forced every member of Congress to decide what they think about Asia. And particularly after Japan and the U.S. began serious negotiations in the aftermath of or in the wake of Prime Minister Abe's February 2013 visit. And there was a sudden interest in Congress and Asia. And it wasn't just because of security problems in the South China Sea. It was because every member of Congress had to decide what they thought on a sensitive political vote about how important Asia was. And there was a lot of interest. It has also changed, I think, the U.S. experience thinking about Asia and our stakes in the region. Let me ask you a quick follow-up. The JETRO and also JBIC Japan Bank for International Cooperation surveys show that Japanese overseas direct investment has essentially dropped in half in China the last two years each year and essentially doubled into Southeast Asia, especially the so-called ASEAN plus one Vietnam India, which is not in this Indonesia and so forth. Do you think that membership in TPP will affect investment decisions by Japanese companies going forward? Do you think there will be some diversion depending on who is in and not in TPP within Southeast Asia? Well, thank you, Michael. The, as Mr. Ishige's presentation explained, some of the reasons why, you know, the Japanese investment had been, you know, diverting. Maybe one of the economic factors is that the raising labor cost and raising or increasing labor cost in China is quite phenomenal, particularly in those coastline cities. So maybe that's a kind of very politically neutral sort of factor why, you know, Japanese investment has been decreasing to China, but at the same time, you know, the Japanese companies are now engaged more and more not only within the region, you know, production networking or value chain to more kind of wider context. It's a wider sort of spectrum of, you know, value chains or production network. So Japanese companies are not only looking at TPP, TPP certainly, you know, in terms of maturity of negotiating results, negotiating results, it's really the most important element, but also Japan, EU, JCK, RCEP, all of these are being, you know, connected to the eyes of Japanese companies and they would like to have more kind of well integrated world value chain that they would like to realize through those respective inter-regional mega FTAs, that's how I look at that. Thank you. Professor Zhang, I want to ask you two questions, but first let's say TPA passes this week and maybe we have a TPP signing ceremony in Manila for APEC in November, which by the way is CSIS experts speculating. I don't think there's been any official announcement along these lines, however CSIS speculation is 80% probable, I'd say, wouldn't choose God. So let's just assume that this moves forward with APEC. What do you think the impact will be in China's own debate about reform and free trade agreements and international economic cooperation? In China now as a biggest exporter in the world, I saw as the second biggest economy. Meanwhile, China today is a world's manufacturing center. So promote both trade and investment, liberalization and facilitation that will benefit for China's development in the future. That's why now China is making a lot of efforts to promote and try to create our regional trade agreement network. You may find that in recent years, not only on the platform of APEC, but also in Latin America and in EU, you may find that more and more new free trade agreements has been signed. Also this year, China clear, China Australia will be the two new one. Meanwhile, along belt and routes, also you may find that China Sri Lanka, China Israel now is discussing how to promote bilateral free trade agreements, even if between China and Euro-Asia economic community concentrated Russia and those former solving the union economies. Between this community and China, now we already started to discuss the future free trade agreements. So I think that generally speaking, China will promote this type of framework. And then China's economic transition will be achieved. Meanwhile, China's huge market potential and China's high growth rate will be shared by other economies in the world. But regarding to TPP, China's attitude is quite clear. That is, we are very happy to see those TPP members can make consensus because we think that TPP will be a possible approach for promoting Asia Pacific economic integration. On the other hand, we also realize that there is a gap between China and TPP. China needs to reform and open up further. And maybe in the long run, we can discuss what will be the possible scenario for Asia Pacific economic integration. But for AFTAP goal, last year here, talking about my points, I said that in the future, there will be maybe quite different approaches to AFTAP. One is maybe possible TPP because from Japanese side and from the US side, you hope China and Indonesia, this type of country can join TPP. But you know that for China and for Indonesia, maybe we will feel not so comfortable for TPP because TPP has standard and very strict regulations maybe to some extent surpass the development stage for those developing economies in the region. That's why now we have to promote RCEP. In the future, maybe for developing economies, they prefer to choose RCEP track. The third possible approach will be maybe TPP track and RCEP track. They can work together to innovate a new template. That also would be possible. So what will be happened in the future? That's why a strategic collective study need to be conducted by all economies of APEC. So I think that a practical approach needs to be studied and need to be explored in the future. Excellent suggestion. And let me ask you now about the One Belt, One Road, and Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. These are new for China. It's a new experience. It's a lot of money. It's investment in areas that are not altogether stable or well-governed. And it's an international institution that China has never had the experience managing before. So as you look at the One Road, One Belt, and AIIB initiatives, what are the areas that you think will be the most challenging for Beijing and other possible areas where we can cooperate to address those challenges? Yeah. So at the beginning, I'd like to correct one concept that is today in China, our officially name of not One Belt, One Road, our initiative. Actually, the formal name is the Road and Belt Initiative. Because that One Belt and One Road, this concept is too narrow. We just borrow the oldest concept in the past. But today, you may find that actually, there will be many roads and many belts. They can formulate an economic network covering Asia, Europe, and Africa. So based on this type of understanding, we think that the Belt and Road Initiative, this concept is more exact. For China, we realize that if we want to promote this type of initiative, the challenge is very big. You may find that along the route, so a lot of economies actually belong into poor country. And their per capita GDP may be below 5,000 US dollars and very poor infrastructure and very bad investment environment. So that's why, in the face of this type of situation, we think that because in the past, China experienced this type of status. So you know that in China, we have our two valuable experiences. One is if you want to be rich, the first thing is to pave road. This is the first one. And the second one is if you want, without industrialization, you will not be rich. And based on these two experiences, that's why now we need to have our AIIB and Silk Road found to making efforts in the field of infrastructure improvement. Of course, in that process, you may find that even if we can have AIIB, even if we can have another 100 billion US dollars from Japan, personally, I think that AIIB promoted Japanese government to provide another 100 billion US dollars. So this is a constructive role played by AIIB. But even like this, you know that actually, faced with trillion-dollar levels demand in Asia, you may find that 100 billion US dollars still not enough. Plus AIIB, 200 billion US dollars also not enough. In the future, we need maybe three, four, five, this type of more and more found. That's why we have to introduce PPP model. Because in the future, we have to promote infrastructure improvement by both public participation and private participation. Especially social capital will be critical for infrastructure improvement. If you look at China's experiences in the past, BOT model and the BET model, this type of PPP model has already been very popular in different fields, for in the field of energy projects, highway projects, even if high-speed train projects. So I think that PPP model also will be critical for both AIIB cooperation and One Belt and One Road initiative construction. Thank you. So if the model is going to be to expand the funds available for infrastructure to have public-private partnerships, you're going to have to have a governance model that's transparent and predictable. And that's, of course, one of the areas of concern for the US and for Japan about AIIB. Let me conclude before we turn to questions by asking Matt and then Watanabe Sensei. Is there room for us to work with China on governance? I don't think the US will likely join anytime soon for reasons with our Constitution. The Congress, I don't think, will go for it. But is there a role for us to help with governance or set some expectations? And then also Watanabe Sensei, will Japan join? So you want? Go ahead, Mr. Zhang. I was asking that, but please. Actually, in recent years, you may find that as a member of WB and ADB, also China has our own China Development Bank, as well as China Exam Bank. They already become international player in global market. In that process, I think that China has already realized that anti-corruption, transparency, or good governance are very critical for international development projects. For AIIB, I do believe that China's direction also will follow those international financial use. On the other hand, we also realize that today, WB, as well as ADB, actually, their efficiency has a problem. So how to balance these two aspects? I think that AIIB maybe will explore. For, I do believe that transparency and governance will be respected by AIIB. And also, recently, you may find that the new chapters of AIIB will be released. You may find that some of detailed regulations will follow international rules and regulations. From this point, from this regard, I think that in the future, in case both the U.S. and Japan can join, and then you may make rules and regulations better, you can improve governance and transparency. Thank you. I mean, it's an interesting point when you look back at Japan's proposal for an Asia Monetary Fund in the midst of the 1997-98 financial crisis, that proposal was essentially pushed into an IMF framework. But it did provoke debates within the IMF and the World Bank about efficiency, and in that sense, did have a kind of positive role. So maybe the AIIB will spark those kinds of debates. But Matt, and then Watanabe-Sensei, what do you think? So I think, first of all, the United States, you're right, will not join this bank for the indefinite future. Again, I think Congress is unlikely to approve multi-billion dollar funding for a Chinese-led bank, that just seems to me politically unrealistic in the near term. And secondly, the U.S. lost a lot of credibility, by the way, it handled this issue. And so we don't need to revisit all of that because even the White House, I think, acknowledges that now. But as a result, I think there are limits to what the U.S. can do to shape the governance of this institution. But, well, and one other thing, which is that I just would confirm what Dr. Zhang said, that the Chinese government and those involved with the AIIB have made strong assertions of an intention to be transparent and to govern this organization well. And there will be certain market pressures to do that. If they want this to be a bank with a credit rating that can raise money in the markets, there's gonna be a lot of pressure to conform to sort of a set of standards. So I think for all those reasons, there is some reason to take comfort. And on the other hand, there are questions about an institution that is going to have such a dominant role from China, because China's made clear it's gonna have veto power over this organization and at the margin.  And I think they're gonna have limited ability to shape that. So I don't think the U.S. is gonna be able to influence that either, except as a bank shot through its reliable G7 partners. That's a joke, given how reliable they were in terms of the strategy earlier. But seriously, I think there will be pressures from within, but they're not certain. So I think there are some reasons to wonder about how this is actually gonna be run. And then there are questions about the lending standards. I think, again, China's gonna be under a lot of pressure and there are gonna be some incentives for it to conform, because it's not gonna wanna lend to projects that go awry and create a huge environmental disaster or something, because they'll be criticized without and within this organization. And I think there's a question about what international standards are in these areas, because each, we were talking about this internally in a little thing we had a few weeks ago, that there are different standards, even for environmental standards and loans. The World Bank and the IFC have different standards. The China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank have different environmental standards. And of course those are different from the World Bank and so forth. So there may be a place for all of us to get together and talk about these things. So we've actually been kicking around the idea of, maybe in the G20, there ought to be some sort of new forum created to talk about what are best practices for infrastructure finance and to try to come up with some common, at least understanding, if not standards in this area. So I think that may be another place the US can play, but I think we're gonna have limited influence on this thing from outside. One more thing, if it's the Road and Belt Initiative, then with baseball in the mind, then I would propose a new acronym, which is RBI for this training. I was very glad that you mentioned about this post-97, 98 monetary crisis. Japan proposed Miyazawa initiatives or even creation of Asian Monetary Fund. And the Japan's approach then was something to cooperate with United States in the monetary crisis that took place in 97, 98. So there's more of a cooperation-oriented approach that Japan took. Whereas the AIIB, I think the, although I appreciate very much the considerations given by Chinese authorities about the scarcity of resource and abundant need for infrastructure investment, but I think there should have been more kind of preparatory process to bring all the stakeholders in, particularly those major stakeholders, such as United States and Japan, into the project. And 110 billion US dollars, that was mentioned by Prime Minister Abe at one speech, but this should not be considered as a kind of number competition, you see. In the same speech, Prime Minister Abe mentioned about quality, quality of infra-investment. He repeated this word of quality seven times in the same speech. Try to give you the impression that Japan should give priority to quality of infrastructure investment. And also, those things such as the situation of the host country of investment with regard to democracy, with regard to rule of law, human rights, and also environmental situation, those things are very much important when we are engaged in the infrastructure investment. So I think the AIIB should keep those elements in considerations and also transparency and the government of organization also, that's a source of concern for Japanese authorities. For instance, member of the board, they do not have permanent address in Beijing. It's not the case in ADB, ADB, all the members, they stationed literally in Manila and they engaged day-to-day sort of monitoring of the management of that organization, ADB. So we have some preoccupation about the effectiveness of governance of that new organization, AIIB. It's, you know, we have been told by press that more than 25% or 30% of fund would be provided by China, but that perhaps give quite something close to veto to Chinese authorities. And of course now we have our Western democracy such as UK, France, Germany, already supportive of AIIB, but they might get very marginal percentage of share and put together, put all together, even they cannot formulate kind of a blocking minority for any decision that might be considered not so appropriate for infrastructure investment. So that kind of thing still worries us very much. So, you know, I think Japan and United States now seemingly decided or determined to stay outside of the AIIB, but if, you know, ADB and AIIB, if they can cooperate in the infrastructure investment, that's already positive. And, you know, maybe, you know, by the fact that Japan and United States remain outside of AIIB will help the sound management of AIIB. In this way, Japan and the US contributes to AIIB by their own absence. Thank you. Very zen. So very quickly, I just wanted to add, you know, what's happening on the ground with business in this environment that we're talking about. I see a new development in terms of infrastructure. There's an infrastructure committee with a committee leadership going specifically last week to Indonesia, to Jakarta, and recently, earlier on in 2015, going to the Philippines. Earlier was mentioned about US engagement in infrastructure area, and these are two new developments in terms of a very specific infrastructure mission where companies go and have a deeper dive into these topics, such as infrastructure financing and public-private partnerships. So this is, again, a reaction or part of what's happening while we're discussing these larger issues that are at hand. I just wanted to bring that into the discussion. Thank you. This is going to, you know, watch this space. This is going to be a drama that will unfold, and I think there are two parallel things happening at the technical level. The people in the Chinese government who are responsible for creating this new bank are serious economists and serious people with experience in the World Bank and are talking to experts in international institutions and ifs and the bank and the age development bank and so forth. But at the same time, in China, this is an extremely political and strategic initiative, and the role of the leadership in China, the role of industry is very opaque still, and I guess we'll learn more as we go forward. Let's take some questions, and if you could briefly identify yourself and, yeah, Scott? Microphone, could, yeah, good. Thank you. Scott Miller, C.S.S., I want to raise, I don't know if there's a question or a thought experiment, but the general impression from all the presentations and all the discussion is that economic integration in the Asia Pacific is some natural phenomenon, that it proceeds almost automatically, it has only one direction to it, and you could come away with the idea that we're just like two or three acronyms short of Nirvana. Okay. That's the title of your next book. But I want to observe that on a global basis, that isn't the case. Globally, the trade and investment as a share of world output today is below the levels achieved in 2007. We have not yet recovered in trade and investment from the Great Recession. Also, I think you could observe regionally, you have some big economies, Matt mentioned this earlier, big economies that are either going sideways like India or going backwards when it comes to integration like Indonesia. So the question is, and just a panel reaction is, what policy would we recommend that is different if we presumed that this wasn't automatic, that we could sort of revert to the mean, that deeper integration is not automatic? How would our policy recommendations change if that were the case? Thank you. Actually, I'd like to emphasize one point. That is international regional economic cooperation does not mean regional economic integration. By another word, today you will find that in this world, for WTO member, actually WTO could be regarded as primary free trade agreement. And you may find that even today, more than 40 economies in the world, they are not member of WTO, because WTO just have 160 members. And if you look at the map on the website of WTO, you may find that a lot of countries concentrated in maybe West Asia and Central Asia, as well as North Africa, they are not member of WTO. That means given that they cannot become the WTO member, that means it would be very difficult for them to be involved in regional economic integration process. So from this regard, I think that regional economic cooperation also should consider diversified approaches and diversified policies. From this regard, I think that China's Belt and Road Initiative can play a constructive role on this aspect. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for very insightful questions, Scott. I really enjoyed that very much. Yes, the economic integration in East Asia started with foreign direct investment. And I think the ignition was Plaza Court of September 1985, when Japanese yen being much appreciated, about 25%. Then Japanese manufacturers looking at Asia, particularly those top five, six of ASEAN countries, because their national currencies have been linked to US dollars. So that was the best way to avoid the up and downs of the dollar yen exchange rate. So that was how FDI channeled into those ASEAN countries. And at the end, we had this kind of production network across all the ASEAN countries. Now what we are being faced with is that we are moving from that kind of de facto business driven FDI induced integration into more institution driven integration, legally minded, particularly with the FDA. So I said that the ASEAN's mentality is we agree first and talk later. But now this sequence has been changing. And also TPP has a major sort of influence on this. So that's one thing that I'd like to mention. We are getting into more institution driven or maybe rural oriented approach to this integration things in the region of Asia-Pacific. And I'd like to also refer to the very concrete example of the trade related investment measures. That's agreement also incorporated into WTO. But trims, we have only four of the prohibitive performance requirements, such as export-import balancing requirement or the local content requirements and so forth. But there are a lot more investment impeding investment measures performed by host country governments. So we need to look after all these. Because as you said, the trade and investment so far not exceeded the level of 2007, maybe due to those impediments. So perhaps we have to open our eyes to look at those investment-related measures and bring into bilateral FTAs or TPP, mega-FTAs, so that we could ameliorate, I mean, improve the situation of the investment across the Asia-Pacific. And perhaps with that experience, we can move forward to the all multilateral setting of investment in the near future. Thank you. So the short answer to your question is we'd be doing what we're doing, which is reducing impediments to investment in trade, maybe with a little more urgency. Yes, sir? Whatever color that is. I have a question for Mr. Goodman. You made two statements. One is, you said AIIB is not going to happen because of the US participation will not be there. Then you added something, a caveat. What is that we lost credibility? What is that we lost? The US lost credibility. Why did I say that? Because the US tried to get a coalition of countries, G7+, Australia, Korea, to keep this bank at arm's length and failed to do that. Britain joined, and then there was a flood of other countries that joined. And so in a word, I mean, the US was unable to achieve what it tried to do, which was to keep this bank at arm's length. And gave the impression that it was opposed to any sort of Chinese-led initiative, as opposed to, I mean, I think there are big mistakes where they didn't, a year ago, go public with the following statement. We agree with China on three points. There is a big infrastructure need in the Asian Pacific. The current institutions are not filling that need. And China has a lot to bring to the table. Money, capacity, experience with these activities. And so the United States welcomes China's desire to play a role in this. But do we need a new bureaucracy to address this problem? Is it a problem of money? If we're going to have a new institution, how should it be governed? How should it land? How should it procure? And I think if we had done that publicly, we would have been on much higher moral ground and might have actually ended up swaying some opinion on this. But we decided to remain silent and then gave the impression that we were trying to pressure people not to join because it was a Chinese initiative. And then if you're going to do that, at least win. At least keep everybody on side. And we failed to do that. So I think that's what I meant. I think we don't have as much as a result of that, we've lost a lot of ground. Bureaucratically, I think Treasury was staring at Congress and making policy instead of looking at the region and thinking about what was actually happening and what outcomes we wanted, which, by the way, is exactly what happened with the U.S. response in the 1997 financial crisis. So two strikes, two is the baseball metaphors. Maybe next time we'll get a little smarter. I think we can do one more and I'm going to look to the wings since I haven't called on our flanks yet. OK, back to the middle. Steve Winters, independent researcher. I'd like to direct this to Director Zhang. To what extent does China view the road and belt initiative as consistent with or an extension of the so-called hub and spoke model, where China is the factory floor of the world and so many of the supply chains sort of move up to China for the final thing? Because if I look at the transit and economic corridor that's proposed through Pakistan, which is really amazingly exciting, it also sort of looks like another spoke or could function as another spoke. Definitely. The first thing I'd like to say that the Belt and Road Initiative maybe will last for a few decades. Yeah, this is a long-term initiative because if you look at in Pakistan, in India, they have a huge population, but they are per capita GDP very low. And there is a very huge space for development in the future. Regarding the corridors, not except China, Pakistan, economic corridors, we also have another five corridors within China, Mongolia, Russia, and from China to Central Asia and from China to Southeast Asia. Yeah, something like that. Everyone is complicated and tough mission. And in that process, you know that any international cooperation will be welcomed, such as ADB, and such as World Bank, such as other international financial development agencies will be welcomed. We can work together. Otherwise, we know that. We are very clear. Only by China itself, we cannot finish. We cannot do this type of job. Of course, I'd like to mention one point that is, you know, faced with TPP two years ago. Here, I just talking about a lot of Chinese people regarded the TPP as a conspiracy made by the US, you know, faced with China's rising against China's rising. At that time, I criticized this point. I said that the US is not smart because, you know, that US is not the member of P4. If you are the member of P4, that means you are very smart. But you very regret you didn't produce this type of good idea. But this time for AIIB issues, I also think that US is not so smart compared with the EU. I hope that maybe after a few years, you could be smarter a little bit. Thank you.  On that note, thank you. This is a great panel. A lot of rich.


Most Longmonters know that in this 2023 election cycle, we're going to see a ballot that's loaded with all kinds of issues. Three of the issues that will be on the ballot that you're going to receive by the middle of October were placed there by Longmont City Council, and they had to do with the library, an arts entertainment center, and recreation facilities. On September 25th in the Longmont Public Media Studios at 6 p.m., I'm going to have a chance to interview Harold Dominguez, John Solomon, and Jeff Friesner. Three of the city officials who really have been in the middle of the planning and building the rationale for why these would be on the ballot. What we all need to do is make an informed decision about whether or not we want to support and not support those ballot questions. So join me and that panel of experts in the Longmont Public Media Studios on September 25th 6 p.m. get every question answered that you might have about what those questions are, why they're on the ballot, and what the implications are for you. It's the backstory hosted by Tim Waters on September 25th. See you right here with a live studio audience at 6 p.m. on September 25th.


I mean, if Dave, I don't know where Dave is. Yeah, so we'll just call the meeting to order. 633 Apple time. Yep. So first on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is there anything that needs to be amended this evening or added. Nothing on my end. Oh, nothing here. Motion to approve the agenda is written. Second. Okay. I don't have to do any. All in favor because we. Paul, should we just bounce back and forth? You move by second vice versa. Yeah, that's fine. That's cool. I got it. Or you could just make it easy and do the same that way. Teresa can just enter it in the same. No. In the Paul. Yeah. Yeah, why make it easy on her. Yeah. Why? Why? Why do that? All right. So we don't have any appointments this evening. So we'll go to public comment. So if there's anything that's not on the agenda this evening, anybody wants to bring up. The only person in the background is Ellie sounds like Ellie will probably brief us when we get to the bonfire things. That was sounds right. Ellie. Okay. So we're good to go there. First is just the approval of the warning. I think we have gone back and forth a couple of times and. I believe we pretty much all agreed to the warning at the last meeting. Do we need to discuss and decide about in person versus Australian ballot first and then. The warning comes, Dave. Um, yes, Lindley, that's a good point. You guys have never, we have talked about going Australian ballot and obviously we have been leaning that way, but you're right. You don't go Australian ballot. This warning is not what you all will be signing tomorrow. You need to come to the town office tomorrow. I'm going to leave it at the back entrance and you can sign any outstanding payables for payroll as well as accounts payable. And the warning. Okay. So, so I guess we can talk about. So the Senate had approved. Well, I think they had approved it prior to last meeting in regards to going to. Um, they had, but the governor hadn't signed it. And at that point, I don't believe that there was any talk about the right end piece of it and having your go get signatures. So, so they have, um, they have approved to go to Australian ballot for any towns that do in person meetings, um, they have approved to go to Australian ballot. Um, they have approved it as well as they have waved the, uh, candidacy, uh, uh, signatures. They have the petition requirements. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess right now the options they give us is we can, we can continue on in person on the date as normal. Um, the next is we could do Australian ballot like we did last year. And then the third is we could win a date at another time to hold in person. Um, I think that's a good point. Um, that was kind of the, the options that we have at this point. We did, I did reach out to Jamie Canarney at the school just, um, in case and, uh, he said that the school will be closed that day. So it is still available. Obviously Pam can do her election there. If you wanted to do a town meeting, if you were going to do it in person, um, you could, but there would be a required mask mandate from the school. So if you were going to do it in person, you could do it in person. So that's one of the, um, one of the, um, rules. My recommendation is still the same.  We're still seeing an uptick in Bethel of COVID as we are everywhere. And just takes one person. You know, to get really sick. And I just, um, I'm not really sure you guys are loaded with options. I actually feel bad that the state kicked it to the select board. I think the state should have. You know, the state should have. You know, the state should have. You know, the state should have. You know, they did the mask mandate. Seems like the state's been. Taking a lot of things to the lower levels. Yeah. Yep. That's cause they get burnt so bad for shutting everything down. I think you're right, Paul. So. Yeah. One thing that I thought was interesting, you know, not, not to say them. I don't know. One way or the other on it, but. Was reading up on some towns like ours. That's where we're staying. I mean, it's just a little bit. And, and one town that's local was William's town that normally does theirs in person. And they have decided that they're going to keep theirs in person this year. So I tried to dig up information on like how many of the 74 towns are doing it or not doing it. And there's not really the information out there.  You know, I don't know if it was Rochester or Hancock or one of those out there that just pushed it out into. May. Yeah. Sometime the end of toward the end of May. Brookfield did that last year, kicked it to May. And then it was outside and I know it was raining. I mean, I don't know if they rented a tent or what, but it was raining that day. You know, we have so much to do. That I just feel like let's just do it and move on and get past it. And because to kick it out further is. Honestly, I just don't see the point. I feel like if we just do Australian bout, then we can move on as a group to deal with it. But of course that's not my decision. It's yours. So I'll do whatever you say. I think I would lean with where Teresa is saying of just. We don't know, we don't know what it's going to be like at that point and just go for what's safest for our whole community at this point. And keep, keep the date in March, but go Australian ballot for this year. And I think we actually had a larger participation. Go on that route last year than we normally would have had it. We had to get together town meeting. We didn't have pie, but you know, we could have pie at the polling place like we did last time. Yep. So I would, I would be in favor of going the Australian ballot route. And I, and I think in Teresa and I had talked today, and I think what's the only thing we just have to make sure that is clear with, with the citizens is. Is there's word out there that we want to vote for Australian ballot for future years. And if we go Australian ballot now, it's just making sure that people understand that the only reason why we're doing this is because the state, you know, Senate rules allows for us to do. Based on COVID only. I think we will get some confusion out there. But. But other than that, I, I like Lindley said, I. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. They're date. I think it, you know, there's not really much science behind that. Right. I mean, one of the largest outbreaks was in July last year. So. You know, they can't vote for Australian ballot next year. We will be open. We will have from the floor next year. If we do the Australian ballot this year, there's no way to avoid that. Exactly. Right. I just, the only confusion I could see is all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a minute. I thought we'd vote on this, not. Do it. This, as long as we have it advertised that it's.  I mean, it's. And if. Then the warning won't have that on it. We'll have the Australian ballot is we'd have to wait another year. Correct. Obviously it's not on there as, as we're not voting. Yeah. Yeah. The last paragraph of the law says you cannot specifically. So part of it is going to be, you know, people will, when they're going to get there, they're going to see the ballot. If they have questions, they can ask. At the time, obviously. I, it does say.  I just can't really address it. I can't address it in the warning, you know, at some point. People do have a responsibility to be educated. So that's the deal. So if they have questions, they can call here, but obviously the, the warning is pretty simple. It's just the officers. It's taxes. It's social services. White River Valley ambulance. And then the days we're going to pay. So it's boom, boom, boom. We're done. So it couldn't be any more straightforward. Theresa, do we need to make a motion for the move to Australian ballot for voting? Might as well. Okay. Move to. I don't know what you want me to say here. Australian ballot, just this for this for the 2022 town meeting. So. Okay, all in favor. The only thing I see on the warning that would have to be changed is right currently it says that this would be meeting at the Bethel campus middle school. So now we would have to change that to the fire station correct. No, we're going to do it at the school. She's going to vote at the school. Oh, you are okay. I thought she had to vote at the fire station. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But that wasn't. And that was the election. That was not town meeting. That was a different election. Right. Yeah, it was. Town meeting we had at the school. Right. Oh, was it? Okay. Yeah. All right. Good there then. All right. So move to approve the warning as written. Second. Okay. All in favor. Hi. So as I said, you have to come in tomorrow. I'll put it at the back door because we have to send this town report. Paul lovingly edited it this weekend and we have to get it to spalding press. So I don't know about lovingly, but it's going with or without signatures, but I prefer. I can be there, but it'll, it'll be like right at 430. That's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll see you until 430 tomorrow. What's the matter? You don't get a lunch break. You can't drive over. I mean, I could. I have to go to Bethel Mills. I might as well swing by the town offices. Tell those kids you'll be late. Don't use the tools without me. Yeah, we can always run it over to you if you can't make it. Let me know. Okay. Next was just finalizing the town report. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Look the town report over. It's the survey for town report. Not town report itself. It's not. I'm sorry. That's okay. Survey. So. I have taken everybody's input. And I took Lenny's input and defined. Floor vote in Australian ballot. Okay. This is as good as I could get. I took everybody's suggestions and came up with this. I did include in your packet. There's one line that you need to address under number two about the constable. I wrote there are additional questions regarding policing and the online version of this survey. I don't know if you want that, but I included Gene Krause's email and he had. Several questions. I don't know if you want to have questions. I don't know if you want to have questions. I don't know if you want to have questions because I can't do a second page because of the way we had designed it to be on the back cover. And so I did not edit Gene's questions because I don't know if you even want to have questions that are on the line, aren't on the paper copy. And obviously if you're ever going to do anything more with a constable. We're going to do more digging. We're going to do more polling, but these are all decisions for you to make. And I'm not sure what your pleasure is. I'm not sure what your pleasure is. I'm not sure what your pleasure is. I did define. Floor vote and Australian ballot because of your. I, to me, I. Didn't think about the fact that it needed to be explained. So thank you for that. So I'm not sure what your pleasure is about the online questions. I'm fine with keeping them. I had some questions about the way some stuff was worded, but I like the content of it. I think if somebody. I think it's a great way to get feedback. It's a great way for them to know there's an opportunity for, for further feedback. And I, and I think some people will want to only access the online version and won't do the paper one. You know, so I think it sort of hits, it hits a lot of different. Different people in different places. I do have some questions about the wording of it, but I also get that we have a little more time to edit that version than we do the paper version that's got to go to print tomorrow. Right. So I think the paper version I was, I felt was good. I liked your edits. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for putting a lot of time into. Editing it. I mean, I think. On my end of the thing that I guess I've been very frustrated with. The survey and. More so on. I just think we got way too in the weeds on this thing. Like the intent when I talked about, let's do a survey and address what every year, maybe we can grab some questions that are. You know, things like, like for anybody that remembers the Doyle poll, I mean, they were just very simple, like.  And. You know, what policing means to me versus Paul versus. You know, plenty of LA or all different things. But I think the information I was looking to get back was just like, should we open the conversation in that direction? You know, because obviously. You know, it's not like we're going to vote on this, like, tomorrow. It's a, this is like to start the conversation and then we'll dig into all the. All the features that come with the question, you know, I just, I guess the thing I would just. Caution is the, you know, the more detailed. And long version of a survey. It is. It's going to, a lot of people are going to tune out and either not participate or. You know. A quick couple of word survey is more attractive than. Then reading, you know, each question has got. A paragraph or two, but. I also think you're going to have an issue when you have. A survey with so many opportunities to go a different direction. You're going to have. Instead of having. 30 answers that you can get a majority of. You're going to have 300. And you got two here, two there, five over here. Six. You really, it really isn't going to tell you what the community wants or things. And you're not writing policy from this. The Doyle poll was yes or no questions. And. That's right. And you're not writing policy. What you're asking for is. If 80% of the community wants, does not, is not interested in policing or changing policing. It's a dead issue and we're not going to spend any time on it. If 80% of the people think they're interested in policing, then you're going to delve into it. And we're going to have public hearings and we're going to talk about it. And we're going to gather more information. So you're. I understand both points of view here. So. You're never going to be 80 with that with, with jeans. Questions with their, their, they're just too detailed. You're just not going to get, you're not going to get 20% on anything. Say nothing about 80. You know, I don't know. Thing, but. I think jeans questions will be more. Relevant. If we start digging into it. Okay. Let's bring those questions together. Okay. Yeah, I kind of had the same. Same kind of feeling that, you know, for example, the letter C and jeans. Level of. I don't know if that police sees a policies or what that was. I had questions there and. And questions about the qualified social service personnel. You know, what does that entail? Is that a. In addition to a constable or instead of a constable. I mean, these are things that we'll get into further down the road. And then there's some. We're just trying to keep it simple. And if you think. Thanks. I'm sorry, Dave. What you think policing is expensive. Start hiring social services. Oh yeah. No, no. Yeah. No, I, I understand what, you know, the, the questions that he's asking and the good questions, but I don't know. I think they're a little. That like the next phase. Of there's discussion. But there's also a level by statute that we have to as a community. We have to. Like, we don't have a question, you know, we don't have an option to not want to do animal protection or control. You know what I mean? Like there. There are certain pieces to this that we have to do by statute. We got. Who the person is. And I guess that's kind of where. I thought we were starting to get into the weeds because someone might say, yeah, we don't really need to do the. Animal stuff, but yeah, we do.  So I don't know. That's true. And you guys are in a unique position where constable by statute, you have to have, and they have to be part-time certified. I've gone through the academy, but because you hired Oscar. And Justin, they are both two. I mean, I guess that's kind of where I thought we were starting to get into the weeds because someone might say, yeah, we don't really need to do the animal stuff, but we're going to have to do the animal stuff. And we're going to have to do the animal stuff. And we're going to have to do both to eat or Justin is not. Oscar is a to eat. So because of that, you granted your constables, additional police powers, which is a vote, which is something you voted as a select board that you could do. And not every town can, but. So it sounds like between Dave, Paul, Chris. I'm going to remove the question of their additional. I don't know if we're going to be able to do that. I don't know if we're going to be able to do that. I don't know if we're going to be able to do that. I don't know if we're going to be able to do that online, but we're going to kind of hold these. So that if we dig for deeper. In the future. We can kind of maybe read. Take another second, look at these questions. Is that the majority view here? Yeah, we put the survey that's going to be in the town report on. The website. Yes, we're going to, I'm. Access to that. Survey. We're going to go into. The final comment from Jean about their additional questions. I'm taking that out. Then Kelly is going to either use survey monkey or one of the Google apps and create the online survey that way that result. As people fill it out, we get the results. So we're going, that's how it's going to go online. It will go online, you know, this way. Yes. But it's also going to have a link at the bottom that we haven't created yet. Cause I didn't know what the questions were going to be for sure. So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, you know, we're going to have a link at the bottom. I see to, you know, to focus on. In this survey. Taking. What the additional police questions. The additional, you know, Jean's type of additional questions to get a little more detailed. Into. Policies and what people think. Right.  When he says the level of politics, I think he meant policing services, maybe. Perhaps. And now some of the policies are actually driven by this. I don't think it's policies. I think it's policing the level of policing. Yeah, I think so too. So, but, um, So if that's it, Chris, if the majority of you are saying, no, then I'm going to remove that sentence and we're going to put this town, they, um, I'm going to put the survey in the town report as it is without that sentence in it. Yeah.  Some feedback yesterday, no feedback so that if something does spike, um, that, you know, we have the ability to.  I mean, if we fall down on it, I don't think we're going to be able to do the survey anymore. Or maybe it or something, but, um, It was just an idea to try to get something back from people. Um, you know, it's kind of like the, that's what the Doyle poll for was for years was. Whatever he picked, like his, I think it was his top 10. Wasn't that Teresa? I think there was about 10 on there. Yeah. And then. Top 10.  Cause I remember. He had put marijuana or something on there years ago and. You know, he got back like 80% of people wanted to see marijuana be legalized, you know, It gained some traction into the legislation that way. So yes. You're muted, Lenny. Sorry about that. It's just a question on, um, You said it's going to be online. Correct. Yes. Is it just, is it going to be only on the town page? Or can it also be on EIC's page, the recreation page? Well, it's going to go in town report, which means that it's going to go to every registered voter and every property owner in Bethel. Then, um, yes, we can pass the link out to, you know, I know Kelly will put it on our Facebook page on our website. And we have, we can share it with. With, um, whoever wants it. So I'll give it to her. Tomorrow and have her start working on figuring out either we're going to use survey monkey or the Google app, which I can't remember the name. And the different committees have the ability to put it on their page. Yeah. The only one who has a website is you guys. Um, everybody else has a Facebook page, but they can once Kelly posts that they can like it or whatever. They can post it on their website. However that works. And, um, yeah. So the EIC finally made their website. Live. Yeah. What's the, what's the, um, I'll have to look for it tomorrow. I had asked somebody to make an edit on it. And I don't know if they did. So I will, I need to, so I need to go look at it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not that long ago. And I got there from the town website. Okay. I, I didn't, I don't, I'm not, usually the only time on our website is to put something on our website. I'm not visiting it or actually sending something. I look at zoning. So I'll check out the link because, um, I had suggested I needed a change made and I don't know if it got made. So, and I haven't had a chance to go back and look. So I will do that. Um, but yeah. So when, yeah, once it's done, um, I don't know. I don't know if they want to put it on their website. Absolutely. The more the merrier. Yeah. Did we put a, um, A date on when to have these back by or when we would take down the survey monkey. I don't know. I can't remember. And I guess in order, in order for us to act on it. In this session. Yeah. Cause, you know, I don't know if we can get it done. I mean, I think we can get it done by, you know, In summer if we wanted to work. I was going to. Yeah. Maybe April 1st because we're going to have it out there. It's going out and town report. Then at town meeting at both of the budget informationals, you could bring it up. So I mean, I would think that anybody's going to fill it out. Should have it filled out by April 1st.  You know, because if it goes out. Yeah. You know, I think we could have it filled out by April 1st. All of March. I mean, it'll be, you know, after 60 days, who's really. Right. So you want to say April 1st or. Yeah. I just think we should have some sort of date in there that, that we know to get it in my time. You can start collecting the data. And then, you know, come May or whatever we can start talking about it. Yeah, that's a great idea. I will make a note to add. And date. Okay. Back up a minute. In our motion to go to the Australian ballot method. We also have to put in there that ballots will be available. To any registered voters who contact. Tom Clark to get them in advance. Well, well, we can, I can add it to the minutes. But it doesn't have to be in the motion, but it's obvious that if you did not get the authority to. Have the town clerk mail the ballots to every resident. So you didn't get that authority and, and Pam's, you know, so I'll just put it in the notes. Paul, I'll go back. And say. Could be like normal absentee ballot. Yeah, absentee or early voting. Yeah. Ballots are available. Yeah, just blank town clerk and how to get them. They can request them online. They can request them. Because just so you know, I mean, they can request them online 24 seven. Via the secretary of state's website. They can request them. By emailing Pam 24 seven. They can leave a message on the town office line 24 seven. They could stop in. So there's multiple ways that people can request a ballot. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I'll make sure I outline that in the minutes. Okay. Thank you for reminding me. All righty. Anything else with the survey? Were you good to go? Looks like we're good to go. Next. Any discussion on anybody wants to be the deputy health officer. I just wanted to clarify that it is the, the deputy health officer was at one point. Chris Jarvis. The health officer is Neil Fox until 2023. The only reason that Chris became the deputy health officer is we were having some issues. With the health officer responding. And so Chris did it. But Chris has since resigned from that. So you do are not required to have a deputy health officer. just so you know I I resigned but the state didn't formally process that resignation yeah continue to get that now reading through it we I don't think that we we're not required to have a deputy health officer you're right but is somebody we are required to have a health officer officer but not the deputy and Neil is good until 2023 I did email Neil today to find out what his status is um however if one of you knows somebody would like to be deputy health officer bring it on now Doug Marshall yeah I think Chris tried that last time he's not here to defend himself tonight Dave so I take it that's a no-go I'll let the state know we don't have a deputy health officer and it's probably something you know definitely we should whatever advertise get the word out there I'll make a note we'll advertise but if you look at somebody the the health officer is the one who's supposed to appoint the deputy so I'll let you know if I hear from Neil yeah it yeah definitely somebody it's got a little bit of extra time because it can take a lot of time I think it's something that next year on the budget we should really look at it may be more about $2,500 a year stipend I mean you really I think that's something I made a note in my budget notes for next year already saying I think we need to look at that number more I would I would agree and I think if you know you get feedback from Neil that he's sort of looking to end his term at the end of this coming term then we need to get ahead of it well in advance not point somebody well Chris will be out beating the doors down because he'll automatically be the health officer if Neil gets done so Chris will be put full-page ad in the Harold we'll all love like I said I'll let you know if I hear from them. Okay, ready annual certificate of highway mileage. No changes this year I know we've talked about this and there's a few we'd like to see change it'll be something we're going to have to work on over the spring and summer and fall but there's no changes currently to the highway mileage. Move to approve the certificate of highway mileage. Second. Okay, all in favor. I'll leave that on the clipboard tomorrow for your signatures. Did you say that payables were ready to trees? I'm not for this week but I think for the week that you guys met via zoom I'm afraid I think we oh okay okay they're old ones no not yet okay it's old and we have the Valentine bonfire in winterfest the recreation committee is organizing and the Bethel for all and and the recreation committee are working together. Yep it's a better connection steering committee so my whole take on it was from talking to Rebecca and and Ellie can try the term bonfire is maybe used a little bit loosely we're really looking at more like a campfire size fire not like some massive bonfire that was my understanding but let Ellie can tell us all about it because they just have a meeting up. Yeah yes we decided that yes we want to make it more of a campfire four feet to five feet have it more of a campfire four feet to five feet and also have one metal fire pit so s'mores can be cooked on on the the metal fire pit that can be going on and we want to have the those lit at one o'clock and have the campfire and the metal fire pit going from one to five o'clock so we can have campfire and people were mingling and then the metal pit having people cooking s'mores all the time. So the fire warden will issue a permit but there's going to be specific rules about what could be burned so I'm sure you guys obviously understand you have to bring clean wood you can't there's a lot of things you can't burn. Did you know where you're getting your wood to burn? No so I was going to because Deidre said that she had some wood the Phoenix have some wood and Paul our fire chief said he had a friend that has some wood so I was going to ask tomorrow so I'm glad you brought it up because I wanted they wanted to know what kind of wood that we would need what we need would yeah I think that um so you the fire chief is Dave Aldrigatty okay not Paul and um no no the the bonfire chief oh okay I'm sorry I misunderstood yeah oh Paul Boiner yes he's got a friend and has some wood yeah so we we just wanted to find out what kind of wood would be required so I think that it's clean wood you could bring like you know clean pallets you could build but you can't burn any building materials nothing with paint on it you know nothing hazardous no trash it's really what you're really looking at is probably burning just some wood that people would burn in their wood stoves or some lot you know smaller chunks maybe from outside um tree branches you know that sort of stuff you're looking clean clean wood yeah because we we didn't want some somebody says some pallets but they had some nails in them or something and we said we don't want that good for you because yeah it's going to be in the driveway of the town yes exactly because yeah good for you because everybody's popping a tire out there they're going to be ugly so you're right and it's less to rake up so you're just looking at some you know clean wood that people would burn but um right so I did deal with the fire chief and the fire warden the fire chief does not have staff to have somebody present once you're doing a campfire it's going to be small however he is obviously they're always on standby but I did tell him that I would get back to him with the details and um and he just you know that way he basically he's going to be on standby they'll know there's a big emergency you guys will dial 911 obviously whoever's placing the fire is going to be cognizant of power lines and close to this or close to that so um but I'll email Dave Aldrigate and let him know and I'll email Gary Kugler the fire warden so he can issue the permit once the select board makes them hold so so then um will that permit be um issued soon or or yeah I'll email Gary tomorrow and then um I can scan it to you guys okay and so then we we can move forward to advertise for this event once the select board votes you betcha okay I like your flyer thank you thank you is this something looking at it Tresa me is this something that the select board has to vote on because I guess I'm confused it doesn't seem like this is really out of the ordinary for what the um fire warden would approve for whatever 4th of July or well it's because it's on town property you have to approve um you guys have to approve because you're the landowners that way because he can't issue the burn permit he needs the landowner to do it so really the only thing you're making a motion to approve the campfire so that the fire warden can issue the permit without your permission he won't issue the burn the fire the burn permit that's why it's different okay so we just need a motion motion to allow Beth Bethel for all in the recreation department permission to host a well did what do we call a campfire or yes I'll do a campfire so move February 12th yes rain date February 13th rain date okay so it better not rain melly but it is Vermont so you never know I mean yeah second all right all in favor all right thank you thanks for the extra information ellie yeah you're welcome very it was nice to see everybody out taking advantage of it uh you know the facility uh yesterday it was you know a little warmer you know it was a little cold Saturday but uh it's tough because the weather's been like one extreme or the other lately but uh it was nice it looked like there was a good turnout there yesterday I don't know if this is best for ellie or for maybe terese to pass along to detri um there's a huge crack down the middle of the ice and it's starting to chip off um and so getting that refilled uh and flooded before the I mean in general it's a safety issue but definitely before your event would be really helpful okay who's who's contacting dave all dragetti now ellie that detri step back from doing that is that should I text dave all dragetti and ask him who's coordinating him yeah um uh dave has been working with melissa harwood from our committee okay about that so um they have been in contacting all right so I'll send an email tonight then to melissa harwood and dave all dragetti um about refled and rank okay okay I'll do that tonight do you want me to ccu ellie yes please okay okay yep I'll make a note I'll I'll do it tonight thank you Lindley yes thank you all right we had uh discussion on some overhead garage doors at the town garage so I've tried to get three estimates and I got the names of the local people I won um emailed me and said they don't do doors that big the second one I got an estimate from the third one I've heard nothing and I've made a follow-up phone call and an email so um and I'm trying but uh so far I only have one option and they obviously have a great reputation I'm hoping I can get a second quote but you know there's a lead time right now of you know a few weeks so um for months I guess well I just went to hook up the wiring on a door that was ordered in july that was installed last week holy cow yeah I've dealt with them I'm dealing with them with my garage and they tell me 25 weeks uh right now for uh bringing in new doors okay so I'm gonna try to get these ordered this week so if I don't care a second quote I don't have a second quote I mean I'm you know what are we gonna do here um I but I need to get them ordered so my request is to spoof up to $25,000 from the capital improvement fund that's for the town of the garage doors the road crew is gonna help the guy who's fabricating the new rails so they're gonna do some of the work and assist him so that we can keep his price down um and then of course there's the doors and the mechanisms and everything themselves so how many doors is that the four front doors are all six four front doors four front doors so so these doors you know if we have these installed this will be part of the overall plan there for renovations or yep that's the plan as we've replaced we've upgraded the electric we're getting the furnace has been evaluated and that's supposed to be fine I'm having some duct work extended into the back of the garage we've had obviously had the structural analysis done and what our hope is our plan still is is to have an addition of a metal building abutted to this one and then just have it resided so it all looks the same um and so but last year obviously we didn't do that because of the cost of the um well you know it was hard to to find him when the cost of the metal we're hoping that it goes down a little bit my I think in the spring I'm just going to bring in somebody who does metal buildings and bypass the whole architect thing and just get somebody who knows what the heck they're doing up there to to talk to me and see what our options are so that's my plan now but yes and so the doors um we already got the okay we paid uh child's engineering he engineered the um the doors so we know they're okay to go in the building we know where extra weight has to go on the ground so we've we've done all of our due diligence there so even if god forbid you took it the whole building down you'd still be able to reuse the doors the mechanisms the rail the whole thing so but obviously that's not part of the plan so most doors have automatic openers on them or yep well they're not automatic well you know here we have electric door opens yeah yeah yeah any other discussion or else i just need a motion to approve move to approve the purchase of four new doors second and to purchase and install four new doors okay well in favor bye bye well it sounds like at this point it's going to come out next year's budget well it's coming out of the capital budget so yeah yeah everything's behind so okay what is your um after the garage doors i mean do you have a what's next do you have a plan for what what's in the next order here or are we well we also have we are waiting on pricing from a concrete cutting company we have one and it seemed high i had thad smith come in and take a look and he i sent him the quote we received and he thought it was a little high we bait we need to fix when you go in the drain um i may not be the right word uh david you'll connect correct me if i'm wrong there's you know you pull in and there's a grate there yeah so i mean so anyways it's it's breaking so um i had fad that take a peek at it and his suggestion was to recut and maybe put in some metal plating and then replace the grates that are breaking so we're currently getting pricing on that we have one price i thought it was high i sent it to fad he thought it was high he gave us another vendor alan was calling them waiting for a second quote so that's part of it is to that's been something on our insurance thing they wanted us to fix was the broken grates they're tripping hazard obviously there's a few issues there so that's the next piece what are they a french french drain or something like that is all you're talking about the ones just inside the door um they're on i don't know i've never heard the term french drain that's what they are yeah french drains they're all they all drain into a holding tank too yeah it's pumped yep they just collect the runoff yep yeah well i've never heard that expression okay so yes then that's what they have all perimeter drain same yeah yeah that kind of thing yeah so um so the price had included that we got that alan had was you know somebody fabricating the grates and i think they were i want to say they were stainless steel obviously they were pricey um so we were looking for another more affordable quote sure well they might not be um whatever steel they use might not be weighted for the trucks that are driving over them could be the reason why they yeah they're old i mean these things are look yeah brittle but i mean that's just me could be the gauge of steel that they use or something maybe and if they're 50 years old they've been out of 48 48 years old and they have had a lot of salt on them and everything else so the right gauge of steel lasts forever well just the coatings that fail but all righty uh discussion regards to unemployment insurance so a big thank you to d tree because uh she would she um i just had wondered what it would cost us to do have unemployment insurance and so she had to fill out tons of paperwork to get a quote so when i saw the estimate for april to december you know it's 1500 bucks so a couple grand for the year it's all going to be broken up but part of this is for the transfer station they had about 22 and a half percent of the premium some comes out of the municipal budget some the fire department pool constable public works sewer water you know because we are a reimbursable employer which means if somebody collects unemployment we're on the hook to reimburse the state there's no you know we don't pay unemployment insurance so um and i've been in municipalities before where we also never had unemployment insurance and i'm not sure how many towns carry it but you have we've been lucky that anyone who's left has gone to another position if somebody doesn't um it's very difficult to fight unemployment um even if someone you know at any location uh not just a town but a job is fired they can still collect unemployment and i do not budget any extra in our budget to cover that so but we could find this in our budget i mean i this we could cover i think out of labor insurance or there's enough you know even our health insurance budget if we don't have a 15 percent increase we have a little money there i just in this day and age i'm just thinking that maybe this is something we purchased as kind of a preventative measure they're giving us a decent deal on the rate because we you know don't have a good history of claims so say i thought that was a fairly low rate actually me too well lord the one i got when i did it is is there a um i might have missed it but is there a deductible or anything like that that we have to meet if there is a claim or i don't know i actually don't know nobody mentioned it in her paperwork she didn't say anything about a deductible so i don't know i think you just pay it in your claim if there is a deductible i'm looking at it again i don't think she says um current state wage in addition it does not say that there is it does not say but she does say once you've been a member program for at least a full year you may be eligible for contribution credits at renewal you know that's a good thing i don't know chris but even if it's a five thousand dollar deductible which is the rest of our policy that's still depending on someone leaving that could be just a week or two a salary and because we have paid claims before um not necessarily huge ones but um this may be i think this is just a protection that's i'm not sure what the rest of you think but i think it's pretty reasonable to consider on the uh the payback potential payback yeah i think you you gotta look at the cost versus your exposure and payroll yeah figure that percentage and then like like tree said you know you have one of your higher employees out for a week there you go there's your money gone yep exactly and we did fight i fought not fight but i turned in three claims during covid um that i felt were fraudulent and refused to pay them and they were there was a lot of money between the three one i knew was fraud because the person still was employed full time and the other two i suspected were fraud and went to the state and said i'm not paying these and um they turned them into the fraud division and i haven't heard back since so must be they came up with the same thing but you know it's hard people go back 26 weeks we've paid claims before and um but it's i just think this is the best alternative to protect our interests no we need a motion or uh um well it's not i mean i i don't care you can either make a motion that you're agreed or you just all agree whatever you want i don't want it i didn't want to do it without your permissions so i don't think we necessarily need a motion but if we know it seems to make sense right it's one of those things i mean it pays itself right does anybody say no okay so we're got a consensus okay then i'll i'll move forward with that um chris can we i've got a message in the chat from lenny um and i just feel like we need to if we could just talk about this for a second um he's wondering if the quit he he's chiming in on the survey for the town report and lenny's question is i'm sorry i didn't catch this earlier but i'm also taking the minutes lenny so i um it says he feels like the question on the constable maybe need to be a little more neutral um for example um do you see the need for a full-time constable or would you support expanding the constable hours to full-time make let me look at our current wording is well due to the challenges of hiring and retaining a part-time constable and the increase in time they need to process paperwork engage with community members court appearances etc would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full-time question mark so i can understand your point lenny that you're afraid it might be leading but i was changing this because in the last discussion you know two weeks ago everybody wanted police services defined they wanted people to understand why we may want more hours because the constable's duties take up more time and so this is one of those things i certainly did not intend for the question to be leading i'm trying to explain why the select board was entertaining the idea was because maybe they're paying for 20 hours but they may be only getting 10 hours because people are busy so this was kind of a compromise or or compilation of several things um what made me look at that is all the other questions don't have any of that definition behind them right but that was kind of the big beef last time was people felt that we weren't explaining enough why we may be looking at more hours um so i mean i i remember the original question from last time was exactly that it was a very dull down version it was and then it became this you know we're in the weeds now um when it should just be a simple yes or no do we do we want to have this like in in in what in in what you've written you do have would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full time and i'm thinking why can't it just be that so people can just sort of think about that okay so your thinking is just the question the only question should be remove the first part and just the question only question on the on the survey is would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full time question mark and then leaving what the constable responsibilities are yeah okay that's what i'm thinking i mean i just i just don't think it should lead in one way or the other right for or against i think it should just be a flat question and people can ponder what that means to them and answer that question okay well and and we certainly we're not trying to lead someone yeah trying to explain because some people were saying well why are you even considering expanding the hours so it was a bigger explanation so um your suggestion is well like what chris was saying i think once you get those answers that's for another and what paul was saying and what they were saying i think that's for another discussion right delvin yeah no i got what you're saying i'm simpler is better um so uh and i'm sorry that i missed any uh lenny's question in the chat um so what is this like word think about just simplifying question two to just that would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full time constable response parenthesis says constable responsibilities include working with the town and school community animal control speed enforcement assisting the state police assisting with domestic issues enforcement of drug and other laws i thought the part of the discussion was that we needed to get more information out in the question as to why we're asking the question to begin with that was a big i kind of like the i mean it's not a full blown explanation of all the details but i think that it lends to the question why why are we asking this question because of the concerns and the and those problems that we've been having getting adequate coverage and my comment on that day was not necessarily defining police services my comment actually was asking okay what do i think those services are what do what does paul think what does lendly think what does ellie think i think you'll find without some sort of definition that you you ask 20 people what the police services actually are and you'll get 10 different answers so without knowing what police services we're trying to provide i i i get may not get far the weeds too i don't know i don't know that comes underneath and i think the underneath the question is great i think the beginning of the question is leading the beginning of the survey part is leading and i and i understand what you're saying many my only concern there is is uh people that i that have made comments to me we don't want police and that's what you know what they do no we they stop me because because they don't like me whatever i'm sorry many but i hear you to you real time real life events so that's what i was saying we need to know everybody needs to know more about what they do before you say i don't want them i think we're saying the same thing i'm i and in lieu of what you're saying i'm saying go from my suggestion would be to go from would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full time and then what's in parentheses you add on and take out the first part so you leave the parenthesis just would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation full time question mark and then leave the parenthesis information in there which explains what they do yeah okay i thought that was what we're taking out all right i can go okay what do you think lindley do you what do you think about the first part of question yeah i think as long as we keep the explanation i i like the inclusion of what the responsibilities are so that that's clear um i think as long as we keep that i'm fine with changing that that language right at the beginning of the like do the challenges um yeah i'm okay with that i yeah i feel like i'm going back and forth in my mind but i think as long as as long as we're keeping that sort of explanation of the role in the duties i'd be okay to change it okay so you're okay with changing it dave you're okay with changing it paul what do you think about taking out that first part due to the challenges i think it changes the meaning of the question to uh do you want to expand to a full-time police force or not i should know i think it changed it the reason we put that other stuff in there was to let people know the difficulties that we're having with the current setup that we have with the constable and i thought that was one of the main complaints that we had when we started talking about this i thought so i'm a little confused that we want to now we want to eliminate the explanation or some of the explanation anyway so yeah well if you're sitting at home and you don't know anything the for me just read i'm trying to read it as just a person sitting at home doesn't know anything the explanation leads leads you towards that conclusion and that is not what the what the survey is about if i'm not mistaken right we were yeah this is the survey is just to get a basis on what people think about adding a constable and what their duties are not the reasons for that as in the financial reasons is then the other correct or is it for that the reason for the question was to explain the difficulties that we're having maintaining a part-time constable which is just impossible because of the increase in hours and the fact that we don't it's not a full-time position but i thought that's that was the focus of putting that little explanation in the front so as people would say why you asking me this question you asked me do i want to expand to a full-time police force or not or are you trying to explain that we're having difficulties right now and we may need to look at talking about expanding the hours and the pay because of the additional burdens that are being put on that position yeah paul and i have been through several iterations of this question and back and forth then what do you think chris well i think one thing that we have to be careful of is we have to be careful with how we're defining the position itself so we have to realize that this is a constable position and not you know a police department position and and because they're completely different scopes now we've been fortunate that are well that one of our constables has the certifications like a police officer but we have to understand that you know typical constable responsibilities in the school really is working in and around the town and school community animal control speed enforcement that's that's pretty much everything and the last couple of police like assisting with the state police assisting with domestic issues enforcement of drug and other laws that typically isn't a constable positions uh responsibilities however we're lucky enough to have someone that has the accreditation to be able to do some of that work uh which you know i don't know it's kind of confusing but like if you just went and hired just a constable with just the certifications to be a constable there's a lot of duties that they cannot perform um that only like vsp would have to do i could say constables current responsibilities include that way it kind of lets people know you know that's we're talking about what we currently are doing um i think we have to be careful of that i do agree with well i agree with lenny on the point that thank you for coming back because that was my full intention at the beginning was like we're just getting too far in the weeds here like it's got to be a simple question okay and and then it can spar more conversation later if people choose to go down that road or not but i also agree with paul that the full intent of the question was we are having issues with finding a part-time constable basically because there there's none out there you know so in order for us to give our community the the expertise that has been asked for in the past we may need to hire somebody full time because we think he just answered the question huh what i think he just i think he just said it we're having issues finding a full-time constable would you better not and then add the responsibilities on right which is kind of what we were saying because we were already saying due to the challenges of hiring but you're saying we just say we're having a hard time finding a constable i mean it's the only difference that other information leads me to leads me to think that as a citizen people are going to be more people are not going to decide on their own they're going to go well they said they're having you know it's hiring it says maybe we should vote that way maybe i should say yes if we're asking them if we're asking for honest opinions we want to try to keep it as neutral as possible don't we yeah and it's also hard to say we're having a hard time finding a constable yeah i know because we already have two constables whether they're working enough is one thing but full time yeah a full-time constable and it's just like any you know to to whatever to work down at babes bar or work at any establishment right now to find someone there's there's so much competition in the work that i mean unless you find the absolutely perfect scenario which we did have in the town for years where you know like we talked about like someone that shared hours with different communities but we don't have that anymore so it's like like we promise we right now we promise the taxpayers 20 hours of service a week and we're probably getting what six to ten yeah and the only reason why we're getting six to ten is because that's all that these individuals have because they have full-time jobs oh we're saying the only way that we feel that we can make fulfill the commitment to the community is to look for a full-time person because who wants to come in for 10 hours when they could be a full-time officer you know i think that that's the intent okay however we word that trees i don't care well here's the deal under constables responsibilities i am going to take out assisting with domestic issues and enforcement of drug and other laws i'm going to leave it because you're right if we only define a constable then what i would say is constable responsibilities include working with town and school community animal control speed enforcement and speed enforcement etc and then that's it that's going to help cut down so i only have one page i only have so many words and you're correct chris the things that we were listing were more a 2e capability than a constable so if we reword this first sentence again so instead of saying due to the challenges of hiring or retaining a part-time constable and the increase in time blah blah we just we're just going to cut it to would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation of full time um or are you saying you want to start this thing by saying because we're having a hard time fulfilling the duties of a constable or i'm sick of refilling the commitments to the community but i think most operative is full-time it's the commitments of a full-time constable well we're not having a hard time finding a full-time constable because i don't have the money to hire one anyways so that question is misleading and wrong i don't have the money for that right now so okay i think if we just say would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full time question mark the end i mean what you know i guess if we're just going to make it cut and dry let's just make it simple straightforward if people haven't followed this saga of why we need a full-time constable then you know you know i'm not i'm not really sure um unless i mean i could certainly add some wording that we're um you know uh feel like we're not fulfilling our commitment of providing i i don't honestly i don't know i think let's keep it simple what if you just cut out this the second part of the first sentence do so keep it due to the challenges of hiring and restraining a part-time constable would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation yeah something like that the second i like that you get to say that there's it's a challenge but yeah it's shorty you don't have to rewrite anything yeah yeah you don't know how hard this is all right so if everybody's good that's what we'll say due to the challenges of hiring retaining a part-time constable would you support expanding the constable hours and compensation to full-time question mark and then we'll leave the parenthesis of what the current by statute constable only duties are i won't add in there what the current your responsibilities are because you have given that police power to somebody who's a 2e is that all right that's what we're doing thank you jessie and lenny that was helpful you need somebody else to i've been doing it too many times so all right there's nothing else in the chat okay keep hitting you um did we have anything else in regards to the unemployment insurance we were we were good there yeah you guys were good so i had a consensus so i'll reach out to her and let her know we're all set okay anything left on the town managers report i just wanted to um so two things daviddy i'm sorry i it was been crazy dealing with the tax sale today everybody's coming out of the woodwork since it went in the paper so i'm going to look at your rfp for the transfer station tomorrow so sorry about that um it wasn't like a try and i just didn't get it we're already moving a whole lot faster than it's been going yeah so i'll get to you tomorrow anyways um so the tax sale um we've had a couple people pay um and i have had quite a bit of interest in some properties so today myself pam deetry had been dealing with different people trying to get bitters out one of the things that i talked to chris jarvis about today was the fact that there may be one or two properties that do not go at tax sale that if these two in particular don't go this will be our second time putting them up for tax sale so on the 14th um our next select board meeting we're really gonna you're gonna have to decide if you're going to give me authority to bid on a couple of these properties um because what um you know at some point what are we going to do just keep trying to sell them at tax sale and it's not going to work the option is we buy them at tax sale um and then if if you have to evict someone we'll have to go through the eviction process if we have to hire someone to clean them up we'll have to clean them up um my understanding is and i will find out for sure is that we could put a lien on the property for our expenses for cleaning them up in eviction so that when we sell the property which is what would happen we sell the property um after we have a year you know we'd hold it for a year and if the people don't redeem it we would own it we evict we clean up or just clean up if there's no one to evict then we resell then we sell it and we would recoup our money we obviously know we're not going to make a profit but we would break even and we would stop the cycle because you know we have some a couple of properties and one in particular that's into us for a lot of money how many times are we going to tax sale it and have nobody bid on it that's the thought so it's just something for you guys to think about but you'll have to make a decision at our february 14th meeting um to give me the authority because i'm not buying anything at tax sale nor can i without your authority to do so um so i'm working hard to get some sales there's one i'm hoping that i'm convincing maybe somebody to buy but there's one i'm just not sure it's going to go so and have we had um have we had good responses to individuals um to uh make arrangements with you to to make hold on some of us how we make that with that or no um no i mean some of the people that have gone we had one declared bankruptcy which means we're posed for a little bit i did talk to an attorney who's who's the attorney for the bankruptcy and um you know he's been keeping me in the loop i told him that he needs information for court to let me know um and we will have to submit you know if they get accepted to get their stay extended um hopefully they get the property sold and have a legit purchase and sale in which case we'll get all of our money and that'll be yet that'll clean that property up um and then we have we had one or two that redeemed um but you know we're going to sale with a few out with a there's a couple that are not that i don't think will redeem before february 15th but anybody that's a first time tax sale and i'm not really convinced that we need to do anything about hopefully we have some bidders but the two that we tax sailed i don't know what three years ago they're just getting deeper and one completely walked away from the property and if we don't have a buyer then eventually how long are we going to let these properties go yeah well i know we've talked about before that the town you know and we talk about it more in february whatever but you know that not usually the town's position to want to be a real estate broker or only the pieces of property but you know there there are certain circumstances in which we sometimes have to um uh you know like we're talking about now you know these extreme pieces where people are into you for over $20,000 who's you know the people anybody who's walked away they're never coming back they don't care we'll hold it till the cows come home but who knows i mean i'm certainly trying to get a sale um actually heard something on the news tonight about a program for neighbor works so i'm going to look into that tomorrow to see if i can't maybe you know work with someone but it's also hard you know we had covid opportunities people were given opportunities to apply to get to help with their water sewer whatever and if i called people offered to help them apply they didn't apply i mean what are you gonna do you know yeah um so you think that there would be um programs and stuff out there especially with the shortage of housing well there has been chris but if the owners themselves won't even apply or won't let us apply on their behalf like giving them assistance to apply i mean at some point there's nothing we can do um but like i said i heard about neighbor work so i'm gonna look in that and it was a program on the news tonight is that the one yes uh 50 million dollar dump from the federal government for property taxes and mortgages yeah um specifically that's the one and um i know neighbor works so i'm going to reach out to see what the program is tomorrow but you know at some point the lord helps those who help themselves and if we've offered and offered and we can't get anywhere then yeah you know so it's something for you guys to think about um i'll have a certainly a legal way in from the attorney but um it's not going to be an easy process it'll be you know but it's it may be what we have to do sounds good um so that's it for the town managers report all right and uh select board meeting minutes from the 10th of january i had one quick amendment on the second page in that first paragraph uh it says chris jarvis reported about the town of island pond but i believe it was dave eddie that actually brought that up it was i gotta find it page two top paragraph yeah who did that was that chris or was that dave who's who said he actually was a you dave yeah that was me all right we'll fix you dave go down a little further uh yep as a survey has been drafted so down a little further it says the australian ballot would be off removed i think we take the off out of there okay thank you all right so there's two edits anybody else let's move to approve the minutes as amended second all in favor hi hi ready sounds good conservation committ commission had a meeting minutes in there and i was i think that was the only ones i saw that were in there oh i put the year in review in there that's the year in a review i'd written um yeah so i don't know if anybody had any suggestions or changes complaints that's what i came up with um chris had seen it i don't know if paul you'd read it because you edited the town report so if anybody has any issues with that let me know okay speak now or forever hold your peace because it's going in the report i was planned to continue zoom meetings for the foreseeable future or maybe roll it out on a meeting by meeting basis until you know you know we get i'm sure the public is going to expect us to do this at least one more because they just said on the news today that they expect the uh the uh cases to spike mid february i don't know how they could figure that out but it's in the news so obviously it's true i think the fact that we just made the call to do australian ballot for town meeting to me says we at least go to march in this mode and then maybe reevaluate that first meeting in march um depending on what we decide i did want to bring up that the um the marquee at the town hall has is incorrect and still says six and in person i know it is i'm sorry i figured it was also going to be changed really soon so just as a reminder yeah i gotta do that at town hall i totally space we've been yeah sure handed so i didn't even think about it so town it was too cold out to go out there and change that around anyway uh fix marquee i think we all know that the you know we haven't heard about it very much locally but locally now i'm hearing about a lot of covid issues uh you know right here we all know somebody or more than one person that's um coming down with the the uh covid so i think it's a safe thing to do so you want to do the 14th and the 28th because i will tell you i did not do a special meeting for your budget informational because last year there was like nine and we made up six of the people so i included it i'm just going to put it in your February 14th and your February 28th to do a budget informational kind of as a piece of each of your select board meeting um and and i did have to put that in town report and give out the zoom link on the first one and all that so um it kind of makes sense and it would be an ease to just say you're going to do the February 14th and 28th meetings on zoom would be helpful to fix the marquee at the town hall and are you going back to six o'clock uh chris you got any um issues with six in February no no six should be good so you want to do both your meetings yep yeah i think so okay six p.m. all right we'll get the town hall thing fixed um well thank you lindley yes i totally spaced on that ready anything else to come before the board move to adjourn second okay okay well thank you everybody for this evening yeah good night good to see everyone thank you ellie yeah good to see everybody good night thanks money thank you