Make the meeting go a little more efficiently and first thing is I'm going to do is I'm going to put my phone on mute So good morning everyone and welcome to the 2021 town of Berlin pre-town meeting My name is Tom Badowski and I'd like to share with you tips that can make this virtual meeting function well and Ensure a pleasant experience for all All attendees are asked to keep their microphones muted so as to keep down any distracting background noise You can mute yourself by clicking on the microphone icon on the bottom left of your screen Find that You can also turn off your video by clicking the camera icon next to the microphone This is helpful when a participant has poor internet connection and your voice will come over garb garbled if you're using both the video and the and And the microphone so if you turn off your video it may allow us to hear you better if you have poor internet connection the There are two ways to ask questions The first is through the chat button on the bottom middle of your screen Click on that button to ask a question Vince Conti and Diane Isabel will monitor the chat and find answers for you The second way to ask the question is to go to the bottom of your screen and click on the participants icon Once in the participants find your name and hover over it with your mouse and a more button will appear Click that button and press raise your hand This will alert me that you want to speak to the group Again, this meeting is being recorded and Now I would like to that our moderator Paul Geely's had the floor. Thank you for your attention Thank You Tom Welcome to the 230th annual Berlin meeting This is not a meeting where we'll be doing any voting. This would be purely for discussion purposes and We traditionally begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and I hope we'll see a flag we can Pledge to we have that Here we go. Join with me. I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the Republic stands under God Liberty and justice Thank you We are going to take the articles in Order and as Tom explained you can ask questions and we'll find answers for you. So the first article is The election of officers and the first of those is a select board member for a three-year term It's been traditional that if you're a candidate that you might Say a few words and introduce yourself if any of those who will be Candidates would like to speak this is a good time and Then we'll go on to the next there's two select board members for a one-year term That will be on the ballot Are there any of those candidates or any who want to be write-ins who are here to talk about that? Hey Paul Justin Lawrence Been on the select board for two years now Really having a good time. There's a lot to learn and I look forward to hopefully contributing to the town for another year. Thank you Thank you Justin Anyone else? the third officer is for a town moderator for a one-year term and I am the candidate I am in my 21st year and I enjoy doing it and Anyone wants to start picking up after me and that's fine too Let's start with that. Let's go to article two. Shall the town appropriate three million 698,719 dollars for necessary town expenses for the period July 1st 2021 through June 30th 2022 Someone from the select board to talk about this perhaps Yes, the The budget as it's presented is a 2% increase from last year's There are some oddities to it and the fact that we used some of the Undesignated funds or the surplus to buy down debt for this for this year for the So we wouldn't have that Carrying over It shows up in the and then in 2021 budget or 22 budget as a 14% increase in spending, but it's it's just a transfer of funds to this year's to buy down the budget If there's any specific questions, please ask anyone Thanks, Brad Article three This is the longest one we have Shall the town collect its real and personal property taxes to defray the expenses of the town for the period July 1st 2021 through June 30th 2022 and installments One fourth of the talk taxes to be due by delivery or by US Postal Service postmark No private postal meter postmarks honor before August 15th 2021 one fourth of the taxes on or before November 15th 2021 one fourth of the taxes due on or before February 15th 2022 and more than fourth due on or before May 15th 2022 within an 8% Penalty and 1% interest per month or a portion there out to be charged for late payment of any installment This is a traditional article I doubt if it's changed much from year to year, but are there questions or comments about article three a article four shall the Shall the Voters authorize the Berlin SEC select board to seek financing to pay for the replacement of a failed culvert on Fisher Road Payable from revenues derived from the Berlin General Fund tax revenues in an amount not to exceed one million four hundred thousand dollars Subject to reduction from the receipt of available state and federal grants in aid or use of Undesignated funds over a period not to exceed 30 years Perhaps someone could start us with some Background for this cold well, yes the the background on this is The culvert on Fisher Road has had failed and they filled in and and repaved and It failed again within I think was six months We had it inspected the bottom of the culvert is rotting out We attempted to Have it sleeve with an aluminum tube The culvert had collapsed enough so that was no longer round but oval and we couldn't get the hydraulics to work with a sleeve But that left us with Pulling the culvert and changing it out When we Looked at it and got a hold of the state. They no longer wish to have a Solid bottom culvert. They wanted a natural stream flow So what it ended up is we either our choices came down to an arch culvert or with an open bottom or a Bridge the bridge was restrictive in price The reason that the the culvert or the arch is going to be so expensive is when the borings were done Get down to where there's any kind of a footing that would hold the weight It was expensive and this is where we are now Any specific questions on this? I have a couple of questions My name is Tony snow I'm curious is the town responsible for a hundred percent of the replacement of this culvert or the replacement of the repair on this case, yes I'm just curious because I've worked in transportation for for many years for the state of California before moving to Vermont and a Lot of times when you have a high volume road like that where we're accessing CBMC Walmart the The the auto dealerships and stuff like that. They tend to be an expectation of Partnerships with those organizations that are bringing in all that demand because it's not necessarily Predominantly town residents that are using that road. Is there any opportunity for For funds to come from elsewhere. Is it is it really just falling solely on us? It's falling solely on us believe me. We've you can ask Tom. He's looked It just though there may be some expectation. There's no requirements Anything else on that Tom? I also want to point out real fast It looks like there's several questions in the chat that maybe may not be caught Tom I'll answer the Question concerning the the culvert the cost of the culvert the select board was recently applied for a 1% funding of that and that that's reflected in in the budgets on to go forward so the We did pursue other avenues of Funding B. Trans and such we were not eligible for that Any other questions about the culvert issue? all we have had some In the chat that someone said that they could not Raise that I would go back to the budget article for Paulie Mertriek There you go ready to do that. Paulie It doesn't too complicated just to step back one if you want to ask your question now about the budget But my first one is the police budget seems Incredibly high and I know it has been since we've moved to Berlin and I just don't understand Why a small town has one of the five highest police budgets in the state for capita I Don't really understand what the police all do And especially since the state police are going to be moving just up the road from our town offices And one of the things that concerned me is you know, I look at salaries, but Can anyone answer Paulie's question about the police department Well, I think one of the things that's driving the police budget is the retail section of our town The overall budget itself As Not really increased that much on the police side As far as the number of officers we are actually down a few now And we try to make and the chief tries to make up with part-timers I Don't know What was the other part of your question? Well Just there was a This you know, we have like a 6% increase in our Police budget in other towns Are either pretty much level funded Maybe a few percent increase in some towns have a decrease in the budget So I mean that it just it really I know it's been high all along and it's really bothered me Is there other towns with you know strip malls and stuff and they don't seem to have this high approved budget So that's that's a concern I don't know if you can really answer it But I may vote against the budget just for that reason my other question had to do with the The town administrator salary, which was like a 12% increase and much higher than all the other You know town staff and I was just wondering why that particular salary had a higher increase after On the town administrator's budget After going through the LTC and seeing what comparable towns were paying for an administrator We ended up having to offer more money to get somebody who was qualified to Do the work do the job Okay the The same is true with the police chief On the police side, of course the another thing with the increases in the police and the police budget is the is the Contract that's and that's coming up for a negotiation here soon Hopefully we can take and work a deal there or at least they have a Level funded contract. I don't know how that'll work You never do until you get into it Any other questions on that? No, no that explains it. Thank you. Yeah Can I pop in for just a second? Yeah, sure I'm not associated with the police in any way, but I've asked the same question that Polly has before and So the answer that I have gotten in the past was that We have a very high per capita police force Cost because our per capita, you know of residents is fairly low at something like 2,500 or 3,000 people But during the day because of the amount of industry and the hospital and the shopping and you know blue cross and all that our Per capita rises to something like 40,000 people during the day And that's the primary reason that we have the the size of the force that we have is to deal with that huge increase of daily population not residents Interesting. Yeah, thank you Mike Anything else on the budget or We'll go to article five now Shell the town grant a continuation of the municipal property tax exemption pursuant to 32 vsa section 3840 for the period of one year to the capital city range number 469 for property located at 6612 Vermont route 12 in exchange for free use of the property by residents a minimum of two times a month Is there someone from the Grange that will speak to this Yes, I am here. I'm Tim Swartz. I'm the president of the capital city range As many of you probably know the Grange was Planted exemption from property taxes by the Berlin town meeting back in 2016 And that has been a huge Aid in keeping us all since then we're an all-volunteer non-profit organization and The cash flow that we have comes from renting out our hall to community groups individuals and families from Berlin but also all of central Vermont basically And over the years, it's been a struggle to you know, keep keep going The Berlin property tax was one of our largest bills on an annual basis Since being voted the tax exemption in 2016 we have been giving free use to Berlin residents and Berlin organizations and We have done that well up until the pandemic we were over the the two times per month that we had promised We keep we've kept trying to publicize that obviously since March of last year. We've had essentially no use of the hall by anybody so The Berlin uses have been very very minimal The select board asked us to limit the request for one year so that we could have a larger discussion in an in-person town meeting Next year, which seems very reasonable to us and we hope that the town will vote for the article as it stands And then we'll have a more in-person and vigorous discussion next year. I expected that along with continuation I'd be happy to answer any questions that people have about the Granger about this arrangement Anyone I just asked a quick question. I think this is pretty great. I'm just curious some what what's the What are the numbers look like as far as the amount of times you guys have rented out for free and what it would have cost for other folks to rent it Versus the the cost for the taxes on the Granger. I don't have a number for that. I'm afraid our rental rates We try to keep affordable and you know, we have to be competitive with other venues Which includes a lot of places that our tax exempt like churches and things like that property taxes, I mean, we're a nonprofit organization, but We're not a 500 and C3 I don't know the exact number for that. I'm afraid We think we're a benefit in general be in addition to the uses that we get to Berlin Renters for uses we like to call it free rental is a confusing pair Anything else on this article? I've been reminded that it would make sense if you even though your name often appears that You give your name before you give a comment if you're unless of course you're in a continuing dialogue So now article six shell the town authorized cannabis retailers and integrated licensees in town pursuant to seven vsa section 863 Someone to speak to this that article was um Put on put in here by the Angelina and I think she's here so she should be able to speak to it Yep, it was requested by one of our Berlin residents for us to put it on the ballot So I just followed through with that. Okay anybody else comments on article seven Cannabis retailing This is Polly McMurtry and I I sort of thought long and hard about this but and Talk to several people and Somebody made the point that you know we sell alcohol in the town and this is just you know another form of You know a drug that people like to use to relax so I personally don't see a problem with it But I know a lot of people are concerned that Then you know this will lead to drug abuse, but I don't think that's You know that's going to happen any more than it already does people are already smoking So mr. Gillis, this is Vince Conti Town administrator. I'd just like to add a little bit of information For the residents on this as well. There was an article in the paper last Wednesday. I believe it was last week Wednesday around Waterbury as well, but I think it's something that if people want more information on Define to find they can research it a little bit, but it's it's based on An act passed act 164 by the state legislature back in October Which was just creating a framework for legalizing and regulating the sale of recreational cannabis statewide So in order to do this The law requires individual towns and or cities to opt in by a public vote To determine if they want to allow the sale and production of cannabis in their community So again, that's just it's just information for everyone Somewhere they can go to look up further the law around that and also to point out that the retail sales Will be taxed by the state and the town will not get any portion of that tax as well And that's all information that's out there for people if they want to look at that and get more detail The other comments or questions on article seven then article eight Well, that's that was six that seven shelled the town appropriate Two hundred eighty five thousand and seventy nine dollars to the Berlin Volunteer fire department for payment of necessary expenses from July 1st two thousand and twenty one to June 30th 2022 there's someone from the fire department here to speak Good morning, Paul. This is John stop for the Berlin fire department I guess what I'd like to start by saying is shortly after last year's town meeting and and the covid-19 epidemic kind of came into play I'm gonna say that the Berlin fire department really looked long and hard at the budget and was unsure of the economic outcome for our community And so we were ready. We were already working on decreasing where we could There was a few things that Came into play which we were able to to address and use some savings and one is the unfortunate Number of volunteers is not what it used to be so we could actually We had a savings and some gear which was actually somewhere around the three thousand dollars. We were able to decrease our budget by and then the need to Replace a fire truck We were talking at last town meeting about came about and In the purchase of that fire part of that fire truck We also were able to pay off a loan which gave us You know quite a large savings To the budget the overall budget so this year's budget is coming in about eight point three percent less than last year for expenses Good any questions for the fire department? I have a question paul Not really a question to comment I was very pleased to see this year that you have provided us with a very detailed budget Comparing to last year and I just want to commend you on that. Thank you Welcome I should have at some point asked if I know anyone would object if non-residents speak and I've fallen short on that but It's With your permission Anyone who has a isn't a resident could speak and I'd ask that if you are a non-resident that you include that in your Introduction as to who you are Article eight shall the town appropriate thirty thousand four hundred and two dollars to the keloch Hubbard library Anyone Yes, hi. I'm dan green. I'm the trustee of the keloch Hubbard library representing the town of berlin As you can well imagine this year has been a challenging time Um with cova to serve the library patrons and the keloch Hubbard library has really done an exemplary job serving our folks carolyn carolyn brendan is in attendance right now She's the co-director and she's here to give us more information about the library's request carolyn hi I am not a resident of the town of berlin. I live in montpillier um, but I am one of two co-directors at the library And I wanted to say that You know currently well actually I should start by by thanking everybody for Now a number of years of support from the town of berlin. We really appreciate it This year for I think the fourth year in a row. We are requesting level funding from berlin We have a collection of over 70 000 physical materials and 80 000 digital downloadable materials In 2020 for libraries across the state and beyond there has been a big emphasis on increasing digital access for patrons And so we have two new services that I want to make sure everybody knows about One of those is canopy, which is a streaming video service that you can access through our website if you have a library card And which was much requested in the years prior to this year and it's just it's expensive So we hadn't added it previously And the other one is called flipster and that is a magazine a downloadable magazine service And um, so I encourage everybody to check those out. Uh, you can also ha ha check those out. Sorry And uh And uh, oh so the town of berlin pays less than 11 per capita for uh as the cost for the library And I wanted to mention that that is about a third of the state average per capita support for libraries So it is um I know 30 000 is a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things I I do feel that the town of berlin is getting a pretty good deal for library services And the kello cupboard is I've worked at a number of libraries around vermont And the kello cupboard is really one of one of the best And I am happy to answer any questions anybody might have Anyone questions on the library Thank you Thank you Article nine shall the town appropriate 15 000 to the montpellier senior activity center Anyone from the Senior center here. Yes Go ahead Hi, i'm jannah claire and I am not a resident of berlin. I live in montpellier I serve as the director at montpellier senior activity center And we've been grateful for the support of uh town of berlin voters for quite a few years now We are seeking level funding again this year and I'll just share a little bit about how we've been operating in the past year during the pandemic As most of you can probably guess we've had to close our doors to the public for group gatherings But we are maintaining a few one-on-one essential services including foot care clinics in partnership with central vermont council on aging And right now we're doing low contact tax preparation at no cost in partnership with aarp We've also maintained our Meals on wheels and my colleague sara is going to say a few more words about that in just a moment We've pivoted to instead instead of having inside group meals. We've also Started curbside to go meals twice a week We've added an aging and place coordinator this year through the americorps program and through that are able to provide a lot of technology training to area residents and we've pivoted to change our typically about six Dozen weekly classes to online instead of in person We're doing fewer classes, but most of our classes are open to adults of all ages We do primarily serve residents in the surrounding area 50 and up But we're really emphasizing intergenerational activities in our programming We continue to do presentations partner with community organizations we We are really pleased to provide meals on wheels to residents of your town some of your most vulnerable Um, and I'm going to let sara say a few more words about the feast program She's here with me sara lept in our feast program manager Hi, good morning. I am also not a resident of berlin. I live in callous Um, I'm loving serving the feast senior meals program, which msak organized a while back And which I really am happy to clarify for you offers meals on wheels and feast curbside meal pickup on tuesdays And fridays and someday we'll go back to eating together again But last year we served 2,800 meals To seniors in berlin Through our meals on wheels program and anyone is able to access that by calling us It's at no charge to anyone over the age of 60 There were some more restrictions pre-pandemic, but that relaxed a little bit Just to make sure people are getting what they need We also offer wellness calls and check-ins and packages with you know information and resources and We try to bring more than just meals which are delicious and nutritious We try to bring more engagement as well to our seniors at home So we are right around the corner pick up a call anyone you know that needs our services. We are here And I'll just add that we served at least 47 residents of berlin in the past year despite the pandemic And one last point i'll make is that we have some vacancies coming up on our advisory council And we would love to have a resident of berlin Join that group To help advise our staff on our operations. So if anyone is interested or you know anyone that might be interested Please put them in touch with us. We've got a deadline of nominations for march 31st If there's any questions, we'll be happy to answer them Any questions for the senior center? This is polly McMurtry. I don't have a question, but I just want to echo How wonderful that senior center has been I know a number of us older folks in berlin have You know taken part in some of the activities there And i've been thankful that they have been able to continue a lot of the classes on zoom So I don't feel so Unconnected to the others that were in my class It's a very worthy organization Thank you Anything else for the senior center? We'll go on then it's thank you for your time Thanks Article 10 shall the town appropriate 10,920 dollars to the green mountain transit Is uh Is Is there anyone to speak to that? No Okay Article 11 shall the town appropriate I'm sorry and ask a quick question sure what what exactly does that money do for green mountain transit is that Is that for providing services? Is it providing a bus stop? What exactly does that do? Well, if we had someone who knew the answer to that It would be helpful It may be that the Article in the town report would give you an answer to that There's a Series of reports there that you can look at but anyone know the answer to that question Yes Go ahead tom, please It's to help with their general operating expenses It's a it's a common line item in the town of berlin and for many Communities in central vermark which the folks provide bus service in Okay, anything else anthony No, okay We'll go on to article 11 to the town Appropriate 10,000 dollars to the berlin corner cemetery association cemetery not town owned Anyone have anything about that? Hi, I'm jeff mugford president of the berlin corner cemetery and The bcc is the only active cemetery in berlin and is managed by an association The bcc is not a town owned cemetery and the cost of upkeep and labor has made the cemetery unsustainable um With with the help of the berlin residents Uh Last year we were able to put in water and power into the cemetery, which has really helped things out a lot um We also give berlin residents a discount on lots And that's about it For me Any questions for jeff for comments on the berlin corner cemetery itself Article 12 show the town appropriate 6450 dollars to the central vermont home health and hospice Paul I'd like to speak on that by me um I'm pat mcdonnell and i'm a resident of berlin and i've spoken to the pre-town meeting for many years about central vermont home health and hospice I've been on the board and recently serve on um several committees I just wanted to focus not only on their services, which include home care hospice care maternal child health care and long-term care But all the work that they've been doing uh to step up in the Can you hear me should I go off mute? I mean Bye everybody. I'm gonna do that. Okay, so um The during the pandemic They have had multiple free public flu vaccines to homeless at area motels They've delivered over 3 000 prepaid meals via the vermont everyone eats program which has been a godsend to this area They have administered the covet swab tests for patients and residents of assisted living facilities and um Have just reached out to our community to help them in in many different ways starting um having them use telemedicine Just to make sure that we're in constant contact with our with our patients In berlin the number of patients that have been seen by cvh hh is 133 total visits 4406 home care visits 2,700 hospital visits 303 long-term care 1 309 and maternal child health 94 I can tell you that on a personal basis and a professional basis This is an amazing organization everyone in my family Except me. I guess I should say fortunately They have all used their services after surgeries and and illnesses They are just a wonderful organization and we really thank you for your support 80 percent of their operating revenue comes from medicare and medicaid And they set the reimbursement rates and over the last 10 years medicare has decreased the numbers of dollars that they provide and so The the money that we ask from towns really makes up the difference in What what we have is a budget and so we really thank you all for your continued support Thanks. Any questions? I'd be glad to answer Any questions for central Vermont home health and hospice Article 13 to the town appropriate $2,000 to the washington county mental health Is anyone here to speak to that? Yes, hi, i'm john casaris from washington county mental health I I run the marketing communications and development and I just want to thank you all for the opportunity to Provide insight and why we can use berlin's funding support As many of you may know, we've been uh, we're a non-private non-profit organization has provided services to communities in washington county since 1967 we provide mental health developmental services Substance use supports to adults and children and their families Wcmhs provide services to people in schools homes and our office locations, which are primarily located throughout barry Opelier in berlin We also provide 24-hour emergency services working with first responders emt's law enforcement and of course a team at cbm at cbmc 93 of our funding is by state medicaid and we provide about one to two million dollars Per year of free care And we also respond to schools who have serious events and have done this in berlin on multiple occasions throughout the years for in our charge As we take this as a as a as a pretty primary mission as a community mental health provider We also did this following tropical storm Irene going door to door the message We like to give is that we are there for the community and berlin needs us Whether for individuals law enforcement or groups will come We take this on as a mission and greatly appreciate the support Uh with all that said wcmhs is seeking additional funding or funding in the uh In order to provide the care needed to our communities throughout washington county and in particular berlin Uh, we are very grateful for the 2000 granted in past years This past year in fiscal 2020. Uh, we've provided, uh, 6,000 6,739 of the individuals with over 336,000 individuals units of service that's throughout the county In fiscal year 2020. Uh, we've provided a 5971 units of service which totaled 14,043 hours of service to 121 berlin residents Um, those numbers are increasing dramatically as you can imagine I may have seen uh on cax earlier this week That the surge that we're seeing as a result of the covid pandemic has put some Incredible pressures on our on our system and and on the folks in throughout washington county and of course the state um In terms of detail, you know support for case management our total units were uh, 1611 for a total of just under 900 hours clinical services total units were 940 total hours of uh, 605 community support 2900 for 9900 hours Consultation and educational services are just seven hours Crisis 27 hours 27 units of 21 hours and uh, and I can go on. Um, we're requesting as I mentioned $2,000 in order to help continue our work We provide we provide services to our communities that are beyond our standard services and therefore not funded or underfunded The gap between the 93 percent Medicaid funding is significant as you all can imagine In addition, we offer mental health first aid classes throughout washington county for your charge And it's helps to build awareness Understanding about how to help someone who may be in mental health crisis or at risk in developing More serious challenges and we continue to offer many programs that are not fully funded And the support from berlin is very important helping us continue to do this Uh, again, um the impact of uh, of uh, of covid has had a tremendous effect on us and um in our system We as you may again as you may have seen or heard on wcx earlier this week We have a wait list of about 100 people which translates to about 10 to 12 weeks of service Um our wait rather and we've been pretty innovative and incorporating group therapy and things like that to get people in the door just to give the support that they need and we're actually Going to be providing some self-help messaging in the coming weeks. Actually we plan on starting that this week Again, just to help support people that are really struggling given the pandemic Anyway, I just wanted to um say thank you. I appreciate your consideration at this year's town meeting And we look forward to continuing to be of service to the folks of washington county and in particular berlin Thank you john any questions on uh, washington county mental health Article 14 shall the town appropriate $1,200 to the central vermont adult basic education anyone to speak to that No Then we'll go on a 15 shell of the town appropriate $1,000 to the remont center for independent living Anyone to talk about That subject Article 16 shall the town appropriate $1,000 to the central vermont memorial civic center Anyone questions comments support article 17 shall the town appropriate $975 to circle Just jump right in if you have a comment or question Article 18 shall the town appropriate $800 to the family center of washington county Article 19 shall the town appropriate $800 to prevent child abuse vermont Article 20 shall the town appropriate $700 to capstone community action Hi I'm here to speak for capstone community action. Uh, my name is allison calderera I'm the chief of programs and advancement for capstone and I am not a berlin resident Uh, capstone community action is a community action agency That serves washington lamoille and orange counties Our mission is to lift people out of poverty and to create economic opportunities for adults and families We provide a wide range of services crisis services for utilities We provide early childhood education adult education to achieve your high school diploma We weatherize homes we We have a food shelf Where participants come and get boxes of food and we've also this year with the pandemic Very much changed our whole systems of delivery I can speak to that Personally, I joined I joined capstone Right the week the covet pandemic closed everything down And I have never seen such an effort by an organization To be able to try to provide the services when there were so many isolated people That couldn't get out of their homes and people that were it economically impacted Last summer we produced 25,000 meals For people who were um living in the motels And also at other different sites throughout the city and and I will say that um The other piece is that um We were I was so delighted to hear uh everyone eats mentioned Because we last fall we became the regional hub For everyone eats And if you're not familiar with that program it distributes meals To community residents And it is also a partnership an economic partnership with restaurants And with the local farmers So everyone wins we're supporting our restaurants. We're supporting hungry vermoners And we're supporting local food producers The entire program and across the state has actually delivered back $800,000 into the community and economic support Right now everyone eats is delivering four to five thousand meals Uh in our service area. I wish I could tell you how many uh berlin residents were getting those meals But as we heard with vermont the health and hospice we are supplying meals there as well So i'm sure it's a good it's a good amount Last year we served 113 berlin households and that was 256 individuals 127 berlin individuals accessed meals or or meal equivalents at the food shelf 25 berlin households were able to keep eating their homes with access to crisis and supplemental fuel Uh four households need needed and received emergency furnace repairs And we also completely replaced a furnace for a berlin berlin resident One of the things that we've also found uh is the new oil tank Repair that's our that is necessary because of the vermont law that came in to play Last july we've been spending much time helping people Make sure that their fuel tanks are inspected and safe We also have served a homeless family that lived in berlin and i'm proud to I'm proud to report that they are now successfully housed We have three children in early head start and uh head start programs which is our early childhood education program for the kids and for their families And these are at risk low-income families And during the pandemic we Completely supported our families remotely Plus we also fed each and every member of the family with food deliveries to make sure That the kids and all their family members had access to good healthy food We weatherized six houses in berlin Six to seniors and two to residents with disabilities so they can stay warm And have energy efficient homes We counseled We provided financial counseling and coaching to eight of your residents We also counseled five budding entrepreneurs with business counseling Who folks that wanted to start a business? 20 residents Had their taxes prepared at no charge Through our tax assistant program which is completely driven by volunteers And we had one proud graduate from the community kitchen academy Which launches folks with culinary skills into the job market This has been just a quite a year For the record books. I don't need to say that. I think everyone else has has said that as well We are so grateful for the support for basic needs that we receive from from the town of berlin Simply we keep people warm fed housed And we help them get on with their lives in a positive and secure way So thank you very much, and i'm happy to answer any questions you might have Any questions Thank you again Article 21 shell the town appropriate six hundred dollars to the good samaritan haven Anyone to speak on that article? Yes, hi, um, my name is uh, craig pelt here. I'm on the board of the good samaritan haven um, thank you for entertaining our request I live in the town of uh, I live in cows for a long time, but I currently live in lump hillier Not a berlin resident As many of you probably know, um, we're the primary shelter For central berma for over 30 years the good samaritan haven has provided emergencies shelter and support Services for adults experiencing homelessness in our community As has been previously said and we all know the coven 19 pandemic has increased The level of homelessness and greatly challenged our work this year. Um This winter we're providing shelter and support services to over 300 individuals and motels shelters And on the streets, uh, this includes the hilltop in berlin With the help of many partners including the berlin police and many others We have continued to provide essentials while keeping our guests Our staff and our community safe Um area town funding is important to the good samaritan haven we typically get funding from Uh, 10 towns in washington county, uh, each program year um This funding contributes to the cost of our facilities food In clothing and we're very very grateful to the town of berlin for supporting us in the past and Uh, hopefully we're hopeful you will continue to do so this year And with that i'm happy to answer any questions Thank you craig any questions on the Haven If not article 22 shall the town appropriate $500 to the people's health and wellness clinic Anyone to speak to that article 23 Shall the town appropriate $500 to the vermont association for the blind and visually impaired Someone to speak to that Article 24 should the town appropriate $500 to the washington county youth services bureau Anyone comments article 28 of the town appropriate $500 to mosaic vermont formally the sexual assault crisis team of washington county Hi, i'm an ward. I am a resident of berlin, and i'm the executive director of mosaic vermont Most of you know us the sexual assault crisis team of washington county. We changed our name in april of 2020 right in the height of the The beginning of the pandemic crisis and We stayed as open and available as possible throughout we provide services Both in acute incidents of sexual violence as well as long term supporting folks for whom maybe child sexual abuse or or former Experiences of sexual violence impact to them later in lives Later in their life in a variety of different ways and We have a shelter in berry that needed to pivot pretty hard in this past year We provide congregate care to people fleeing People who are homeless due to fleeing sexual violence and in a lot of in most cases that involves some element of sex trafficking Which is pretty prevalent throughout our area And this year we we had to move from congregate care to to separate facilities and then work to support the the real need for for love connection and belonging that people experiencing this kind of violence and and homelessness need without without the support of being able to be together and share meals and and Do that kind of healing work together We also maintained our presence in a number of washington county schools Our school programs throughout the year Much of our work, of course switched to virtual But we serve hundreds of people a year throughout washington county who Who have these experiences and are otherwise? Are otherwise not not very public or You know, it's not it's not Widely known how much sexual violence is experienced throughout our area so we are incredibly grateful for the support of towns and Our ability to our ability to exist and and provide this service For everyone. Thank you Thank you. Any questions for an Article 26 shall the town appropriate $500 to community harvest of central romant Hello, i'm here to speak on half community harvest Can everyone hear me? Okay Um I'm allison levin the executive director of community harvest of central romant and I am a burlin resident And for those of you who are not familiar with our work. I wanted to just give a little bit information We bring the community together through gleaning to recover surplus produce From area farms to feed those with limited access to fresh local food Um, and in the process help the community gain a greater awareness and appreciation for the local food system healthy eating and waste reduction A community harvest of central romant is a 5 1c 3 non-profit based here in berlin Um, and as you can imagine, uh, we've we've been a little bit busy this last year Um, we work with two to 400 volunteers each season and we actually work with more individuals this year than ever before Um, very creatively but and safely but we were able to do that They help us recover nutritious nutritious food to feed all of our neighbors that may not have access to it. Um, we glean Food that has been grown by local farms that cannot be sold by them and would otherwise go to waste I founded the organization in 2014 and since then we've donated more than a million servings of food Through our partners at food shelves senior meal programs early childhood and after school programs and other organizations Feeding members, um community members in need here in washington county Um, this last year has been very very busy for us. Uh, since the pandemic started. Um, we increased Um substantially the work that we've been doing Um, and even now in the middle of winter we send three and four car loads of food out to our partners every week Um Including a lot of the federal food that has been um sent along We've been helping helping get those boxes out to those who need it. Um at our partner sites Um, so originally we were a very seasonal organization and we're certainly now fully year-round All season long, um making sure that people have the access to the food they need Um, we serve about 11,200 individuals overall that receive the food that we glean And in 2020 We more than doubled the amount that we donated to the community over the amount that we sent out in 2019 So we now serve about 30 organizations Um, just here in washington county including organizations like capstone and feast that you heard from earlier And This last year we donated 138,000 pounds of food Um of nutritious food from local producers And some other food that we collected as well. So that's 38,000 pounds of food just in 2020 Um community harvest has provided glean food to berlin residents for the last seven years since we started um And through our partnerships with as I said food shelves senior meal programs meals on wheels Like feast and others um that are in all the surrounding towns around berlin We also partner with the berlin elementary school and their farm to school program To provide students hands-on opportunities to glean eat and learn about fresh produce and healthy eating This last fall we had to skip taking students out into the fields with us But we continued to send vegetables into the classrooms to help them learn about fresh food grown on local farms We also partnered with two berlin farms, uh, dr farmer farm and rogers farmstead To recover surplus produce and crops that they Produced to make sure that they did not go to waste and they were able to share those with the community um, we are asking For a small amount of funding from all the towns that we serve to cover a small portion of the costs Of rec coordinating and the recovery and distribution of all the food that we glean with the help of hundreds of volunteers each season We asked for support again this year The same amount that we've asked in the past As we work to continue um, and to meet the expanding need Here in the community and we know it's certainly certainly not over yet There's a long a long way to go to get back to where we were which was certainly A lot of need before this all started. So um, happy to answer any questions that anyone might have About our work Thank you questions Article 27 Shall the town appropriate three hundred dollars to the good beginnings of central vermont Is there anyone to speak for that? Yes. I'm here Gretchen Elias. I am not a berlin resident Um, I am a resident of montpelier. Can folks hear me? Yes, great. Um, so I am the executive director of good beginnings of central vermont Our mission is to bring community to families and their babies We were formed in 1991 by a northfield mother and have served all of washington county including berlin For the bulk of that time. I believe we've been on the ballot in berlin for the last three or possibly four years We're asking level funding this year of three hundred dollars And we do serve Anyone who is caring for or expecting a baby with a variety of free services with an emphasis on the mental health and social support of the caregiver So obviously the last year has been a challenging one for us because those who are Caring for a new baby were even more isolated But our options for providing the kind of hands-on support that we Are used to providing. We're definitely much more limited and tricky Uh, we did pivot to a range of virtual options for nearly all our programs Our flagship program is when we match a family with a volunteer And our volunteers are now providing phone and zoom support And in certain cases we have been able to provide in-home support when it's been safe to do so and when the family has been Really in need For mental health or other reason We've also been partnering with a lot of the other programs who have spoken today in order to provide food through everybody eats and Partner we've partnered a lot with home health and hospice to deliver supplies and baby carriers to families due to a lot of door drop-offs and Groceries and baby supplies. So a lot of collaboration in new ways with other organizations in order to make sure families get what they need Uh, our groups that we provide for new parents are primarily happening online And we've had great attendance with those and we've seen a lot of Increase in need for our early parenting workshops and parent education We think that a lot of families who used to rely on grandparents or friends for that kind of Hands-on knowledge are turning to us instead because of the the pandemic So we're doing a lot of zoom tutorials on basic infant skills We served 14 households in berlin this past year a number of them did attend our in-person events before the shutdown We've also provided something around 30 hours of Individualized support to two berlin families through a postpartum angel We have one Rockstar volunteer who is a berlin resident and we're very grateful for her and we would love to have more volunteers From berlin if anyone is interested reach out And we're really grateful for our for the support that we've received from berlin in the past It's a small amount But all told the requests we make from area towns that we serve End up being about 10 of our overall budget and a and a really important part of our financial stability So i'm happy to answer any questions Any questions for Gretchen? Thank you That comes to the end of the uh listed Articles in our warning, but traditionally we have An extra one and I think we can intuit that it exists there for other business and that would be This would be a time where anyone could speak about anything at all and uh If there are people or things that to be said now, this is a good time to do it Is there anyone interested in other business? then I will entertain a motion to adjourn And uh, although you have a little function on a Hand up you could just Put your hand up in the air perhaps, but uh all in favor of First of all, will someone move to adjourn? I can Second good all in favor of adjourning the 230th annual Berlin town meeting until tuesday Say hi Hi Hi Thanks for all the organizations and all of those who attended it was uh inspiring this year and thank you very much Remember to vote on tuesday if you haven't already


Mark Schwab, the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea of life and current events for a special Thanksgiving program. My guest today is Lila Berg. Lila is the owner and principal consultant with Lila Bergen Associates, which focuses on assisting people reach their personal and professional goals. She's also an author, professional speaker, resiliency facilitator, and an educator. And has been active in politics, business, and community organizations. Lila also loves to travel and dance Argentine tango. Lila's uplifting and encouraging responses to the stresses and strains of current events prompted me to ask her to be my guest today for this special Thanksgiving program. Aloha, Lila, good to see you. Aloha, Mark. Thank you for inviting me to be part of this conversation. Yeah, well, I really enjoy reading and hearing from you those quotes and inspiring comments that you make. And you recently sent me the following quote. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about dancing in the rain. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about dancing in the rain. What does that mean to you, Lila? Well, as a dancer, it means to enjoy the moment no matter what's happening to be present in the moment. Again, as a dancer to be able to pivot, if something doesn't work out the way you want it to, not to grumble and be frustrated and disappointed, we can feel all those feelings. But perhaps metaphorically, what it really means to me is when changes happen unexpected or even planned changes, and it doesn't work out the way we want it to, the best thing we can do is take a deep breath and look for the positives in that moment. Because I really believe in the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. And if we are centered and if we can breathe through the emotions, we'll find what the gift is in that moment. You know, growing up, many of us were told, don't go out in the rain.   And then you can't go to school. And then, you know, and then, and then, and then. And I love to dance in the rain. And when you come in, you take a hot shower and put on warm clothes, there's a sense of freedom to be able to do what you want to do without hurting or hindering anyone else. And to me, that's what dancing is about, but certainly dancing in the rain. Well, in other words, analogy is dancing and being out there is like life. And sometimes we get caught in rainstorms. There's, or bad things happen. And so you have kind of adopted a philosophy of, well, if those bad things happen, let's keep on moving, let's keep on going. And yeah, but how do you learn to do that? How did you learn to dance in the rain? How do we all learn to dance in the rain? Well, and first let's backtrack a little bit. Bad things don't happen, things happen. That's what life is about, things happen. And we interpret them as bad or good or awesome or lucky. If we're able to take the viewpoint that things are going to happen and begin to trust ourselves that we can handle what happens, then even the worst that could happen, an illness, a death of a loved one, a job taken away from you that you really loved, a divorce, when those things happen, yes, we feel the pain, acknowledge the pain and then know, okay, let's put our feet on the ground and keep moving. And so how did I learn it? It was a process. My parents are not American and they had an amazing life individually and then together how they got to America. So I think I witnessed or I observed how they moved through their tragedies, through their situations. And then along the way being a lifelong learner that I am, number of spiritual practices came into my awareness and supported me strengthening that philosophy. The Greeks call it amorphati, which is to love fate. And loving fate means when something happens, take a deep breath and know that it is actually in our highest interest. And at the moment, the pain we feel is actually to be able to build more compassion for others. So you talked about your parents and I'm wondering, are there other specific events in your personal and professional background that have taught you how to dance in the rain? Are there other specific events that come to mind? And then I hear you saying embrace it in a way. And so sometimes there, so what in your life's journey has allowed you or showed you how to embrace these things?  My father passing away when I was 19, being in the hospital for 12 weeks on an IV, waiting for my son to be born, a betrayal and a very public divorce, being released from a top position in a national nonprofit because I didn't fit their bottom line. I mean, we can go on and on and list all of the situations that should never have happened to me. I'm a good person, what's my karma about? And somehow along the line there were my friends or something I read. And then this also deep trust in the universe loving me. You know, it sounds a little corny, but I believe that we are all on the planet at this time for the work that we are to do. And I think what really helped me is to become aware of what my why is. My why is to contribute to the world to help make communities stronger and people happier in the way that I do best. And so if I stay focused on that vision of my purpose in the world, it helps me get out of the poor me feeling I have sometimes. And you talk about various occupations, you've been a teacher too. And what have you learned from teaching and what can you pass on? What can you teach about teaching? Well, it's interesting you should ask that because it was never my dream to be a teacher. It was a fallback more or less because I had no major when I was coming out of college. And what I learned about teaching is it is about being real, about being a person engaged with other people. The first year I was teaching back when I came home to Hawaii, I got an unsatisfactory.  And I don't do things haphazardly, but I got an unsatisfactory because the vice principal very astutely knew I was capable of more. And when she gave me that unsatisfactory, we talked about the way in which I was teaching. I had worksheets. I did the class exactly the same as the teacher next to me. And I had to discover my style, my voice and connect with the students. Educate means to draw forth from within, not to load something that's empty. And I think sometimes in the teaching profession, we believe that our students are empty and so we have to fill them. And every child comes into the world and into my classroom with so much to offer, my challenge is to bring it out in them. And then it's like, yeah. And you know, okay, so you had a supervisor that was in a way a mentor. And also that made you become a mentor, but the supervisor was saying, I know there's more. And so it really wasn't, what can I say? It wasn't a setback, it was a message to you. And so that's what you're saying is take these messages and learn from them to improve. Is that right? Am I saying that right? Absolutely. Every situation, every storm has, every cloud has a silver lining, right? We've heard that too, but every situation there's something to learn from. And if we can adopt, accept the philosophy that we're in this world to learn, to heal and to grow, I think it might help us to navigate those times that don't feel so good.  How have you, what have you learned from politics about life and dancing in the rain? Well, may I reframe that? I was involved in the political science profession. Okay. I was a legislator, not a politician and then probably therefore not as successful as I might have been had I been a politician. What I learned there is how important it is to tell the truth to yourself first. And in that field that is really occupied by people who I do believe want to do the best for the greater good, the personal challenges of being not enough, not smart enough, not powerful enough come into play. And when people come from the energy of fear, then they're going to be defensive and get angry as opposed to coming from an energy of love where they can be more collaborative. But it starts from within first. And I realized it wasn't the field that I was, that I could shine in. Ah, so you wanted to change. You tried it and it didn't fit. It wasn't where you wanted to dance. Is that right? Is that? I didn't know that right away though. So I was in for three terms and then I was so frustrated by the process. I thought, if I ran for lieutenant governor, maybe then I could bring people together because in that world, title means everything, whether you're chair, this or consultant for this, lobbyist and the blessing of an unanswered prayer was that I wasn't elected. I would have been under house arrest, I'm sure. I had to put in that position. So then I had to step back and I guess the word you might use is recreate. I had to reveal who I am and what my next step was and how I could best contribute. Yourself? Yes. I see. And so what did you do to change?  What steps can everybody take? Well, there are baby steps sometimes and sometimes we take a step back or to the side, we get a little distracted. I don't think I went deliberately into my life saying, I'm gonna change me. It was, who is me? And to become actually more self-reflective so I could find out what gives me joy. Joy is my barometer. When I'm really happy, I know I'm making the right decision. And it's not the superficial kind of relative happiness. It's that absolute happiness inside. From there, I went to be the director of development for Hope Lodge for the American Cancer Society.  And that I think is what happens to all of us if we're paying attention. We make a change in our life when the values are not coherent. My- So, and I hear you telling people, feel what is joyful, feel what feels right. And that's the dance to take up. That's what you should be dancing. That's the feeling that you should have when you're dancing. If you're not feeling that while you're dancing, you're dancing the wrong dance. Is that, am I saying it right? If you're not feeling that, you're dancing to somebody else's music and you're just doing steps. No, you introduced me very generously as an Argentine tango dancer. I'm a dancer by training. I was a ballet dancer as a child and then went into competitive ballroom dancing. And when I found a tango, and it was just something to do visiting Buenos Aires, it was the hardest thing because it was improvisational. There's only four steps in Argentine tango. Forward, back, around, into the side and stop. And there's no, unless I'm performing on stage, there's no routine. It's a conversation with your partner. It was so hard because I was into pleasing the situation. Did I look good as a dancer? Does the man wanna dance with me again? Was I following the mute? Was I doing it right? And that old conditioning of being perfect and following the rules and doing what other people tell you to do is actually what instigated my book because I realized that I was under so many shoulds that weren't mine. You shouldn't dance in the rain because you'll get wet. And so your book kind of focused on how to find your own dance steps. Is that right? To hear the music that you wanted to hear or to play the music and dance the dance you wanted to dance? Yes, and it was about hearing my own music because dancing tango, I have, there's a music playing. There's my partner moving and inviting me to move, but there's also me. If I understand what he wants to do, I can respond, but I can also stand still if I don't understand. And that freedom to move in the way that I feel is ponno, that I feel is right for me was so challenging because I was schooled and grew up in a society that says you're supposed to behave a certain way. Right, and you're supposed to please certain people, perhaps. Yeah. Definitely. Let me ask you.  I really like them and you get a lot of good responses from people now, but there are also our times on Facebook when people are negative and antagonistic. Let's get some practical advice. How do you deal with that? How would you tell people, they have a Facebook friend and they're on the opposite ends of politics and the current situation and people are worried about wearing a mask or not wearing a mask in COVID and the economy's down? What do you, how do you tell people to deal with that? I guess my first question would be, why is it triggering you? Why is somebody else's comment getting you animated? Especially if it's Facebook and it's in writing. It's not like we're looking at each other at dinner. And then I would ask because I get triggered too. It's human when someone counters what I believe. My next question would be, okay, so is this battle worth it? What is, not only what is triggering me, but why do I have to be right? Everyone has their right to an opinion. They do not have a right to hurt people. That's a universal truth, but they have a right to what they believe in. And if someone becomes really, really antagonistic on your page, you also have the right to either delete their comment or unfriend them. And it doesn't mean you hate the person.  I think many of us, especially growing up in Hawaii, were roomed to be nice people and kind and not hurt anybody. And so growing up like that, I wouldn't say very much because my mother told me, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Well, I'm not the kind of child that is really good. It was really good being quiet, but I tried. But what happened was I stuffed it all inside myself. And then it would come out when it's least expected or it came out in an illness. So the comment to someone on Facebook or I guess the guidance might be, what's triggering you and is it really worth going back and forth? And the third consideration is the person who is antagonistic or hostile, how sad for them that that is the only avenue that they may have to show that they have an opinion or that they're intelligent. And so if we can build compassion for that person, it will neutralize our own animation. Okay, so I see where you're saying, don't let it change the music in your own mind.   And so you got to maybe depart from that, not let those things control you. Definitely not control us, but also be mindful and reflective when you do get triggered. And then be thoughtful of that person and allow that person just to pass. Allow that person to dance off in their own dance. Yes, you know, when I was teaching or facilitating trainings in companies on communications, building relationships, one of the phrases that I would use is thank you for sharing. And if I could just digress a little, it was fabulous. There was a very large man in the audience and he says to me, hey, I cannot say that. I said, okay, what could you say? You know what I'm driving at? And he goes, thanks. I'm saying, you know, so whatever language we speak, we could just, it's like doing Aikido. It's like doing martial arts. Bruce Lee did not grab somebody by his gi and throw him on the ground, right? Jet Lee, Bruce Lee, they wait, the person comes at them and they move to the side, have a motion with their hand or their foot or something. That actually causes the other person to fall themselves. So it's not an aggressive act. It's a defensive posture without being defensive. Now, we mentioned earlier that you wrote a book Leaving the Gilded Cage to try to show people how to leave their own self-imposed social imprisonment and live their own life. And that's kind of what we've been talking about. Now, you wrote a second book that's coming out soon called Arriving with Open Wings. What's that about? Well, after we leave the cage, which means basically that we've become aware of our programs and our tapes that run us, we are often, I was, very excited about going into the world in a different way. And as soon as something happened, disappointment, a little failure and incomplete success, I went right back into my old pattern of blaming the other person or getting down on myself. And what we really need to be doing, and the book is about striving with each disappointment, each change to trust ourselves more, acknowledge our feelings and go with an open heart into situations. Our heart, not our human heart, but our soul's heart will, our intuition will never lead us astray. Our mind gets involved. And the mind is run by the ego. It's not a bad thing. It was there for a purpose. That gilded cage that we were in was the safety of what the ego used to tell us. Don't play in the rain. Don't dance in the rain.  And then the little, the deeper soul inside goes, yeah, but it's so much fun. And again, joy becomes the barometer. So arriving with open wings is to be mindful and aware that things are gonna happen. And we can move through them. And we will move through them even more gracefully if we're paying attention. And I wonder, does growing up in Hawaii have any effect on all of that to you? Or is there some relationship between, you talked about Hawaii and maybe the feelings that we have about not being naughty or not saying things bad about people. How does that fit in here? Oh, it definitely shapes one because there are tribal beliefs, cultural beliefs, familial beliefs. And I think growing up also as the child of immigrants, if you will, we were, my brother and I were expected to be citizens of the world. And so my father traveled with us a lot every summer. And learning other languages, knowing about other people built a better understanding of humanity, I think, for me. And so when we talk about growing and changing, it really depends on the extent of our own willingness to self-reflect and to take a look at ourselves and see what works, what doesn't work. Okay, now, we have talked about learning to dance to the tune that makes us joyful. We're coming up on Thanksgiving. And that's kind of why I wanted to do this program. What are you thankful for during these crazy times? I mean, we are going through stressful strain of COVID and bad economy and the political dissension. What do you look for and what are you thankful for during these crazy times? Well, the first thing I'm thankful for is that you're doing this program when you're asking me today, not eight months ago. Because I was in major resistance and fear, like everyone else. What I'm most thankful for, of course, is my son. My heart would have stopped beating years ago, if not for him.  Compassion, forgiveness, love, and to trust themselves. We've been so taught not to love ourselves. That's an educational phenomenon in the Western world. And if we can come to the place where we're just grateful for everything, I'm so happy when it rains because that means I don't have to water my yard. I'm really, really happy when my dog comes and sits next to me. So finding something, and I have a gratitude journal, every night I write down three things that I'm grateful for. Sometimes it's just I'm really grateful that the mailman came and didn't bring me a bill. The small things that matter that add up sometimes are what's important. And we have just about a minute left in that time. I mean, are those your words of advice for people as they deal with life now and into the future? Is that kind of where you're coming from? Is that what you'd tell them or what would you tell them? Let me ask you that question. I guess three things to wrap it up. One, to love yourself first and find that self-compassion.  The second thing would be to be mindful of what we say, what we do, how we interact with people. And if there is a situation that is not comfortable, that is not within your music repertoire, to be willing to let it go. And the third thing is as we let things go, let them go without anger, without fear. And to know that the next thing is coming around the corner and let's be curious about it. So I'm curious what my next role is in the world. Well, Lila, thank you so much for being my guest today on this program and we're right before Thanksgiving. I think it's a good time for us all to reflect and to all of us thinking about dancing in the rain. And I appreciate your time, Lila Berg, Aloha. And I look forward to watching you dance in the rain and I will try to learn how to dance in the rain also. Just come out and play, that's all. Aloha. Aloha.


Hey guys. So, uh, who here likes locks? Yeah? Alright, who here likes safe locks? Yeah? Who here likes cracking safe locks? Yeah? Okay. So, you know, I have a safe. It's kind of similar to one of these. Um, it's a fairly decent size gun safe. Has an electronic lock on it. And one day I was thinking, gosh, I wonder how secure is that? Is it, you know, how better than the mechanical counterparts? So I started investigating, found a few things. Uh, first of all, from some context, what we're talking about here. We're talking about high security electronic safe locks, type 1. This is a UL listing. This is, these are decent locks that you're going to find on reasonably sized gun safes typically, often times in residences. What we're not talking about, we're not talking about the cheap crappy locks that you're going to find on hotel safes or fire safes or things like that. Those cheap crappy locks, you can often defeat those with a magnet or by spiking them with some wires or anything like that. The, uh, these high security locks are designed to be impervious to that. On the other hand, we're not also not talking about GSA locks. It's a bit of a different, uh, different topic. Um, so, look at two locks. The first of the locks is made by a company called Sergeant and Greenleaf. Sergeant and Greenleaf is a large reputable manufacturer of locks, both mechanical and electronic. They're about 150 years old. This particular lock, the first lock we're looking at, is the 6120. It's a bit of an older design, designed in the mid-90s. It's a UL listed lock. Um, it's still made and sold, at least as of late last year. So, the way this lock is designed, all of the logic exists inside of the safe. The only things outside of the safe are a keypad, which consists of a resistor ladder keypad and a user replaceable 9 volt battery. Inside the lock is where the microcontroller, the MTU, and the EEPROM exists, as well as a motor to drive an acne screw that will either extend or retract the bolt. So, what I, when I started looking at this, I thought I'd look at something called power analysis. This is a side channel attack. What you do here is place a resistor in series with the battery and the lock. And by monitoring the voltage across that resistor, we can learn how much current the lock is drawing at any particular time. And from that, we can learn something about the state of the lock. What this allows us to do in particular in this lock is monitor the data line between the MCU and the EEPROM. So, you can kind of imagine that this lock has something like a spy bus. We have a single data line going between the microcontroller and the EEPROM. And this data line is pulled up perhaps by a resistor. Well, when you have a higher voltage on that line, the voltage across that pull up resistor is going to be lower. So, your current drain is going to be low. And when you have a zero, a low voltage on that line, there will be a drop across that pull up resistor. So, the current will be, the current drain will be slightly increased by the lock. So, we can monitor the amount of current being consumed by the lock externally. We can learn then what's on the data bus. This is in fact a screenshot. I opened one of these locks up and probed both the actual data line as well as monitoring the amount of current being consumed by the lock in real time. The yellow trace is the actual data line and the blue trace is the current consumption. As you can see, each of these spikes represent one bit being clocked out of the EEPROM. And when the data line is high, it turns out that the current consumption is slightly lower, about 60 microamps lower than if there's a zero at that position in the EEPROM word being read out. All right. So, let's take a look at what this looks like in a video here, a video demo. All right. So, what we're going to do is we're going to enter any old code on the keypad. It doesn't matter what it is, it's definitely going to be the incorrect code. It doesn't matter what it is. Now, in the background, we have a scope monitoring the current being consumed by the lock. And each of these little bursts is a word being read out of EEPROM. Now, the key, again, the lock stores the code in EEPROM. So, what we're going to do is zoom in, look at the first couple of these bursts. Each of these little spikes is one bit being read out of the EEPROM. Again, this is just the current consumption. This is all done externally from the safe external to the lock. We go in, we zoom in and we can see that the first two digits for the lock are 8 and 0. We go over to the next word being read out of EEPROM. The next two digits in the actual key code are 1 and 9. And the final digits then you can see would be 4 and 5. Again, the lower current is a 1, higher current is a 0. So, by starting with any old key code, the wrong key code, we learned what the right key code was by watching the current consumption of the lock. So, let's go over back over to the lock, try that, 8, 0, 1, 9, 4, 5, that key code. And we see that the lock bolt retracts down at the bottom of the screen. So, yeah. So then, I thought, well, you know, that was a somewhat older lock. Again, it's still sold, but it was kind of an older design. I wonder how they improved. So, I got a newer lock from Sergeant and Greenleaf again. This is a Titan pivot bolt. This is part of the Titan family. Other locks in the family of the Titan D drive, basically the same internals. Same exterior components. It's a plug and play replacement for one of these older locks. Still a passive keypad on the outside, still access to the battery. Inside it's a little bit different. Instead of having a separate microcontroller and EEPROM, we have a single chip doing everything. We have a STM-8, which includes a few K of onboard EEPROM. So, the old attack from the 61-20, the older Sergeant and Greenleaf lock. Now, it doesn't work here. However, I was poking around and eventually came to realize that when the Titan lock starts a comparison of the code that was entered by the user to the code that stored in EEPROM, so to the true code, it does it one digit at a time. And if there's a mismatch, it will abort, break out of that comparison loop, and then go off and buzz and do some other stuff. So, you might be thinking, gosh, that sounds like a timing attack, and indeed it is. In fact, there is a 28 microsecond difference per digit, depending on whether or not that digit is the correct digit. So, what this lets us do is far more efficiently search the key space for the correct key code. Now, to do this, you need some markers. You need to know when to start the clock and when to end the clock. Turns out that once again, we can bring power analysis back into the fold, like from the older lock. We have a great marker for the start of a timer. This corresponds to when the user presses the pound key to indicate that they have entered the code. 29.6 milliseconds or so later, there is a second rise in the amount of current being consumed by the lock. And it's this difference between that first current marker and that second current marker that we can use to infer whether or not we have a match for a particular digit or a mismatch for a digit. That time will vary by 28 microseconds. Alright, so how this would work? What you do, if you're using this to your advantage, is you would start with some arbitrary key code. Then you would cycle through the various values for the first digit, zero through nine. And you would keep the other digit values fixed. So you'd go zero, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, then one, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then you would look at the time required to go between those two current markers and whichever value for that digit had the longest time delay, that's the correct value for that digit. Alright, so in this example here, we found that the first digit is nine. Alright, once we found the first digit, we repeat the cycle with the second digit. We use the digit we just found then cycle the second digit through zero, then one, then two, then three, then four, et cetera, holding the remaining digits fixed. And repeat this again off until the fifth digit. So this allows us to much more efficiently search for, through the possibilities for this key code. The sixth digit is a special case. We'll get to that in a little bit. But the time you attack it works great for the first five digits. Now, you might be wondering, well, how does that actually look on the real world? And this is how it looks. This is looking at a zoomed in version of the second current rise. This is the second marker that we're using. And at the top of the scope shot, we can see overlaid different runs where there was, there was zero digits correct and then one digit correct in sequence. And then where there were two digits, the first two digits were accurate and the remaining were wrong. And then where there were three accurate and then wrong, four and five. So as we got more digits correct in series, we extended out our time delay.  If you enter the wrong key code five times in a row, you'll lock you out and prevent any additional attempts for 10 minutes.  You really have to wait 10 minutes once this has started. So I thought, well, I wonder if you could prevent it from starting in the first place. I wonder if perhaps we could do something like cut power to the lock prior to it writing this incorrect attempt count to EEPROM. And so I did some investigation, got another STM8, just like the one that is in the lock, and fiddled with killing power to it at various times. But what I found was actually even better. So it turns out that if you start a right to an address in EEPROM on the STM8 and then you kill power to that micro controller between 500 microseconds and 2.5 milliseconds after the start of that right, what you'll be left with is not the original value, not the new value, you'll be left with zero. And so the reason this works is because in EEPROM in flash, before you can write a new value to a destination that already has a value, you need to erase that destination byte. And in the STM8, a little unusually, the erase value is zero. Oftentimes in other EEPROMs in flashes it'll be ff. But in the STM8 it's zero. And moreover, the lock firmware appears to treat zero as a valid value. So all we need to do is kill power to the MCU between 500 microseconds, 2.5 milliseconds after the right to that incorrect attempt counter starts. Alright, so it turns out, even better, we know exactly when to do that. That second current rise that we used for the timing attack ends up being actually the start of the right for the incorrect attempt account. So if we key on that, we can accomplish our goal. We can, first of all, we're able to get the voltage low enough quickly enough. If we start at a somewhat lowered voltage that's still valid, we can actually get below the brown out voltage for the microcontroller in about 600 microseconds. So we know we can get there once we start. The question is then when to start that power, cutting that power to the lock? And since we have that current rise from the start of the EEPROM right, the key off of that takes us about 500 microseconds to recognize what's happening and to then begin cut power to the lock with a very fast switch. In total, 1.1 milliseconds from when the right starts to when the lock is below the brown out voltage. Once it's below the brown out voltage, any pending part of the EEPROM erase cycle or right cycle will be aborted. 1.1 milliseconds of course, as well within our window between 500 microseconds and 2.5 milliseconds. So you put this all together and what this lets us do is have an infinite number of attempts to guess the key code. You go through say four attempts or five attempts and then you reset the key the invalid attempt count back to zero. So this allows us to both get the sixth digit and also more efficiently search for the first five digits. The reason it helps with the sixth digit is because we just want to brute force that. We want to go through and try knowing the first five digits, all the possibilities for the sixth digit. So we'll just go through, try each of them and every periodically we'll reset the invalid attempt count and just keep going through all 10 possibilities for that sixth digit. Alright, so attacking this lock I couldn't just do with a resistor. So the first lock I used to have a scope and a resistor, you know that's like first week freshman double electrical engineering class sort of stuff. This is a little more complicated in that I need to build a custom board to support this. It says a micro ram meter on it. This has some supports that can treat this to allow us to emulate key presses. This is essentially just allowing us to present different voltages to the lock emulating a certain key values. Also the power supply and control mechanism to allow us to cut power at very precise time. So we then look at the algorithm used in the lock. It's very similar to what we described earlier. We first use the timing attack to find the first five digits. We'll go through and try all possibilities for the all 10 possibilities for that first digit value, whichever one has the longest delay, that's the first digit, the actual first digit value. We use that first digit value and then try cycling through the second digit values, whichever of those has the longest delay, that's the second digit value and so on. And then we, like I mentioned before, we'll brute force that sixth digit by trying all 10 possibilities there all the while resetting the lock out attempt count periodically. So let's take a look at that. So here we have the support board. It's blue and we have the STM32 board. This is where the attack firmware is running on it. The STM32 is a little ARM Cortex-M4 with a pretty good ADC on it. The scope in the background is just monitoring the current consumption, just there for visual effect. As it cycles through the various possibilities for the key code, it has to do something over sampling. So in a real world environment there's noise so we want to try each of these potential combinations multiple times. And so for that reason this video is actually sped up by a factor of 10 to fit it in the presentation. Even so, the full attack in a fairly robust manner takes about 15 minutes, which is a huge improvement from the potential 3.8 years that a naive brute force attack would take on the lock. And as the attack firmware cycles through and finds the true values for each of these digits in the key code, eventually we'll reach the sixth digit. We'll be monitoring the buzzer line to figure out when it has the correct code because the lock will buzz in a different way depending on whether or not you have entered the correct or incorrect code. And once it detects the correct buzz it says oh we found the correct code and we'll stick with that and we'll then they flash a little green LED and allow that located key code to be replayed. There's a button on the board and when you hit the button it would then replay that identified key code. So that's what's going to happen right now. There it is. Found the final digit. The lock is locked. You can see I'm trying to pull it with my thumb. And we're going to hit the button. It's replaying the key code and the lock is opened. So there we go. Then after five seconds the lock will relock itself automatically. All right. So having said all that, burglars are not going to bother with this. They're just going to use a crowbar or the hydraulic jack from your garage or something like that. Maybe if they're really fancy they'll use a torch but that's really only like movie stuff. I think the more interesting thing here is perhaps applicability to other systems. We see other systems that have these sorts of lockout mechanisms. You know maybe phones or other locks. And I wonder if maybe there might be something similar that could be applied there. And you know the shame is that each of these issues is actually fairly easy to fix in software. Even the original lock which seemed like a hardware issue. It could be a trust in software if they just didn't store the data, the key code in clear text. I mean don't store your data in the clear. I think you know just you'd think that would be a common knowledge but I guess not. So then the timing attack what you could do to mitigate that would be to do your comparison in constant time.  If there's a mismatch go up through all the way through the end. The EPROM manipulation a little more complicated. The way you'd get around that or the way you'd defend against this attack is to assume failure first. So assume that the user will enter the wrong code and increment that invalid attempt count first. And then if they ended up actually entering the right code then clear that out. Enter a zero for that. That would still leave you with the possibility of erasing it, forcing the erasure of that destination. But what you could do there is treat the erased value for whatever method, wherever you're storing this data flash or EPROM or wherever. Treat that value as an invalid value. So instead of treating zero as zero, you know why not treat that as invalid and maybe lock it harder. So the, she also disclosed that I've been trying to get Sergeant Greenleece's attention about this since February and they haven't been providing any useful response. So it's a bit disappointing but I'm hopeful that they'll go forward and make some improvements in the future. There are better locks out there I should mention. There's a federal standard for GSA approved locks. It's FL 2740B and this standard is designed to defend against this sort of attack. So if you really want a good electromechanical lock I would recommend some sort of GSA approved lock. They're kind of expensive though. So feel free to email me if you have any questions. So thanks guys.


What's up, guys? Chicago trader here checking in with the weekly fundamental video. Hopefully you guys had a good trading week, because I'm recording this on Friday after the BPTH craziness. With that being said, there was a name that I have been kind of tracking over the last few weeks. And I figured I'd just kind of share my research with you real quickly and kind of the story and a little bit about what I've found. Pull up this chart here. So it's one of these bad boys that just you can see.  What initially got me interested was I something came across my news feed about the CEO issued a letter. And basically here it was on January 9th. So I kind of got to read through this and it was right down here. So you can see basically it talks about the terms of the company's equity financing through a third party of their series C redeemable, convertible preferred stock. So toward the end, he basically talks about with the sharp decline in trading price of the company's common stock during 2017, it resulted in substantial dilution to shareholders, which continues today. So that's where I kind of initially got interested. I have seen people post about this name before. But I kind of wanted to go in and look at it myself. So just a couple of months later, if we scroll to the top, so they go from 40 million shares all the way to 123, which is absolutely insane. And then we go all the way to Q3, which was filed recently. They actually did a reverse split not too long ago. So there's 12 million. So they did a 25 to one reverse split. So reverse split adjusted, there's about 300 million shares outstanding, a massive increase. So for me, I figured it's probably about done. I got to dig in through. So let me just see what I found here. So basically, yeah, this whole stock purchase agreement and the convertible will save you a spare of the time. So the company was in a bunch of trouble with its debt. And the old CEO of the time, Richard Azar, came through with one of the subsidiary companies, bought some assets, bought some debt, and it's convertible. That's not uncommon for you to see some of these small companies, some of their board members may have another company, some of the directors may have, and they kind of come in and try to rescue the company. For them, so he buys up this purchase agreement. We scroll on down. It's kind of funny. I'll get into it. I'll just jump to it now. Basically, there were some terms that the CEO's side company and this company here, CEI, they closed the deal and they didn't agree, let's just say, on the fees. I think there's like a $1.2 million fee upon closing. And they kind of got into some litigation. So the CEO quits Richard Azar. And he's got all these convertibles to dump.


Kim Good 4-H Foundation Regional Extension Agent for Talladega County. And today I'm going to show you how to tie some fish knots so that you can get outside and go. And I'm Janet Love-Lady, 4-H Foundation Regional Extension Agent for Coosa and Chilton Counties. If you're going to learn to tie knots with us today, there's just a couple of simple things you'll need. A ring object could be a shower ring, a key ring, a washer, and some string.  Don't forget your safety gear. We're starting with the improved clench knot. A great way to attach your hook or your lure to your fishing line. First, you'll take the loose end of your string, also call the tag end, and push it through your ring. Pull it through about six inches. Next, twist the ring so that your two strings overlap about five or six times. Take the tag end of the string, push it through the loop closest to your ring. Pull it through just a little bit, then take that tag end and push it through the loop that you just made in the previous step. Pull the two ends gently but tightly, and you have an improved clench knot. The palamer knot is an easy but strong knot that's great for attaching your hook to a light line. Once again, you'll need your ring and your practice string. Fold one end of the practice string over on itself, creating a loop at the end. Push the loop through the ring. Tie a loose overhand knot. Before you pull that tight, pass the ring through the loop. When you pull it tight, you'll have a palamer knot. Great job! One way to connect two pieces of line together is a blood knot. To practice the blood knot, you'll need two strings, and you may want to tie a small knot on the end of each one to mark your working end. Lay the strings side by side with the working ends on opposite sides. Overlap string number one over string number two five or six times. You may want to hold the strings in the middle so that you know where you begin overlapping. Then you'll overlap string number two over string number one on the other side. Again, you'll do this five or six times. Bring both working ends to the middle and push them through the loop. Pull tight on each string until the knot is snug. You have a blood knot. Well done on your knots.  We have our fishing pole. We've collected our worms. We're on our way to our favorite fishing spot. If you'd like to know more about 4-H and our fishing programs and activities, call your county extension office or go to alabama4h.com.