August 13th, and the agenda has been posted in three public places and on the website. And it has been emailed to interested parties so we can go ahead and hold this meeting. Before we start, does anybody have any additions to the agenda they'd like to make? Going once, going twice, all right. Then we'll start right out, I guess. With the, I'll put this down a little bit farther. We have some guests here, Mr. Benson and the Great Hawk neighbors. Yes, I have President Great Hawk, John Christensen, and my neighbor, Jeff Steinman. And I was here some time in June and I had a discussion with you folks at the select board meeting regarding the dust concern at the intersection of Austin Hill Road and Access Road. And my house is situated pretty much right at that intersection and it's about 50 feet from the edge of the road. So I was getting a ton of dust from the traffic going up and down Austin Hill as well as the turning traffic. Turning from Access to Austin. And as the summer progressed and the dryness of the just the climate this year made being out in the yard pretty much a lot of dust being breathed into my nose, my mouth, I could taste it. When cars went by at 30 miles an hour, there would be about a 20 foot high dust cloud and 50 foot wide at its worst.  So I came down, I asked you folks to maybe address it. You acted right away.  OK, the intersection, as well as downhill of me. It lasted for about 24 hours, that application.  So I have been informed that a year or so ago, the section of Austin Hill Road between my driveway and the big farm below me, which is the Whitaker Hill Farm. That used to be a low section of Austin Hill and it used to be muddy and ruddy in the winter. The road was raised with a bed over gravel, I've been told. And then the town had some excess chopped up recycled asphalt. And they laid eight inches of asphalt over the gravel and then they laid this duck, the white material that we're using out over that. So what we think is happening, there's a few opinions out there. Because there's an asphalt layer under the dirt, no moisture is getting up through the ground, which naturally permeates to keep the road somewhat moist. It's acting like a sheet of plastic, we think. So we're just depending on rain or any kind of humidity moisture that we get, all of the groundwater is moisture is being stopped at the asphalt. Because this stuff is on several roads in town, a good example is like North Hollow, that's fairly straight in the lot of sun. And if you drive that road, you don't get a fraction of the dust that you will get if you drive that one section of Austin Hill between our two driveways. So we think the asphalt is causing the dirt to be excessively dry and it's going to be a continued issue with me, as well as the people that all drive up and down the road. If you're driving behind somebody, everybody that lives north of me is getting completely dusted out. So the town highway department, Cooter and Dana showed up last Wednesday, because I had spoke with them and they ran the grader through the intersection to try and scrape some of that fine powdery dust that's being crushed up by the turning vehicles. And it helped a little bit and they laid in more of that chemical down and that has helped a little bit too. But I noticed they were there last Wednesday, already Saturday, it was already starting to dust again and I'm pretty desperate. I actually went out there with 300 feet of garden hose in the spring at night to try and activate the chemical a little better because there was no rain. And it was a temporary solution and it's helping a little. But I think if we get another dry couple of days, she's going to be right back to her own self. So I don't know what we could do about it, but we did discuss that maybe a little bit of pavement in that intersection between access on north and south of me. So the cars when they come up in the trucks, they actually turn on pavement instead of turning on dirt will help them from grinding up this stuff to a fine cement power. I actually scooped this out of the road today so everybody knows we all drive on it, but yet we don't look at it up close.   So I want to just submit that as. Yeah, that's it. This is the stuff. It's nasty right in my section and it's because it's starved for moisture. You can take that home with you. I got plenty of it. So I need some help. I tried to stay in my garage over the past week.  It's like, what are we going to do? So I know the town doesn't have a lot of funding for paving and I was hoping that I could get on some kind of priority list. But I do have some funding for paving to get at least that intersection a hundred feet above and below me paved. I think that would help out a lot of people, including the town DPW because, you know, that curve gets a lot of traffic and it gets heavily rutted in the winter. Be easier to plow and keep up as well. And that's my section of Austin Hill Road and I don't know if Norm has anything to say or as well. Well, I guess I'd be curious to hear from some of the people that have lived up there over the years. I drove up there a few days ago and I witnessed no dust. I mean, it was after they graded. It was obviously it had been freshly graded and it was not looking so much like the white. You must have dug up some of the deeper stuff. But the whiter limestone gravel that we've been using because of this stuff, it actually sets up and seems to be holding really well. So it's kind of a catch-twine too. People are excited about this product and that it's been drying up some of the bad spots in the road in a good way. I agree. It's a pretty good product. People that have lived there for years, what is your experience? Yeah, yeah. Years ago, it was the exact opposite. It was just quicksand. You just sink right down to your chassis. You get stuck in there. You're right in there in the water. It was just mud, mud. And then when that new material, I guess you guys found the source for that new material, limestone aggregate, whatever, it did create and the road was raised a little bit with a base, large rocks and then smaller rocks. And then I guess this asphalt layer and it did, during mud season, it's glorious. But when it's wet in the early spring, it's just wet all the time. But then when the summer comes around and you have some sunny days, the evidence is really on our cars. Exhibit B might be Jeff's car right out here in the parking lot. You can move down the back window and see. We usually, you know, when we're going to Rutland or something and go parking a parking lot, you look at our window and everybody else's window and it's like, wow, it looks like I was through a war here. I was in Iraq. So that's pretty much been the past, you know, four or five summers since this new stuff has come on. But I do see the effort that was made, you know, last couple of weeks with scraping off that top layer, getting down to the asphalt and there's not any dust in that area. But then my question becomes, is there a way, is there a mixture that can possibly use, use the qualities of that limestone, that really hard dusty stuff, and add a little more moderate clay or maybe 10% or whatever it is to keep that dust together. You know, I don't know if there's a recipe. I've seen other roads, you know, exposed to sun and they just isn't that dusty. Everything sort of holds together. I'm not an expert. Last summer I went to visit some people. I don't remember where it was, but it was over a few ridges and Chelsea or somewhere there. And I went down a road that it was obvious that they do not use calcium chloride. And you think that this is dusty, it was like ghost trees and it was amazing. I mean, I know this seems like extremely dusty, but the fact that we use any calcium chloride, even though it's starved for moisture, it's, I'm not dissing your experience in what you had, but it could be so much worse. I've seen some, it was amazing. This one road I drove down, it was just everything, the lawns, the trees were just like white, like these Christmas trees that you throw the white stuff on, it was bad. But I don't clue if you got any insight or input into how to deal with that. Where I've noticed there's a lot of dust wherever that material is over the asphalt. It seems to be worse across the asphalt. If you put it in, no, I don't, I hate to add anything clear, or anything interesting to make mud to be what the purpose of the gravel is, the limestone. A couple of things I just want to say. I actually, I have done a little bit of research on these road issues. It is a problem in certain areas. Every town has these issues where you can, excessive dust is, excessive dust is not a good thing for a lot of reasons.  And eventually, quickly, you're replacing it with more material because it's just, it goes away. So I think my view is on it. I think this is a credible issue. Not only up on Austin Hill, but in some of our steeper grade dirt roads where you get a lot of chattering, a lot of scalloping of the roads. For what I've learned, that could be significantly reduced with, not just, not necessarily calcium chloride. That is certainly one of the go-to solutions. But there's other, there's other materials available. There are a mixture of calcium chloride and a few other things that are considered green and safe that can be used on roads that, at least in theory, react with the moisture in the ground and so forth. And actually harden up in the surface to the point where it holds steep grades way better for way longer. The fact that the calcium chloride is not holding up very long. I mean, I'm looking at, from what I've researched, three to six months it should be good for. So, but again, this road has a pavement underneath. This is a all crushed ledge. There's no natural binder. But we use the same stuff. I think if it did have a little better natural binder, let's take care of some of that. Let's take Maple Hill, for example. The bottom of Maple Hill was done with this a couple of years ago.  It's like concrete and you rarely get a pothole. What's the difference? Is it because there's more moisture underneath? Perhaps. But I think that my feeling is this needs to be looked at more closely and this has to be a solution to this. And all the world keeps digging into this to try to find a solution. I haven't seen other towns, you know, and every road has different situations to it. You know, down south a little bit, I've been driving through Woodstock on some dirt roads and they really hold together. I mean, you know, they have more money and maybe they're using it more. Maybe they're using a fancier product, but there must at least be a poor man's version of that product or what there, you know, there's got to be an understanding of what we're going for to bind it. I was just going to suggest the Better Backroads Forum is really helpful for questions like this. Towns always are putting, you know, questions out there. What are other towns doing to treat such and such a problem? How are they dealing with it? So, you know, is that something you either put or you and I can work on or I can do it whatever you want? Tell me what exactly what the question needs to be. I'll be glad to put it out there. Towns are pretty good about responding and it's usually, you know, low form and who are, you know, experienced people who are answering. I think we need to explore that, but we've kind of got to explore if the people are using the same material. Yeah, well that should be part of the career. Because if you drive 40 miles from me, if you drive to Royalton, their material is totally different. Sure, if you don't understand playing that, you might not play. Right. Wow. Yeah. Middlebury, Brandon area, towns there are probably using the same material. So, I'm just, we kind of got to go and we could find out from the quarry what towns you're buying. Uh-huh. Yeah, that would be maybe more target approach. You can ask those towns directly. But I just, you know, if you go to sort of Lebanon area and the materials coming out of the pike, it's a different spot. So, what they're doing may not work for us. Yeah, we can just say this is what we've got down here. But I can call and get some town names. So, that's one later research than maybe others. Right. But I know there's quite a few unison valleys that have this issue. And according to what I've studied, there are some success stories out there. And I think we just need to take a look at that and see what we can do here. Bruce? Yeah, last summer or spring, the Forest Service did an experimental layer of gravel on the Chittenden Brook Road.   So, you might want to check with the Forest Service or the Forest Engineer in Brooklyn or with the Harveys here. They did the job. That's great. Just grab them. I wrote about blood. But the dust isn't a problem. It pulls until it dries out and then it's also shaded. My concern on my stretches, I'm unique though. I have this asphalt eight inch layer underneath the dirt. So, I hate to see the town waste more time, money and effort to put experimental chemicals or mixture down when then if it's the asphalt that's causing the problem. The road may need to be more. You know, this problem is that the layer, it's not like a solid eight inches. I don't think we kind of mix that stuff in. But where we have put that wrap and I think, I don't know if there's eight inches of wrap in there, but it's not like it was paved. But it does probably put a barrier up for the moisture, but that's also why and that's what happened on the bottom of Maple Hill Road. Put some of that down and that's what's keeping the roads raking down in the mud season. So, it's a catch 22. So, that is one of the factors that would need to be asked with, you know. Cooter came through with the grader. He actually hears a chunk of material completely gone and he's literally intersection. And the asphalt's fairly thick there. Okay. Boy, if we could go down with some more asphalt type material just for that intersection, that would be so much better for the maintenance of that intersection. I could care less if I live on a dirt road around. I just don't want to be eating dust 24 seven. Okay.  Okay. But because it's so busy and there's so much traffic, there's something like 90 homes up there. It's all day. It's constant. And the winner, it's rugged. It's good amount of contractors. Yeah. You can't just go over with gravel like eight, eight, ten inches of gravel. You bury it. Well, I see. We have a great problem there. We need that. We're coming with the transition to the pavement. To the access road. You can't take that section out. Well, it doesn't have to be dug out. You tape it down to it. You know it. Jeff, yes. From the time Jamin put that sign up to go slow, that was maybe a week or 10 days ago. It's going both ways. And I do it at least three times a day. I haven't gone more than 20 miles an hour. And when I was coming down toward Jamin's house, it would start right at that intersection. And it would go all the way down to Peggy's driveway. Tom Walker's widow's driveway. And it made me think, well, maybe that was the last section that just had some more put down. But coming back up again, I noticed that it started at her driveway and continued after the intersection. And we have a 30 mile an hour speed limit. And at 20 miles an hour, I would start looking in my rear vision mirror and I would see the dust. But the average person going up and down there is going at least 30 and in many cases more.  I mean, some of these people aren't going anything like 30 either way. So, you know, that's an internal problem. But that last section must have been the section that was the most recently put down even at 20, it was a problem. How about taking Maple Hill home? I'm using the tire most of the way. Well, how about taking Maple Hill and not going over that section of the road? That's true. But the cars when they come down, Austin Hill to make turn, to access, when they hit the transition between the elevated dirt and the paved, they keep a couple of dust storm, okay? And it's being ground up. And when you get some yahoo from the city in their fancy European sports car or SUV, they go straight away and they kick that stuff up and I get all the repercussions of it, you know? So, I hate to see we do this many a times when I think we all kind of think the best solution would be some Apache pavement right through there. Yeah, I think that's just going to kick the can down the road. You know, dig into it. See what we can come up with. There's a priority that's for getting on. You know, hotspots to be gained.  Yeah, we don't like it too much. I thought it would be easy to go out there with the lawn sprinkler and sprinkle in front of the house.  I was out there for a good hour after everybody went to bed and by the next afternoon it was gone. You're going to be okay this week. It's going to rain. Thank goodness. I'm going to have another glass. All right, it's all right. Thank you for sharing your concerns. Moving on to. No, don't move on. No, not moving on. All right, move on. No, still roads. Okay, still roads. Sorry, thank you. First of all, thank you. I'm thrilled to see you on our resident, even though you might not be thrilled. I'm thrilled. Kaye and I went out and measured our ditches. First of all, you've done an excellent job, and I applaud you for it, and I thank you for it. He stood in the ditch this evening, and the deepest ditch we have below my house is four feet. I have pictures. Four feet is up to here on me. All I see are, I can't tell you how many people out of state in state I've given hot chocolate to, they've had to have people come tow them out every year in the winter. And I'm concerned about that stretch that's four feet. You know, it's like, I don't know if it's the whole road on one side, and I'm sure that, like Riverstone, if we can do it, which you might not like, would be cheaper than guardrails or something. I don't know the solution. I'm not a road person. I'm not a road crew guy. The width of our road is 16 feet, you know, plus or minus a foot. So I'm just concerned about what's going to be done to the ditches, and I know that grass is an option. However, all I see are vehicle studies, a shaded part of the road, and pretty much every year there's anywhere between four and eight vehicles that go off the road there. So I just wanted to put it out there that maybe there's a good solution, a cheap and easy solution to put in those ditches. Well, I think the first step is to try and keep those vehicles from going off the road with a little bit better, you know, better regime and sanding up there. Right. I'm hoping to address that. Yeah. In terms of the depth of the ditches. Four feet is pretty deep. It is pretty deep. Now, welcome, Martha. I'm sorry, I don't know where we're going to go down here. Townline road. Townline road, yeah. So yeah, as you know, those were just recently done. I know. And a beautiful task done. Which was done to the specs that we were given by the state about their new requirements and trying to control runoff. And so I agree. Some of the ditches seem absurdly deep to me. They don't stay that way, as for sure. Fill up with cars, bumpers, and stuff like that. Yeah, I've sensed a lot of that to the May green up day thing. But yeah, it's a concern. I agree. It's, you know, if our roads are great. It's a ditch. It's a ditch. And if you go up Jerusalem, Sky Hall. Right. There's ditches too. There's a lot of places where the grad rails are four feet. That's just the beginning of the trip if you go down over. Right. So. Right. Well, so maybe Richard fills up with snow and ice and snow and ice and snow and ice. Yeah. Okay. It was just a thought I had. I had a road request for bingo. Bingo right now is 35 miles per hour. And I just wanted to see if it was possible to get slower. No speed limit on that. And one reason is just a lot of use on bingo, walkers, bikers, bikers. Also by my house sometimes on a straightaway and cars are parking along my property. And the road really isn't, there's not, it's not safe to have, you know, a car there and then people trying to pass, especially ones that's 35 miles per hour.  And I don't, I'm not naive enough. You know, I realize that people probably aren't going to go 25 or all the time. But I'd love to at least have that posted so I can yell that I'm going by. Maybe in the summer. Yeah. So the speed limit on bingo is higher than from town. Right. And it's no sidewalks and there's a lot more people in the road.  You know, I have to be careful pulling out or going across the road. I don't know that I'm posted. I'm kitten in brook. Yeah. I think that's 25. 25. Most of forest service roads. 25 to 35. 25 to 35. Depend. So it's on a high angle with that rain. No. I would say there's a lot more use on bingo than as I checked over. And that's, of course, not everybody follows that limit. It's just the real problem. Yeah. Could you speak up? I'm her neighbor. Oh, second that? Second. 35. I'd like the third back. Third. Not 35. It's third. Third, yeah. 25 sounds like a nice number. What's the process of changing the speed limit on a public road? Well, I guess this is the first step of the process is for the public to come and, you know, bring it up and talk about it and think about it and make the decision. Step two. And step two would be to talk about it and think about it amongst ourselves and with the road foreman and, you know, see what makes sense. They've got to warn it. They've got to warn it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. He has to be approved by the state. He has to be approved by the state also. Oh, let me research the stats. Do you know? I don't. I should just research. Yeah. Okay. Well, you want to talk about roads too, right? Different issue about roads. Yeah. I've been attending just about every meeting for the last six, seven, eight months at least. And during that period of time, there's been the issue of Pine Gap Road, which is now a civil action issue. Yeah. And other than responding to inquiries about what it's cost us, which the select board has responded to the best technologies time, there's been no actual information given to the public. We elected someone to bring... You can speak up a little bit more. Yeah. We've elected someone in this town to bring and defend suits in this town. Other members of our community who are elected appear before us and keep us updated on road issues, radar issues, fire issues. We've spent about 20,000 dollars in... Not a word. I think that maybe the public's entitled to have the person who's spending all that money to come in and bring us up today. The town agent to defend and conduct suits, that is... This is something beyond their... They're not a trial lawyer. So this is why we're forced to go to someone else. So that person is not... Well, if it's not that person, then it falls on the select board. And it falls on the select board, right? Let us know what would appear to be on something more than we spent 20,000 dollars. Now, most recently, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Casella filed and had an approved motion to intervene, which means two private citizens, non-residents, have become part of this action. They have available to them everything that's been done on the side of the town because that's where they came in. Two non-residents. All the residents of the town, they don't know what's going on. Sure, exactly what you mean by that. Has been legally permitted to intervene on the side of the town of Rochester. Can I ask where you heard that ball? Public document, motion before the court, signed by a judge on the 13th of July. So they're obviously following it online? No, not following it online, but it's coming to my attention. But at any rate, that is public information. So how are you getting it from the knowledge that it's coming to your attention? Are they mailing things or emailing their own... That's not important to the issue. The important thing to the issue is that at the very least the select board should certainly be aware that these parties have been permitted to intervene on the side of the town. They then have available to them at no cost. Everything that's gone on, yet they're non-residents and the residents still know nothing. It's actually property owner. I don't think that's... I don't understand why that's a distinction in your mind. But to the bigger question of your saying, you want to hear the blow-by-blow story, this is not periodic updates. Periodic updates is basically... The update is it's out of our hands now and it's being... The lawyers are researching history and basically digging through history and looking to see what's what and when things were created or if they were created or if they weren't created and that's where it's at. It's been taken to the level of the lawyer realm and that's why it costs so much money. What effect does this intervention have on the cost? It's definitely it will lessen the cost of taxpayers. Yeah, hopefully. How much? No idea. No idea. Martha, your question? Excuse me, I'm somewhat confused now. What the cut to the chase thing is for the paper. So basically, if you're saying matters out of the town's hands right now while legal research is being done? It's into the town's legal representation tax. And my understanding is Walt is asking for more information and basically that's the information that lawyers are doing their lawyer thing. I understand. It's the town of Rochester, not the select board of Rochester. So whatever the select board knows should be passed on routinely to us and other than a direct question of how much money we've spent in eight months on it. That was a request. But other than that, as a request there has been no routine just letting us know what things are going on. Now I realize it's a very slow process. But certainly in eight months interogatories have gone back and forth. We might have been voted interogatories if gone back and forth. I didn't hear you. I said this is some things we can talk about, some things we can't. We can't jeopardize the proceedings by saying something in public that could be wrong or unknown. But you could say that we haven't served with interogatories when it happened. You could say we've completed interogatories if they have been when it happened. And at least out here on this side we would know that we are making some kind of progress. Other than spending $20,000, we've been told nothing. Over eight months. And so I'm just saying, and I understand you can't talk about specifics but we should at least be updated generally speaking to what's happening. I think we're going to correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that most of what we actually know as a select board is what we see on the invoices. But didn't you share that with us? Well. Because then we know it's really not. I don't have any specific questions. You've got invoices interogatories have been completed. Or such and such research has been completed. That's at least an update. And then the public at least knows that for $20,000 something's actually been done. We do reflect on that. That's what he said is pretty much right on. They're conducting on what I've seen because I sign off on these things is research. It's all research. And it's like. So one fun fact that we've learned that whole area of Rochester those roads, the creation of those roads are not in the Rochester history because those roads were created in the town of Philadelphia. And we were given that property by the town of Goshen. So that sends people looking into the town of Goshen more dramatic things. Goshen town hall is burned three times. They say most of their records are perhaps in the Rutland town library. And so that's the kind of if that's the kind of exciting stuff you want to find there and so there you go. We can do that. Absolutely. We can do that in a period of time. Something such as that would have been something of what's going on. That's all I'm asking. Harlan, you got a question? Yeah, I just, you know. Speak up, please. What's that? Speak up. I've been to numerous meetings where I've asked to be brought up to date on any new developments in this case. And consequently, that didn't happen. You know, it would have been nice without having to go online and going to the judiciary and date around there to find what's been passed and signed. And the other thing is it just seems like are there any new invoices? Yeah, we got one this week. How much is that? 49.33. Okay, so we're still within 20,000. But as you say, we're 23. No, about 25. Oh, I thought you meant 450 bucks. You wish. Okay, so we got about 25 grand into it. And it just seems like it's kind of a grudge match between a few members of the board and maybe a previous member against Mason. Because he has done a few petitions and things that people on the board now and people before didn't like. This is absurd. I don't think so. I mean, we don't have money for anything, right? But we've got money to dump into this. Why? Why is the town afraid of this nice couple suing them? The town is a defendant. Yeah, we're responding. We're not the ones that created this. We just can't be settled by making a road a dead end. That doesn't make it right. It has no practical purpose to make Mason's way drive away. Beyond there, for Route 62, it's nothing but national force. That doesn't necessarily make it right or illegal. But they're not even a budding landowners. They're landowners. They're not a budding landowners to the road that they're bitching about. They are now. They are now. How'd that happen? So we move back again? But it's irrelevant anyway, whether they're a budding landowners. The issue is, is it a road or is it not a road? That's what is expensive to research for all the various reasons. You know, you can't just say that it's not a road because you don't want it to be a road. It was a road when that camp was built. That road was used to build that camp. It's serving the purpose right now. Yeah, it's serving the purpose to cost us a lot of money to figure out and sell this debate. We don't have money to fix the roof or the library to put solar on it to try to reduce our electricity costs, you know? Luckily, the library's not suing us.  Nobody's willing to talk. Nobody's willing to talk. I couldn't hear you over the fan but they became a budding landowners by way of what in Hancock? They bought the piece of property. Yes. That's in Hancock. Yes, but it's accessed via that road. Yeah. How that will play out in this whole situation I do not know, but that's um... Yeah, great. Could you speak up a little more? I don't understand what that means I'm still not here I got a fan here Can you do what I said? What she's asking can you explain what the intervention means? I don't understand what it has to do with what allowing them to intervene. I'm confused as to that. Intervention, I don't know if that's actually the proper word for what's going on because they've offered to share some of the expense because they have a lawyer and they ask if they can take some of the expense and do some of the research if that's going to be the form of I don't know what typing something that's just, you know Yeah. They're doing research for the town not all of the their case. The town's just letting their lawyer handle it. They're interested. They've offered to help and offset some of the cost to what extent. So there you have it. That's the latest The updates that I asked for are really fast. This is obviously information. Well, it's information I didn't have at last meeting. It's new information. Yeah. So it's new. It may just be coincidental that I wrote about it. It's new information. As I was asking, just periodically, something that that magnitude comes to your attention certainly bring to our attention.  Everything else can be kind of boring after that. It's good tomorrow is a very long day.  You had some updates. We've got some news about some things. It's all going to be really barred. Alright. Take your rocks. Take your rocks. Can I spread it? Where do you live? I don't know. I really appreciate it. That's right. I'm going to take a ride right now. Yeah. Go ahead. I just have a question. The solar panels that were donated where are they now? They weren't donated yet. It was offered, but it's not barred. It doesn't look like that's going to work for the library. I was saying it was artful and paper without how it's going to happen. Well, I read that, but I was wondering if a personal citizen can contact that gentleman and we can distribute them through. I've been talking with him and I've found possibly another non-profit to see if we can give him the benefit that he was looking for. That's it. First, the Village Center designation I got word last week I think you did too, but you were away about meeting some paper filed to move the designation along which would help the grant application for the municipal planning grant. So the first thing I need to do is these two letters one goes to two rivers and one goes to the organization. The Green Mountain Economic Development Board just advising them that the town is preparing to submit an application. I'm not sure what purposes I think it's just sort of following the steps for the process so if you could sign those I can get them sent out. The next thing on my list is the next grant and aid project, road project that we've received remember we've been told that we've gotten a grant for $13,600 to do our next project. There's a 20% town match requirement as we did on Townline Road so a total project cost would be $17,000 and of course the town could choose to do a project but it's more expensive than that just that we would just have to put in more money to make it possible because they'll only do up to our backs blue grant regardless it's $13,600. So and Rita has asked for a date to come and look at possible projects. We can look at more than one if you have more than one if you want to try and do if you've had any discussions or any thoughts about possible projects but if you don't come up with one or two and let me know when I can tell you to come out and meet with you on site. So fairly soon like in the next month or next couple weeks? Oh no like next week or so. About the same timings last year they weren't nearly expected to try and do a project that's completed by your end you can get extensions if necessary the fiscal year end or the calendar year end calendar year end get that all possible. Last year we did get an extension through the end of this this year so you can do that again but I think you have to try at least and pick something that's doable a dust control project and unfortunately that's not hard to list. You've seen that already right you know what the it's all sections of the road that are hydrologically connected and maps on the wall in my office you need a refresher on where those sections are and what roads. Probably I do. Okay well going anytime it's right there you know on the wall there it's on the right hand wall and it's the kinds of what they call BMPs best management practices are grass and stone lined drainage ditches and stone check dams it's all you know controlling water and runoff to get it off the road and into places where it's going to infiltrate into the ground and not run directly into the surface water and contaminate so I'll get you more information about what those various practices are. Next we have received our first municipal road general permit it's been issued and I have a copy of it it's also in file in the office and look at it it's not all that exciting this is what it looks like just as essentially we paid our fee that was that one and it paid to the state it was $240 $240 and then of course it reiterates you know the various timeframes we have to do things up through 2032 to have all the roads up to some kind of minimum standard but that's a yearly thing it's not it's not that much money every year this is like an initial administration fee as well as the registration fee and then subsequent years it should be something like that. And then we keep just doing projects as we can and apply for as many rents as we can to pay for them. Next thing is we just got word today that our sidewalk repaired grant application was approved this is coming from VTrans it's the VTrans bicycle and pedestrian program and we asked for remember the grant amount is $24,900 which represents a little bit less than half 50% of the total cost because these small grants that's the maximum they find is 50,000 we have another $24,900 in construction costs the town is required to pay for any design work, engineering work construction supervision that sort of thing. So the budget that I prepared which was the best guess of what this thing cost is a total of $54,800 so the town will be unhooked for $29,900 to do this project and this project consists of creating a new sidewalk or redoing the section of sidewalk that's between Sandy's the bakery and the intersection with school street that section in there it's kind of like a demonstration project to show how things can be improved and what it can look like and if you remember we specifically chose a location that did not have any kind of water related runoff related issues that needed to be fixed first it's just a simple straightforward sidewalk project sidewalk improvement and part of it includes doing something about that slope down right at the end of the sidewalk onto school street where there's been some mishaps in the past and the idea is also to fix that part of it and then also a short section in front of Park House on the main street side is recreating that sidewalk there as well so that's really clear where people should be parking and where the sidewalk is so it's just those two little sections and hopefully that'll be just I'm calling it phase one so hopefully there'll be a lot more following once the Stonewater master plan is completed and you know where we can get funding to do bigger projects so there's something to sign this is just a basic commitment form that are asking you to sign and two things you should be aware of is that they're asking for the name of the full-time municipal employee employee who will be in charge of the project so presumably we will hire an engineer to help us oversee things since none of us are experienced in sidewalk construction and I can't do it because I'm the full-time so I thought maybe what you can do is designate one of you when I could be your backup and say there's two people but you're the full-time person just so you can did you say employee though? it does say municipal employee full-time well that's what we got unless you can think of someone else who's an employee do you want Pooner to do it? that's ahead of the manager I mean Pooner's also got his hands full with other things too you can put me in if you're going to deal with it if you're going to deal with this you can put me in but I'm not taking on anymore either no I don't well I can ask if there's you know we're a small town I'm sure we can get around this I don't think it's going to be an impediment I just wanted to point it out we do have to say that we're ready to move as soon as the grant is signed and that will probably take 30 days or so by the time they get the actual paperwork done the grant to us for signature and then it's countersigned by the state so it could be as long as two months before that process is over but they like to know that we're prepared to move ahead with the project while that paper work done so that could be you know like September, October or so we're prepared to start talking to whoever's going to help us design and supervise the installation so the design work starting forward or the construction well we have to figure out how that's going to happen and you can get some advice on this because it does say in the coming weeks an agency that's from the trans project manager or project supervisor will be assigned to our project and an initial project meeting will be scheduled and that's where we'll discuss how the project development will move forward in the schedule and the next steps so they should be able to help us with you know saying here's what you need to do step A, B and C and part of that certainly will be hiring someone with some kind of engineering skill it shouldn't be anything that's too complicated nevertheless we need someone obviously who knows what they're doing could be cricket if she's got the time we already have her signed up for two or three other projects so nevertheless you could sign that also 54,000 includes the engineering cost we paid 20,000 24,000 plus that includes estimated engineering is like a couple thousand dollars is what we're estimating I understand you gentlemen do I understand you that in addition to the part place between Sandy's and St. Street you are the town is planning to fix the part in front of the park house the park house, frontage along from the pundit and then a section from the bakery down to school street because the part in front of the park right in front of my house that's where the reason we're able to sign up before you move on to sidewalks because that's where we can sign up if I could just mention on weekends I've noticed in front of Sandy's for instance the state has marked the white line at the edge of their roadway the park has not only parked on inside of that but they're almost going to rip their grass so as part of this redesign we're probably not going to have curving because we typically don't no actually can we spend a little more money on another line of paint that indicates yeah this is the parking for the cars and this is really the sidewalk well I think we're going to have curving because without curving there's nothing to change so curving is part of the point yes it is I don't believe there's room for us the sidewalks are going to roll maybe a grass strip and the sidewalk like everybody you've talked about there will be that kind of stuff is going to be probably part of the design for other places which will be part of the storm water adjusting the storm water issues as well as the sidewalk we where the engineer comes in yeah and you know we are working somewhat in the right then in the states right away so they're going to be involved with whatever we do there they've already been advised that we've got the strength because this is what we're doing so they're going to be part of the process so while we're on those sidewalks is there some reason why there's no crosswalk from the skip mark to the park I went across there the other day and I thought it was going to get hit by this car flying up from nowhere but there is no defined crosswalk going from the skip mark there always has been but it is not there but is that the town's responsibility or is that the state what did you do last year didn't you but it it's not there you're right town used to when the town pain it hasn't been this year the town didn't do any pain they hired it out it wouldn't cost that much it always costs a lot alright it doesn't seem like it would cost it where else you got that next item stormwater master plan as you know is moving along and the next step that the consultants need to do is some digging we did talk about this a little bit at the meeting and they would like to schedule some time this month and I asked them what kind of equipment would be needed and they said a backhoe would be for a day and the places they need to dig these are temporary holes that they would dig do the soil testing and fill the hole right back up would be one is near the town garage close to the river they say it's on the north corner of the town garage lot one on the new park and one behind the town office where the current snow some dumping site is which is over there over by the brook so those are three locations I think that's probably going to take about a day so the question is when we could allocate a free person with a backhoe that either or rent from someone just a question couple little sections yes well they don't plan to do anything without making sure they know where the infrastructure is make sure they know doing nothing over here that they get to the land it's not going to be a breakable it's enough to do a soil test I don't know but I asked what equipment would be needed and they did say what kind of equipment what kind of equipment what kind of things what kind of equipment what kind of equipment are expensive to rent that it is so can you general idea can you take a few dates that I can get back to when we're ready to can I suggest some dates I would suggest the same August 20th, 22nd 27th, 29th, 30th those are week of the 20th week of the 20th yeah, Dana's strong on that week on vacation that sounds good 20 seconds on the one you see sorry 20 seconds if you want to 20 seconds would be better than on Monday on these are just never good okay better roads grant that we have for the road erosion survey to rivers will actually be doing work but when they do that they will be spending some time on the road for the recruiter we don't have a date for that yet they may be ready to do it this fall and we will hear from you about that she may be the director just so you know no, no, that's different this is a survey of all the roads that have hydrologic connection and where there are erosion problems the other one is the grant need and I don't brand need to confuse it's a lot of stuff so nothing you need to do yet but just be aware that she's going to be she's going to spend the day on the road erosion and then last but not least in case you were interested in an update on the wing farm road Colvert was removed about two weeks ago, maybe a little bit less came out in pieces and then I think it ended up being scrapped that's going to be sold and the town is getting the proceeds from the sale of the scrap $500 and some protein the bypass road you probably know is already in there's a temporary bridge that was led to the town and it will cross by the U.S. Bar Service which is a very nice thing and the concrete abutments for the new bridge started I believe today, that's what I was told so you might want to go down there because I'm going to the 12th to 2th tomorrow right, for boring so I guess pretty exciting stuff and the really exciting thing is when the new bridge arrives the new bridge is something like the big bridge it's going to come in two sections and they're going to be having a train there for the day because they have to place it and avoid overhead lines so it's going to be kind of interesting but wing farm road this is project that's being led by the White River Park so that's all the boring stuff that happened no, it's good there's a lot of highway stuff in there but do you have anything else you want to add to the highway stuff we got all that we got a truck up at J&B International with some emissions issues and some other stuff being taken care of state and spectrum but I found that had VT transmission fuel lines they had to order those and spend there for like a week and a half which vehicle is this western stack I just thought better to fix those leaks now than small storms contractor put in a driveway called something great not with any permanent what do we do about that did they do it to specs no no put in a driveway a driveway called a life repair get with you and find out who it is and I can tell you would you like to know what it is in an open meeting what is that what is that no I meant the property owners oh dairy asking something seems like I remember hearing something about maybe just being kind of not sure about that wasn't he asking about putting in a temporary over it up there yeah he said it was just a temporary thing to we'll find out I mean sounds pretty familiar to me when grass all right well there was somebody here a couple months ago talking about putting a culvert in a better condition but they have to apply for it I'm just saying somebody was here but they may not have applied for it seems like it's a temporary deal and then the asphalt file that we passed it's going to cost $15,000 to crush that which is actually a pretty good price if you wanted it but as we heard it just causes trouble I think we should consider giving it away we spend $15,000 to crush it we got a material that we don't want to use it would be better to spend that money on your shoes we don't want to grab it we use it we use it up on Maple Hill and it's worked out yeah I think we should try to grade that we're never going to grade that again so it hasn't needed it because well I believe that when we put down constituted asphalt to pop it off and grab it in this case it hasn't been done it's holding up really well but it's not complete so I don't know if somebody is coming in and doing it on location 425 a yard that's a spot if you wait the price is going to go off because the file gets harder and you'll have to bring an excavator in now once it's ground up is it hard enough again? yes it's great stuff for a driveway for parking but I don't believe it's good material for a road unless you're going to pay over it why are we standing on a roadside mowing for two days so we have to we don't start looking for another first one where that stands is we're going to let you get settled in and then start that conversation with you and work with you on just throwing someone in your lap and you're not wanting to run for it do you feel on a lap already? well if we're going to rent an excavator we need a whole truck store so it's kind of if we're going to wait then we're going to have to hire an excavator or an operator so we can finish the grain we're kind of at a limbo to the we open up these bids now music mountain property maintenance and it's a price of $13,955 misses to include two passes on all gravel roads and three passes on all gravel roads and does not include class 4 roads or trails and the mowing will be done with two machines first pass with a 6 inch rotary mower and second and third passes will be done with a 5 foot rotary boom mower up to 22 foot each ability to cut up to 8 inch trees music mountain music mountain and the second bid we've got a bid for roadside mowing and the amount of $16,500 is not saying anything about how much of the roads or what equipment that he would be using better respect better respect better respect does prices out I don't accept the music mountain does he start to make insurance because he can't do that work until he gets the insurance bids he can't do any work until he gets insurance and we didn't expect for the whole town he's offered to do much more than what we expect for he knows what it is $13,955 music mountain music mountain property maintenance so you're saving 2 grand for shopping local yeah $2,500 all right all in favor so that's the answer to that question that wraps up the highway stuff for now, Terry do you want any updates on the utilities the work on site one is about it's got a bunch of good guys but this week we ran into some problems with the piping underneath after 35 years of being in the yeah it looks is that on site three no, on site one that still is and so I hadn't replaced it all with PVC above the floor but the guy didn't target anything I pumped it down to the tank to give them those three days they needed to do the work inside so we didn't have to pay a pump of PVC that was written in the contract save us a moment site three is a little bit dirty now they're re-screening them knowing it's underneath the contract most of those things call for washstone it didn't call for washstone it's not gonna cost us anything it's just because there's no fines there so it didn't meet the spec guess what happened there was a guy that was loading it at the very bottom instead of picking the loader bucket up six inches and taking the stone for the job there's a new guy they said on loader where they bought the stuff it's actually the company they bought it from is actually covering some of this cost so that should be all back in by the end of the week they should be laying quite down there the guy coming to set the pumps next week the electrician will be down there next week so it's going to be close but they should be done by the first as the contract says probably start working more and more as it gets closer to them they don't seem to have a very big crew of most stone but now they got two or three other jobs going on it's like everybody else is trying to get things done for fall and everybody calls them for fall and it's dirty stone which I still kind of complain we're being an engineer to oversee this how come you didn't pick it up before it got put in there that shouldn't ever get because they're having to dump it on the end and you've got to push it the whole length it's not like you can don't back out in there because you just can't put the truck weight on it so it's not like you're back and dumping it on a three foot deep we're pushing it with those just seeing where it was so it wasn't real happy but it's getting repaired so down site one where you can just look down and see the pulse but here he did it was kind of 80 and set up mess around with Dr. which in that way you might as well have PVC so that should wash off and clean up better looking at those pipes that came out of there it's really good that it completely rusted off they don't even look like but it ain't holding it, it was rusting that was pretty bad broke over it you know where it was crowded in the smat just chiseling a little bit it was cold so it was good to do the whole thing and he was good about it so it's probably easier for him to replace it all than it was to try matching on is it for him? you said something here about putting a bit out for some paint on the town office I'd like to try to get this job done sooner than later I think it has to be somebody who is as best as qualified if you're taking you to try to get that done from the outside lead qualified lead qualified is going to say no asbestos you're going to put together something to put in the paper I'll send it over to you first the whole building yes I would say I'd like to give two proposals one for the half one for the whole I'll give you some options I think that makes sense a lot of maintenance is going to be an issue on this building pre-1970 it's on it the outside has been painted a couple of times it's going to be scraped down it's going to be cheap designation, resolution, application that's for the river's assessment that's for a simple resolution that says the talent has to proceed that has to be an actual resolution so I can show that it's in the minutes make a statement to that effect that goes into the minutes that we intend to apply for the district designation just doesn't mention it we are we agree we agree would you consider putting one siding on given the fact that we actually just talked about that we did talk about it we didn't want that much to let it bait and toss why don't we get a price ask me move to approve those I didn't see any progress all in favor and we're still mulling over the workers cup just don't want it to get lost but that pretty much covers it unless anybody else is something else they want to bring up thanks for coming out we've got all sorts of homework