Monday, June 15th, 2020, Barone Select Board, virtually scheduled meeting to order. With us is Justin Lawrence, Lowe Smith, John Quinn, I'm Brad Town. Lowe's also is Dana Hadley, Town Administrator, and Diane Isabel, Town Treasurer. Additions or changes to the agenda, Nathan? I'm here, I'll vote. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. And on phone, it is Angelina Abram. Okay. I have on here the, talking about the grader, but I'd like to take that off and put it on when Tim starts. And we have the email that I'm hearing is out there. So I don't have it. So the grader is off. What are you talking about? What email? We have y'all from the company testing and also the repairs that we need to. Oh, okay. That's okay. Public comment, hearing none. Treasurer is important, I am. Okay. Jill Rundek from the property valuation and review division with the city, sent me a number. Probably a lot of people have seen this, but she's replying as far as like the FY21 tax rates for the school. They do anticipate having the tax rates available July 1st, which is the normal time they have them. And normally the very first meeting we have in July, we set the tax rate. So I wanted to make you aware that, like put down the agenda, hopefully you can do that. But the only issues that she is thinking that is because people can file their taxes later this year, a lot of people won't have the state payment information. So we would have to, if I was to do the payments, actually we send the tax bills out by July 15th, which I'd like to, then chances are very good that I have to do an awful lot of revised bills, which I do every year anyways. Just to make you aware that's, I am going to put that on the agenda and I'll talk about that for the next one round. At least this is good news, because at first she was talking like a couple weeks ago, she was saying we need to be ready. And now they do anticipate it being ready for July 1st. So hopefully for being on July 6th, I'll have the information. Plus the I know the assessors plus, they didn't believe this last Wednesday. They anticipate they'll have that information for this Wednesday, so they can file a friend list. We complete that clause. So we'll have all of that information for the next meeting. And other than that, everything else that I have is on the agenda. I have a question about the link with taxes. Is the amount higher or lower than it was last quarter? It is still a little higher, because right now, right now is today, there's $250,000 owed in back taxes. And it's usually, it's not too far, it's usually at 225 at this time of year. Okay, I'm just trying to measure whether it's starting to get harder for people or people are getting up. I think a lot of the people are, as people that are probably not working right now, but most all of the businesses have paid us. There's only one particular that has not, which is kind of a large one. And like I say, some people actually have paid some of the stuff that they owed in the past, even because I think that they have been getting some money from the government and they can pay up the taxes. So that's good news there. But I'm a little further behind and I'd like to make this point in time. Okay. I have one other procedural question, more for Dana than I think you, but Dana, you made a comment about paying a bill that I think Brad was looking at in the booklet, but we don't pay bills before the select board approves them, right? You approved them here. We already approved them. No, no, no. So if you have a bill. Okay, the comment was I felt I had to pay them or I felt I had to pay it. So I was just procedurally, I was making sure that we weren't paying bills before the select board actually approved bills. Okay. Good. And this was a pipe step pro. The road was not usable and this was over by the hospital. Yeah, it wasn't about that at all. It was just procedurally. I just wanted to make sure it was the same as it was in the last elect board position. There's one should be. Four. Strutley. Five. Yeah. And we've had times that sometimes the select board would like it to pull a bill for some reason. And we certainly can do that. Mm-hmm. Okay. And having that discussion, we'll skip over licenses until everybody has a chance to look at them. Any else, Diane? No. Jase, Jasey Earl town forms. And we supposed to go over there once this way to the town folks. I guess just yell. Just yell from down here. Well, maybe Tim could you move with him for a moment? I'm sorry. I think I'm back. I'm sure I can. That'd be great. Thank you very much. I can do that. Tom is here too from the conservation commission as well. So if you want to hang back here, you want to have a lovely table from here, you know what I'm saying? He'd say attack you. He's winning this table. All right, very good. People want this on or not? I'm talking. It might be a little easier to see. You're six feet. Yeah, there you go. Exactly.   We didn't know where we were. How about we offer you a little bit of money for a lease? So I had walked some of the tarps we're talking about that I was concerned about. Is the one that comes up from Brookfield Road? Are people familiar with that or do I need to give that? I'm sure they will. OK, so it comes up from Brookfield Road. It goes right up to the top of the ridge. Right. So that was the one that abuts the Northfield parcel, town parcel that's in Berlin. And they had twisted Northfield's arm into letting them do a lease on that land. So I was concerned that they were going to be doing the same. So it took a while because it's a way up there to get up there. But I eventually got up there and was really disappointed to see that our fears were indeed true. So, Dan, did you get a chance to print out the, there was one photo of the area that we mapped. I gave you all the photos I think I have. OK, that one just didn't get printed out. I apologize that it didn't get printed out either. Maybe I did this. But that's OK. So I went up and mapped the area and with a hunting app called ONX Hunt. I'm not sure if you smile if you do promote it. It's a very simple app. It's $29 a year. And it gets you within 5 or 10 feet of a property corner post. So I find that, I mean, we'll see what this gentleman says when we approach him. Because I always say I haven't yet. But according to that program, he's tapped about 12 acres of a Berlin town force. And so that's not insignificant. And it's been tapped for at least two years, potentially three. So I have a bunch of pictures here of the tapping, I mean. And one thing that's worth mentioning sort of right off of that is just so people are oriented. And Tom can maybe speak to this more. But the value of a sugar maple tree for timber purposes is its veneer value, which is the first eight feet of the log. So when people say, well, what's the tapping? It's just a few holes. What's the big deal? The problem is that when you take a $3,000 tree and you put even two taps in it, you now have a $100 tree for firewood. So even though it seems like a super small little thing, it actually is a fairly severe consequence for the value of the trees up there. So there is a Vermont pass, what's called a Vermont timber theft act. I also sent that to you. Anyways, we can print that out or send it around. But it's very clear that it's not just taking a whole tree that is theft but damaging a tree. And the timber value of a tree is considered theft because it's the theft of the value. And one 22-inch diameter tree, the rough value, is $2,000. So at, let's say, 40 trees per acre times, let's round down 10 acres, potentially 400 trees. No, is that right? Yeah, 40 times 10 is 400 times $2,000 is potentially a huge theft that went on up there. Well, the trees, is that $2,000 you're quoting? Is that per tree or per 1,000 board feet? No, it's, well, the value in sugar maple is not based on board feet. It's based on the value as a veneer log. So they buy a veneer by the board for it. It could be. So I'm just going out the state thing. They're saying that that 22-inch diameter grass height tree is worth $2,000. So that figure is probably way too high. But it's definitely a significant value of the damage done to trees up there. There's no question. I don't think in my mind. And I'm not a professional forester. Tom, do you have anything to say about that? The only thing I would add is the Conservation Commission has not gone up and evaluated, or do we have the skills, what the value is up there. But there's a lot of that, a lot of theft that's occurred. I talked to a forester who has about 40 years worth of experience in the Northeast Kingdom, the state forester. And he said that the bottom 8-foot log, which is, of course, the most valuable log, would go, even if it's not a veneer, just a run-of-the-mill saw log, its value becomes pulp. So the maple is no longer any good as a saw log. And he's been selling logs to buyers for 40 years. So to get a good indication of what's up there and what the damage is, I think the town would have to hire a forester or somebody with some skill to do that. But Jay-Z's right. I mean, the value up there. And I should also say that the town forest is remanded under a forest management plan, adopted by the town of the select board. And there's a section that would be designated as old growth, not to be cut. And honestly, I don't know whether this particular portion is part of that. I don't think it is. But the point is that the town is managing that for years in a certain way, for certain prices. Now somebody, pretty hard to believe that it was an accident 12 acres that ain't given us history. So we, as a foundation commission, pretty outraged. So here's just a quick look at some of the, you know, just to get a sense, these are not little trees that that guy is tapping. This tree is a 99 inch circumference tree. It's a 150 year old maple tree he's tapping. So I'm happy to pass these around. I spoke to Rose Bee, the town forester for Norfield, which was very insightful. She is, because I was looking to be able to give you some information on who could go and evaluate the actual value of the timber that was sewn up there. And she is qualified and able to do it. She charges $70 an hour. And she said it would probably take at least a day to get a sense of it. And just to get into there, it would sort of be worth doing one day's worth of hiring her. And then after a day, she could make some kind of report. And then you could evaluate whether you wanted to do more investigation on the actual value. So we can't say what the actual value is. I would be shocked if it was less than $10,000. Is there any kind of distinction on where the line is between Northfield and Berlin? So that is an express. And they're obviously on the backside of the mountain. Is there anything like that going on? I thought this picture was quite telling. So here's the actual quarter post. And if you can see the quarter post is right under a tree that they used as an anchor. So there's absolutely no way they missed that quarter post. You cannot tell me you missed that quarter post when you did that to that tree. Zero chance. Just not possible. So and then there is, I've got a bunch of photos in here. So it was actually surveyed by Rob Townsend of Northfield. Four of the town of Northfield, it was that marker. And there are still quite a few. There's not like big no trespassing signs, but there's still quite a few. Do you know what year that was done? I sent the survey to you, Dana. I didn't print it. I have it on my computer. Was it in our files that you sent us on Friday? No, I think I would have sent it this morning. So I don't think it would have. But this photo you'd have to see up close. But there's an orange line here. This is the Berlin townside. So there's a clear marker and a whole bunch of stuff tapped. I mean, I guarantee you this guy's going to say he didn't know where the boundary line is. So there's no question. That's what he's done before. That's what he's going to do again. One other thing that's important to note from Rose Baydy's experience up there on the Northfield parcel. And I just think this is important for you guys to understand, not just that this guy comes in and steals these trees, but the town when they were negotiating the lease. So he did this first on the Northfield side. And then they were like, well, we can use a thousand dollars. Let's negotiate a deal with him. So they went into the Northfield parcel in Berlin. And she evaluated it.  She just didn't think it was a high value for us. So she decided to say, OK, she recommended that they allow a tab. So she went in, and she marked the trees that had potential down the road to become saw logs. And she marked a ton of trees. And she said, listen, these are the ones that I don't want you to tap. And she went back the next year, and they were all tapped. So this is the person that we're dealing with. And the other thing that she said is, well, two things. First, he's having a bunch of stuff that's not the proper size. So when you tap something that's too small, it permanently damages that tree and potentially girdles it. Because you keep going around.   The third thing she said, when I first started talking to her about this, she goes, this is this guy's business plan. This guy needs to be stopped. Because he just keeps doing it and keeps spreading it out and keeps stealing timber. I did talk to the county forester. And if you guys decide to potentially talk to this guy about leases, first of all, he said, the North Field lease is terrible. It's an absolutely terrible lease. Because they were over a barrel. Why were they over a barrel? Because he'd already tapped. So he's got to mean he's damaged the things. So the real recourse would be to hire a forester at expense, go in there, and then hire this town attorney and see what you know. So they're looking at, OK, I can spend a couple thousand dollars and maybe make some money. Or I can collect $1,000 a year from this guy off land that we aren't doing much with. So they went with that. But the problem was he's already tapped them. Yeah, he had tapped a small amount on Turkey Hill. He had started on Turkey Hill and done a section and went over the line and the select board found out and talked to him and had set someone up to view. And anyways, a deal was negotiated for the North Field Town Forest. After that, I don't know what happened and how it kept expanding. Well, it sounds like I do now. Yeah, I mean, sort of intentionally. So the county forester, from his perspective, is if you were considering to actually sign a lease, you would want to negotiate much better terms than the town of North Field. First of all, anybody that's tapping on your property, you want them to have a bond.  So first of all, the thing that they recommend, the kind of forester would recommend is there definitely be a bond in place if he was going to do a lease. And there needs to be funds in there, especially for someone like this, for someone to go up and actually count taps. And the town of North Field didn't budget that in. So here you go, if you're making $1,000 a year and you're paying someone $500 or $800 a year to go out and count his taps, you know, I don't know. How many taps do you think he has in Berlin that you haven't got an estimate of? I mean, I did not do that. And I mean, it would take quite a bit of time. So I would say personally, I can, I don't know about the rest of the conservation commission.  Personally, if you guys decided that you wanted to pursue possible damages or having this guy reprimanded and remove his stuff, I'd be happy to volunteer time to get this all sorted. But if you're just going to sign a lease for $1,000 and we're paying $800 for someone to go up there and this guy stole $10,000 from us, I got much better things to do in my time. So if we made a recommendation or a motion to have Rose Beatty spend a day looking at this, you would assist her? I would assist her, yeah. So you would have a good idea of the same thing that she's seeing in that way? Yes, exactly. She could keep that constant. And she wanted, what she wanted to do was I'd be happy to even volunteer to do this, is unfortunately, if Dana can circulate it, I have it on my computer. When I went and did the walk, I didn't have the survey in hand and the survey actually shows that following an old fence line, it's not an exact straight line. So when it was a straight line, it came out to 12.373 acres. So what Rose wanted me to do was actually go along and make sure that these orange markers are indeed the actual property line. So she's not up there fussing around, you know, figuring out the property line. She just wants to go in and figure out tree value. But yeah, I would be willing to assist in that. Yeah, I would like to clarify the conservation commission is not recommending to the select board that you start thinking about leasing these maple trees. No, yeah. Just to make sure that's clear. Yeah, our recommendation, if you were to make a recommendation, is that this guy should take his stuff off the town line. And I personally, I work as a real estate agent. The way I accept the negotiation is with a letter from an attorney saying, hey, you've done $25,000 worth of the English to our trees. You know, let's have a conversation here. That's how we'll start the conversation from the position of power rather than, hey, sorry, notice you have some trees in our property. What was the last time that we had a select cut done in Berlin in a town forest? In that town forest, I think it was maybe three years ago, four years ago? Wasn't too long ago. Pretty long ago. Yeah. So what if we didn't cut that off? Steve, yes, you want to remember, if you're going for damages, I believe, among Timber Law or state, it's triple damages. So if the actual damage is $10,000, it's a $30,000 bill. That is true. That is true. I think that's how it works. So I mean, our recommendation would be, at the very least, to assess what's gone up. And Rose is a professional. What she already talked to me about is, yeah, this beautiful big maple that might be a great saw log down low is worth less up there, because it's a lot of work to get it out. But that's what she calculates into all her calculations. I don't know, Rose. What are her credentials, or what is her background? She's a forester. A state forester? A private forester. OK. I talked to the state forester, the county forester. Is that Dan Singleton? Dan Singleton, exactly. And Dan, even though he's technically part of his job, he's managing the town, helping us manage town forests. He's like, JC, I just don't have time to go up there. You're going to have to get it. You're going to have to hire a forester. I mean, she's just the one forester I actually happen to talk to. My understanding is they do charge, at least she charges, from the moment she leaves her house until the moment she drives back in her driveway and she lives in Northfield. So that's an advantage to her. The other recommendation I looked at talking to Chief was there was a crime committed, theft occurred, let's send Chief Wolfe up.  Well, I certainly think it warrants having someone at least go up and look to see what the damage is and see what's been done so we can make a better judgment on not that I disbelieve anything that you said, just to have a forester like Rose go up and take a look. And JC is willing to go up with her as a member of the conservation committee. I think it's money well spent, I would say. About seven and all of that rose up there and do a cruise. She's $70 an hour. And she said it was for one day's worth of stuff. So 70 times and out of the $10 an hour, yeah, yeah. Somewhere in there. Somewhere in there, I don't know about. I'm never anxious to recommend spending money out of a conservation fund. However. We did log it and money went into the conservation fund. So I think it would be an appropriate source. Looks like they must have to have an insurance policy too, for I don't know if that would cover anything, but we should try to get a copy of that from North Hill if we could. Yeah. Daniel, were you already working on getting a copy of the contract of the Northfield? I did get a contract. You did. OK. So in the back there, OK. So, David, we ever saw the mystery of who was asking permission? I know who was asking permission. But we've never figured out if that was the same person. But this contract is for someone else's. The only other thing I'll mention just from being part of the Northfield, peripherally, the scuffle to have in there is that there are a lot of upset people, because A, they sort of, someone sort of stole and then they, you know, it's like someone, you come home from dinner and someone's walking out of your house with your TV, and then says, can I rent this TV from you? And they broke it a deal. But the second part was, if you are going to have tapping on town land, it feels like it should be an open bid to the public. It shouldn't be just handed over to a thief, in my opinion. But you know what I mean? So this other party that's expressed interest, again, I'm not advocating leasing the land, but should you decide to go down that road, I think a much more fair process would be to accept, you know, open it up to offers and bids. When I called Northfield to ask the police, and I thought it was one name that I gave them, they said we don't have a lease with that person, we have it with these people. And so I don't know if there's a business relationship that I don't know about or something, but the name, the person that's talking to me or has talked to me about it, is not the person on the lease. So you're welcome to look through these photos, if there's any questions. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons. You know, there's photos in here. It is a rich, look around. Yeah. Make a motion that we expend up to $700 out of the conservation fund to have Rose Beattie further investigate the 12 acres of tap trees in Berlin, Town Forest. Okay. Now it's open for discussion. Would any members of the select board have any problems with the conservation committee taking a lead on this? No, I think they could.  But any money has to go through Dana. Of course. Any other discussion on this? All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Aye. Rose Beattie is my forester. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Sure. We're sure. Thanks for hearing it out. Anybody want to pass these photos around? Thank you. Jay, Steve, was it today you sent me this survey? I don't recall saying it. I did send it today, but I can, it would be helpful for people. I'm happy to resend it. Resend it now. Yeah, I have it. I have it right in my computer. If you want to pull up the date, it's a motion pass. It's your move now. So if anybody's particularly interested, we can ditch more information. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Give us a update. Are you happy with Rose as a board? Yeah. Okay. Good. I haven't worked with her in the past. I just know that she does it for the town of Northfield. No, I, some neighbors were logging in their land. We have 52 acres. It's kind of separate for anything else. We usually take and have it logged when they log theirs. I just, I, Rose and I went up, did a cruise through it. We decided it wasn't worth it. Wasn't worth the effort? Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Tim Bingham, concerns regarding use of town property by private entity. Hello. Thank you. Hi. Hey, I'm Tim Bingham. And I had some of you guys a letter I guess back in March. And I know that, so my home is right here, 13th Shed Road on the corner of Shed and Crosstown. Which one, what color is it? Just, I'm new to town, so. You're new? Yeah, somewhat. Oh, yeah, right there. You'll pass it when you leave here. I'm going out on the right. Okay. Right at the corner. And so I'm here today to ask you guys to consider a couple of policy changes and the first one has, the whole thing has to do with peaceful enjoyment of land property. And the first one I wanted you to consider has to do with the transport trucks that bring in our 10,000 plus tons of sand and gravel every year that we use, you know, highway department needs. And the manner in which that's grown and the second thing has to do with letting people use our town property. So when I bought the property five years ago, I knew that everything going on here with the town clerk, with the police department, with the highway, you guys have meetings, so all this traffic's coming and going all day long. Totally understand. What I have trouble with is every summer there's some contractor that's using our property hours being the town, whether it's the painting crew or the tree crew or the, and this year it's Winterset who's doing work in the state of Vermont. They add a lot of traffic and trucks and they're parking some trucks out here. The east side of my house is 10 or 11 feet, I think it's from the edge of Shed Road. When I sit at my office desk, it's so close, I can read the little numbers on the truck tires, you know? When the transport trucks come through, especially the ones that are 22 wheels, and I think they're permitted to 97,500 pounds, they shake my house. They shake my house. My house vibrates.  If that house was built in 1845, it was probably here long before some of these others. Tom's house is pretty old, I imagine. But, so I have real trouble with a private, for-profit company using our land for free. First, my choice is that they don't belong here. They belong in the industrial park, which is right up the street. And I feel like the industrial park has encroached. And yes, they're doing work for the city or the tent of the state. That's fine. They got six million bucks to fix those bridges. And I would almost guarantee there's a line item in their budget to rent property for their on-site trailers, trucks. And I think they have a little yard up in the industrial park already, right up by the airport on Comstock. So, you know, the transport trucks that bring in our sand and gravel, there's about 400 that bring it in. And every truck that comes in, they gotta go right back out, right past my house, right past my office. That's understandable. It's a lot of traffic. And it happens usually over a three to six week period, usually in August, early September. And during that time, I can't be outside cleaning my cars or doing, it's a dust storm. So not only do we have noise and dust, extra traffic, it shakes my house. And I'm just gonna ask you guys to consider it, whatever, but why do we have four private companies using our property for free in the Berlin historic residential neighborhood? The Ferrells couldn't be here tonight. They're out of town, but they too have concerns and maybe I'll come back with them in the next meeting. The Ferrells live right here on the left.  And we just don't need all this extra traffic on this tiny little residential street. So if you've got any questions, I'm gonna... It's just been bothering me for five years. And this year, I thought, oh, we're not gonna have it. Finally we're gonna have it. Then in February they put the trailers. That's why in March I wrote to Dana and wrote to you guys. And then Dana said, they're here. I got okay with it for them being here this summer. I go on the AOT website, it's a three year project.  So my ask would be not for them to leave this summer, not the trailers. I'm not crazy about their big dump trucks out here and the trailers, which I see some of them are now parked up on the interstate. So my ask would be that we let them stay the rest of the summer, but ask them at the end of this construction season, those trailers are out of here next year. We don't allow these private companies to use our land.  They owe us rent. They have a wide mind of mine. I'm guaranteed it's paying rent. And they should be paying us rent retroactively to February or March when they came in. Thank you. Well, I'd like to have a little moral support to my neighbor. This is not a new issue. This should be going on for a long time. And when we were reviewing the permit for the travel center, one of the options that we worked very hard on, well, two ways. One is the town permit, but also the neighborhood, if anybody remembers, we weren't satisfied with the town permit. We wanted that berm and the fence and the trees to protect the historic neighborhood. And so the neighborhood got together and we actually initiated legal action and we negotiated the berm, the fence, the trees to protect the neighborhood. I got to tell you, the travel center did a wonderful job. It's a great neighborhood. Love it. We even have a slighting elsewhere. But it has been an issue. Part of that discussion was we really should have an access from, you know, where the trucks parked now next to the travel center. There should be an access to the town garage directly from that direction. And it was doable, but of course the travel center didn't want trucks going through their business. So that was an understandable issue. But maybe it can be revisited with the travel center now that they've had some experience. Maybe there's still a way of getting all of the heavy traffic off in this road and going to go directly. Instead of the trucks coming all the way through the historic neighborhood and going directly into the town. So maybe there's a better option there. I don't know, but it definitely was not, was not received, the suggestion wasn't received really enthusiastically last time. But it might be worth asking again. How many trucks are usually there? I didn't look when I drove. Park here? Park here at the center, let me tell you. Right here? Usually. Well, they've had five out here with a trailer. These are 10-wheel dump trucks. They parked them on this side of the fence and where we used to put the sand for the community to go. Some of those are now up on the interstate, I've noticed today, where they're right in the construction zone. So I don't know if they're going to come back and live here ever again, but they were here for a number of weeks. Now the winter set, they have these great pickup trucks, or six-wheel trucks, four-wheel trucks. For some reason, they're back and forth constantly, all day long, into these construction trailers. We already got enough traffic back in here. Do we need more? And for free? In a residential neighborhood? Historic residential neighborhood? And my house is on the registry, national registry, yours probably, but I don't know. Why do we have them here? Why are they here? Does anyone on the board or anyone in the audience know why they don't just park over in the commuter lot over near Maple Woods? Like, they have that lower lot where all the big trucks park. Oh, excuse me. Yeah, the one in front of Comfort Inn. Yeah. So every truck that's here, and every person is, when they park the trucks here, of course, then you have the workers come in in their personal vehicle, park it, they take the trucks and then they go back and forth a number of times. Well, we'll sort of take a look into the traffic as far as winter sets going back and forth to the trailers, cut their trips down. We'll have to take and see what winter sets are. We hadn't, we agreed on this. Well, we probably should come up with a policy. This is what I'm thinking would be a good idea. I don't know as far as the traffic getting aggregate into the town. There's nothing to do with it. Highway law. Exact traffic going to play hockey, though. Those, we can't have that. Yeah. Yeah, if you guys would consider perhaps let them stay this year, ask them not to park the big trucks.  I think they should. And make a new policy, perhaps, in the future, we'd take a serious look at who we allow to use our town property for free and increase traffic through this historic neighborhood. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much for bringing your thoughts and concerns forward. Thank you. See you later, Tom. Thanks for your service, folks. Yeah, thank you. Don't you agree? Yeah, I'm just getting the outbreak. Did everybody, I think that Daniel's supposed to get the statement. I'm getting it right now. I'm getting it out right now. Yeah. I'd like to go through some of this. If I'm not scoffing, I can actually hear you. I was looking at this year's right now, this particular report, does include the bills that you're going through right now, because it's all in this expenses. The only thing that's not here, which won't be here, is the final payroll, which will be happening next week. OK, for the fiscal year. And there will be a few other bills that will be coming in for June that obviously won't be this particular report. But I would have to say that probably 90% of the bills are in here for the fiscal year. So as comparing it to last year, I don't think that we're way off on anything. It's nothing to me that's alarming or anything that we should be concerned of this point in time. But just to make a comparison, in last year, we did get $297,000 for the grants. And this year, we got like $20,000, excluding the police grants. Those were totally separate. Because last year, we did have a grant for the road. And we had a grant for the culvert. And that's not happening this year, let's say. And we still do have expenses. We did do, let's see, for the highway. I'm going to quickly add just on that one. OK, we did improve cartridge firing. We did some, I think it was gravel there, right? Or is it paving? Paving. Paving. Paving. We did some paving on industrial land. And then, we did resurface some of Fisher Road. We did some resurfacing in our garage. And then, for due voice instruction, we paid that $15,831 for that main break, OK? Which all of that is right out of the budget. OK, we did not get any kind of compensation for that, just to make you aware. So our revenues are up a little bit. And part of that for this year, excluding the grants that we have for last year, is we did borrow $150,000 for a highway truck that was not in our budget for FY20 that we ended up buying in July of this past year. It's July 19, 2019, OK? So otherwise, the others are very comparable to what we did have in FY19. And as far as the expenses, just real quickly, there is going to be some overdges in payroll. Most of that has to do with the police department. That's going to be a little higher than I had anticipated. We did have a couple of guys that were in the academy. And so that was something I had not anticipated when we were joining the FY20 budget. And plus, because we've had people that have come and gone, so often happens, we've had more part-time people working. And we've had one overtime, because obviously, they have to fill, OK? And then just real quickly, on workers' comp, actually, workers' comp has much better work this past year. The rate for the police department from $9.00 to $100.00, done $8.77, which was for us very good. And that's the state rate, OK? That's nothing to do with our deviation factor. And also, on the highway department, it went down substantially. So that is really good for us. So if you do look at the insurances for the workers' comp, those are lower than we anticipated. But also, with the insurances that we get from the leased cities and towns, that's on a calendar your basis, obviously. You're on fiscal year, so it'll always reflect six months off on that. It's never, ever going to be exactly the amount that I put in there. But this year's a little bit lower, in most of the cases. Liability insurance has gone down? No. No, that didn't go down. It didn't go up that much either, but it did not go down. The liability insurance part of it is that we had to replace that excavator and the trail or so ended up having more. Because more equipment, whenever we get more equipment, obviously, the insurance goes up. So if you have any questions on that, I think I can show them. I'll go over it with you. I was just trying to point out some of the areas that we spent a little bit more on. But everything was really complicated to FY19. We spent more for salt to FY19 than that. We spent like $113,000 for salt. And this year, we spent like $89,000, which is still not great. But we didn't spend as much as we had the previous year. A different winter, too. Yeah, very much different winter. But we still spent enough. Same contract price for salt? Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting those numbers ready. At some point, I'll show you what we've done the last three years where consumption has been and how much the prices have increased just now. The winter before last, we had a lot of ice. Oh boy, I guess so. And what were the changes with the zoning in the town clerk? The town clerk, that went up a little bit as far as the advertising room. In the past, when we advertised for the boats and stuff like that, the school would share that with us. And now, we're by ourselves. So we have to do, we have to have the same rate. And it's just us paying for it. It's still the school pitching in half and half. So that is higher. And as far as the town clerk, we got a reimbursement in FY20 that belonged to FY19 that had to do with all of the extra boats that we did because we had to merge the schools. And so finally, the town clerk joined after us. And said, well, you have to pay us back. And they didn't pay us back until FY20. So the savings has resulted in FY20. And zoning, I don't know if there's anything greater in that. I think the telephone expenses up slightly. But we've had to, I think, be either repaired or replaced Tom's phone this past year. Well, is that, which one are we in now, the same? You're asking the same. The zoning. I was wondering on the zoning. What was higher on there was the telephone. Telephone. I think it's just the telephone. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. I do believe we had to replace Tom's phone or get it repaired, isn't it? Probably. The lease in this phone system up, or is it already coming down? It's coming up. So we own the phones. So right now, we're just paying for it. Yeah, we're not surfing in the middle of it. Are these IP phones? Yes. Yeah. How old are the phones? 2014. Yeah. Like, six or seven years old. Do you know some budget review? Not really. Unless you get questions, you can email them to me. Happy to look through the stuff. I just want to quickly give you an overview and not bore you to death. In the warrants, or in the payments, we had a $2,000 payment to a solar company. Yeah. Did you tell me? Dana can explain that. Sanctile solar. I never understand the terminology. It's the electric bill. A few years ago, the select board voted to go with a solar company on a PPW power. Do we have solar panels here? No. No. So we're drawing off a solar grid. Is that? Yes. Yeah. Theoretically. How many buildings are we talking about? That's this building and the highway garage, and the water pump for the water division, and the sewer main pump on Barry Mopili Road. This is what's under that program. So the general fund pays for their portion. The sewer pays for theirs and the water pumps for theirs. So there's three different counts in this. We do get another bill from Green Mountain Power for the transmission costs. So the $2,000 payment to them is coming out of the general fund cost? Part of it is. Just part of it. I think it's like $6,000. OK. So that's a whole payment. Can you look at that? OK. Yeah. All three together. OK. What's in it if you don't remember, that's fine. What's the general fund portion of that for the buildings? Do you know? I'm just curious. It's on the bill $648 that you get it. OK. Questions for Diane on the budget review? Thanks for having me. Thank you. If you have any questions, email me and have people get up. End of year fiscal reserves. This gives us a nice segue into the end of year. This is the yearly time of year that we ask you to hold over funds and to allow us to transfer funds to and from the reserve funds. This year we have five funds that we're asking for you to consider. In the capital budget, we have $15,000, which was to be for a new server that we were going to bid this spring, which we have not, because of COVID. But we are definitely going to need a new server, so we'd like you to reserve that $15,000 into the next year. We have $41,900 left in the bridge maintenance account. We would like to go forward on Richardson Road, and we would like to reserve that fund to go toward the Richardson Road culvert. What about Lovers Lane? Or Lovers Lane into that fund. I mean, the reserve fund only has $41,000, so. We can spend that. We can surely spend that plus a lot. The recreation board, the general fund paid recreation board bills of $903. We would like to withdraw that from their reserve account to pay the general fund back. Police services, the Police Department Community Fund, which is monies that are donated to the police department for police activities. The police have used it for things like the kids at Halloween and buy the bags and that type of thing. There is a net of $1,530.50. We would like to transfer that from the general fund to the reserve for the police fund. The building reserve fund and administration, we would like to withdraw $7,025.75 to reimburse the general fund to help us toward the payment of the police door replacement project that we have. These are done. The reserves, we only do this accounting once a year at the end of the year. And we do it at the end of the year because we have to have it approved before we go into the next visit of the year. We're asking for your consideration on those. Your motion? Would you like any clarification? Is anybody? We can do that after we get the motion made. They just have some questions. The motion, so we can go into discussion? Yeah. So we'll go through the proposed fiscal year joining the budget reserve. Here, a second? Second. Any further discussion? There you go, Don. You can go a little bit louder for you. So, Dana, when you say you have to replace a server, what does the server do? The server operates the accounting system for the town and has all the computers connected to it. It stores all our documents around the server and then they are backed up to the cloud at the end of the day. But is the computer, if you will? And that lives here? It does. Right. And what do we usually have in maintenance charges approximately on that server a year? This is an interesting. We're always over on that. It's in the software support budget, whereas we budgeted $6,000 today. We spent $11,000, $7.59. Some of that is server-related and some of it is not. So I have no problem doing something different because I think we need to. But I'm not sure putting another server here is the right thing to do. Actually, I know it's not. I think that would be great if we had someone who, like you, that knows.  And there's a lot of issues with it. We cannot send large emails through it. And it's getting, I think that server is probably almost seven years old, maybe seven, or seven. Yeah, there's no need for a lot of this stuff anymore. I think I can help you do the cost comparison to something else. But just even looking at our technology bill just in this warrant and the charges for the 15 or 30 minutes at a time and what they were for leads me to believe we have issues that we shouldn't be having with modern technology. And it's not the hardware, right? I think that, well, a lot of it is, first of all, we're not computer experts. I understand. So we're at the mercy of the company doing it for us. But I'm sure the technology has changed since it was put in. Yeah. So we would certainly, I think, would be an absolute great time. And I don't know if 15,000 is anywhere too high, too low. I don't know. But obviously, we need to do something to check our records. Yeah. We'll do some shaving. So how can we do that? Can I work with you? Absolutely. Yeah. Coming up with something that we could do. I'm assuming when it comes to your computers, you buy the office license and everything right on them. And your emails configured on your computer. And how do you check your emails from home? I don't do emails. I don't ever. You can't get to it? Or you just don't? You can. You can go on the phone. And that's another thing. And again, I'm not sure if I understand this. Our computers have Outlook. However, we have to use a software program called Zimbra. I saw that. Because the Zimbra is the only thing that will talk to this cranky server. I'm going to help with this, if you don't mind. I would love it. Yeah. I think let's leave that amount in there to be certain that we have enough. But I'm fairly confident between that line item and the maintenance line item, we'll have more than enough money to meet our needs. You want to work over? Yeah. We can put another call right in. I was going to say, Richardson wrote in lovely. And the other question I had, it was around the $1,500 to the police fund. Do they have a special fund that's managed just for them? Like the last luckboard I was part of, we had all kinds of special funds, probably too many. Where they were super restricted to only go towards certain types of things. Absolutely. And this is what they called the PD fund. And part of that credit is we received $2,500 from Walmart. Spend it on whatever you really need. And sometimes they spend it on supplies. Like I think they just bought a radio you probably saw in the bills had radio. So that came out of there. But in that particular fund, right now, before we make this change, we got $12,870 in that fund. We were to add $15,000, $30,000 to $14,000. Now, it is cheap, but at this point, that does give me the invoices. I don't know if you want to make any changes to that. He's the one that used to determine where it's going to spend time. Yeah. For me, I don't need to manage at that level. I'm just kind of curious on why we have to do that transfer. Why wouldn't we just put that money from Walmart right into that account and give Chief Wolf some discretion to apply logic to what he spends when we would sign off on the warrant still. But we wouldn't have to do these transfers back and forth. Yeah, and I guess it's because he doesn't spend the whole amount. If he spent the whole amount, got it down to zero or less, then we wouldn't be transferring anything. But he never seems to. We seem to be building all the time. Or we deplete more of that. But like I said, we still, right now, we do have quite a lot of money in there. And part of this is how the accounting is done. Well, I'm just to say that because if I don't, if we don't reserve it, then it just gets to you. During the year, the money goes into the general fund and then once a year, it gets transferred to the reserve. So here we are. And then the police store situation, what's that about? We had to replace both entrance doors on the police station and on the employees door on the outside, the outside doors. And it was over $7,000. 7,100, I believe it was. And that went through the approval process here as well. We just want to start cleaning out some of these reserves so that we just have a few reserves. Like you're saying, we don't need to have 30 different reserves. Which is why the maintenance, the building maintenance is in the red 4,200. So we'll now have a plus of 3,000 for that 7,000. And then the 419 to the bridge fund, whichever pocket we want to put it in. How much money is in that account now? Right now we have 54,000. So we have the 419, we'll have 96,000. And how much is the Richardson Road project? I'm hoping that we have spent quite a bit already on the Richardson Road project. So I'm hoping that we are not going to exceed another $60,000 on that. So we potentially have enough money in that fund to do Richardson Road. Almost, not quite, but. Well, if we move this money, we would. Is it 54 with the 41 or not? No, it was before. Oh, okay, then we would. So if they move it, we'll have 96,000. Oh, great. And how much is the Lovers Lane Bridge estimate? Well, I haven't put that out to bid. Is that just new decking? It's new decking. But I'm, and Beth, a little later was going to talk to you about that because now that things are opening up I'd like to do that. I think it was a little steelworks going underneath the old deck when there were some rust issues. Okay, I'm just curious. I didn't know if this was the start of it and it was a $250,000 project and we were five years out, or eight years out.  We've had engineering work done. We had the same engineer that did the mirror lake job. Right. But what I've heard from you is that there's only one way on and off that road. On Richardson Road, that's right. Right, so if that culvert fails, then we're in big trouble. It's a big problem. Yeah, because this, on FY20 for the Richardson Road, we spent $2,282. Yeah, yeah. And if you look before, you're going to find we had probably similar to that amount. So I don't think we spent that much on Richardson Road yet. Okay. What is the stake of Bailey Bridges? I don't know if they do any more. Have what? Bailey Bridges. What are Bailey Bridges? Oh, those are those. You pin them together and you put them up across the stand. Oh, like temporary? Temporary bridge. Yeah, they still use those in places. I was just thinking if worse comes to worst, we'd always just lay that on the roadway and put a feathered up on both sides. So I've seen Bailey Bridges in place for years. So that's the case. At least we have some... I just think it's important we get Richardson Road done. So when I leave here at the end of the day, that would be my legacy, Richardson Road culvert. I think that's all the questions I have. No other questions? More on the motion to move the money for in the fiscal year reserves. Those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Let's see here. Aye, it's free tapping town force agreements from the town of Northfield. I guess we've kind of addressed that already. I had gotten the town of Northfield sent me the agreement they had with the person. Yeah, I missed it somehow. It's too crazy we weren't talking about that. I don't think so. You don't have it, John? I will get it for you. I didn't have any attachments on it in the agenda of the... No, I didn't see it. Sorry, we're getting too much stuff. Thank you. I didn't send you the attachment? All I had was a cover paid true agenda, so I was happy to see this one right here. You know, if that happens, call me. Please. I don't know whether it was me or what, but please call me if that happens. It's good about me, too. Because I'm just thinking everything is wonderful. That looks like the previous conversation that I have to have some sort of insurance policy, so I can get the arrow or the town line and it'll be nice to... I can ask for the information. So that's been covered? I think so. Okay. Approval of select board minutes for June 1st, 2020, and June 3rd, 2020, and June 8th, 2020. I move approval of the select board minutes for June 1st, June 3rd, and June 8th. Can I second that motion? Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. I have administrative reporting. Sure. Okay, Richardson Road Culver, we've discussed. Lover's Lane Bridge, we've discussed. Now that we can get people in the building, I'm going to put out a bid for the repair of the wall in the clerics office. We are expecting insurance funds in the amount of 21,000 on that, the previous estimates we had were 29,000. So the insurance company would like us to put out the bid, so I will do so. The town center designation project, the planning commission had a meeting last week, and there are several changes to that project that the consultant has pointed out, and they have asked if the board will meet with them in a meeting that would just address these changes on the town center designation. And so I'm thinking maybe we could meet on a Wednesday, and maybe we could meet at the Grange to have some more space to do that, and maybe the first week in July, maybe the summer, could we, the third week in July? Probably. First week of July. We're done. July and Friday. Yeah? It's the fourth. The fourth of Saturday. Yeah, it's on the Saturday. The next meeting's the sixth. So maybe we can do it on the, what would that do, the 20th? Oh, actually, they've asked me not to do it on the regular to let you do it on the meeting, because they want some time. I didn't want it to be a part from that. They wanted some time. So maybe the 22nd of July? Well, if you were talking on Wednesday. Yeah, and I think it's important because I've looked at the changes, and I'm not that jiggy with it myself. Yeah, of course I am. So you'd say the 22nd. So I'll set that up with them. Is that all right with both of you? Yeah, it's a good one. Good to meet you. Tim had gotten a quote from Pike some time ago for Pate, for paving, and he has since gotten, and I told him today, I think this should be put out for bid for paving because Pike is very anxious for the sign of this contract. So unless you have an objection, I'm going to. No objection for me. Is this on, what's this? We're talking about Granger Road that needs to be, that needs to be repaved, and depending on what the bid for Granger Road, some junction road needs to be done as well. I'm talking the paved section. Yeah, right here. Is it from the railroad tracks on, or? I don't believe. You're right about there, yeah. Junction, or the railroad tracks that go across why did the sewer play it? No, it's on junction. That's all I have. So I have a question. Is the building now open? Yes. Okay, I was a little confused with emails that were coming back and forth, that I didn't pop anyone on. I had just asked some questions too. You know, we have, we now have the window here in the lobby that is open, so people can come into the lobby. We do have a sign asking people to just limit it to one person or one family at a time. Right along, actually, Diane, Tom, and I have been basically open anyway, because whatever people have needed, we have gotten more than. Open as we used to know it is not going to happen for a while. I don't understand. So tell me how it used to be, and then tell me why it can't be that way now. I'm not saying I disagree with you, I just want to understand, because it seems like it's pretty low traffic. It is a low traffic. However, we would have to monitor how many people are in the building. And that would be fine, although I can't monitor the clerk's office and going with the treasurer's offices for people going through the clerk's office to get to the treasurer's office is problematic. You're basing that number off from the recent guidance or what level of guidance? I'm trying to base it on the most recent guidance. So the staff is happy that we're open again as such. We are keeping track of our adjoining neighbors and that's how they're doing it in the same way that we are. I don't have an objection to being open as far as the old way. And again, you know I can't talk to the clerk's office and how that would work. I think that Rosemary feels better that she's got the window, that she can help people through the window and she has started making appointments for people who need research. If the board tells me something different, of course I would do that. I'm just thinking open means different things to different people, right? So it's just the window that's really open. It's not open when I, you pick me up on what it used to be. When it used to be open, the people could walk into the building and they could go to the clerk's office or they could come down here and get what they needed. Now it's open in the sense they come into the lobby if they need to see Tom, Tom would come out and get them. And same for me. Right, so if we had, so just to save you from having to count. Right, and just keep track of the guidance. If we just had a sign-in sheet, sign in and sign out, that would allow you to know if someone was at the window how many people were in the building. Sign in at the window. Yeah, or at the door, just. Is that what you'd like us to do? I don't know. I'm just talking out loud in this person to try to solve the issues that appear to be occurring still. Well, is the issue that us, or is it the clerk's office? I think it's access to the vault. I think so if it's access to the vault and just the perception of, well, if everyone else is doing it this way in the building, why would I do it any differently? Right, so I'm trying to provide some kind of standard for some kind of process or policy for how we allow people in. Okay, you sign your name and there's no notes in the building. You wear your mask. You follow these precautions.  You do your business. You sign out on your way out. I don't know, I'm just trying to. I think I'd have to, before I gave any suggestions, I've given quite difference to Rosemary in trying to work through this and it has not been an easy trail. And I think she's really done a good job as far as protecting her office and I admire that. And could we send people here but we can't send them through there to get the guy in. We'd have to send them around. So it's just, I'm open for suggestions. But it's- Lay out in the building, you know. I know, I know, but are we gonna keep the building closed or partially open in the way that it is now until there's a vaccine? Like that's, I mean, that's what we're talking about essentially. And all I know is that I have no example to look at because the other towns aren't doing it either. Which other towns? Northfield, Berry City, Berrytown, and Montalier. They're not letting people in. Northfield is by appointment or else they're bringing like we've been doing. So I'm gonna need something to bring it out. I mean, I think you could. And I'd love to be open too. I mean, I'd be a lot easier for me. I mean, for it to get to the treasure, we don't have any signage out there. It'd be pretty easy to keep people out of the building and over on the line. We can send them around to her door and we did that when taxes were due. I mean, she basically, she was open to taking people at the door to make them. And she was one of the few towns that was taking cash for that. So you're saying you'd like to see an operating procedure in place for that? Yeah, so I think that's consistent across all the divisions or departments within the town just to say, okay, if we call and make an appointment, we will be let in. Or the door's open, you have to sign in and no more than two people in the building at a time or a public meeting. It could be published on our website and everything. Yeah, I'm just thinking like it could be clear, if John, Justin, and Dana have all signed in and none of us have signed out, then there's three people in here doing business and we wouldn't allow anymore until. I'm just trying to figure out a way to. So is that different from what we're doing now? As far as, you know, because I assume the middle of the inside door would be locked still, someone would have to wait on them to have them sign in and let them in. Unless if there was instruction on how. Yeah, exactly. But they wouldn't just walk into the building on their own, is that, am I understanding you correctly? I mean, yeah. So the whole trouble is, is no matter what, you gotta take the fault of the dictates of the state. But I think there's enough flexibility there at this point. I mean, they're small gatherings and some up to 25 people. I mean, I really agree. We don't have that many at once, but we have a very peculiar setup. I understand. I'm just, you know, I know. I'm just, you know, I'm struggling. I've struggled with this. Yeah. Well, I mean, realistically, somebody comes into the cubicle. Lobby. We've got the lobby. Comes into the lobby there. First person they're gonna talk to is Corinne or Rosemary. Rosemary, yeah. And the best we can do is pretty much find out where they wanna go and have whoever they're supposed to meet with. What they would do now, if it was someone for Tom, Rosemary would call Tom and say, can you come down to someone here to see him? And he would come down and probably let them in to help them with what they needed. What we're doing now is pretty much about an efficient wherever we're getting this building. How much is an intercom system at the door? Well, we do need something there. And I have talked to Bob Belton. He suggested we put another phone out there. And so I've asked them to put a drop there. I haven't gotten a gap, but... So then the person you'd be called would go to see him? You know, if they were to come in and Rosemary wasn't there, for example. We do have a little bell there now, but we need some way to have people let us know they're there. And we certainly, any of us, could go down and help them, right? Right. Yeah, I mean, how would you go about this if the select board said the doors shall be unlocked from 8 a.m. to 4 30 or whatever the time is, Monday through Friday? Well, I think that the staff would have to decide if it was worth it to them to stay here, frankly. Like with anything. And if that were the case, then we'd have to do that if we wanted to stay here. No, but what I'm saying, not the decision on whether to continue working for the town, but... And I mean that flip, I understand. How would you go about building your policy or your procedure to mitigate as many concerns as you could knowing that, okay, we all need to work. So no one's quitting, right? Let's take, let's start there and just pretend that that's the baseline. What can we do in order to... Well, you know, I think that... I thought we were there. I'm happy to sit down with the staff. The staff has been extremely helpful in getting this arrangement. We've all worked together, Rosemary Inclusion, and getting what we thought was a good way to get ourselves not normal because that's not happening right away, but as normal as possible. How difficult is it? I mean, the big thing is records at this point, right? To access to it. Those are the only things that I've heard of. I've heard of.  You've done a great job with that, honestly, but I think we should have a policy in place, but I'm just curious if I were trying to do research, if I said, hey, I've got an important closing and in the next two days, I need to do the research myself as the attorney because I have to provide the title insurance. Would I have access to the vault? And here's, as you know what I'm gonna say.  And she would let you in. Okay. I feel that way. Because that happened started today. Okay. That's what I wanted. That was the thing. But that, I mean, obviously that's out of my... Yep. You know. Understood. Yeah. So I'm just wondering if there's a way to make it easier for the public. So on our website, do we have instructions for how to do that type of work? Here's the process. So if a company was gonna buy a building in Berlin, here's the process that you need to follow. It's on our website. You need to call this number and make an appointment. And then you'll do this, this, this before you get here. I just wanted to try to make an idea. We haven't gotten that far. I was thinking of that too. I was thinking of the website, the newspaper from page four on Berlin News to News, just really putting it out there in a big way. I mean, you could just put it on a homepage or a website. Right. Right. But other avenues too, because many people live in different areas. Right. That's where a lot of people just look right down. It's one of the first things you see. And then word of mouth will get around no matter where it's published. Yep. And I know Rosemary had a list of people. She called them. Schedule. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to take away.  No, no, no. I'm not even talking about Rosemary. Outside excuses of, well, it's closed, so I can't do my business with the town. We don't want that. Right. Right. That's what none of us want that, including any division here. So if it clearly says it on the website, at least, did you follow this process? Well, no, I didn't. OK. Well, it says here that we are open for business from these hours, here are the hours, here are the days. Here's how you get in to do your business. I think at least then we can say, did you follow this process? And if they say, no, but, OK, well, follow the process and we'll see what happens. Does everybody look through the warrants? I make the motion to approve general funds that counts payable warrant number 20G23 with checks 2247 to 2298 in the amount of $239,570.10. Payroll warrant 20-25 for payroll from May 24, 2020 to June 6, 2020 paid on June 10, 2020 in the amount of $42,690.31. Made reconciled bank statements for the general funds to work mission and water division, made journal entries, and the made budget stabs report trial balance and delinquent tax report. Second. We can further discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Locan carries. Round table, Justin? Nothing. Flo? John? I think I have gotten just about everything. Angelina? Angelina? Can you hear us OK? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you great. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you guys. Are you hearing me OK? Yeah, this is the device you mentioned to me. That is great. OK. Thank you so much for getting that. Oh, you're welcome. Executive session, please. No, thanks. OK, then I do have one more thing. I did see an email about an offer. Is that offer for the position done? Is everything executed? Or do we have a start date? Yes, 22nd of June, next. OK. Did you tell me that already? Probably not. OK. I was trying to keep it secret, but you've got it out of me. Oh, OK. Anything else on the round table? All set. Entain a motion to adjourn. So moved. All those in favor? Aye. We're out of here. Aye.


Hello everybody I'm welcome back to my channel. We're just going to do a little video now about this hi-fi audio amplifier And one of the reasons why I'm bringing your attention to it is because a lot of people are going to get fooled for things like this Hopefully none of my viewers will be fooled on something like this, but a lot of people will be They're going to look at things like this. There's number. There's this car 180 watt times to power digital Amplifier hi-fi MIDI stereo audio amp USB FM Mike home I don't know what the FM part is and I presume Well, we'll go through that in a second. There's got a whole bunch of pictures some dimensions there and a Lovely lovely LED that glows in the background Yeah, some some pictures a few notes on this picture says BTL, which is a bridge-tied load Which means this a If you imagine two mono amplifiers being pulled being put side-by-side The two negatives being used as a ground and then the two positives being used in a push-pull configuration on the speaker That's an example of a BTL. It's not the only example, but that's just an example okay, so Yes, there's not much more as I go on but there are some interesting things about it One of the things here is like it says it's 180 watts times two now this whole what thing and numbers with watts can be Quite further people who don't know can be quite a They look at that and wow 180 watts of times two is that the two speakers 180 watts each on this amplifier That's great But this isn't really what this means and I don't think that this is this is just I mean this is complete Bs and what we're gonna do is we're gonna look down this for a second you get to look here We're gonna look here, and I'm gonna see where it says item specifics, and it says the power is 20 watts plus 20 watts Okay, so that's difference to start off with It has a distortion rate of naught point naught one percent Signal to noise ratio of 90 dB feature high fidelity high fire And then we're gonna look across here We're gonna look at the input voltage here because this says quite a lot the input voltage here is 12 volts We got load impedance between 4 and 16 ohms And we got our frequency of 20 Hertz 20 kilohertz standard amplifier, and then we've got a max power and The max power on these can be that and if At any Moment and depending what you consider a moment, but you can be the shortest period of time There could be a time where the amplifier by that moment to that moment only Could reach a lot higher maximum output It's very easy to see how they can play with these numbers But what they do is to be naughty is trickery is they just try to advertise it like that Knowing that if you go down here or don't go down here because you might just look at the top part You'll see a 20 watt put 21, and it doesn't tell you whether it's a PMPO or PMOP Them two can be exchanged or RMS which is what would normally use So what we're gonna do now is because I've actually bought this We're gonna take a peek at it, and we're gonna take it apart We're gonna look inside and we're gonna see exactly what this thing is all about this device is not going to be able to output any more Power than what it can draw in So we can look at this and say it's 12 volts 12 volts 2 amps 12 volts 2 amps to 5 amps So it's possible it runs at 2 amps and it can draw up to 5 amps So let's just look at it as the 2 amp first for some easy maths to work out what this can be putting out just by you know Just think it off the top of their head. So 12 volts times 2 for 2 amps. That's 24 watts That's 24 which would have which equals 24 watts So there's absolutely no way That we're gonna be talking 400 watts, especially if we're talking 400 what RMS the normal sort of thing when people think about wattage They don't think about all these other non-really defined institutionalized or standardized PMPOs or PMOPs or anything like that. They think RMS And if we looked at it at its best We can see 12 times 5 there Which quick work is at is like 60 So the maximum power that can be drawn into this system is 60 watts And that's probably you know Well, whether that's true or not, we don't know what we're gonna do now Then it's we're in the loop all right, and we're gonna come into this box I'm gonna take it straight away. I think that that's the only honest part about this really is open from here but Let's pull it open. No, I did think I was gonna do a bit of unboxing this, but I actually felt when it came to the post It was my medication But it's not so let's just pull this out Okay, I'm struggling with the box Let's give it a that And so here we have it. It's a little tiny thing. It's not much bigger No bigger fits in the palm of my hand Interesting thing is about this Bridgestide load So it'd be interesting to see what's going on inside here That doesn't get a pretend equalizer thing going on there We got our audio input. I Don't know about the radio side of things. We've got treble. We've got bass Bit of a rough feeling of volume control And a nice pushy on and off switch. I do like those that Looks like it's got something tied to it I wonder if that's something to do with the heatsink, but anyway, let's Bust into this thing. Alrighty, how? Looking in there. So it's I suppose a bit of a Heat shrink a heat shield a heatsink Okay, so she wrote so there's a bit of a Thermal coupling paste there That's nice. Yep little time with thermal coupling paste. That's all And this is what we got inside then The best way again about doing this break it there we go That's a little what we got going on down here But onto one time see if we can see anything I'm looking through the camera myself If I just touch this Nope three times in. Oh, we got a partner by Tyvan great stuff. It's made in Tyvan I won't get this thing to stay in focus We've got a TDA 70 57 AQ all right Nice big spludger solder on the side of that It's always nice And just looking at the inside of this here. H y 207 8c we've got all Carbon resistors in there. Oh, we've got a piece of water tie in these Pots together No, I'm not even gonna suggest that I can break down the circuit for you but I pretty much guarantee this is the the amplifier side of things and It is probably the the bridge amplifier But I'm gonna say just off the top and I have there's no way this thing is gonna be doing 400 watts Or even the 20 watts. I wouldn't have thought so Just looking at the side of it the size of it and the size of the heatsink on there That's not it's not really made for dissipating that amount of power Even going on to this little flimsy case again Yeah, I mean 20 watts. You're gonna get quite a bit of warmth from that Okay, right. Well, what we're gonna do then is we're gonna look up what that is So let's have a little look down All right, I'll straight away 2.2 times 8 watt stereo Bridge-tied load BTR audio output amplifier with DC volume control We're gonna supply voltage What we got here for our features DC volume control few external components new to mode thermal protection in short circuit proof No switch on and switch off clicks good overall stability low power consumption low HF radiation ESD projected protected on all pins Alright, that's good. The ESD is the static So voltage Supplies between 4.5 and 18 volts. That's great. They say 12 volt a lot people at 12 volt adapters I would be for your route is whatever you still use it Voltage gain 40 DB 39 41 so around about 40 DB Voltage gain control Yeah, we don't need to be bothered about too much total harmonic distortion Power out equals 0.5 watts typical 0.3 And what did we see on that advert? Did it say? That the power output distortion was just to recap here. Oh, that's right. The distortion rate 0.01% so that's a cracker for how you doing That's the insolid block diagram There's our pinout. I'm not gonna bother following the pinout through anything like this All I wanted to sort of show was this thing isn't gonna do what it was it says it's gonna do at least what the advert Said it's gonna do So I just want to look and see what sort of current we can put through this thing On the total power dissipation on this and that's total That's with the thermos up the case less than 60 C is 22.5 watts So we're not anywhere near I don't know how you do any sort of sums. I don't suppose unless you know Yeah, they are power dissipation assume pp equals 12 volts right says the voltage equals 12 volts and the load equals 16 ohms which is the Least current consuming load 16 ohms a maximum sine wave dissipation is two times 1.8 watts equaling 3.6 watts, so there's no way on this earth That this is gonna be able to deal with 400 watts And I don't think it's well. It's not going to do 20 watts per channel either So looks a times right thd equals 10 percent the resistive load of its a times at 5.3 watts That's 10 percent thd Total harmonic distortion 0.5 was ZAA 0.3 Maximum 1% and that's at 0.5 watts like All right, that's not that's not running That's not doing like you know what I've shown in some videos you run it until it clips And then you back it off So it's not clipping anymore on the sine wave and you can do your calculations on there on what your wattage is But you can't have it clipping you can't have any Distortion as such certainly not clipping Okay, well, I don't think we need to go through this anymore We don't need to get through any of this though even says here look two times eight watts stereo BTL audio output amplifier with DC volume control So even written in here look We got Is it so yeah, we've got 12 watts three amps.  I Don't know it's like on the back That's the a key a K270 and this is the a K170 There you go guys quick little thing on that just to you know, don't get blind side I don't get fooled by these things when they put out that it's all this watts It's most certainly not especially if the components inside are just nowhere near cable mark to do that job All right. Cheers for watching and I'll catch in the next one guys. Bye. Bye