything that I'll have a reasonably good And a lot but from a spending perspective, we did we did fine It's not there for a second It doesn't appear to doesn't appear so Page six is the highway department and Right now it was showing in revenues That were lower by about 11,180 dollars I think that will go up a little bit. I know it will go up a little bit The two line items kind of right in the middle the pool cross-charge the $3,000 that was budgeted And we've never got that paid before the end of the year so that $3,000 will be posted back It's going to come from the general fund. So it's it's not doing us any great You know, it's just going to make the highway department look a little better and it will make the pool look a little worse But that will will get the highway labor and materials That $8,174 will probably go up a little bit and What it goes up a little bit by Will probably affect the parks budget and the cemetery budget again both municipal funds So it's just a paper shuffle But we should shuffle the papers the right way so that we can tell How much each department really did spend so I'll make a couple changes there I haven't checked to see what we thought we were going to get $7,500 in the state grant for One of two things happened either we didn't do What we thought we were going to do and therefore aren't eligible to get grant money Or we've done it and we just haven't received the payment yet and I've got a question mark next to that And I'll check with Michelle and Woody about that and we'll have that answer before next week There may be a little bit more Money coming from WASI for fuel. I'm not sure if they've paid their December bill or not, but You can see that We usually try to budget conservatively for revenue. So the fact that they paid more than they than we budgeted is It's not unusual. It is a little unusual that they've paid you know Considerably more usually it's it's more by you know $100 or or so It's about 30 to $3,300 more this year And part of that Just is that fuel was a little higher for a bunch of the year that it has been Um And and we paid more for for gas as well. So So the revenues Are pretty straightforward there. I don't expect big changes On the pay on the expense side of things You can see the regular pay for parks Well, not parks that parks should not really be there anymore Regular pay line We spend about 43 40 $400 more If I move somebody from the parks department because You know when started working on highways back in November That will go a little bit higher. There's a couple reasons why that number is higher than anticipated One is that Celia was out for a considerable time for two different medical procedures this year One of them was Long enough that she was able to move on to disability which saved us a little bit of money She stopped getting paid and was paying through a disability insurance policy that we paid for But the second time that she was out She was not out long enough to To be eligible for disability money. So We were paying her sick time and then we kept bradley roy on Was helping in the parks because we just needed an extra body to get things done And because uh, she was out and because we had January and november Cold and snow We just had more overtime than we have had for the last couple of years. So It's not a huge overage, but that's one of the reasons why it's over Other things in here the social security and the retirement Those are over. Those are both functions of the payroll line. So One of the payroll line is higher the retirement is going to be Higher some of that retirement from the highway will will be moved to to the parks budget because dylan is a full-time employee who's Paid Who receives retirement benefits? So I think the the parks budget probably has a retirement line that That probably needs to be back filled a little bit Um You know we budgeted $1,100 there and haven't spent any so That again is just a paper shuffle shuffle Um, moving down clothing and safety wear, um, you know, minimally over legal services. Um We had to deal with a guy on Sweet farm road who was here a few years ago Um Street lights One of those may get well. No all the posting back to 2017 has happened So I think that's probably a right number the fuel lines Prices were just a little higher than I budgeted Especially, you know, the diesel that's really a function of two things one The The longer winter both in the spring and the fall if you remember april last year it was Is Also, I think we did some more hauling of some materials ourselves this year So that probably contributed that The salt it is what it is again, we budget we kind of look back for a couple years and see where we are Um, salt prices have gone up considerably the last few years Haven't had Shortages this year that have been affecting us, but I'm sure if we go back and look at the price per ton of salt It's gone up a fair amount And that's really about it And I'll have more information next week and And clearly see you all in here as well. I want to ask questions, but Even with the overages Some of the big overages that we have It does look like we spent about 22 23 thousand dollars more and that's probably going to go up a little higher because I'm sure we're going to get some bills I'm hoping that Uh, we've got all of our salt bills in but I'm not promising For 2018 you mean? Yeah Yeah, I mean like I said before if if we ordered salt on december 30th And it arrived on december 30th Even if we pay it out of 219 2019 the auditor is going to put it back to 20 I would like to uh Suggest to the board members that at some point We need to have a realistic discussion about recognizing the fact that That the impact of use the use of salt, uh, not only to their environment, but Also to our budget and have a reasonable discussion as to What can be done if anything to uh Try to mitigate both those issues because it's becoming more and more of a concern of mine Uh has been right along To me it's If you look at what the state has already spent and we can Blame part of it on the extensive winner we've had but There's also some other factors involved in my opinion that are causing the increase in in use Um, and I think it's time that we Take some time and have a Down-to-earth discussion about it at some point in this budget discussion Well, I would suggest that the best time to have that discussion whether it be about price whether it be about Extended winters or whether it be about Philosophy of using salt That we have that discussion next week when the highway foreman and the public works director are here and You know You're all members of the public, but I'd also say that you know, we get calls and we get requests before Salt people like to have clear roads and and I understand your concern chris, but what I'm saying is Next week would be the time to have that discussion So if you have thoughts about it, I just want to prepare people bring them in next week And if there are members of the public who have concerns about it, it'd be nice to hear from them, too So the highway fund budget, um, we anticipated having Revenues Be 94,950 so about 95,000 less than expend yeah less than expenditures to to Buy down the 95,000 fund balance that we had at the beginning of the year We actually had about 125 so I'm pretty sure the highway fund will be in a late deficit position Going into 2019 Um, I'm thinking the general fund while on my paper is it's showing That it's in deficit right now. I don't think it will be And then the the library fund That's pretty straightforward, uh the big The big drag on the library's budget this year is in that first line the regular pay line Mary Katsumatsu My library director Notified us after the budget was put together that she was going to be retiring She She worked through the end of august, but she had some leave time that we got to pay her out So that was time that you know, we paid For somebody who didn't work You know and she could have taken a vacation at any point before that so it was It was owed to her And then all me was hired all me has been hired As typically as the base You know the position of library director gets a raise when a long time employee leaves and a new one comes in and a new one You know the market says oh you should be paying more for library director So all these pay is is higher than mary's was um and those two things combined cost about 8,350 dollars for the year and um The uh Part-time pay was a little higher than anticipated some of that they had To do with some vacation coverage and then the health insurance line Next week when you see the library budget there'll be a big difference between 2018 and 2019 For the 17 or 18 years that mary was here We didn't spend anything on health insurance for her because she never took it All he takes it So that's why the health insurance line is $2,500 higher Last year than we anticipated It's going to be considerably higher this year because we have Two people in the library department that will be taking it now as opposed to one last year um Everything else is pretty straightforward Chris you did ask You can see at the top of the page Under the revenues right in the middle. There's a donation line Never budget for donations. This is donations above and beyond what the friends Triggered that goes into a different budget So there were 4,800 $4,881 of donations and um And then down below they actually purchased $1,762 dollars worth of things by donation and So they're there are donations that are included Just as a reminder that second line from the top On the revenues it says time on duck spray there I should take that out. So it's not confusing anymore Um duck spray used to make a payment to the library for the duck spray residents to come to use our library And uh, I don't know it's $3,000 or something like that in the library commissioners A couple of years ago went to the town of duck spray and said, you know And they gave them all the information kind of like we do with the fire department and said, you know Your share that should be whatever it was. I can't remember what they asked for 5,500 and The duck spray select board said no, thanks We don't think we'll do that And I think what duck spray has done. So duck spray residents have now Paying part of the fees that come in on the non resident fees They used to get to come for nothing But now if you're from duck spray you have to come in and pay the 10 or 15 dollars whatever the The user fee is from non residents And I think duck spray Told their voters if you pay that 10 dollars and go to water and get a receipt Bring it to the town clerk and we'll reimburse you and they kind of were betting that It'd be less than 500 people that used it and they would save a little money that way So anyway, there's no Duck spray So anyway, that's that's where we are right now at the very bottom of the page of that page seven It looks like the three operating funds Over on the right hand side are about 185 thousand dollars in deficit The don't believe it's going to be that high I'm thinking that it's going to be closer to It's the first time in a while that we've had a significant Deficit last year we Bought coming into the year that we had about Surplus in the general fund We had a 94 thousand dollar surplus I think in the highway fund and I believe we Had a 4600 dollar deficit at the library fund last year It's kind of flipped this year from last There's ways to address that And we'll talk about those in the next couple weeks, but the numbers will change a little bit Before we get to the end and I'll hopeful that I can At least get the accurate 2017 near-end numbers from the auditors that were just here last month before we put the budget to that So with that I'll stop time Okay, it's it's premature at this time without Certainly without all the information in front of us, but I might honestly based on Some talks with bill and my own perception of where we're at that This year will be like None other than the last few It's not going to be a cakewalk like it was the last few years I'm afraid that we may see an increase that None of us will be happy with But that's that's speculation at this point Yep, um, I did want the board to know that no, this is just a Shot in the dark at this point. Um, I don't know if any of you read the paper the last paper there There was an article in there from the vice chair of the stratford select board Made some comments about some of the things that the legislative body should consider trying to do to Help with some problems here in the state. Um, I phoned him this morning. We had an hour discussion One of his ideas was to, uh Put a spot possible gas tax on the current Price on gas right now to, uh, his suggestion was to help the state Generate revenue for not only the state but the towns My conversation with him basically said In my opinion the state can pound sand for a while they've, uh They've gotten the bulk of the revenues here, uh for themselves last number of years and uh With the conditions of the Roads in this town and the costs You know that we are the revenue sources that we lack to deal with not only just our paved roads, but All of our road infrastructure bridges sidewalks culverts and so on. Um The main goal would be for me to um try to propose a Something to the state of a of a gas tax with a sunset window in it based on perhaps You know, it's all preliminary but based on a Per gallon price of fuel if it hits a certain gallon price, uh The tax tax automatically drops off but to Try to generate some form of revenue here that would go Directly to the towns Based on a formula that the towns would have to put forth Prior, uh, my goal would be to eliminate this ridiculous grant process Which does nothing more than eat up taxpayers revenues in administrative costs and Really reduces the amount of tax dollars that actually go to the problem and it's time that You understand I mean with the education costs Think everything else involved in in what goes on in the municipalities function or ability to try to function and keep up with its ongoing costs We're not getting anywhere so we in our discussion we talked about Getting together here in the next week or so and try to put something together where we can try to get all the towns Board members or chairs or managers to put together Letters to submit In the form of either through vlct. I wanted to talk to you at some point what the best avenue for that might be and Try to put pressure on our legislative body to consider something like this the best way to use the monitor cities and towns is to Is they have their town fair in october and at the town fair in october. It's like town meeting The vlct adopts its Municipal policy for the year and they have policies for you know for finances and Intergovernmental relations they have Quality of life which is Anything from planning and zoning to water quality public safety And there's a fourth one that I'm not Remembering out on my head and They have policy committees that meet in the summer. So if you're interested So the vlct policy for the 2019 legislative session is already in place And it's unlikely that you're going to be able to get select board chairs and town managers Now while the legislature is in session to really make an impact So the best thing if you're interested in this kind of thing is to To ask to be appointed through one of the committees They meet usually toward two times in the summer And they formulate policies they identify especially when it comes to Roads Well, that's the other committee transportation So they they talk about the needs bridges culverts highways stormwater lake shambles And they talk about revenues and how we might adjust our tax system to try to be fair to the municipalities Had the modest success The legislature more than anyone likes the grant programs we've been advocating to the legislature for years Just increase to all the towns the The general aid to highways that if you look at our highway budget on page six state use us State aid to highways $109,000 $10,000 a year And I bet I can go back Almost as long as I've been here and it's probably was 85,000 when I came and it's 110 now This it was higher a few years ago than it is They love to create all these grant programs for bridges sidewalks A whole nine years and we've been begging them just increase the general aid to highways and let us fix Give us the money that way we'll first we can fix So anyway, that's really your best opportunity. I'm about telling you you shouldn't get together with this guy now And certainly you can send a letter to the vlct board or ask to Get on the vlct board agenda Anytime during the legislative session, they'll be happy to have you come in and hear you But to really be effective It starts with the policy committees in the summer The vlct policy in october and then that's what they're They're Agenda agenda and they're lobbying staff used to work Well, unfortunately in my opinion The reason they love these grant processes is so they can keep their staff employed That's my opinion So the other problem is gas prices aren't going to wait around for Extensive links the time for The vlct process unfortunately and certainly not our legislative bodies process Somehow i'm looking for an avenue To put immediate pressure on them somehow with like I said a formula has to be put together Where the revenues come in boom it goes right back out based on this formula And and with the sunset, you know if it and it it could be set up So that every time the gas prices come down to a certain point this tax gets Reintroduced and when it reaches a certain point of increase it drops right off If the wholesale price, you know the average statewide price Drops to 240 there's a 10 cent tax if it goes to 260. Well, you take the tax off, right? Those kind of things have been talked about You can do anything you want to try to influence the legislature right now Vlct has proposed a number of times in the past five years anyway to increase the gas tax and You know what you hear from the legislature and the governor in particular is You know average reminders rely on their cars they can't afford higher gas prices Well, there's there's many factors involved and you're right that well We were paying upwards of close to four dollars again on here at one point So, you know that excuse doesn't hold water for me. I agree. Um, yeah, so There's other there's other factors involved So they they can't afford the the additional gas tax But they can afford to pound their vehicles over roads that are so horrible that put their Vehicles in the garage every other week for repairs You know and the amount of excesses salt has to be used. Yeah, exactly exactly. So I just want to let people know that I'm going to try to do something because you know, I consider If we added up where we're at where are the with our Infrastructure what we are behind on revenue sources for our infrastructure needs It would probably scare the hell out of us Um, and we can't continue to walk this road. It's just not it's not feasibly Not feasibly intelligent So Any other comments from I would just say, you know, what bill said about Vermont State A for highways for 109,000 I mean, it's like that's just so that's like shocking. That's that's so low And I think if you did an analysis percentage wise Over 20 years 30 years it hasn't gone up It's gone down. It's gone down With inflation if you look at what our highway budget is And how that's grown over the 30 years I've been here and what the Vermont State A Was and what's that grown to it's it's exponentially Yeah, if you did look at the cost per ton forgot things In the amount of miles I think that you could get towns All on board with that one. They're already on board. I know it's time to put what I'm saying is yeah It's time to put the pressure because that's ridiculous. Yeah Yeah, but And I'm not trying to talk you out of doing it. But what I'm saying is While league of cities and pounds is your representative in the legislature and they they have presented this kind of argument and You know, there's there's a local government day in the legislature in february You should sign up and come you should yeah, keep me in mind of that because I will I will actually do it Oh, what was I going to just suggest? Well him and I are not on good terms from a few years ago when I gave him a piece of my mind Jane and uh You started to say bill so This would They're aware of it, but they basically Turned a deaf turn a deaf ear or yeah Is constantly promoting ask the legislature for more aid to the municipality and they get nowhere Well, I'll answer that question for you. It's gotten some places But what what's effective so next year this year? At least one of you if more than one of you can go to the local government day in the legislature in february go And the the legislative committees are pretty reasonable about letting you talk How much they Hear yeah, that gets translated the action is questionable, but they'll let you so they take testimony at that time Yes, they take testimony and then Once we get through the legislature session Regardless of how successful or unsuccessful We are in getting the things that you want I would recommend that One or more of you Volunteer to be on a policy committee at the lct And you know the staff does all the legwork you go and you know review a policy Make adjustments to it and probably get back maybe a second time In the mess brought to the membership that town fair, but there are there are ways to be Involved and Going ourselves Is is worth it, but it's also worth knowing about the lct process and getting involved on that level too Okay, thanks So anyway, I guess I had another comment. Okay. You said that you thought Golf arc you it was $150,000 or a delinquent tax revenue bill You kind of estimated So would that offset the 180 That's 200 and something The link with taxes work is The county standards bureau allows you to to Book as a receivable What's reasonably expected to be collected on those delinquent taxes for the first 60 days of the year So what I'll do right now is I'll work, you know this week and look at how much is outstanding in delinquent taxes Just before we go To the last Budget day at the end of january. I'll look again If it was 150 and it's gone down to maybe 130 I might say that a bookkeeper came make the deferred revenue $110,000 And so I'm expecting to collect 40 of that 150 before the end of February and the rest of it Just kind of stays on the books. There's always some about a delinquent taxes a lot lower than we used to be Well, it's pretty good. We all talk about how higher it is to pay our taxes about, you know, I think just like you did And it doesn't get easier in the year going but The water and tax payers should be We collect a higher percentage of taxes Then we ever have the last few years So it my point was that it would help offset this what's shown as a deficit here We just don't know quite how much Okay, you good i'm good Motion to adjourn Make a motion to adjourn second. I'll second that all in favor. All right. Thank you very much


I think the anecdotal evidence suggests that it is a serious problem. It's very difficult to measure counterfeiting. Obviously, I mean, crooks don't usually declare what they're doing. But we have anecdotal evidence regarding the level of counterfeiting within the EU. It affects many sectors, but what is particularly interesting for ICT devices is that they enter into many other products. So if you like, the counterfeiting of these devices has enormous spillover effects into the authenticity and the use of those products. So in that sense, we believe that this is a very important issue, and that's why I'm here today, as much to learn than to actually demonstrate what we're doing. So that's the reason. Has the EU got a specific legislation that combats the counterfeit of products? Yes, obviously we have all the different rules regarding registration of different IP rights, et cetera. But as regards enforcement, we have one European directive, which deals with the, harmonizes the procedures for civil redress, civil redress measures in our member states courts. It's minimal harmonization, of course. The member states are sovereign in this area. But we do have a regulatory framework in that sense. As regards criminal penalties, that's very much left to our member states to deal with. But we are developing other measures. And in particular, I'm here today. I spoke yesterday about an action plan against counterfeiting and IPR infringements more generally, which we adopted in July, and which really looks at how to develop, work with different partners, encourage cross-border agreements between governments and enforcement agencies, but also with industry to apply best practices, maybe, to reduce the threat of counterfeiting. Two of the issues which I see, which I think are particularly important to raise here, is a need to look really at better use of supply chain auditing as a means to reduce the risk of counterfeits entering into the market. So that's a big issue. This industry, or the semiconductor industry at least, has been quite advanced in that. The aviation industry has put very strict standards in that area. But again, the idea is to see whether that could be rolled out again across many other sectors. And the other area that we're looking at is looking downstream at where products are sold or distributed, looking at encouraging more intermediaries, so whether it's distributors, online suppliers, etc., to see if they can apply due diligence to reduce, again, the promotion of counterfeit products and stop the possibility of those products again from entering into the market. At European level, we call for proportionate sanctions. That's as far as we can go. And certainly, the level of damages which can be afforded in civil cases varies still. It's true that rights holders very often complain about that, that the damages they receive are not sufficient in terms of dissuasion, but even to cover the harm caused to their own businesses. It's something which certainly, again, can be discussed between governments. I think governments are receptive to this issue. More and more, speaking of our member states in the EU, they recognise that sanctioning is important. To give one example, the United Kingdom last year made the breach of designs a criminal offence. It wasn't until that time in that country. So I think that there is a growing awareness that counterfeiting is a serious crime. It certainly affects governments in terms of lost tax revenue. It certainly encourages great economy working, etc. So, in that sense, I think there is a general recognition that there's maybe more to be done in that area, but we don't harmonise that specifically. The other point you raised also, which is a real issue, even within the single market or the European Union, is the fact that the counterfeiter can cross-border very, very rapidly. So if you restrict his operations in one member state, he will move to another and trade from there. And there we're certainly looking again at how we can improve cross-border address, where, again, there are civil law procedures. And there is a belief there that there needs to be better cooperation there between the judiciary as well to get faster actions across borders of the community. So that's another area that we are looking at as well. I think there is... One has to be careful here, because I think, and it's come through in the meeting yesterday, as well as this morning, it is clear that consumers, there is also an issue of accessibility to product. And although very often we talk about this for developing countries, I think that's also an issue in the European Union. We can't say that certain consumers don't, at times, when we're talking about counterfeits, for example, in the area of clothes, sportswear, et cetera, they probably know that if they're buying, for example, off the Internet something, which is 50% cheaper to take a hypothetical example of the actual traded product, that they're probably buying a counterfeit. Now, that's an issue. And in fact, we have established what we call the European Observatory Against IPI infringements in the European Trademark Agency, called the Office of Harmonisation in the Internal Market in Alicante, which is looking and has done some very good work to analyse, first of all, consumer perception, so of the problem, what is the cost of the problem in particular, and now increasingly looking at how to improve awareness campaigns to show the risks? It's not just a question of very often people, so there's a health risk, et cetera, to try and scare people. I don't think that works that well. I think far more often it's interesting to show to people that this actually costs in terms of jobs, employment possibilities, so that they're really looking at in this observatory with industry, it's quite an interesting body because it brings industry and our member states, enforcement authorities together, and they discuss, if you like, best practice on how to improve awareness of the problem. Throughout the chain, by the way, it's not just final consumers, it can be businesses in the supply chain who don't realise the risk that there are counterfeits there, and also enforcement authorities, so they do an overall, they're looking at the whole supply chain and how to improve awareness throughout that chain.


So should you stay with your paper calendar or should you go with something like Google Calendar? Well, I've been using Google Calendar since I don't remember, 2006 at least. And so I'm now very used to it and I love it. Of course, when you first start using a digital calendar, it takes getting used to because you're used to the tactile feeling of writing things and, you know, having a different view than what's on the screen. But I'll tell you the benefits of something like Google Calendar. I'm just gonna say Google Calendar from now on because there's also iCal and Outlook and all that stuff. But I prefer Google Calendar for a couple of reasons. Actually, I'll say one thing why I use it rather than iCal, Apple Calendar or Microsoft Calendar or other options is that Google Calendar makes it easier to collaborate with others. I can easily create another extra calendar. Let's say I'm running a small group program or a small team or something like that. I can easily create a new calendar just for that team. And I could add those team members as collaborators in the calendar. We can all either schedule events together on that special calendar or I can make it so that I'm the only administrator. I can add events and then what they can do is look at them to be able to view them. It's hard to collaborate like that with Microsoft Outlook or with Apple Calendar. As far as I know, most people have a Google account. Not everyone has an Apple Calendar account or a Microsoft account. So that's why Google Calendar is the winner in terms of collaboration. But okay, let's just talk about now digital versus paper calendar. Well, here's the main benefit of a digital calendar is that you can easily move things around whereas what are you gonna do with paper? To move an appointment, if you use pen especially that's hard. If you use pencil, yeah, sure you can erase something and rewrite it. But how easy is it to just click and drag an appointment to a different time on the week or the month or the day? So much easier, so much quicker. And the second major reason for using a digital calendar is you can recur appointments easily. What are you gonna do with a paper calendar? Let's say, especially those of us who believe in the power of scheduling appointments with yourself to work on things like, okay, write blog post or plan my business or whatever it is, do my marketing work. It's like self appointments are incredibly, in my opinion, necessary for a thriving business and a sustainable sort of financially sustainable business. So what are you gonna do with self appointments? Are you going to like on your paper calendar every day you're gonna write again? You're just risking more repetitive distress injury or just using your energy, physical energy to write stuff instead of a digital calendar. I have, I'm not gonna show you my calendar right now. Those of you who are in my Joyful Productivity course can actually see an actual snapshot on my calendar and I talk to you through it. But basically, I just imagine this. I have appointments like writing blog post or doing my marketing or doing my bookkeeping or planning my business. Those are all recurring. Like whether something is once a week or once every three days or once a month or whatever, those are all happening on the calendar. And so therefore it's easy for me to know how much white space, how much room I have left for other activities that are not on my calendar. Whereas with a paper calendar again, something that has to recur on a regular basis what I'm gonna do, go and keep writing it. And then sometimes you have to move things and all these issues that happen with paper that isn't true with digital. And then last reason that's super, super useful why digital wins over paper is client scheduling. As your business grows, you're going to find it increasingly annoying to have to go back and forth with the client to say, well, what about Tuesday at 2 p.m.? Oh, that doesn't work. Oh, what about Saturday at 10 a.m.? Right now that might work for you because you just have a few of those instances a week. But as you get more and more hopefully depending on what size you want your business to grow, you're gonna wish, gosh, I wish people just see what my availability is and that I've allowed for client appointments. I have certain slots that are available. I wish they could just book themselves in. Look at my availability and then look at their own availability and they just booked themselves in whenever I said that I was available for client appointments. You can't do that with paper. You have to do that with a digital calendar. And of course there are tools like Calendly or acuity scheduling that hooks up seamlessly with Google Calendar or it also hooks up with Apple Cal and Microsoft Outlook, things like that. But those are essential reasons why it's, and okay, actually I'll give you one more reason why it's so much useful. You can easily search on the digital calendar. Can't do that with paper. So two use cases. One is that I wanna know, when was the last time I met with this client? Or when was the last time I met with this colleague or friend, I might dinner out with such and such friend or whatever, when was the last time this happened? Or when was the last time I worked on my business planning or whatever it is, I can easily go to Google Calendar and type in the search box. Oh yes, that was three months ago that I met with that person or work with that. And even, by the way, I could easily click on the calendar appointment if I took any notes underneath there in the calendar detail section, I could easily see what the notes were. You see, so that's, you can't do that with paper calendar. You're gonna do keep, when was the last time and you have to keep looking back. It doesn't make sense to me. So I don't know any, I don't have, I honestly can't think of a good reason to use paper calendar anymore. Given those reasons, can you think of a better reason that is better than the four reasons that I've just given you, that is so significant for using paper that those four reasons are no longer relevant. I can't see it. So, but if you do, I wanna challenge you, comment below. Give me a good reason to stay with paper. I don't see a good reason for it. Now that I've named those reasons. So, anyway, I hope this is helpful and any other tips you have for those who are thinking about switching, comment below or yeah, just let's continue the discussion. Thanks.