Ben and Jay, are you guys here? Oh, we are. Did you want to address the crowd before we leave? We would love all the water, but if any of you. Yeah. Where we are here, so remind you our names. Yes, at least introduce yourselves. So thank you guys for letting us come and address you for a couple of minutes. We'll be short on any other stuff to cover. For those of you that don't want to leave, my name's Ben J. Plainfield. This is Jay Hooper. We represent five towns for our field, Branger, Randolph, Rossbury, and Grandville. We actually both live in Grandville. So what we're going to do? Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. Randolph. This is our town meeting today, so we're not going to come out. It's been a long time. So we're going to give a brief update on what we've been working on in our committees and what's been going on in the legislature, hoping to answer just a couple of questions and then let you get on to more interesting stuff. So I started on the House Ag and Forestry Committee. And in Ag, we've been discussing 25 versus eight different issues. And I'll just give you a little bit about a few of them. Milk prices continue to decline for our dairy industry. We're really glad that the Milk Commission is able to report to us recommendations as to what we ought to do for the 2018 Farm Bill. Our federal debt delegation ought to do so as well, shareholders and ladies. Luckily, we also had ladies to carry out $1.1 billion in insurance monies to help keep farmers who are really struggling to stay in business. We also looked at a bill which we passed through the House on a voice vote about on-farm accessory businesses so that farmers can explore alternative ways to come up with some revenue sources that will help them stay viable as a farming practice and operation. We passed a bill to require state fairs and farmers to inspect their amusement rides. Believe it or not, Vermont is one of six states that doesn't require that legally. So we thought, even though we haven't had much for tragedy in that area, we ought to be proactive about it. And we hope that that will prevent tragedy in the future. We've been discussing pollinator protection legislation, so re-evaluating ag practices in the context of inverted risk. So honeybees, namely, but also other pollinators, like let's say the carpenter bee. Turns out a lot of those pollinator populations are declining pretty quickly. And of course, though the food sets are what make it so we can all have potlucks. We've also talked a lot about regenerative ag practices. It's been interesting to take testimony on that topic because it turns out there's discord in the organic farming community as to what it means to be regenerative agriculture, as well as organic. I think there's some battles to be fought there, and we'll figure that out in the coming years, but conventional dairy and regenerative, there's kind of a rivalry there that's difficult in some circles. And of course, forestry operations. We don't talk about forestry as much in my committee as I would hope, but I think when we get back from town every week, I think we'll dive right into a right to forest bill that came over to us from the Senate. So hopefully, we can put that on the governor's desk before we're all wrapped up. I serve on the House Health Care Committee in the way that it works in the legislature is for most of the first part of the session we're in committee 80% to 90% of the time, so I've been deep into a lot of the weeds of health care policy. A couple of things we've been focusing on. One, we passed a series of measures in response to executive actions from the federal government. A lot of these measures that we've been passing are intended to protect a lot of the market stability and make sure that we can curb the growth of insurance premiums. Secondly, we've continued to respond to the mental health crisis that's been going on in our state. Last year, we put a pretty significant investment into a lot of our community providers, our designated agencies this year. We're considering further investment into those areas, as well as considering an expansion into our acute inpatient services. We've seen a real backlog in a lot of our emergency rooms and we need to do a better job of making sure there's flow throughout the system. Finally, we've considered the potential of Vermont imposing a state health insurance mandate. You may remember the Trump administration in the fall repealed that piece of the ACA, basically zeroed out that penalty. And they're concerned, we've heard a number of, from a number of actuaries around the potential for insurance premiums to go up two to 3% just because of a lack of a mandate. And if we're asking for insurance companies to cover a wider benefit of things such as pre-existing conditions, we need a broad and healthy insurance market. So that's where a couple of things that we're working on that happen to take questions about anything that you've heard about and what's going on in Montpellier. Do you know anything about this proposal of legislation to allow us to import drugs in Canada? Yeah, so the Senate passed out a bill last week that would allow Vermont to basically act as a wholesaler and import prescription drugs in Canada. It's a great proposal except we need approval from the federal government to do it. So chances of it happening in practice are very slim, but it will be in our committee after coming. Yeah, the drug companies has raised a price of 10% in January. Yeah, most across the board. When I met with you, when you had your let's just say breakfast and handles, difficulty is some of the smaller towns have you can find a whole lot of people who've owned the functions in the past that always take the charter change in order to have people serve. So you know all of this, any progress on that side? Or is it, you mean is there your request to have a certain position for the roads? Was that, was that what? Well, it was an example. Yeah. A long time ago, if you wanted to get a little bit of your auditors, you had to have a charter change. Then the legislature said no, you could just vote. Then there was a thing of having listeners. You had to have a charter change and the legislature said no, you could just do that. It was 10 years ago, maybe of our selection of time, trying to get a charter change in order to allow our town traders being non-resident all there. But that's an ongoing thing, particularly in small communities where we just don't have the resources. So after we talked a couple weeks ago, I did talk with a couple of my colleagues in the house government operations committee where a lot of this work would be done. My relaying of your information, that was not the first time they heard it. They heard from a number of small towns around the state that there needs to be a reconsideration about the flexibility to make those type of changes that has demographic shift. So it's something that I know that at least a couple members that I spoke with are interested in. And once they begin working on a lot of the Senate bills, there may be an appropriate time to have that discussion. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you guys. So please give me some time in the reports and then in the back there if you'd like to. Housekeeping news and procedures. The water here is failing. So we want to conserve as much water as we can. If for some reason the meeting is in jeopardy, we'll talk about that later when we can postpone to another time and place that's definite. But I don't think we'll have to do that but if anybody's concerned about that. Secondly, when you all go to vote paper ballot, make sure you state your name twice, going in to Nancy and coming out to Kate. Because don't assume she knows your name and even if she doesn't know your name, she'll forget it. And now I'm going to vote. Yeah. Thank you for your donations for the dinner and thank you for folks that brought in stuff. I appreciate that. I was naked so there's more shepherd's pie. Yes, plenty of food in there, so don't be fast. We're good for you. Okay. Okay. So we'll call the meeting to order. I think we already do that officially. Just some procedural reminders. We govern this body by Roberts rules of order. The first item on that list is, when you want to speak, please raise your hand. And I will call on you, you'll speak. Unless there's an objection, I'd like to keep the discussion to five minutes. Roberts rules says 10, but there's a lot of people and everybody gets a chance to speak twice in the scenario after I call on everybody to speak again. So there's no objection. I'd like to keep it to five minutes. Great. Per person. Per person, yes. So great, there's no objection. An article has to be moved by somebody on the floor, seconded it, and I have to read it before we discuss it. So that's the procedure for that. After you've spoken once, you'll have to be seated. And then after everyone else has had a chance to speak, if you want to talk again, I will call on you again. I'll make an attempt to call on everybody in the order I see your hands come up. I noticed some people here who may not be registered voters is that if that's true, raise your hand if you're not registered to vote. In Granville. In Granville, right. So Roberts rules also doesn't really allow you to speak, but again, unless there's an objection, I would very like to entertain people who aren't registered here but on property here or come here to have a say. So unless there's an objection, you guys can talk. You've got five minutes. Oh no, actually two and a half minutes. Discussing an article, debate ends by someone calling the question. So don't just yell out, I'm gonna call the question, raise your hand to be recognized, and then we'll call the question that way. If you just yell out call the question and I don't recognize you, we can still discuss whatever it is. So do you have a question? No I do. Given that, is there a certain sort of mannerism to that where you could just call a question to squash what people want to know? No, well yeah, there's a procedure, so you know. So you can choose not to raise your hand. Yeah, yeah, but if you close the question, if you raise your hand and I call on Jen, he says I call the question, somebody seconds it and we all vote on it. Right, but what if the discussion isn't finished? Well somebody will, Jen, it has to be voted on by these two thirds of the membership. Not even, it's not even a majority to call the question, right?  Everybody says yeah, let's hope. What's the answer? If everybody says yeah and call the question, it's over. Yeah, okay, and yeah, that's about it. So I'd entertain a motion for bringing article one to the floor. Article one, to elect a moderator for the year ensuing. The nomination will be closed and that the secretary cast one ballot. I second it. Okay, all in favor of me being a moderator, say aye. Usually Mark does that part, but I'm going to put a big dollar, I'm going to put a little part of it in. Yeah, it has to be almost so we can. Oh, it's a normal subject. And a paper ballot needs to be cast for voting for a selectman. All the other elections can be done either by votes, votes, voters, or a candidate. First person. First person. What is it? It's a selectman. So what is it? Judy's moving article two, so it needs to be seconded. To elect all town officers as required by law. A, to elect a select person for a three year term ending 2021. So I'd entertain some nominations. Norm. I nominate Sean Lashy. Yeah. Dennis. I nominate you today. Set. Oh yeah. Sean's term is ended. We have Sean and Jim to nominate someone. All in favor of closing nominations, say aye. Aye. Nominations are closed. Can I have anything to say? That's a good idea. Would you guys like to say something? Yeah, I would. Five years ago, if you ever asked me if I ever wanted to be a selectman, I would say it's politics and being working for the town. I've really enjoyed it. I have good friends here. We're working real good together. I've been working on the ancient trails that I've really enjoyed. Working on getting the post office set up. And I'd like everyone to know that you'll have it. You'll be retired and contributed to the well-being of y'all. What, my paper ballot? Is everyone agreeable to that? I have never been in the Coast Guard. Sean Linsky, 19. Jim Day is the select person for the next three years. B, to elect a delinquent tax collector in 2019. There's no other nominations for a delinquent tax collector. Motion to close. Nominations. All in favor of Nancy Needham, say aye. Aye. Oh. A show of hands. You mean, aye is good too. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody oppose Nancy Needham? Raise your hand if you can. Nancy Needham's the tax collector. For the delinquent, may I write that down? C, to elect a town grand juror for a one-year term in 2019. I'm not sure who it is. It's Mike Guillermo. Are you the grand juror? I'm sorry, well, that was the same thing. Raise your hand or say aye. Aye. To elect an agent to prosecute and defend suits for a one-year term ending 2019. I don't even need that. How did that person's, it's Diane Arrow embroiled in a lawsuit, is there anything, I mean, what does that mean? The grand juror. I don't know. Nothing. I do. Yeah, Jim would like to explain the grand juror. It's basically, it's like being a jury duty, but it's on a federal level. And I remember Helen Christie was, had to do it. And she had to drive the lot one. Oh, sure. Get ready. She was on it for like a year or two, a couple of days was the right one. No. So once we get an agent to prosecute and defend her, the morning is the day that you prosecute and defend suits for a one-year term ending 2019. Oh, okay. I'm still on it. Of course we don't know what that is. We'll let it go. What's going on? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to see her. No. The nominations are closed. All in favor of a defense suits for a one-year term ending in 2019, say aye. We're going to raise your hand. All the way to the silver. Okay. Say aye. Okay, just a point of order so we understand. But it seems that what a motion is made and secondly, it has to be voted on before you move on. Let's close the nominations on your second And you took that ad. Yeah, you're right, I'm going to do that. Cemetery commissioner for a three year term ending 2021. Who's seconded? Ken's seconded? Nancy's second? All in favor of ceasing nominations? Say aye. Aye. What was? It was Judy's second. Yes. Yeah. All in favor of who? Yeah. Oh, Mark. I'm going to be the cemetery commissioner. Say aye. Aye. I'm going to be the 20th. I believe it was the 20th. That would be me. She was the 20th. That would be me. Oh, you look at it. That's a good question. It's Mary's. Mary is the 20th. That's the 20th. That's correct. That's correct. So you're not going to be around the next term. It's really open. It's really open, right? So. Yeah. Would you have a cemetery commission, commissioner explain what it is that they're responsible for? Sure. Come on, Mark. The charities we sell plots so that you can have a resting place for your loved one. It needs to be done in the cemetery so we need people that are willing to be in the cemetery commission. I shouldn't say that. It's not working, Mark. But I mean, it's commissioners appoint someone. We do not hear that we can... Vivian's here. It was all the... Yeah. I just meant I could stay out of anything like that and just die. Just die. Just die. Right? Come on. We'll meet a new great figure, too. I actually think we've got... Maybe Mark or... Quarterly major. Yeah, we don't meet that often. Yeah, we don't meet that often. Well, we meet soon, obviously, after the meeting, just go over the fine details to our spring plan. It's mostly field work. And also, for somewhere, it makes it clear that a lot of work... The actual work is done by volunteers, necessarily. Sanitary commissioners. Yeah, it really gives me all the volunteers. You know what I mean? Oh, I thought it meant there were other volunteers. Yeah, so we have some... We're going to have to take... I'm not sure I'm going to nominate you, but I... Okay. That's a nomination from Kevin. Second Kevin. Second Kevin. Do I hear that one? No. No. I'm going to second Kevin. All in favor of closing out, please say aye. Aye. Did you know it? Yes. All in favor of Kathy Warner and the cemetery commissioners, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure she'd have to grab something. You know... I'm going to be careful. I'm going to be firm in the 2020. I nominate Mark Wilde. Second. Second. Mark Wilde, anyone else? Say aye. Aye. I'm going to move to the next year. Say aye. Yes, sir. Now we get to the next one. Yeah, we get to the next one. H2H, to elect a second constable for a one year term ending 2019. Is Brent Stickney doing a good job? I guess he is. Yeah. He's very nice. I will say, because he's good at doing a good job. Yeah, but he has a good report involved with him. I nominate him. Yes. Brent Stigney and we have a second from Judy second it just for people's knowledge if you're not aware there's more of a contact person in these scramble he's from these scramble he's not a certified constitutional but he's just more of a need a motion to cease nominations one item I'd like to first going back to idea that's out of order so actually second okay all favor closing nominations opposed all favor Brent Stigney is the second constable say aye anybody post oh Prince it as a point of order he's not supposed to do this when was anybody objects dick has something to say about previous article every year I've been here going through that and I've never really understood it and KS well what does it mean I don't think I understood it when I was told this time going forward I'd like us to describe and divine that I didn't work completely I did everybody understand dick's concern is that we have descriptions of some of these jobs for next year so we know what they are with someone like to move article three article three to hear the select ones report and add a few words first about EC5 are very exciting opportunity coming this year yeah we didn't think it was going to happen maybe 2020 but since they have decided that we are so underserved with high speed internet we're going to get it 2018 as you've seen they're already stringing some of the wire on the polls and doing the make ready work and that's very very exciting today I brought up a little document that's called connecting to the EC fiber network it's a guide it tells you how you can do it if you have an underground conduit save a lot of money you can do this yourself and it describes you know it's a complete specification for how to do it you're on the back table anybody thinking of getting into this it's a very exciting opportunity because they're stringing every poll in grant which they don't normally do they usually say you need six or eight people per mile and this year every telephone pole will have fiber on it so you can go to the nearest telephone pole if it's just a string to your house overhead it's not going to cost very much at all I signed up for EC fiber years ago as a matter of fact Vivian remember we went to the meetings four or five years ago and I signed up it was so hard to sign up online then I signed up yesterday now it's a piece of cake go through five and they get right back to you so it's really to just thank Jim for the work and do it and share well it's it's really gathering steam now they've been able to float a few bond issues because they're as they get more customers to get more money they look better than the bond market and the thing is growing it's finally it's finally catching on I'm really going to get public tax money not a bit of liability what you're going to get is better real estate value and it's more people sign up the price actually supposed to go down because it's not profit they don't pay high salaries it's going to be a great thing that's it okay our slip would be important you can find on our page 8 I'm not going to read it all through you but I'll go through the highlights I want to thank you all Marcel is our FEMA coordinator is unbelievable you all remember I mean we did bus road this year which was the last time you project closed it all out last year we're still waiting for the money to come in from being in the state okay and then we're not even done with that yet in July 1st we got wax okay you've got two slides in the town on a post office one on West Hill and you've got a culvert up at Connecticut Trail that bridge whatever they decide we've not heard anything back from them really just starting to get some information on how to fix those that's gonna run half a million dollars for this three projects close to it so you know it's it's an incredible amount of paperwork and all and things constantly thank you so much we save the town a bunch of money by working with short hills secret and we put a bridge up the bridge washed out up on Kennedy Road and we were able to use the short hills road that they have it's going to be called short hills way that we had public hearings and went through the whole process and they were very very gracious to donate that class for section so we saved twenty five thirty thousand bucks on a bridge on McDonnell Road so that was that was great to work with the short hills club so if you see any of those guys thank you we had a special town meeting in October about the post office renovating the town clerk office and that went through incredibly you know 34 to 7 I think the vote was and we're still working with the post office we've signed at least six or eight weeks ago because of some current litigation that's going on it's been held up a little bit but I just have heard today that we should have a signed back lease in the next week or so so hopefully that happens and there's so much bureaucracy you know in federal government with the lawsuit that we had was to gain access to the Elwood cemetery extension the lot behind the cemetery this we went through public hearings we had a discussion about the road that we go right through where the town clerk's building is we denied the petition initially then we went back and said okay it's for access we opened it up again we warned it we did a particular we honored that petition with a public hearing and again denied they sued us for for access to the back of Elwood cemetery the litigation has gone on now for since last summer bill and the cemetery commission thank you got together and finally decided that there's unencumbered access right through the center of that cemetery to the back there's a 12 foot wide we can see the road in there the time coming all the way back to the cemetery commission this summer is going to put more of a through access area through the bank there so that they can get so anybody can get back into that extension area I wish the lawsuit was over this lawsuit now costing us up to twenty thousand dollars already so you know it's we file now for summary judgment there's really no case law that substantiates the claim and I feel that they've gotten what they suit us for there were some other things about our meeting law we agreed that we didn't get our minutes up in five days it's very tough in the state says you've got to have five calendar days to get draft minutes up from a public meet any public meet Diana most done a great job with that when she's out of town and that's what happened she was the only one that posted minutes we have to find out I've sat down with her and captain post those minutes right away so we agree that this been a problem and we rectify the problem with training so hopefully the we'll have that settled soon I really do hope the cruise about our property taxes are that our school tax with the unified district a lot of you weren't here just before but we've now united with Hancock to make one district of all tuition kids we'll have about 100 kids between the two towns that have their choice to go to any school any credit school our tax rate last year went way up for education to a buck eighty-five from about 30 or so and we got blacklist anybody in the state this year with the unified district we won't be voting on May 8th both Hancock and Randall will have one meeting and our tax rate for the unified district looks like it's going to go down at least 25 cents so we're good the projection right now is like a dollar fifty-eight so for a buck eighty-five this year the dollar fifty-eight that's over 25 set reduction in our happy tax which is great news for us believe and the school board we made up of three people from bad girl three people from Hancock I'm out and thank you very much Julie for stepping in on that one but that it should work real smoothly after that the toughest thing the school has the school board has is to make sure that kids are residents of Grandville with single families you know single parents and you know kids living with relatives or friends that's the hardest thing the school board has to do is make sure that those kids live intact and it's a difficult thing and I want to thank Mark who's gone out and checked on a few but every year we have two or three people that are trying to get free tuition from us and we've been pretty aggressive to watch that the biggest thing that we're going to get to real soon is our roads and we had to go out multiple times to get bits for our winter plow Griffin Griffin has done a great job this winter I think you know we've got Luke and Mike you know but we had to go out four times to get a bit that we finally could take to get out where roads flat so we'll talk about that coming up in another article but if it gets more difficult to get contractors to do what we need to be done in town so we'll get to that Gene had a question Yes, Bruce could you assure us that the address for the post office place that we saw in the draft will be corrected? We don't want it to be corrected Oh yes, that's fine But sir, now they had more and I have a money address that didn't exist Yeah I don't know where they got it from, but I'm glad to hear that Thank you Any other questions on the slide board or Our taxes went up so much just because of education Yes, yes, I have tax this year 61 cents a month Hey, our school tax went up more than cents a month And the reason the school tax went up is because we had the lowest tax rate for education from the town for the last 15 years Okay, and the reason we did it is because in 2000-2001 we had 72 kids in Grandville And that number dropped to 22 It's like now we're back up over 50 And the state held harmless that they dropped in the hands of students So we were getting credit for phantom students Kids that weren't there That the state was paying us for to catch that tax of artificial growth So we got black this year because all of a sudden our number went up and crossed that threshold And we paid the price Okay For now with the unified districts we're going down at least 25 cents And we'll know more every meeting we go to we find out what the family moved in and what the family developed So it can change us all the time So it's tough to get a budget That's why the budget will be May 8th It'll be in Hancock about six o'clock It'll be the second Tuesday of May every year for the school budget So we won't have a school budget town meeting The two towns coming together Is Rochester School closing? Rochester School is in the Midland High School Then we've got a school choice Then you're going to unify the Stockers Stockers And Bethel and Boyle are together now And the High School will be in Hoyleby Middle School will be in Bethel I have a question about the road company That you guys want to start for your summer Well this is for the select board This is directly to you guys I don't know I've been in the business for quite a while now Everything keeps going up and up and up And I don't know where the idea of starting your own road company Why you think that's going to be cheaper My costs keep getting bigger This is for you guys to know This isn't we'll talk about it later Well it's very it's very it's going to get to that warning on it real soon It's been very difficult You know I'm not 100% sure it's going to work here But we'll talk about that in a lot of detail just here Yeah Yeah we can that'll be the next part of the selection Right well this is the question Well the select board is proposing the next board not an article about that I move that they accept the selection's report My second Jui seconds and everyone in favor of moving this like this report accepting it say aye Opposed Jui's moved article four Ken second Article four reads Shall the voters of Granville approve a budget of 199,800 to purchase road equipment and hire a full-time road foreman to perform the necessary road work for the fiscal year starting July 1st 2018 and now it's open for discussion so we can also continue Do you want me to go over the presentation? If there's no objection I want to make sure that we have an open discussion on both the proposal for a highway department and And that's on page nine and if you turn to the town worksheet on page 13 You'll see the road portion the way we normally do Okay, so I think both of you remain to the discussion tonight And if anybody has questions on either of those at this point if this passes We will no longer do the road budget on page On 13 this will take the place of that road budget Okay, um As I said, we've had a lot of trouble getting contractors to do the work at the right time at the right time And um, it's been it's been very challenging to do that. I want to say right up front If this pass Doesn't mean we're automatically doing If this passes the first thing we'll do the next we have a select one meeting on Monday night next week We will go over an advertisement for a road for a road for If we do not get The good road format we will call another special town meeting That's all we're going back to the open Okay, the next server breaker on this thing Is if we can't get the equipment that we need at the price that's in our budget We will then Pull up. That's all have a special town meeting And go back to the old way. I want everybody to understand Yep About uh old way that price for the women's following and everything that was a one-year contract, right? I'm sorry. We don't we don't have so on your good 15 differences in one-year contest And you put the same number in for last year for their bit We will get to that you're right And you know, they could be $20,000 higher You know Depends on what happens in March. We will Invite them to the next week Um, why was it only a one-year contract? It's usually a three because that's all we could get It was a one one swung bit. We will have to get we went out the bit four times The fourth time we went out the bit we asked for a lump sum price They gave us a $44,000 Weaver price They showed all winner. We paid $44,000. Isn't it you know the other winners that we have We're in the $80,000 So we had to pay $44,000 issue which was about the same as you paid Okay Yeah, and we're gonna have to keep East Granville separate, right? Yes, sir So anyway, but I'd like you to just go over a couple things why this might make sense. Like I said Here's an awful lot of Question after question, but I think it might be the right time to try and um, you know If we had a town employee it could happen We could have good things When it happens, you know the other day when we had two weeks ago When we had 70 degree weather and the mud was in stick and then it went down to 10 degrees or whatever that night Thank god Hardest came down here and graded it at four o'clock in the morning Because otherwise and they told us the grade wasn't going to work for two or three days So if they didn't get out there before that pro solid, it would still be a huge mess If we had our own equipment our own god you'd be out there. Okay We wouldn't have to Wait for a contract to fill this in You know sometimes when we go to the radio, it's not the best time but it's the only time they could do it, you know When we cut down beside Vegetation a lot of people like to get a cut early. So you get rid of some of the basics We could do that more than once and um and be able to do that with the town employee Down trees. Thank you. Just a fire department. We'll go out there after a band storm and cut up our trees Thank you very much, but you know, um, you know to get a town employee would be able to do that Um, the road grade is done when you need it. Uh, right now we've had road signs that have been sitting around and we're trying to get a contract to cut road signs It's not like a hundred and twenty bucks a sign.  The road commissioners does not do that road. It's not able to do any of that work Okay, we have a line item in the road budget. It's fine. We have some road commissioners did thank you Jim Okay, but he didn't get paid And it wasn't part of his job And i'll tell you roads have gotten so much more complicated. It's primitive with uh, you know, there's a general permit out here now All the ditching that you see with these the rock line all that stuff is required by the state across the town's money Um cleaning the culverts. We never do if we get up that doesn't happen If we had somebody wanted to clean the culverts down in we'd probably alleviate a lot of the flooding We have to open 300 culverts in this town and a lot of them need to be repaired Again, we can do that with the road guy that can go out there and can't do it The mulling the road signs like I said The town the town person would be able to go out and work during the storm and get some of the work done We might have been able to save like post office so slide this year With the town employee out there in the storm. We might have been able to get that tore it up So we didn't have to spend what the state's making us spend to do it to do it, you know We could have perhaps done that We'd have we'd have somebody that would Be able to work more directly with the state and FEMA on some of these projects Send an employee to training And understand the all the regulations that are coming on right now Kevin does a great job doing that But you know, we would be able to do that more Um, it's a full-time employee to do Sanding and plowing and somebody that we could direct At this point we would not hire a road commission This person if we were to select someone would be managed by the selector I have two questions, and I don't know anything about roads, so if I have sound data I'm sorry This would be like their Designated job. This would be a full-time job They wouldn't be allowed to work on other roads And you could guarantee that that would be true So None of you need people to work on it You know, I've seen it happen. This person would be there like So you're saying that we that we would guarantee that's the only job that they would have is this job This would be a full-time job, and that's a good point because right now contact us to all kinds of other things We're not in the job because one person it's hard to one person do all things you're talking about Would that come out of their salary or is there money for that?  I mean, you know, you'd have a back-up person for that Marilyn so it's again, and then he's plowing and then he's up at eight to come back to work for Just like a road How many people are doing it now Most of it's not one contract to come with one truck with bottle roads because when we walk down the ball mill We saw like two of these It's about two hours to do 16 So if you've had snow going at four inches an hour, you're in trouble no matter what you want I'm sorry You know, we looked at a bunch of other towns that have had a road cruise ever small Pittsfield has 16 miles a road They've had a guy doing it for what 10 years or something and their budget's right in with what budget we have here So it can be done and the lct's talked about some other towns and that'd be really good luck with it so I was you know Questioned myself and bruce at four at the beginning wasn't even on board at all and he started He looked at some trucks from cabin and He thinks it might work. I think it might work, but It doesn't work. We're not doing it. You don't find it the right person to take the job and labor was a little bit too and You know, you can't You can't put a person on a fixed salary and expect them to work 80 hours a week and 20 hours the next Everything over 40 hours the overtime and in order to have a fixed salary or somebody goes in Works like that. You have at least two people that they've added to we have one person one person total Sean does the question that we're going to go to ken and jim It's more like a statement. Yeah, I got to believe that one person can do all this work at one time But second, you're going to be spending 175 thousand with interest on trucks And you're going to let them sit outside if it's 20 below or zero Are you going to work on them? Are you going to transform? What are you going to do with the oil? What are you going to do with the fluids coming out of it? Are you going to put them in the firehouse? Pull the fire engines out and have them freeze up if you have to work on them. It's just And as we sit in here correct me Daniel would be saying I believe this building's condemned up on top Can't we use some resources to put fix the building that's falling down instead of buying old trucks All right, we can possibly equipment up easy enough Let me just say you're not going to drop enough on the equipment This is a good time because a lot of the bigger towns and cities They keep a truck for three or five years and they get rid of right So right after town meetings when a lot of these good used vehicles Come right on the market and you know a five-year-old truck is down a piece of crap That's got to last another 10 years if it's kept up right I agree with that The equipment is the easy part I think your your Employee is going to be your hardest part of this whole thing And you're working as comp is just going to eat you alive We're the municipal We're covered by a lot of new cities and towns So all of that is built into the budget But excuse me Jim Jim had to use the next line and then Okay, um what's not I have a difficult time voting for this because of the lack of you talk about a number Where we're going to finish 8,000 the benefits We don't have a job description You're on the select board now. We'll have that next Monday The power's not going to put all this together Wait, but I'm wasting my time wait a minute. I've got a lot of people But he's interrupted here up to Kenny. You can't give her up. I'm sorry Why the rush Is my thought okay, you know why when I heard about this thing going down I thought well don't be worked on maybe you know a year after this It's it's too premature. It's not well prepared There's there's no consideration over time in the winter time It's going to cost you a lot more and it's going to have a lot of time Just because of late the season In the summertime he's going to be straight out Can you imagine his job now he's going to spend he's going to spread 2500 yards of gravel Right, he's got it greater to do it. He's got a truck to haul So he shows up I guess to park out somewhere behind the sand pile. It's at ruin And Now what's going to do? How's he get up there? How's he get two vehicles up there? So he can work the two vehicles and get them back at night The efficiency and number scale means a lot. That's how this society has become what it is today Michael You won't hear from me the rest of I mean I can see in the future that perhaps Hand down hand down As a combined effort gets a road I know you're shaking head right about the movies But uh things are changing The fire department's going to end up combined at some point in time And you know, we're going to get closer to the front Yes, what I'd like to say is like bottom line by getting it up to again is that I do not feel comfortable voting for something. I have so little information on The overtime is not in there If you're going to be over budget, the workman's office is not there That person, you know, just the The mechanics of doing it imagine any one of you sitting around here Trying to get 2,500 yards of gravel up there and spread It's probably going to take you a month and we don't want to be inconvenienced because You know, it's not great at all What I used to do, I'd have a crater And a minimum of three trucks sometimes bottomed it So we went through and it wasn't anything to do with Just a couple of points. Um This would be a boat flying job This would be paying on the hours And you may not be able to get the person that we need by the by the rate that we can pay and factor in that overtime Because you are going to have to pay time and a half overtime over 40 hours Okay, and some of that can be divided up into comp time during slow time. Yes, you can do it Okay, we can do the contract up front. I want to check the news You can do time and a half comp time and do it at a time when When the town doesn't need service Okay, who do you talk to? I talk to the department of labor That's not the story I get I wish I had a second, five, five, two yet I'll talk later I know it's like we're spending a lot of time reviewing this. You just ask that person to spread open his jacket So you can see his chest Because that's the only person I mean this is that's an incredible gem. This is but I think You got to start somewhere We have Dennis back there and then Victoria and then This year the rose was in the ice we had It's been a tough year and the rose would never get better through the winter all the years I've been branching off of I think Dennis just said You know the roads have been absolutely terrific this year If we expect that level of service to continue from Whether it's a contractor or A road crew that we might have then we need to provide the same equipment and the same personnel To provide that service it would stand the reason right So in speaking with some of these guys that are doing our roads this year They've told me that there are quite a few weeks through this winter that both drivers have put in 60 plus hours in a week So for the proposal to come across that one person is going to be able to put in 120 hours a week To keep it that's completely outrageous How does Fitzfield do it back? They have one guy They have the they have the help of They have one guy that does he cleans all these not the only one doing it He needs help he calls it and we have a backup person in the budget. We have a backup for For $2,500 Yeah, you and Richard will comment and then You know, even if this is a good idea or an idea to comment The figures that we have and the way it's just not completely left I think to make it a real good decision and I would move to table it So we have more power freedom I didn't I'm not doing that Yeah, what did you say that? I know I might things just driven a ribbon Probably had to spend a good many hours coming all the way down from Duxbury They are in northfield But they keep the equipment in Duxbury And we had great reservations about that one When we hired him to do the job it was a reputation that You know brought it through And as you just said they've done a tremendous job They've done the best job up seen since I've been here and Who's to say we're going to have next year It's worth a bump up of money to me. Maybe a bump up. Maybe they say listen We don't really want to be in the cloud business Yeah, so If you're looking for certainty, you're not going to find it anywhere really If we can get somebody well, what I think Bruce is saying was It really revolves around finding the right person To spearhead this and do it and if we can't If we had any doubts or any reservations about that at all We would not waste that on the town. We'd have to be just the right person One other side is that with Kevin we had a fellow from Vermont Rural roads down here and these people Are retired road foreman.  The state pays them to They come around and talk to towns about the issue and we were at it for a few hours. We've been over many many details And he said, you know, I can't say And I remember his bottom line was he said you probably Your town probably will save a lot of money, but you'll get much better service if you can get right in person So Is it there's this in there and I think we're we want to receive very carefully Not to get in trouble We definitely wouldn't go ahead unless we had the right kind of personnel in place Kevin did you have something Those guys We've had instances where we've had slippery roads. I've been calling the state police or from the Residue And they're out doing something else. It's two hours before they get here. That's not their fault. I'm not Discrediting them at all. But you know, that's a long time for us to wait for Contractor to get here Judy To center on finding the right person What I don't see that if we were to vote for this Moving ahead with this We're not committed to anything It's a vote to say Yes, pursue this And as Bruce said if we don't find the right person all bets are off Is that accurate We would have another special time meeting to right so it would entail some more town meetings, but voting For this article Is just Giving the go ahead to pursue these possibilities It's not Locking us into that situation. Well, thanks a lot for our work from slump or two Proceed with this Okay, then um jim and then i was going to say k Take before me. I'm also artist I agree I just want to say that um, we were saying not well thought and they may not have put everything On paper here, but they've done a very careful job in looking into this And I told that to you jim at the last select board meeting you came to that meeting and you said Where's the detail? And we and we said to you well, where were you the last like for me in the last one before that? I mean they've been going through a lot you them a chance to follow through with this because they've worked their butts off on this And like judy said just means they can see if they can line up this guy with the s on his shirt If they can't then we go back to the regular budget The two of you are talking about There wouldn't be any buying and equipment for instance what it all goes on sale march Until they knew that they had the person The car the car is the equipment and I just want to know that that's what the First thing we need to do is advertise for a position to see what we get So we're not we're not going to go we're not going to go for that equipment and any thousand dollars with benefits Is our ceiling on what we would be able to do and But that's a good job That's a great job But you're gonna Also, if the person has the expertise we're looking for we want his value judgment on the equipment Okay, so basically the suspect board wants the ability to take all of this into consideration Test some of these scenarios Now my next question is what's your timeline I mean because there has to be a flip at some point because you're in essence saying Okay, this is what we'd like to propose what we want the chance to try and investigate See how far we can go with it and then at the same time we have a budget two pages over That would then it would be one of the others. So we're setting Give us the opportunity to investigate this and then we won't have a discussion On the other budget, is this correct? And then but then it seems to me there needs to be a timeline and possibly even another meeting to allow us all to understand What's going to happen and what's going to happen What we would believe what we would do is next Monday I will go over the job description and a Advertising for the road form. We would put that in the paper right away We'd let it go out there for a few weeks See what candidates we get bring them in for interviews If in this position would start July 1st If we found the right person the next thing to do is to take that person and look for the equipment Okay, if we pass the first hurdle at nine the guy with the s on it, we get a tough job But it's a good paying job. Okay If we find the right person that can do the job, okay, so we're confident in the next step is to go and get this equipment So if we don't find the right person live a special town meeting To go back to the other budget If we find the right person and we can't get the right equipment in that budget Again, so this has to be all done in there two months or so So, you know, we'll know one before July 1st I'm gonna take Sean who hasn't spoken on this particular subject and then Ken and Ken Did I just hear you say if we find the right person then if we can't get the equipment That it's over. So this person that you would find They're gonna have like a five-year lease, but then if you can't get the equipment, you haven't gotten a five-year lease This person would be could be hired Knowing that we would have to go out and find equipment Okay, would that be a paid job to go out and help us find the equipment And it would start to be would start to pay well July 1st Who would quit their job for this job Yeah, you don't really There's like a bunch of rumors going around about we're just going to give Kevin back to the job. We're going to interview The best person we can get this is based on Money that these guys make in the garage Okay So, you know, it's $25 an hour. There's a lot of the things included. There's work that's comp. There's Retirement and other things I think somebody needs to ring you guys in a little bit I don't like either scenario of your budget for your road or your budget for your new town road company your road company is You're trying to make it look like it's going to be better than a town road budget Is what you have arranged already The the town roads Yeah, they're great this way cost a lot of money for sand A lot of money to flower I think that needs to be rained in I don't think you need the extra sandpile I don't think you need the extra $12,000. That's a gravel. I don't think you need the extra Extras that keep going into our budget. I think Perhaps if you could get your roads done a little bit cheaper Maybe put up with it a little bit.  Maybe the road performance can go out with the york brake Instead of having a greater tone and charges I think it's it's way out of proportion for the size of our town and for the size of our pocket books We uh We're not pett's field pett's field has a big grand less compared to ours I don't argue with anything that you're saying Okay, and um the problem is that we get so few people willing to do the work as a contractor We've had more and more different outcome Great. Yes outcome I don't I really don't know Okay, because some of the specifics on the contracts are so waxed that none of the contractors can fit the bill in the contract Thank you. Uh, good to get another question. I'm not done yet. Uh, oh Okay, we'll give you one more minute I jumped in and I'll be quiet discussing that before So you make the statement to select where it answers and then we go on to the next Well, I wasn't done making my statement It's like this picture on the front of this piece of paper here That is a great development Looked like a development to me with the stone line ditches. It doesn't look like a town road that I used to in grandville You know, it's not the old country lane. I used to go up here. It's not I mean, it's got stone line ditches and they're on the flat We've got the stone line ditches that have been replaced Replace the other stone line ditches that were in there for not that long Um, I just I don't know why we're going to keep throwing money at it We'll keep taking what part what's already been done and Making it look like it's about No Our past school and you know, this month we had a couple, let's go. It's been unfortunate to get our car cleaned up I mean, because I we got bottomed out, you know Respond quickly to the stone line ditches. Those are the requirements I know why you oversaw that thought We put them in, you know required by the state of ramon Yep, depending on more and more often because with the clean water initiatives, they're requiring that all the time 5% is 5% yeah, you can I'd like to We're calling the question Uh, will she uh, call the question And she cited the call So we have to vote on that first We continue discussion Then let's see how this would work. Let me make you see if I can make this clear You call the question seconded you vote on calling the question if it's voted down We can discuss tabling Sorry So, uh, we have Cheryl called the question Yeah, just uh, what is the is the majority vote here? It's two-thirds to call the question Right, so it's not just major central majority is two-thirds to call the question And then uh, so we have 48 people vote in the In the select, I don't know if we have the same number here, but before we get two-thirds It would have to be a hand vote or a cross to figure out a two-thirds Ah, correct, correct There's so many voters, I guess Yes, there's so many voters So does someone with a quick math mind know? Very good, perfect Okay, so the motion has been made to call the question seconded Everybody in favor of calling the question raise your hand You can vote, I can't vote Two, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 18 Let me explain what's happening If you want to continue the discussion Stand up now What's that? The question has been called We're voting on this So the question is how we want to vote Right, so let me read the article one more time Shall the voters of Grandville approve a budget of 199,800 to purchase road equipment And hire a full-time road foreman To perform the necessary road work for the fiscal year starting July 1st, 2018 I'd like to recommend that we do a paper ballot Just a second So if you write yes on it Then you are approving of this If you write no You are rejected Is this as much fun as Rochester? To site, to take down names and make sure to sort them Yeah We could tell you there's ghosts $264 to meet expenses and liability now And authorize and select orders to tax rate sufficient to provide the same Question? Discussion on this? Yeah Oh, do you know what you guys refer to? The entire municipal budget of the road has been on pages 10 through 13 So while that's up in the session We zero the grading $7,500 I go to every single meeting in the past two and a half years I missed two And I recall last June They started grading It was like they were out of cash The town was out of money And they started grading If they waited to July 1st For the new budget They would have been within budget there With $7,300 deficit So that $10,000 And what they do this year They added the $7,000 So now $17,000 So I think it should be decreased By $7,500 My second item Is the dust control $4,900 They did not fill the tank The town did not fill that yellow tank It still has a half a tank full That tank Half a tank lasted all last year They still have another year's work Calcium chloride Put on the roads I say strike that out of there You don't fill it until the following year Because that will last until all this year That's my point of those points So Let me just clarify something before we go You made two statements Which could be And the budget Yes So You need to phrase that What line item and what you Change it to I was looking at $5,200 $3,000 $13,000 Okay $5,200 $3,500 What about the $20,000 Your cost of the time That's not your main of this conversation You don't have to be a store loser I'm not a store loser I congratulate you today Is there another question Is there a motion? No, there's not official motion The prices You can see the phrases hand Oh, you have a question for Kevin Yes, can you just explain some of the increases And why Dust control costs So if you didn't pay my hand Because we're always a little much younger You got a great price You do that So line item My line item Really tough to talk I would suggest that people want to adjust things Have them adjust the bottom line Or the rows or the bottom line To discount me And that basically sets the slack To management That's a good thing It brings up that the town budget Generally Is a guideline for the slack And they can spend it however Yeah They can't cross over And spend it on this You can do this And I was amazed to see That we had a 25% increase And a low budget Our actual Spending last year Was $187,000 No Our budget was $167,000 And we spent a year at $187,000 Okay So we're talking two years We're talking the year that ended in June Last year Even so, I think that We're going to get a 208% increase And Well, the road I don't need a dungeon I don't need a truck If you want to go down To the road commissioner I mean, they have $2,500 To allow our road commissioner To go out And get paid $20 an hour Or whatever To clean some culverts To do some things right now The road commissioner's stipend Is totally separate I mean, Kevin does a great job I think of dealing with all the Contracting that we do Of dealing with all the Permitting that we have to get Rocks and pitches and stuff That you have to follow Because all that stuff for his stipend Okay He does not have any Ability to go out And clean culverts Cut up trees Do that kind of stuff So we put a token amount in there That we could have for an hourly wage Take that out But we thought it was good to have that in there So that we could Have some In-house help And that was related too To the supplies These would be town supplies They might be a chain store They would be owned by the town A couple of shovels It's not big equipment And that would again be so that We could get some things done In-house, putting up signs Would be something that you could do For $120 an hour $25 Okay The mileage I did a fair calculation here And That 53 cents a mile That's pretty close to what you're paying That's 4,717 miles If he drove The speed limit It would take him 113 hours To get that mileage That seems just like Last year we spent $1,900 And I assumed he Fills out a time-treatment to us So you know what you're... He's also out a lot, I'm sorry Yes, you are Okay I guess The other thing I would add That I know a little bit about Is permits at $3,000 Is focused on You did it because that's what you were told originally But that's all we need And he said, yeah, it's ridiculous That telegrams It will pay $3,000 For this permit This is for the What-a-paul thing And we'll pay $3,000 for their permit The Senate was quite aware That this was not cut So you know That's the background Basically that's a mandate for now We've got to get a general permit Every culvert we do now Is an all-in-one permit And you've got to pay $0.75 a square foot Or something for a permit Plus other costs Plus other costs, but the permitting Has just gone through the roof That's why we put a line on the permit And it totally is unfair Because you're right, it doesn't matter On the population of the amount of roads you have They're giving us a fixed amount Kevin, is that $2,400 a year For the general permit That was recently It was $200 per culvert For what? Yeah I mean these are all things That are still in the plugs That's the law now That can change That's the law now There's didn't fit a long regulation Okay, that's the regulation Like I said, you could overrock that this year I wouldn't put it there Yeah, just saying 25% For the site board is On the plow income On the plow in the sanding Is that the bids Since you guys voted down to The road crew And the bids come out more than The total for the plow in the sand Are you guys going to have to come back To the taxpayers and ask For more money? We will not have to We won't, we'll have to take what we can get So everybody be adjusting What's that? Or we can amend the amount now You can amend the amount now, absolutely But he said if it goes way up If it goes way up, what do we do? We need special town meetings And the answer is no We could rob a $50,000 deficit Because we can't get the contractors to do the work And that would go on to the next year's tax bill When you figure out the tax rate I had a question about the FEMA match The $10,000 Is that In anticipation of FEMA projects Or is that We take that line, I have been there First time this year Because We have about half a million dollars worth of Work that needs to get done Hopefully FEMA's going to come through and say They're going to come, they haven't said that But we've got to get the work done We've got to fix the slides, we've got to fix that broken culvert On the Connecticut Trail If we don't get FEMA help, we're going to have to take out For the town to fix those things The best that we can hope for Is that the town will have to pay 12.5% Of those storm damage That storm damage So 12.5% on A $60,000 So this is just A little bit of money to put in there To try to Cover some of the FEMA Match costs That's a scary part Just going Regardless of whose road Commission they're on What you're doing towards In this situation Is a big position in the town And it used to be That we had a road commission and they got paid I'm not going to be wrong, it's numbered $1200 to do the same thing Sort of, I know, regulations have changed That is happening now And every year You keep adding more perks More bends, more expenses to the taxpayers I mean When you do the numbers as Jim touched on And it's funny, I mean work numbers So I did the same population he did I sat here and I said, well That would mean I'd have to drive from here to Watesfield 148 times To get that amount of mileage And if you do it based on the 16 miles of roads That we have, you'd have to drive All of our roads 300 times Okay, so I know that this is like But I mean, you people are Of this community, which is a very important Position in this community And you make a lot of decisions for all of us In the taxpayers You haven't had an increase in your positions Since I came here over 30 years ago So How have we lost the perspective Of the road commissioner being a person Who does volunteer a lot of their time Just like I audited Who never got paid for it I mean, no, we've got a speck We've got some small amount, but it doesn't matter About your community And you want to do something for your community And now all of a sudden, we're making it A paid position And it's costing us money And My question is Are there some kind of mileage reports That the road commissioner fills out Or is it just that's a given And I get my check at the end of the year For all those miles Or is there a little piece of paper Where I used to work On the vehicle That I was given for the day When I went back to the office I had to write down What towns I went to How many miles I put on And it took probably 20 seconds To fill that form out And it kept everyone Honest And so, you know And it also is that kind of like So much gas was used or whatever I'm just asking Not, you know, some kind of mileage For all the mileage It was definitely, yes It was a lot of work Kevin had a lot of stuff to do with FEMA I saw him on his days off With the guys Department of Transportation And he put a lot of driving In the last couple of years The last few FEMA You know, he really works hard I don't think anybody gives him enough credit But that's just me This is going to meetings This is, you know, going out When we look at trucks and stuff So that's mileage that's included there too I think like 300 times Around our roads That's one time It's a lot more than Just driving around the road Some days he's going around those roads Twice after a storm Mr. Dade mentioned 25% increase I agree with him Decrease on the whole Itself by a certain percentage And so then they allow this They need additional credit 25% is Far too much of an increase I'm sure you probably need Some more snow Once the finish on the Mileage The federal standard is For mileage is $0.50 Something like that That means you would have to drive almost $5,000 You know, I think our sandpile Is getting diminished quickly And you'll see You know, the manual happens in March and April We could run out of steam That sandpile looks paper But go down there and look at how much snow We'll see Victoria and Jim But this wasn't a really bad Winter event this year And yet we went through more sand Than I've seen in 12 years So that just kind of makes me know What's going on Yeah, I was just going to try and clarify For paper There's a certain percentage And it depends on how cold And how wet the sand is That you can't use This year, because it's frozen And they're making piles That's what all those little piles are And so you have to have A bigger pile of $1,000 But traditionally $800,000 is about $1,000 And we used to just Sand the hills And then the flat When it got to be icy People got used to the sand People got concerned About where driveway comes out That should be sanded so that people can stop You know, we've got our Participations At what times you have to sand So that you can park In anticipation So it's not an easy call I would say that I'm not buying too much sand Because it doesn't pay The other thing I'd like to say too Is that we buy our sand We don't buy fine sand at all We buy sand that After the winter It's three-quarter inch I think that's what Yup And that's another thing Kevin goes out and he looks at the different sand pits To find out where we're going to get our sand from It's a different option You put down playground sand On our roads, it's worthless It goes into the culprits But if you used to have yourself Kits up on cars It could also do better traction And that's the gravity I think Chris, he hasn't said anything yet And you guys Regarding the winter roads budget I think We have seen a great year Griffin Griffin got their contracts With the numbers we had I'm sure they were trying to do a good job It seems like they must have worked well With the town because the results Have been as good as they possibly can Some sand on the flats Can be a good thing too at times For sure But Now that we've not accepted the other budget Would we be looking for another One-year contract with them Or possibly extend To a multi-year contract To secure them if they're going to be Maintain them within our budgets Our contract does have a renewable And movie price So we wouldn't have to have to pay If they come back We'll see what the rest of the winter comes With I don't think we'll get it for $44,000 Not paying them and just using A little more sand And results has been great So I mean the sand Is part of the good job Some years you get more ice Then you use snow I would rather keep it in there And see if we can come in For the total budget I don't know What we're going to get from them But if we put in A 20% increase They're going to go to 25% So if you've got your budget That goes up a lot That's the starting point Is there a reason why You don't do a three-year contract You may be able to negotiate A lower bid If you secure them With a three-year contract I mean they have to buy equipment To satisfy our needs We would have been four times This was the best we could get So we were going to do A multi-year contract At least we have a closet That we can negotiate Yeah see them showing hands If you wanted a paper ballot I would just like to say I want to be general on board here Looks like we've got a guy Who's really scrutinized this As we go forward So just like I said It's for over budget If we're over budget The taxpayers pay it next year If we're under budget Okay, so we're all square way. We're going to vote on Article 5. We're going to read each of the town of Granville, vote to accept the budget of $398,264 to meet expenses and liabilities of the town and authorize the select board to set the tax rate and submission to provide the same. A vote of I, or you ask me, the budget passes. They're asking for a raise of hand. It was on the floor to do it by hand. It was seconded. I think they should do it by show of hand. Okay, so all in favor of Article 5, raise your hand. Purpose of repaving town roads. This is in there for, we put some money in the past years for the bottom of Maston Hill post office sale, but it's not paving new roads. So it's to repave the road. I think the estimate that we had to just pave Maston Hill was $24,000 or something a couple of years ago. Chat about it. I'll stop. How much? $26,000 or $64,000. All right. Paving is expensive. Paving is expensive. Maryland. How much is in there now? $6,000. We just started these last years. So there's $6,000. Seconded. All in favor of calling the question, say aye. Aye. And a vote. OK, so we'll get a vote on Article 6. Shall the Town of Granville vote to increase the highway capital investment account in the amount of $6,000 for the purpose of repaving town roads? All in favor, say aye. Aye. And a vote. Article 7. Town of Granville will vote to increase the capital account for the purpose of covering expenses for fire protection in East Granville in the amount of $500. The other question has been moved. Seconded. All in favor of calling the question. Aye. OK. All in favor of Article 7, say aye. Aye. OK. Oh, anybody opposed to Article 7? Sorry. I don't want to move on to Article 8. Would be your own life if you weren't sitting there. Really? Once a second. Article 8, shall the Town of Granville elect two additional selectmen for a term of two years each as described in 17 VSA 2650 B? This was a petition article that was brought to the select board when we put on the warning. And I don't think it's necessary to have two more select people on the select board. I think over the years it's been difficult to find three common people that have been under meetings and participate. Not totally adverse.  Well, there's nothing true about that at all. We've never discussed anything, made any decision, contemplated any kind of business of the town without the public as select would be. A small town would obviously have people that have a beer together, walk a walk together. So there's really no conspiracy or any kind of action that we take individually. You know, because the open meeting law says that if two people go to a meeting, then it's gotta be work. So if two of us go to a meeting, we're really supposed to have that warned that there's a select board meeting, okay? It's a difficult thing. If you have five people on, then two people can talk all day long and make up decisions and everything else to try to sell to the other people and that's not gonna sell off. With a three-member board, it's difficult.  It's not true. So I just wanna make that clear and I just had this one. There's a belief in three of it to go to five. This will take effect at the next town meeting or the next specially called meeting. So we'll have two more people if you decide to think about it. People who submit the petition, what is the advantage of being doing this? They can, yes, I don't have. I mean, I don't have a clue. Did anybody understand the question before? Petitioners would like to speak but I'd like to hear too. So I'm the culprit. I wrote the petitioner. So I just wrote down some pretty quick pros and cons here. About the only con I can come up with is, well now we have to find two more people to serve on the board. We sometimes have a hard time getting three. But just going off what you just said, Bruce, if there were a five person board, that might alleviate some of the accusations that there are collusion. There is collusion going on because now there's five. Well, almost impossible for that to happen. The next two are people including themselves. Yeah, yeah. So pros, it's easier to have a quorum in attendance at meetings. If you have somebody or two people that call out, they're sick, they're on vacation, they have work, they can't attend. You still have the three there that can actually vote and make a meeting happen. You can delegate responsibilities amongst a much larger group. If people are willing, absolutely. But I think, I mean, you guys put in a ton of time into the traditions and you don't get compensated for it really. If we have more people there, you have a more broad representation of the sentiments of the community. It makes for an easier solution to situations where there might be a conflict of interest. In small towns, we're friends with everybody. Basically, we all know each other. We have some kind of connectivity. Well, if there's two members on the board currently who are friends with a contractor who's bid on work, well, they have to recuse themselves, really. Or it could be considered a conflict of interest. Well, now you have one person that can actually vote on it. That isn't gonna work. Now, you would also have two positions that have shorter terms on them. In this case, I picked two years you could have one. That might be more appealing to people who are looking to kind of get their feet wet and really short about local politics and if they're gonna like it, they might not be ready to commit for three years. And then last, institutional knowledge can be retained easier. What I mean by that is if every year we would be electing two selectmen, you would still have three who are currently on the board who know what has transpired over the last two or three years. They've probably been through some training. They know what's going on. They can teach these two new people coming in where right now you have a three-person board. If one resigns, one's due to be reelected, you have one that has to train these other two. Maybe they've only been there for a year. I don't know. So that's all I have. I don't know. 55 people, what do we do? Just continue with whatever we can find. What do you mean, if you couldn't find, if you couldn't find? So the most we could do is four. We will point out the select board. The select board, if there's a vacancy of death or somebody leaves town, then the remaining select board members appoint until the next annual meeting. Sean? So we're gonna pay two more people to another $500, so it's another $1,000. Well, each select person gets $500 a year. So now you're gonna be paying another $1,000 for two more guys. And my question is, all the people I saw that signed on the list, how many of you guys are willing to be on the select board? What? Select guys. When I read the petition, it made sense to me, I think it's just easier to break a tie with more people. You know what I mean? That was mine. I think it's easier to have more money isn't it? If you have two extra people. How do you do that? I mean, how do you elect them? How does it work out for them? And people get elected each year. People are what? How does that work? If you did, you could sign somebody to work together. Point it out. One of the problems we've got, we've got three guys up there. We would like to see more place to go in, and instead of saying select men, they select a person. Man, it's just, you just slipped a tongue.  I'd like to just say that, we have not had a meeting right now. We did not have one, we had to cancel a meeting. So we've had, the best majority of our meetings, we've had three select board people out. There's been an occasion where we'd only have two, but we've never had a lack of attendance. Kate, first, could you get into talking to one of them? Well, I just want to commend Daniel's well-fought-out consideration, and I appreciate what he said. I really do. I think he, because I didn't know why I hadn't thought about it. That said, I think it's been very difficult over the years to get enough people to have five people. And I agree with what Vivian said. I think that how many people just go up in for a year here and a year there is a people who are getting out just for a particular issue instead of having a longer view of a three-year. Merrill? I agree with most of the points that have been made, and Daniel's argument and favor of it, but I do think that sometimes there's a whole part of the population that's unrepresented on this board, just talking neighborhoods or sections of town with concerns over the road, and we have the fortune of living under 100, so we don't have to worry about the condition of the roads, although we're concerned for everyone else, no representative with the board. No, nothing. Anyone who runs the board? Judy's moving to call with questions, ceasing discussion. All second. Okay, Cheryl. Paper bell. Wait. Yeah, all in favor of ceasing. Say aye. If it gives the temp, we will be approving a five-member select board to be in effect the latest next March, right? A no means we keep it as it is. Article 8, 24, no, so Article 8 does not pass. Who's seconded it? I think she was just saying, I think Jamie's. Jamie's. Oh, yeah. Moving Article 10. I think she's not, I don't know if she's not. So the town of Grandville vote that overdue taxes will bear an interest rate of 1% per month, or perhaps an error of 1.3 months, and then 1.5% after a month, and 3% after a 10% or 30 to be a second. I call the question. I'll say it. Everybody. Kate called the question, Cheryl seconded it. All in favor of calling the question. Aye, aye, aye. Opposed? All in favor of Article 10? Aye, aye. I have a fore said meeting in June as something to say. I do, I do. I just would like to make an urgent plea to interested people to join the planning commission. We will need to re-adopt amend our, and or re-adopt our current plan by June of 2019. June of 2019, there are three of us working now. One of us is jumping ship. That's me. And not really need some help. Young people, this is a good opportunity to get involved. We're not going to do everything. We're going to do it all in the future. I'm going to do it all in the future. I'll do it this month or three. Okay. I think. I'll do it all. Judy. Yeah. I'll do it all. Yay. Just a couple things. Just as a reminder, I'm going to make sure you don't get licensed by the first day of call. And number two, March 21st, if you didn't notice the folks here, March 21st is a Wednesday night as the rabies clinic at the Hancock Firehouse from five to seven. And there's a poster up there. Oh, there's some. I just, probably if the town clerk today might do the licensing. March 27th? 21st. Mark, send something to the girl.


Hi friends, Janae would be procure with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for mayor, city council and more will be using rank choice voting and all burling to voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with rank choice voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Rank choice voting is a simple way to let voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporters votes will count towards their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Rank choice voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about rank choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2024. Hello and thank you for tuning in to Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. My name's Bobby Lucia. This is one in a series of forums that we host an advance of Town Meeting Day Tuesday March 5th, which features municipal officials explaining what you'll see on your ballot as well as the candidates running for office. On tonight's program, we're diving into the proposed ballot questions for the City of Burlington and we're joined to do that by Burlington's Chief Administrative Officer, Katherine Shad. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Awesome. So before we get started, just a reminder that if you are tuning in live, we welcome your questions at any time at<PHONE_NUMBER>-802-862-3966. You can give us a call and we will hear your question live on air in the studio. So with that, Katherine, I'll hand it over to you as we pull up your slides here and hear a bit about what Burlington residents will see on their ballot this Town Meeting Day. Great. Thank you so much. We are excited. Town Meeting Day is just over a month away. I thought that we would start with some ballot logistics before we jump into what the questions are this year. First, all active registered voters in Burlington will have a ballot mailed to them by February 14th. If you don't receive a ballot by the next week, February 21st, you can reach out to City Hall to the Clerk Treasurer's Office. This is a reminder. On that day, Vermont also has a presidential primary. Those ballots are not automatically mailed to all voters, but if you want that mailed to you, you can request it online. You can see that here. Or you can go ahead and call the Clerk Treasurer's Office and the numbers here. The number is also online. One more slide of logistics. You may recall that Burlington has undergone redistricting of our wards since our last election that has become official. So it is possible your ward and polling place may have changed. My office has recently mailed out postcards. So if you've received that, you may have put it aside, see if you can find it. If you can't, no worries. You can feel free to call us. You can look on the website here and find that information easily. You can also feel free to return your ballot directly to City Hall in advance of the election or one of the ballot boxes you find around town. Now, what are you going to find on that ballot? Unlike last year's ballot, where we had a large number of questions, this year we just have three. The first is the school budget. The second will be the public safety tax increase. And that's what we'll talk about most of the time that I'm here with you today. And the third one is a BED charter change. I'm not going to spend any time today talking about the school budget question because you are lucky enough to be joined by some of my colleagues next week. And there is a whole separate conversation about that. And I encourage all viewers to tune in for that. There's also a full packet of information at the school district's website. And I have listed that here. What will actually appear as the third question on the ballot, but I'm going to talk about it second here because it's kind of a quick one, is something involving Burlington Electric Department or BED as we call it. And this one is what you could think of as kind of taking care of some housekeeping business. At BED, they have a revolving line of credit. That revolving line of credit is temporary borrowing and it allows them to have working capital. That is in case they should need it. If it's not something they've needed since 2013, so for the past 10 years. But it's an important metric because BED every year gets assigned a credit rating by Moody's. And they need to have a certain amount of days cash on hand available. And having this line of credit increases that number of days on cash days on hand. So they are asking the voters to increase that revolving line of credit from five million to ten million. The five million dollar limit was set in 2007 and of course their budget has grown tremendously since then. It's important to note that this is something that BED's revenues pay entirely. This is not something that affects city taxpayers and the purpose of this is really keeping rates low for customers and rate payers of Burlington Electric Department. And so this is BED's ability to borrow from the city or where are they borrowing from? They are borrowing actually from a private entity. But the reason that it involves the city and this is a really good question is that when they incur that borrowing it is with the full faith and credit of the city. And it is in this case because it is in anticipation of BED revenues and a city charter amendment it has to go through the voters in order to be eligible for that increase. And there are no, are there any sort of anticipated big capital expenses at BED or is it really just about the sort of the credit rating that you mentioned? It is really just about the credit rating. They are not planning to utilize this. As I mentioned they have not done so for the past ten years and it is simply to be able to keep a high credit rating but it's not something that they think that they would be using. Okay, great. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, good questions. Let's talk a little bit about the public safety tax increase. The administration is asking the public to vote on lifting the current cap by three cents. The last public safety tax increase was in FY20. So we are entering FY25, so five years ago. The country as a whole has experienced an inflation rate of more than 17% since that time. And of course the city is largely funded by property tax revenue and those do not rise with inflation. You can see here on the slides that the police budget is anticipated just personnel costs to be $1.7 million higher than it was in FY20. Additionally, in last year's budget we deferred asking for a tax increase and as such had to use $4 million of one time funds. We had some of those funds available. Some of them are federal funds, ARPA funds because we knew people were still recovering from the pandemic but we don't have those funds are coming to an end. And you'll see they're still part of a solution here but part of the solution is also lifting this cap.  As I mentioned, those costs have substantially increased. The current police and fire tax really only funds approximately one-third of the budgets. And that is shown on this slide here. So the public safety tax for this current year is projected to bring in about $4.4 million. The overall general city tax, $11 million. And of course that should go to fund things beside public safety but even if we put all of that money towards public safety there would still be 55 percent or more than half of the budgets for the fire and police department that are not funded by the property taxes. So we have had some spirited discussions at Board of Finance and City Council about the increased costs at the police department. And so we want to be transparent about that. Everyone knows that the 30 percent, up to 30 percent of what people have referred to as defunding the police did lead to larger than expected police attrition. And that did lead to savings in FY21 and FY22. And you can see when that slide goes back up that was savings of almost $1.1 million in FY22. There's kind of a lot going on in that chart. But it's kind of in the middle on one of, at the bottom, one of the gray, can I point, can I, no I can't use this, it's okay. But you can see it there. Interested listeners will see it, viewers. And so in FY22 that is frankly when we had the fewest number of officers and we had not yet established our community support division. And the community support division includes some of the very new and interesting and effective resources like the community support officers and the community support liaisons. Those have really helped to amplify what the uniform services officers have been able to do within the police department. But of course we can see at the far right in the FY25 proposed budget that those resources are adding almost $1.4 million of costs. And at the same time we're rebuilding uniform officers and so those costs have rebounded and so there's no longer savings from attrition to fund community support. And the community support line, that's the CSOs and the CSLs, that's okay. That funds CSOs, CSLs and we are finally getting ready to start the CARES program and that is in partnership with UVM and will provide specific mental health resources out of a vehicle. And similar to the crisis response team that the fire department is providing for overdoses, but this will be for mental health support services. And that's in that line too? Yes. And I think this is an important slide, I won't dwell on it, but this really encapsulates the benefits of the tax increase which is really focused on ensuring that we can fully fund both the police and the fire departments. It ensures that we fund the police department for all 77 officers according to the rebuilding plan. It ensures that all of those professional staff under the community line that we just spoke about, the community service officers, the community support liaisons and the other resources here including the public information officer helping to ensure good communication between the department and the public. There are also some important upgrades not beyond staffing such as body camera upgrades and more mental health resources for the fire department. Can you remind me, Katherine, how many officers are actually sworn in right now in Burlington? So before 3pm today there was 69 and we just swore in some officers and I don't know how many there were, so more than 69 today. I am going to go quickly through these slides, but this is just a reminder of everything that the city has overcome as people are making their decisions. We understand that asking for a 3 cent tax increase is a lot. We know that the school, the education tax increase will be significant this year, but again the asking for what amounts to a 4% increase on the municipal side when there has been 17% inflation, we feel is reasonable and there has been a lot happening in terms of trying to keep staff employed and encourage hiring amidst record low unemployment. Here is a quick slide on really how we propose to balance the budget and beyond the public safety tax, which is at the bottom and would raise an additional $1.8 million through the property tax. We are proposing a million dollars of remaining ARPA funds. We are proposing a million dollars would come from increasing just the hotel portion of the gross receipts tax. And we are doing this for a few reasons, chiefly being that hotels are something that are usually occupied by visitors. And looking at this entire chart, you will see as I go through it, we are really looking to see at the bottom there is $9 million here that was initially a revenue shortfall that we needed to try and make up. And obviously we are not going to ask property tax payers to bear all of that. That's completely unsustainable burden. So how do we spread that around? And by asking the hotels to add 2% to what is already a 2% rate for the city on hotels, that would raise a million dollars and it would largely be not on Burlingtonians. These next two items are very interesting and these are things that the city is doing to ensure that we are competitive and that we are operating as leanly as we can. This user fee analysis is something where we are working with an outside consulting firm who is helping to ensure that things like our parking fees or when you take an art class over at Burlington City Arts or you enroll your child in camp through one of the programs at the rec. Are we charging the right amount for that? Are we charging too much? Are we charging too little? But we are hoping, and as you'll see from this graphic, we are assuming that we will be able to increase fees. So that won't hit taxpayers, but it will hit people who use those, take advantage of those services. This city earns 13 million dollars approximately annually from them. So we are looking to increase those fees. Then the city is starting an operational efficiency analysis and that we are looking to save three million dollars over last year's budget and that is not on public safety budgets, so that won't be looking at police or fire. That's partially because we've got a fire study that's wrapping up now and viewers might recall that the police had a study in 2021 and so that has recently wrapped up. But other departments will look at that and then we've got about nine hundred thousand dollars of organic revenue growth and that's growth that happens anyway, I like to say. Do you have questions? Because I can stop there, there's a lot. So the public safety tax, this is something that's bundled into the property tax, so it would be felt in the property tax? That's exactly right, really good question. So Burlington's municipal tax rate is actually made up of several different rates and when people might know when they get a copy of their property tax bill, if they turn it over they will see a few different things. The one that people know the best I think is the penny for parks, it's the most famous. But you'll also see library tax and highway tax and so police and fire is also one of those kind of splinter taxes and so that's the tax we're talking about here and we sort of use public safety or police and fire interchangeably. And you mentioned here that there's about three million dollars of cost savings, are there any anticipated, are there services that city residents are going to lose as a result of the three million dollars in budget cuts that you're doing there? That is a great question. We are really at the beginning of this process and the city council's done an excellent job of asking for regular updates and we will keep them informed. But I think in April and May we'll start having some important conversations as a community about what the impacts might be around those budget adjustments because you're right, that is approximately five percent of the non-public safety expenses in our general fund budget. So in past years we've been able to kind of shave off one or two percent and residents haven't felt that five percent, there probably will be an impact. So just reminding people that assumes that the three percent tax passes and we are doing that and so those things sort of work in conjunction there. Right and none of those cuts will be related to public safety. Excellent. Yes. Thank you for the reminder. That's right. And can we just go back to I think the slide here that summarizes, okay so this is the benefits of if the voters pass this increase, right? So and we talked about how many officers, do you know how many CSOs and CSLs there are in Berlin? Is this the amount of new community service officers and liaisons or is it just the total that we'll have? So that is a great question and I will not take the time to pull up exactly how many we have right now. I will say these numbers are the current numbers that are authorized in FY24 and will continue to be authorized in FY25. It is my understanding that we are pretty close, I think we have five or six of the community support liaisons, they're pretty close to being fully staffed. It is not as easy to keep people in the community service officer position and I don't want to get too far out of my lane here, but I'll just say I've heard from Chief Murad that part of that is because sometimes we get people into that position and then they're able to and want to move to become officers. So that has been something that's interesting, but it has not always worked for us to be able to keep all 11 CSOs. And could you characterize the difference between the community service officers and the police officers? Yes, that is a really good question. One of the things I think we wish we could do over is give them more names that were more different because their functions are quite different. The community support liaisons are essentially professional social workers and they work with our houseless population largely and try and provide them services as they're ready and shelter as they're ready. The community service officers work really closely with our sworn officers and they take calls that don't require a badge or a gun. So think something like a dog that's stuck in a car, someone who just needs some assistance for flagging traffic, sometimes with a more experienced officer and so both have been important resources while we've been down on officers and you can see why sort of for different reasons. I only have a few minutes left here, I have one more question which is just so as where you mentioned this tax increase, you're expecting, you said $1.8 million, do you have a sense of how like we have these benefits here listed, the difference, just how much of that is going into the police department, the fire department versus those other community resources that, yeah. I don't have that, but sorry, I thought the question you were going to ask was how is this, you have the benefits, what are the costs to people? That I have. So let's answer that question because your question I will say we are in the midst of these budget conversations and so those conversations will happen throughout March and April of exactly which money goes where, but I think the commitment is should the tax increase pass, then those budgets will be fully funded. Should it not pass, then I think we're having sort of a different conversation, also we'll need to have that conversation with our new mayor, so there's a lot of things there. But I do want to be upfront with this table here, which is of course only four property taxpayers who would be paying the full homestead education rate. It is also if the full 13.97% education tax rate were to pass, in other words this is your worst case scenario everyone, but we do want to be transparent, so thank you for letting me share that. Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much Catherine. I think we are out of time, but thank you for joining us, Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Shad from City of Burlington and thank you for tuning into Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. You can find this and many other forums that we'll be hosting at cctv.org slash 2024 and on our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel. Thanks so much for tuning in so long.