Let's call the meeting to order. Tegan's going to take minutes until Rose arrives. Oh, I can do that. Well, she's all set. Oh, yeah. That was a question. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? I have something to add. After the last meeting, Nick called me and he wanted to buy a generator stand for the generator, and it had to be done right then, which I didn't forgot to look at. I want to see where you're going to move it to. Yes. Pardon me? It's still there. It's still there. Yeah, I didn't notice. It cost $2,200, and they had to special order it. So I think I checked with one or two of you, and it occurred to me that we had enough left in the ARPA funds. Is that right, Gabrielle? To cover that? Yeah. So I went ahead and authorized him to order it, which he did. What did you say, $2,200? Yeah. So which is, I mean, I don't have the authority to do that, but I hope you guys will back me up. So I'd like to add that to the agenda. In fact, we can do it right away unless somebody has another change. Would somebody please move? I would make a motion authorizing, and to approve the purchase of the stands for the, it was just one, right? It was just one, right here, because it's sort of in the flood plain. For the generator that was installed, and for the funds to be appropriated out of the balance of the ARPA funds. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, folks. Can you read it? Can you say that a little more? I'm a little sad to get all the right words for you. We don't object if you change a word or two, as long as it means the same thing. It makes me sound smart, right? It's kind of our favorite. A motion to authorize in Manchester to authorize the emergency management committee, I guess. Yeah. We could just move to authorize the emergency management committee to expend, to purchase, at the addition of a generator stand to the scope of installation work. For the generator for the town hall. Okay. Is that enough, Tegan? I think so. You can wordsmith it. Okay. All in favor? Aye. The vote's unanimous. Minutes of August 14th. Any comments? Do I have a second? I'll second. Tegan, are you going too fast for you? Are you okay? I'm okay, so far. Okay. Good. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Aye. Board orders are coming around. I think some of us have signed. Johnson curb cut. Tegan has the permit. And what you're approving is what the original application with the additions Jordan put in at the last meeting. That's already done, isn't it? Yeah, it's done. The curb cuts done? Well, then we'd better approve it, I guess. It's not filling everything since you're here. Okay. I'll take a motion to authorize issuance of the permit to Jenny Johnson for the curb cut. So moved. Second? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you. It's coming around and we can sign it. Line of credit for the community bank. So this is, you've all seen this. And any discussion on this? Yeah. Did you all read it? I assume all of it. I have to understand your time. Oh, okay. She's not coming then. She also said on that line where it gave authority for who could take the money out. She wrote her name, but she said she wouldn't be against it if you chose a select board member as a secondary person. You could also take money out. Does everybody follow that? Would you like to have another select board person? I think that would make sense. Okay. Who would you like to have? Chair or vice chair? Okay. Do we have any preference? I have a preference for the vice chair. Wait, sorry. This is to be a signatory? Yeah. That you would be one of the ones authorized to draw? I didn't. Were there two? Who's the signatory? I think I'm one of the signatories on the regular bank account. Yes. You and me and Sandra. Oh, so maybe it would make sense. Might it make sense, or have it be me just for that consistency? Okay. Can I give you this book then? I know. But it's a gift. I didn't sign that. I wasn't sure. Well, we haven't voted yet. Would somebody like to make a motion to sign this? I will tell you that I had a question just in case you're interested. You'll notice it's three different documents, and I didn't know what the tax credit document was. Tax certificate. And what that is is we're saying that we will spend the money in a way that authorizes us to not have to pay taxes on it. There's a federal law that we can borrow so much for certain things.  Would somebody like to move signing of this document? What is the interest rate? 3.99, starting, I think, the day we draw it down. And 3.99 for the year. And just for the amount that we actually use. Yeah. So we could ostensibly have several different pieces of it. We had the whole year both to draw and to pay it back. I believe we have three years to draw, as I recall. She took the one when she was here. Oh, okay. We had to refinance after one if we didn't have a means. You said the repayment term is one year. Other questions or comments? Can I have a motion that we sign the agreement? I mean, don't forget you have to sign in three places. Oh, we're adding Janie. What is it? We're authorizing or signing? Yes, we're entering into this agreement with them. I move that we authorize the agreement with what's the bank? Community bank. Community bank for a $1.7 million line of credit. Okay. And that you add? And add Jamie Morby as a signatory. Well, it's not that she's a signatory. She is one of the two people authorized to go ahead and draw down the money. Yes. And authorize the addition of Jamie Morby as, so is she an account holder? No, she's, I will read it to you. The following person or persons are authorized to request advances and authorized payments under the line of credit until the lender receives from the issuer a different person. So it authorizes her to request advances and authorized payments. The addition of Jamie Morby to take advances and payments from the account. I got it. Here. Say it out again. Here. I got it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. All right, I'm signing it and I'm sending it around. Remember, there's three different documents for you to sign. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Can I have a second? Further discussion? All in favor? Hi. Thanks. Anybody from the public want to say anything? Okay. Now we've got the errors and omissions on the grand list. John, do you want to speak to it or do you feel it's pretty self-explanatory? I think it's self-explanatory. I guess the list goes to Mr. Milo. He came in around March. He got property owners. Mm-hmm. Okay. And it looks like Sandra's already signed it. So I guess what we have to do is authorize Sandra to sign it. Is that right? Sandra worked pretty fast. We corrected the send-out of corporate tax law. So yeah, if you guys don't sign it out, it looks like we need to authorize... Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. That's a different document. Tegan, I thought this was it. No, that's part of the... Oh, that was part of the... Oh, that goes with the law thing. All right. Okay. Yes. I got it. I have it here. Thank you. I'll take... Is there any discussion, any questions about this? I'll take a motion to sign the... Have us all signed the errors and emissions certificate. So moved. Okay. Do I have a second? Paul, in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Aye. Here it is. Aye. Okay. So I'm sending that around for you to sign. Is your copy heavy? There's two signatures on it. I think so. Yes, it does. Do we need to sign more than lunch? Aye. That's just in the pile of things. Barbara told me to bring with me today. Well, maybe we'd better just sign them both in case... I don't know why there's two. There's one a copy and one a... That's a copy. That's what it is. That's signed the original. So... Okay. 822... 828... Sorry, Gabrielle. So this is the one to sign right here. Okay. Okay. Hiring committee has been hard at work. Yeah. So we've done two treasurer interviews. Yeah. Probably by the next meeting. Yeah. That's exciting. Okay. Loomis has been a long-run committee. Oh. They don't want to move on to... Yeah. Okay. So why do you know Cornelia Cary? Has she responded? No. I told her it was the last... Yeah, they're moving. So it's her last chance to serve. I didn't know they're moving. They're leaving town. No, they're leaving the state now. Probably Nick's going to resign too, then. I said probably Nick will resign as emergency... Cornelia Cary. Oh, Cary. I'm sorry. Okay. So then I'd prefer to interview an executive session. I would assume they'd prefer it too. So we can schedule that for next time. She put that down. There's just some things to... This is salaried. They'll be intentionally leaving about that. We haven't got time to care for this. You know what their salary actually is. We haven't got time to care for this. By statute, does it have to be? No. I don't think that's forward-looking. But... Does it have to be salaried by statute? Yeah. But it depends on the definition of the... This would be an administrative... Yeah. professional... There's a definition and this fits into... I think there's only... I think there's a compensation rate threshold. So it's here over if it's an administrative position and it goes over a certain level of compensation that it automatically has to be a salary. That's my memory. If it's... Yeah. You can have hourly administrative employees that are under the thresholds. Or not supervising. Or not supervising, right? Yeah. There's like four or five. I think... Take any of the two that you're trying to take over. And I guess there's one alternative to the compensation level that's going to... It's going to have to be. And unless we're hiring them, it's like consulting them. We... Yeah. So it's still a few things to sort through. Yeah. Everything is... You know, the personnel manual is still on a date. Yeah. And I don't want to give that to somebody because it's just... We don't even operate. We don't have to do that. What is it? The personnel manual? The personnel manual. So it used to be... The last time it was updated was 2016. It used to be when I asked the employee to read it and then they signed the document saying that they read it and understood it. Is that different from the personnel policy? Yeah. Well, that's what it becomes. Oh, okay. Which is online. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's technically in effect. So we have to follow it. Great. It seems like it would be worth still having them read it but have the knowledge that it's on our to-do list for this fall to update it. Tegan's going to help us with that. All right. Do you want to walk us through these... Maybe we could take the road foreman next. The way you've written these job descriptions, the town administrator would be the road commissioner and we would have a road foreman. So Donna's handed out three documents. Do we have copies for Scott if he wants to look at them? Oh, Donna, did you give...  So the first two, the town of Callis, road foreman job description, town of Callis, town administrator, Donna teased apart our former road commissioner list of responsibilities and put some with the town administrator and some with the foreman. So that's what you're looking at. Is that fair, Donna? Well, I like the way they list the major duties.  I mean, everything was great and most of the major duties are in yours but I liked the way it starts out by saying every day you're going to plan and supervise what's going on. And by the way, I had a conversation with the union guy, Larry, to find out whether this foreman under this job description would be a union member or not. I guess maybe you guys understood that but I didn't. He says yes, he can be a union member even though he or she is supervising as long as they're a working member. Which would be the idea. Yeah, we would go outside the agreement. Actually, there's language and disciplinary, et cetera, et cetera that accommodates somebody in a managerial role that's elusive out there. So it would largely be a side agreement relative to their compensation rate until the next union contract and negotiation and then likely their door. But then I think it's important for the town to consider that that then becomes a permanent part of the contract. So if we ever wanted to lock back that arrangement or that relationship, it would get harder for us to do that because it would be a part of the contract. So we would have three years to decide whether or not we would want to leave somebody in that role. That was an organizational structure that was working for the town. I read in the minutes from last time that the road crew is one short. So there's sure no worker B. So there's five of them in there, one short? So there are three full-time employees and then we have two part-time employees and one part-time employee that we brought on specifically because of the flow. That's basically temporary. Was it temporary? Part-time. And how long have we engaged him for? The group? Yeah. He's been... No, I mean, when's he finished? Is there a time when we're stuck? I was speaking fairly soon. Yeah, I would think so. Because he's FEMA. He's doing FEMA stuff for him. Yes, he's helping with all the things that he was brought on to help us get through the things. Yes. So I take it that the ward's working supervisor should be in this. I liked that because that's a working supervisor. Well, I'm looking at a work supervisor. Plan, supervise, and coordinate. This is a working foreman, okay? So the question, because they're very much like a managerial position, so is the expectation they're also going to be in the field working? Do you have the Moncton one in front of you? I don't have the Moncton one. Oh, I didn't take that one. Gabrielle and I can share mine. So you can see they're essentially the same, but it's a little bit clearer, I think, that this is a supervisor, but also a worker. Okay, well, because the one that I had was very much working on the paperwork.  It's going to be a challenge to find. Yeah, somebody's really good at working in the field. They're not going to be as inclined to work. So if they might be less, we can do that stuff in the first place. So I actually have a web through the channel. Do you want me to try to come to one of these two together? Well, let's see what other... I do, but I'm just one at five. Let's see what... We need to really move on these pretty quickly, I think. So, let's see. I think melding them together and to Ann's point, the way I sort of see it is that the working foreman will really primarily be a working foreman and making the day-to-day decisions, but less, and then the town administrator would be more of the grants administrator, more of the paperwork desk stuff. So the foreman would have that sort of organized and record-keeping for the administrator, but the administrator would be doing more of the... And in the Moncton one, they report to... the foreman reports to the Slack board, and in the Callas one, the foreman reports to the town administrator. What...which one would you like? Oh, town administrator, because they'll be the road commissioner. So that's how we would do it eventually. I also like that this person doesn't necessarily have to be the hardcore supervisor, and it says things like, when unsure how to handle a complaint, you know, well, kick it upstairs. You don't have to be the one where the buck stops. And I'm looking at the Moncton one, I'm looking at the second bullet, which this is in responding to... responding to complaints or, you know, comments from the public, but then it also says... Yeah, and then again, supervise the highway personnel. This is the fourth bullet. Bring unusual personnel problems to the attention of the Slack board. Actually, I would say the... the administrator, well, the...yeah, the road commissioner. Say unusual personnel problems. Is that what it says? Yeah, it's a little funny wording. The unusual personnel problems. You need an definition section. You could just say personnel problems, yeah. And then again, the second last bullet, you know, recognize and communicate to supervisor of any problems, basically. So it really...this person isn't, you know, the one who has to discipline employees, but has to recognize that there's a problem and bring it to the road commissioner. Any more discussion on this? So this is a highway budget item, road foreman. Where and what kind of room in the highway budget do we have to hire a road foreman? Well, we have a budget for... we've budgeted for five employees, one of whom I think was supposed to be the road commissioner, but I noticed there's no money for a road commissioner. I guess it was envisioned that the director of public works was going to be the road commissioner. So we have 80,000 for that. And then highway wages, 210,000 divided by five, approximately. So, Toby, we're talking about the road foreman job. How did I know that? The road foreman job description. The one that's the catalyst. Yeah, that's just... So it's 210 divided by five, and then an additional 80. Well, some of that's got to go for a town administrator, too. I think the way this... I don't know, I haven't fooled with the budget yet, but we all kind of need to do that at some point. I know what I'm just thinking, 210 divided by five does not equal what the new contract is, so that's not accurate. That wouldn't be accurate anyway. 210 would be much less than the... Working, they need a person right now, and if it's a working foreman, that person would be working for... Yeah, no, I understand that. I'm just saying that this budget is not reflective of... No, no. Like, I don't even think it's really reflective of the way it was last year, but... Yeah, and that was conceived of more along the lines of... It wasn't just road, and it would have been the highway grants, right? And would that have been a working... No, no. That was conceived of... It was much more as a managerial composition. Is that 80 in the road budget? Yes. Do you have your budgets with you? Yeah. Right. No, that's what I was doing, but it's not... Yeah, but I mean, if we're thinking, everything road is roughly 210 plus, say, 60 of that 80. So that's like 270. I don't know how that compares to what we're... And that's all obviously back in the envelope, but 270 compared to five full-time... We didn't have the union budget. That's kind of... With the increase in the pay that we have with the... We may not have, yeah. That's kind of three of those individuals. So, three people getting lumped up to an apple is going slow, but that's a lot of that budget's going to get gobbled up quickly, and just relative to the contract, which is pretty close to it, I guess, I'd have. But for this year, we're hiring both the foreman position and the town administrative position. Soon, we hope. Well, soon, but that's what? Three quarters of the way through the year, halfway through the year. Well, July. I remember it started in July. Right, so almost halfway through the year. Probably by the time they're hired. Yeah. So that gives us a little wiggle of room for all the months we haven't been paying that salary. Let's hope. When you're looking at FY24, it starts in July 1st. So if you hire somebody down before July 1st, it's in FY23. No, we're in FY24. Yeah, we're now in FY23. Because it started July 1, 23. Now, the town administrative job description, I've incorporated the changes that we talked about in the last meeting. Well, should we just... I guess we're going to see another draft of this at the next meeting, then, of the foreman. Yeah, okay. So, town administrator, yeah. Let's turn to that. I wondered if we shouldn't add in there Develops Capital Plan and helps develop... No, Develops Capital Plan and annual budget. That would be the road commissioner, right? Isn't that what the road commissioner does? Oh, is it? I missed it, then. Yeah, this is like master planning documents. Okay. Long-range planning documents or capital plans. So that's one of them. And then also the annual budget. That's number nine. And annual budget. Okay, thank you. On the long-range planning documents. Tracks throughout the year. Okay. Wouldn't it be more appropriate for the treasurer to be the one to report on some of that stuff? Capital plans. Well, it does say in number nine, with the treasurer prepares. Because it really has to be jointly the budgetary aspects and then also knowing the problems. I guess my view on that would be that that individual is the owner of kind of those working documents and the dialogue with the select board and then the treasurer is the one who's kind of facilitating the budgeting administration is the one who's kind of bringing that information to the select board. Well, I would envision that this town administrator would also come to the select board a lot and be working with us. So they'd work together. In fact, the town administrator is supervising the treasurer. Isn't that right? That's a slow chart. So that isn't in here. That this person supervises. Oh, supervises? No. Town properties and buildings. So there probably should be something about... All town employees is in two. Is it in two? Okay, you guys are doing better at this than I am. I don't know if we want the town administrator or the treasurer to supervise that. Well, that was what was in Donna's flow chart, wasn't it, Donna? Yes, but there's something we took out of this list. We took out committees. This does not mention treasurer. It doesn't. I see them working closely with the treasurer. Well, I'll tell you something I've been thinking about. Here's what we did last time. I had a treasurer who was changing to select board. Which number are you talking about, Donna? Number three. So it was... Back to the slideboards agent and supervision of employees, including treasurer. And we inserted town employees. And we took out treasurer and noted that the treasurer was very important. Right. Can I make a word for you? I've been kind of thinking about if we hire a treasurer who is more of a bookkeeper type. And Sandra says that the job in many weeks can be done in 20 hours. And other weeks, it's more than that. Oh, couldn't this treasurer report to the town administrator and in the hours... In the weeks when he or she doesn't have 20 hours, kind of assist the town administrator in other ways. If it's going to be a full-time job. You also have to keep in mind that some of the things that you do in our order... Oh, okay. Like what? They went to T.V. and Barbara, and Sandra left. And Wendy came along. And now Sandra's trying to keep the full-time job. So, for example, T.V. or K.V. are you going to introduce them later on? I do the initial part of the K.V. So when it comes in, I put it off and spread T.V. and pass it on to Wendy and T.V. as all of those ones. So would you envision that the treasurer would take over that part of it? I'm happy to keep doing it. It does seem more appropriate for a treasurer to be doing it. I don't mind doing it. And who's processing the tax? Barbara isn't doing most of the processing of the tax. But that's appropriate. She's an assistant treasurer. I wonder if... Is there anything else like that that we passed on to Tegan that should go back to the treasurer? Yeah, it would have happened in Jeremy's time more than in my time. Okay. I'm going to talk to Worcester over there and they, because they just split up their clerk and treasurer duties, they're sort of patching this up, too. So I'd be happy to talk to them a little bit about what they have found in their efforts to clarify rules. Tegan, thanks. Because the other aspect is that Sandra's only there until the last couple weeks. She was only there maybe once a week. I didn't see her at all. Now she's in a couple of times a week and we do interface work. I'm probably doing things to you as opposed to you and I don't know what those are because I've never done any other way to do it. Okay, so it sounds like there's a little more fine-tuning to be done here, then, to make sure... I'm not sure yet. I'm there. Why don't we first separate it out? I'm assuming there are a few kicking it around in various files. In fact, along those lines, I was wondering about number 11, drafts the town meeting warning. Isn't that something the town clerk does? No. Oh, it's not? How about that? Okay. And drafts the town meeting warning. Is that like the agenda? What is the... Is the warnings... Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, where are we? With this. I think Tegan's going to do a little thinking about it. What? Yeah, I think we can leave it kind of the way that it's stated about managing personnel. I mean, I guess worst-case scenario, we end up peeling out the actual reporting structure to the select board when we clarify the role when we hire somebody. That's a good idea. Without getting into the treasurer back and forth because I can see how that... I can see in the future, depending on how you kind of shakes out, it could be nice to have some autonomy between those two which isn't to say that the administrator couldn't facilitate the hiring or seeking out a treasurer in the future or something like that, but at the time that the hiring is being done and still being done by the select board and then the reporting is still at this level but they're still facilitating facilitating the hiring process. Yeah, I guess my instinct just says it's cleaner to have one person be the supervisor of personnel, the town personnel, but we don't have to decide that right now. Yeah. Yeah, we... I hope we're going to have to decide it pretty soon. Yeah. And then there is the idea of the one municipal assistant who support the town for... Well, that's... I was thinking if we wound up with a treasurer who was more of a bookkeeper, he or she would have some time many weeks of the year to assist the town administrator in which case I'd like the town administrator to be supervising if we decided that was appropriate. Shall we ask Donna to bring another draft again next week? I think we better try to close it though. Both. Are we meeting next week? I'm sorry, next meeting. No, we're not meeting next week. Hey, you never know. Okay, progress. Thank you, Donna. Next up is Toby. Toby made a recommendation on roadside mowing. Did you all get that? Roadside mowing, both rental for the short term and potentially buying some for the long term, buying one. So, Pete's equipment does have a mower available for three weeks in October. The limit is 40 hours a week. I'll catch up with what we missed. Do they supply the operator too? Or do we? Okay. We would have to go pick up the machine and must convey that. So, do you need a CDL to do the mower? And it would be... But everybody on the crew has a CDL, so... So, help us out with the budget. You're saying it would be three weeks be over $10,000. Which is way beyond... So, we also have to buy two sets of blades and we pick the total up front is $11,288 for three weeks. That includes the blades? And it's not possible to get the existing one repaired for $4,000? Where did they see that? So, with the $4,000 that's just what he can see that it's an incredibly rough machine. The cover is bolted. We would have to basically, like, pry off the cover to see what's happening on the other side. $4,000 is what you can see. It's going to be very, very... And parts are probably not available if it's that old. It's that old. It was old, and I don't think it was purchased. But it's like... Can we sell it? For scrap metal. My understanding is that that thing was, like, a stop cap to... beyond exhaustion. And is... And it's there. There may be some value if somebody wants to buy it for parts for their old track or something like that. I don't know if you can discern it yourself. I don't know what's going on here. For parts, yeah. So where are we going to get the money? It's not in the budget. Well, there is a $5,000 line item for mine. So essentially, we're talking about only $6,000 that they have to show up somewhere. So the question is line items are great, but the bottom line is at the end of the year, you're buying the horses all day. We're ascertain... It's going to be really difficult because of all of the changes. We've also ascertained that we're going to go over the highway wages budget, too. Oh, yeah, of course. So, yikes. I mean, I think that it's literally the same three weeks that were available back in June, or maybe in the fall. I tried to reach out to Doug Brown and I couldn't see him anymore. He hasn't ever. So I didn't know if that was something that we could... but I went to her back. So, at least he had done. What happens if we don't do it? If we just leave it and deal with it next spring? It creates challenges with ploughing. Yeah, I think it's going to get hard for obstacles, that sort of thing. It becomes a safety issue, for sure. But here's the one that I found really important. It's already a safety issue. There are ditches that are growing up before grass so you think it's just a shoulder. You pull off to get out of the way. It's currently a safety issue. I asked you about the surplus. Doesn't this not really make the surplus? I think we've already spent it. We did. So, when Sandra last spoke about the surplus that she was very interested in, about surplus in the roads budget relative to tracking the pluses and the minus that Tobi was mentioning, he's going to be hard to track what the expenses are and who will be on the hook from maybe some of the power the overages or the wages overages. And then, theoretically, all of the expenses that are incurring relative to the extra scope of work for overtime and rehabilitation that are going to be covered by Tima. So, if everything shakes out pretty well, should we end up with that? So, essentially, if the reimbursement works according to plan and we get all of that we already do 87% of that will be paid by Tima. And the differences, so that covers the salary of other companies but the other portion that we're getting is the machine time that we never calculate into the cluster in the budget so all of the machine hours that we would build for Tima will actually cover all of the overages and other things. Unfortunately, there's no way to know right now what that number is going to be. And we're still going to pay 15% of what is going to be almost $2 million. It's 12.5% because the state adds 12.5% and the state and Fiuma paid 87.5% of the work to destroy roads. Even minus the fact that the zoning regs were not adjusted for the full state reimbursement. The zoning regulations for there was a reimbursement from the state that we missed and that's why they're doing the rewrite of the rewrite so I'm not sure that we would be up for 12.5% what? Yeah, that's right. So the 12.5% is already locked in. It's the 17% that we didn't get because we hadn't accrued the river corridor. So we'd get up to 17% if we had. So it's called ERAF and we're already at 12.5%. It could be at 17% if we hadn't done the zoning in the river corridor. So we're guaranteed 87.5% of whatever the total expenditure is. So it's a million dollars that counts on the hook for 12.5% on the 12.5%. Do the math. I'm not doing math in my head. Not today. So the bottom line it's really hard to predict even if we're over my nine years in the highway budget I can't tell you that it's going to be we might have a huge surplus because there's no way to know that until we do all the calculations. And I don't believe we need to authorize this. The road commissioner manages her own budget. Just give me an odd sign and I have to reserve it for October. I think that's a totally appropriate thing to do. There's a machine available to do the work and there's operator available to do the work and the work should be absolutely a safety issue. Every day you drive by and see people starting to catch up on road mowing. Did anybody at any point ask if it wasn't V-trans lending out stuff for towns? They wouldn't lend out a mower? That actually seems like something they could and would lend out. I don't know how much of the mower they're doing. They just do roadside mowing. They do interstate mowing. That's different equipment. It's not the real mower that we really need to do. And even the interstate mowing in the beginning of 2022 they awarded for the 12 districts, the maintenance districts. And that includes the interstates too. So I think the state has learned a way of decision that they are going to be hiring out roadside mowing specifically. I imagine that goes down to the state highways as well, where it just falls exclusively on the towns. I would be surprised if a lot of that equipment has been needed. Now that those contracts are in place. Well, from the nodding heads, I'd say you've got the nod. Does anybody object to that? We're going to have to go and strategize the high-heat areas because 120 hours is a good amount. We'll have to do the best we can. We'll do the most serious. I guess they need to get that out. We need to keep it closed. We also gave us two quotes for buying our own mowing machines. So if you want to deal with that now we can. Essentially it's solved the problem. You have time to deal with this in the future because essentially if you go to the town meeting and ask the voting permission or you can do it yourselves if you want to be a fine release. I sort of put together just a quick look at what the Catholic plan should be. It happened at that in the last couple of years. So I'm still sort of verifying a couple of things. Last year's town budget for the Catholic line items had things in it that were already paid off. So essentially we've raised money for things we don't need to make in the FY24. And one of those is because the western sergeants wanted to get here a little bit sorry what took so long? The western sergeants got laid so long that it became because so the way we buy equipment, particularly the town of trucks, is we buy them with a seven year extended warranty. And so we've had an experience in the past where we had a seven year warranty and we missed the date and we did two weeks of the exploration of the warranty mentioned above and it cost us $15,000. So we really need to stay on top of a seven year itch on the trucks. And there's actually two of them that are coming up in the next two years that need to be replaced. And so we should, you know, again look at the big picture because essentially right now for the past four or five years we've been putting roughly $100,000 into the capital no matter where the year. We've might double depending on the year. So those are things we can want to have a little longer to look at. Yeah. So I've been trying to work on this spreadsheet whenever I can find time and one of the things that I think would be important to kind of look at in that end is so you can look at it in the numbers of proposing what the rental costs are for a mower what the purchase costs are then you have the maintenance that has to be rolled into that and you have the operating area etc etc and the mower is a very specific piece of equipment that is going to have a cost that if you look at the math another way you could look at what the hourly rate of ownership is. What's our hourly rate of running a tractor that's $200,000 or $180,000 or even $160,000 but we're using it for 60 hours relative to an excavator which could be $250,000 $300,000 but we're using it for 1,000 hours a year and so what makes what makes sense for the town okay. What is that wine? Does anybody know? Yeah. It's a hearing. It's like a hearing aid. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What about owning it cooperatively with Woodbury and Worcester or something like that? So the problem with renting a piece of equipment every spring and fall is you compete with all the other towns that are doing the exact same. I'm not sure if you're sure that you're going to get the machine for the period of time when you have it. I think if it's with one of the breakdowns of Toby's brought to us earlier in the year it's pretty clear that if the town besides the strategy is either between renting and owning, owning makes sense by the numbers relative to when we need to do things and how much it's going to cost we might want to scratch our heads about it a little bit more to make sure that we include the maintenance costs in that but I think the real decision is whether or not it's between purchasing specialized piece of equipment or firing or contracting that work and then in that perspective it comes down to because then you're rolling in the opportunity cost of having an individual who could otherwise be better utilized for those hours creating roads that need to be great. That didn't do it. I don't know if the I'm finding it very distracting. I don't think it's me. No. Oh. What, fire alarm? Well, I guess this thank you, Anne. Should we be evacuating the building? I think to Toby's point we have some time to figure that out and I can't be crunching those. So just a quick look at what a casual man looks like. Thank you. The other question I had was are there neighboring towns who also will contract out for Boeing and will go as you know as it is? That's what I, yeah, that's what I was asking. Woodbury and Western. I've never researched yet. I've asked D-Trans to give some names of contractors and I've not had many answers before. I have a list of handful of contractors and I spoke about one of them but I can't have a meaningful conversation without so I can use a billy by the miles and a billy by the hour. Kind of feeling it out to well essentially we have 73 miles times 2 to be 146 miles more. Yeah. That's the quick way to get into how many of those have like how many of those miles have guardrails, how many of them have just grass relative to brush and you know what style or if you want what's the extent of the work and you know I think one of the smaller elephants in the room is going to be what's the aesthetic and appetite that the town wants for a contractor to come in and do things the way that we want them to do it when we want them to do it relative to invasive species whether or not we want them to use bull saw or whatever we want them to use a mower or filet mower for doing brush for um so I think it's a conversation we're spending a decent amount of time on but there's a lot of information I don't know I started to kind of identify the mileage relative to um it ended it was the phone it stopped it stopped it stopped is it the microphone that John planted in here hahaha John is that something you're going to do hahaha um Jordan did you finish oh yeah yours not quite I'm not going to have to speak to any of those but I've been working on trying to quantify what those are and be nice to know what the actual number of hours that we have been spending on it on an annual basis from a root well that's difficult because the machine is breaking down what's the window that we have to because everybody wants it at the same time I understand is it even practical to think about sharing and I'm thinking about the idea of sharing with another town are both towns going to want them at exactly the same time or is there enough of a window that we could share um again it depends so if you take it in April and it rains 3 weeks and you're not getting very wonderfully mowing again there are faults in whatever you do and if you hire a contractor and they have to go somewhere else and they didn't finish because of the weather same things are going to happen and the only sort of control you have is if you own machine and you can mow again when the weather changes and you have them right and can you get a machine that does double duty not really it's either a mower or it isn't it's either a mower or it isn't that's just unfortunately there's not much else you can do I was wondering if that's what this Kubota corp was about because I didn't see that it was a mower you look in the very fine print on the right hand side in that little box you'll see a 97,000 yes okay it goes from a $100,000 tractor to a $200,000 tractor it says $97,000 for a mower oh I see it there $97,000 exactly the book think about a new haul in John Deere also came with the arm that goes up and you take down a high limb it's a little mower so we could do it to a new brush so we can have a conversation I mean if Jordan wants to try and get a point where we could say what to do right and meanwhile we'll be building the capital budget for presentation at town meeting but how far ahead do you have if we decide to rent again would you have to do it to be sure you got into that little window I know this is my first call to them and I got into October and again it all depends so they have five machines at Pete's I don't know if anybody else like up in Burlington runs them as well so there may be more vendors that have more availability well would it be worth signing up right now for next spring and with the option to cancel just in case we get stuck again yeah because even if we do vote at town meeting to buy a mower will we have it ready to go next spring yeah so we do need to maybe I don't know Middlebury which is in New Holland and it's a very lightly used tractor with a brand new boom mower that was added to it I'm guessing it's in the ballpark so that was probably a contract that somebody decided not to buy so something like that could happen well again so if we come to a decision that we're going to purchase somewhere or shape or form and if something comes up we want to have the flexibility of not missing it you know if there's a used piece of equipment that saves us $30,000 in the purchase then we should come up with an idea that that's where we're headed and well then we'd take a short term mower and you as a select board can do at least purchase up to five years on any piece of equipment about anybody we need to vote on it so again I haven't seen that price but we should look at it and see if it's a reasonable option we need to be aware of it once it comes up we should move on alright any more on this one okay so you have what you need to rent it yeah be good just to have it as insurance if that's something we can do okay the office staff asks that we go from weekly payroll to bi-weekly payroll because that'll save them a lot of time and it'll save us a lot of money that you pay in what? we pay Nimrick to help us with payroll it's a jump in time everybody okay with that? now that the union negotiation is over we can do it which we couldn't before okay but we didn't do we need to vote on that? maybe we do why don't we just do it would somebody like to move that we go to bi-weekly payroll? next appropriate payroll do we have a second? second all in favor? aye okay it's unanimous bi-weekly and our current personal policy if I remember correctly it is 2016 the other year okay it was just a road it was used in bi-weekly I had to do a lot of arm-twisting to get the road okay east callus general store liquor license application is that clear you guys don't have the agenda in front of you do you? so this is about we authorize Teagan to the way it works is the state needs us to approve either authorizing a one-time liquor license like for a wedding or something or authorizing one in this case to the east callus general store and every year we have to reauthorize so at a meeting a few months ago we authorized Teagan to go ahead and do the approval without coming to us for all the it was unclear whether we meant to do all those or whether we just meant the one-time licenses because it was in the context of somebody applying for a liquor license for a wedding that was being held at memorial hall so the question am I being clear so the question is do we want to authorize Teagan to just go ahead and approve all of them some of them do we want to limit what she can approve they usually come up once a year in march and most towns just a two-minute select board yes we we did it for this year but this is now for the east callus general store which has applied for the first time this is not a reauthorization great it seems to me that we should authorize Teagan to do any one-time event license or and any renewal of existing ongoing licenses the select board should vote on new ongoing licenses Rose could you consider that a motion I already put Jamie's name do you need any of that repeated okay we have a motion and it's seconded all in favor aye okay that do we need to vote on the east callus license oh I guess we do it's a new one this is presumably to sell beer and wine it is to sell beer and wine are they having anything like a wine bar or something like that no it's all for takeaway at this point do you know if they applied for a tobacco license it's just the one class two class two just wine and beer to sell beer and wine for people to take away enclosed containers I presume and then you would have to modify the liquor license to change it they have to apply for a new license it's totally as Jamie knows probably better than I do it's a totally different license the tobacco would be a totally different license as well and that wouldn't necessarily even come to it would you approved it for Maple Corner back in spring Maple Corner has five different licenses they're all very specific some are for on-premise some are for off-premise and different types of consumption yeah would anybody like to move authors let me see we approve the license we approve it and then the liquor control will issue it so approval of the license for the East Calis General Store second class liquor license I would make a motion to approve a second class liquor license for the East Calis General Store second okay all in favor aye thank you I have a question is that the real name of the business is that the real name of the store the East Calis General Store I don't remember but I can let you know tomorrow okay thanks I mean that used to be the old name and it was the general store of East Calis that was doing business I think it went back John and Sharon called it the general store of East Calis and then the next guy who bought it turned it back I guess it was Leslie went back to East Calis General Store okay the authorization or resigning of the agreement which is to be done annually between the town and the friends of the Calis Town Hall you've all seen it it refers to management who's responsible for what and they've added a clause that authorizes us to allow quasi-municipal groups to use it like the friends of Calis not to be confused with the friends of the Calis Town Hall the other example which came up in our meeting was there was a meeting of like an emergency meeting of like emergency services from all over the county after the flood and so there's this question it's not really Calis but it's a physical activity but it's a quasi-municipal activity and then it involves we'll see if we can come out here which affects Calis but also the larger community you were thinking of insurance what is that? we were thinking of the insurance coverage since it wouldn't it wouldn't be covered under the town's policy but it probably wouldn't be covered under the friends of Calis Town do you mean if something happened on the CB524 meeting here? yes they tripped over there they tripped themselves we talked a lot about the insurance a couple of years ago and you know the I guess town legal services basically suggested to us each group should be fully covered with the notion that in those instances what typically happens is they would attempt to shut off liability around and if each one is a major cushion everyone is safer each group being friends of the Calis Town Hall and the town of Calis exactly right and whoever the temporary lessee is as well we ask that people put another way to have their own insurance insurance companies hire lawyers and they argue about whose policy it is as long as everybody has at least one insurer so you're concerned that we wouldn't cover the friends of the Calis Town Hall or this emergent or CB fiber it's not a question of friends of the Calis Town I know you're calling our attention to maybe before we sign this agreement we should think about that no why would they talk to passive that would be us the one that said cover yourselves I think you're suggesting that we give passive a call and ask if we add this clause are we covered no the friends of the Calis Town Hall would be doing the coverage for the quasi-municipal groups yeah because they're quasi-municipal I know that this sounds insane but it makes a kind of sense when a few people met here a while ago if there's been some claim you wouldn't have wanted, passive wouldn't have wanted to pay it the friends have a kind of grand overall policy I see so how does how do the friends afford insurance what income do they have we have some grants we've got some grants we've done fundraising we're doing okay in the future a lot of them will come from rental of the space so that's exactly because we retain 80% of the proceeds of rental for the space the town gets 20% so that's exactly the other thing that that 80% is to cover the pension so it's a general liability policy that the friends of the Calis Town Hall would be holding for things like tripping over cords and whatnot we've had that policy for the last two years I think who do they actually call? right they call our house they call everyone if it's needed if it's needless but we take care of it if it's not I direct them to Cliff or to the friend's email address okay are we comfortable signing this agreement now as written and then we would have to get is Cliff back in town now? because it looks like he has to sign it so I guess what we can do is give it to you guys and if we sign it tonight quickie question this is separate from also not having individual providing some sort of stipend for managing the building and it's that separate from what that's kind of an issue which I think well I know that was a thing but I didn't know if that thing was rolled up into this thing or that's a separate thing I don't know what that says about like I clean but there is a person who's supposed to come in and like what do we have to be in the building yet? I just call John Carl but to me I know he used to be somebody who was following up on things so this is a tangent but we have the Gospel Hall Award and we have Andy Kulisey who gets a stipend to help do anything type of stuff between here and the town office so like if we get a light bulb change if we need clothes cleaned off this this is something weird and it's a quick fix and we call him and it falls under his stipend job it's a bigger task but as she said there's no clear things so Barbara and I have been trying to put together a list and a schedule and like every quarter this has to happen and every month this has to happen and that's a separate entity from the town and Andy would probably make a report to the town administrator Right now he reports to you all and kind of to me but I am working to report to you about anything that happens but Barbara and I are the ones who are like well let me just read it we're the ones in the office You are, yes There should be a manual before John McCullough dies because he's the one who does the most about building So he needs to write the manual then and somebody has to push him I was going to sit down with him once he passed this tax season where he's getting called all the time and get a good history of the town office and the town hall from his perspective long-term projects quirks, who to call if this happens I was planning to talk to him And by the way what's going on with the shutters were you going to rent a I had a day off plan Andy has staging out there they had two or three days off plan and it ranked weird what but they're both kind of people you've got to push we asked him to push pretty hard it's not hard enough he's going to take a sunny day and I don't have to push too hard about a dozen of those so if you want to see that Addendum A which is the very last page of the document that Cliff sent you all is the one that addresses this issue if you want to just cast your eye over it I think otherwise pretty much everything is boilerplate from the previous year yeah there was one cross out which made sense about the date stuff about insurances on page 5 yeah okay would somebody like to move that we sign this oh I don't know sign the second second any further discussion can I ask one question I was just looking at the insurance section and given that the change of the last Addendum the quasi municipal groups with those under the insurance it's to cover municipal and to cover non-municipal where does the quasi-municipal fit in that it doesn't matter well it seems to be looking non-municipal we could probably make that do you think so too we'll add the quasi-municipal to the insurance right insurance on the top right I was just wondering if the top one should be to cover municipal and quasi-municipal the good catch to me how do you define quasi-municipal well they these are community groups it's here it's in yeah that's a good catch Jamie I think that should be added I think it makes sense to add rule of the quasi-municipal underneath the municipal right because but then I think that we also have to be able to prove by the municipality you would add the quasi-judicial to municipal is that what you said we're not sure we need to check and see if our insurance will cover it then we do know that the friends insurance will cover it so that the friends would cover that in that case I guess we can't sign this document because we'll have to fix that but we can still vote to authorize we can vote to authorize us to sign it we'll sign it at the next meeting so we'll consider that emotion alright okay we'll consider that emotion would somebody second that motion second okay all in favor thanks I'll ask well maybe you could ask Barbara somebody just needs to fix that and we'll get it on the next agenda so agreement you have a question so the original motion to approve that was made by Jordan and then Jamie offered that Jordan will you please withdraw why don't you just say Jordan moved and do it the way Jamie said it and then Jamie seconded that's just that yeah oh okay will you ask Cliff to do it and send it to Barbara and we'll deal with it we'll sign it up the next meeting thank you thank you you're doing pretty good here okay so Teagan has very kindly offered to head up a small committee to review all our ordinances and policies prioritize which ones need updating and or changing and then actually work with the appropriate people to offer us language she suggests that Sandra be on it and one of us any discussion on that question I mean what's likely to be on there besides the personnel policy our Wi-Fi policy is out of date Sandra suggested we have a cell phone policy because that's becoming a thing also some of these just haven't been looked at and have various things there's a conflict of interest policy and there needs to be some updates to that from what I gather we have drug and alcohol policy and now marijuana is legal so we should probably make sure all our languages so there's just a lot of little things that I don't think anything is a big dramatic change but some things need to be brought into it how many cell phones does the town issue right now we just have the one that Sandra has that Sandra has but Ann Coulin has requested one for the road crew and attention to the foreman the one Sandra has now was the road foreman's but then we didn't have a road foreman's issue do we have an IT policy I guess for other devices internet policy and a wi-fi policy I don't think this is my memory that we have a tech stuff it's required a little more complicated process to pass them but the policies do not but somebody does need to write the language but some makes it a language you don't need to prevent it so everybody think that's a good idea we need if so we're thinking of Tegan and Sandra for now anyway and one of us so we'll have two from the office staff because Sandra really wants to work on the personnel policy she has some thoughts about that I don't want to push you into it I'll take that one on if you don't want to but if you want to you're welcome to and we're also the plan is to call on other people who will be more knowledgeable about specific things it won't just be the two or three of us sitting in a room ideally when there are road questions we'll call on a road commissioner or even a road to remember as he did when it's something else we'll call on other folks we'll probably be on the phone at least it doesn't really sound like it's going to be a big time so this is our review and ordinance and policies already got a list and the next thing and you've probably already prioritized a few of them anyway it's a lot to sort through to read them all and see where we are and everything the first thing I had to do was just make sure we were I had the most up to date version in the binder and now I'm sort of looking through them more carefully I'd be happy to get involved in that I'm just not going to be able to do a deep dive probably until like after September and then theoretically my time opens way and we'll let you know I'm assuming when these meetings are happening like all of you will know when they're happening if any of you want to attend for whatever reason okay somebody like to make a motion to appoint a policy and ordinance review committee for the purposes outlined here which Rose can just take that off and that the committee would consist of Teagan Sandra Gabrielle has also volunteered but would you well with Jordan's time frame does that work to wait until after September how pressing is your personnel policy yeah well one of us could I think that I have time to contribute to contributing to things for sure maybe deep dive into a whole bunch of things I'll have one second probably I can help you too you know we'll feel like no nothing is a rush yeah it's just like the personnel policy like she said no one's looked at it since 2016 yeah and now that we have a union contract we should do some cross and I looked through and took notes on both of them so I have notes to bring to that meeting when it happens okay so the motion would be to appoint Teagan Sandra and Jordan to the committee and you? no I'll come in and help drafting is something I do relatively easily so I can help with that part so alright I guess it's mine right now do I have a second second okay any further discussion Jordan are you thinking about something okay all in favor oh you mean the rules of procedure that we never did I don't think that means like a whole crazy overall I mean that can pretty easily be brought back to select board along with all of them okay I put it on the next agenda I'm gonna put it back on the radar screen both of the binder and if you go to the website have a few things like that that are not in order policy like the select board but there's a couple other things there okay we've got a motion and a second all in favor great thank you and now we're down to reports so we'll save the executive session ones for the end so let's hear from Gabrielle you got anything to report on the FEMA progress yeah so last Thursday we had the recovery scoping meeting and there were about eight different FEMA personnel there Scott sent us all I think a link to a list of the participants from the meeting so there were about eight FEMA's and including a gentleman from mitigation and he and Toby had a lot of dialogue about Q&A and and it went really well so Toby presented oh and then for Callas there was Scott and Charlotte Toby, Nick, Sandra and I and this was the first real meeting with FEMA that we had our person our primary point of contact is Michelle Miller and and so and I actually can't tell you other than the mitigation gentlemen what the rest of their specializations were other than Michelle the primary so so a lot of the time was spent reviewing a slide show of photos of primarily the road damage and also the dam that was prepared and we looked at the inventory as well a little bit and they complimented him to the highest extent and expressed a lot of gratitude for the work that he had done like they're really impressed with what we've been able to put together so far they will for anything that is 100% completed already Michelle will create a project with those ones once she gets all the paperwork which Toby and Sandra have coordinated on or are coordinating on and that will be the first thing to be reimbursed and there was not talk of timelines about when we would get reimbursed or anything like that I think that's like a third rail thing to ask although if I had thought of it I would have asked it but I think it all depends on when we complete the work, complete the paperwork submit it and then there's the back and forth etc so Michelle also made several future dates to work with Scott she's going to bring a scanner they're going to do a big scanning party of all of the work thus far Toby showed off his little clear plastic case of file folders which that's what will be scanned and he intends to send essentially a template file to Michelle to make sure it's got everything that she wants. Sandra asked some questions about what kind of documentation they need etc and so I think the biggest kind of surprise although it wasn't a surprise but just the complication was how and how to treat curbspond dam to put it bluntly because the town did not own the dam at the time of the flood and so we went back and forth a little bit because the first question she asked was who owns the dam the room stood still as one does when asked that question and so I tried my best to explain it and then it sort of circled around to well who's legally liable and if you are legally liable then you can apply for the dam repairs to the dam and so so then at the end and this is awesome because it was recorded and Scott sent it back to me because I didn't remember that had been this clear. I asked for clarity and she said if you provide document if you can show that you're legally responsible for the dam then you should feel free to apply for the dam you may have to prove it at a later date so so that's well so what we've done is Nick has gathered the emergency management plan which specifically states that we're going to swing into action to help this is our responsibility and it outlines the steps we're going to follow he's got a copy that we're putting it in the vault so if we get audited we have that I've consulted with Mark Mahaly about it and talked to him about whether I should call Thomas Maloney and what did Mark think he thinks it's pretty clear that we were taking he just doesn't think it's going to be much of an issue and it'll only be an issue if they audit us and question the documentation so I think we're probably okay yeah how much money did we put into the curves 28,000 yeah because when we were standing in the parking lot it was 17 for the pump and 11 for the riprap and a little bit of town labor as well so 28,000 dollars for us to just keep it out we're going to try to get fund support like is it worth assuming that liability of trying to put the curves on dam funds in there and take that I think the point is we kind of already have so we may as well document it I mean that right I mean the attorneys have sort of said all along you're taking these steps that is showing liability I guess that's true yeah you don't have any plausible liability yes well Sandra came back to the office and she said you don't make that 28,000 dollars in the grand scheme of this 1.7 million she was like it's small potatoes in this yeah well I guess that's my point if something happens with a carousel on dam reconstruction project and we don't move forward and then that gets drawn out a couple more years and then we've taken all of these steps including trying to clean ownership of it to get FEMA dollars for the 28,000 dollars and then something happens and somebody sues the town that's just one more I think check box that a opposing lawyer would use against the town and so is it worth trying to chase the 28,000 dollars in there for just putting that one extra check box in the event I'm a little uncomfortable having this discussion in public here that's probably something we should discuss well we can take it up well I guess we have to do separate motions for everything we go into executive session for don't we I guess we can't do it when we do the other one we've already taken plenty of actions I can talk to you about it afterwards for a minute so that's my update thank you Curtis pondan I have a couple of things one is the public bid opening is September 26th at 3pm at the town office and that is supposed to be a warned select board meeting so I think it'll be quick we literally open them look at them and then d&k takes them back and makes recommendations but it'll be the first time we see what bids are coming in we're optimistic that a bunch will but we should make sure we can pull off a meeting at that time and have a quorum so put that on your calendars what day of the week is that Wednesday so I can probably we have to have a quorum we have to have at least three people there so would you guys put it on your calendars oh it's a Tuesday oh it's a Tuesday yeah I should be fine 3pm at the town office at the town office Tuesday September 26th and I'll work with Barbara to warn it and if we I don't know where you'll be but if we needed to have you on the phone for I guess yeah I'm going to be a main but yeah would you guys still be quoruming me if you have three my kid has an appointment at Dartmouth all day I think as long as we're at quorum any of us can call a meeting for orders we're not going to be taking any action so it's just going to open the meeting and make sure we're all there so if you three can be there okay thank you oh yeah we have lost it at some point so we signed an addendum to our contract with D&K a few weeks ago that got us through the bid phase there is a second addendum for them to oversee construction the construction phase and they certify that it was built to spec we I don't have that final document so we don't have to they haven't actually sent me yeah I realized and I reminded him last week and then he got back to me today and said there's no huge hurry but I'll have it they sent us the whole thing as one it's just what it's just the other pieces and he made it out he's not going to change the cost it'll be exactly what was in the other way yes so there are some members of the CPA who think that it would be better to wait until we have a contract with a contractor to sign this amendment the CPA executive board sent a little statement if I can read it it's just three sentences the CPA executive board recommends that signing the D&K contract for the construction oversight wait until after the contract with the construction contractor has been signed it is our opinion more detail about the price quoted by D&K should be provided before signing it's been our experience with D&K that client communication has been poor and D&K has been reactive and not proactive with our project we would like to have some reassurances in writing that the construction oversight contract that improvements are being made and I can send that to you all basically they just want a little more detail and there are some members of the CPA who have questioned if that project should go out to bid but the general majority thinks D&K should see the project through but there might be a little bit of room for negotiating with D&K about the costs I don't know how exactly that would work or who would it sounds like they want to negotiate or they think we should negotiate because it's a contract with us it's a time and material contract so I'm not sure I feel like I can have a conversation with Michael and see if there's wiggle room anywhere but I think it's not clear in the verbiage but he said this is a max this is a max number remember he said that maybe the the tact to take is to say we want a very clear not to exceed in the contract so I can work on that and I'll have the amendment next week we probably won't have a contract with a contractor for another month anyway oh yeah September 26 and then they take it back and study it so I'll find out from Michael if he's okay waiting they don't mind waiting till after we have the contractor lined up to sign so I won't put that on the next agenda then for signing and you can just update us if that's alright with everybody okay, roads anything we haven't already beaten to death here time they just work so hard here grading done in three days later it's a mud bog there's finally material what we got to do here yeah so a very bummed out to you that the court didn't have so there still needs to be the top layers on Moscow and a number of the other roads we couldn't create without having that talk a lot of the roads because we needed additional material so we're slogging along so there's material there's materials being crushed now so roads like yours that are half missing still and mine so they're on Valentine right now and I think it is a better strategy to kind of they park the excavator, they club along they're digging out the ditches they're fixing the colleges but it feels like it takes forever but it's going to be the best because it takes hours to move that excavator back and forth so they're slowly moving they're almost down Valentine we've gotten a little bit over to the other side of the town and the backside of Washington and that's what thinking about road filling those what Toby calls scours which I learned during the FEMA meeting there's some big ass scours I know as the leaves start to fall I'm seeing the scours sort of disappear it's nerve wracking okay so where did they find the stuff they needed so Brickford started crushing the plant mix and there's stuff by the places but they spent so much time driving so Brickford says to close this and no one has the smaller stuff that they need for the top coat was the thing that no one had that there was a complete are we still utilizing like are there contractors that are still on projects they're pretty specific or can we put out some of the smaller Toby really had us so I asked him two weeks ago and he said that we got it covered I'm like oh so Toby felt that at this point he did not need to bid anything else out because I was hoping for some like yours, like bliss road that have scours or you know just need we still are saying just grating but I know once they get in there they need to call for work and because that happens every time and it's like put that top coat on and grate it, it'll be like what they're gonna be like no this color it's not working or it's damaged or whatever but I do still want to get a time frame because yeah we invited people over for September 9th and I don't know I'm starting to think maybe we should cancel it a trailer can safely make it up there and stuff like that I know but I think getting material in and then coming back and making it right and yeah so so all of this is still FEMA there's roads that are still very FEMA-ish yes drive up my road I'm concerned with saying that we should be putting things out to bid and is that now we're running into a situation where some of the roads that have been are there or grating or needing to get re-graded because they're turning I understand a lot of you guys are feeling discouraged but you know they've they've gone through and re-graded Robin was super thrilled about personally but there's still roads that haven't had attention from the initial washout we might get into a territory where there's some gray area when we come to keeping track of things and I guess I'm questioning whether or not we should be trying to get contractor patients so that the road group can continue to maintain safe roads where we need them and they've been very good about separating that FEMA from the non-FEMA but our primary goal this week was bus routes bus routes and those are even Moscow roads is open they still have the guardrails to put up and the top layer they know when the bus is coming through so they'll make sure that it's accessible they're running the bus on Moscow Woods Road they can get up at us have you been on it so Moscow Woods is technically incredible and so I think we need to keep it closed because it's a liability if we like go forward because we do have people driving up and down it even though it says very clearly that it's closed and during the day they're still doing some culvert and ditching so the road is going to be occupied but they know when the buses are going to come through I'll be darned so that is good and all the other ones you know so just slow a bit for now that we have materials so we can revisit because I asked at the end of today like so what's the word and they said oh BigFords is grinding crushing whatever making the stuff that we need so try to get some info on that because as we progress I'm so anxious about when we're coming up and getting the roads in shape plowing yeah alright thank you I know under collective bargaining we've got this some addendum to the agreement Labor Day wish the irony the irony anybody want to make a motion on that I've been signing the sign agreement adding Labor Day to the recognized holidays and the recently approved Labor Day Labor Labor Day do you understand that Rose you got that okay no I don't really know what you're talking about let's see did I write it here if you'll look at the agenda it says due to a drafting error and you can see it there the signed agreement needs a change and they've done up a little one pager and Jordan has just moved to authorize signature they want it signed by Larry Mokwin who's the union rep and me apparently so Jordan made a motion to authorize me I guess to sign this on behalf of the select board alright and we had a second all in favor aye so now this has to go to Larry Mokwin for the signature well if you have it at that shop he's coming up I believe this week to bring that thing you used to get their motion deans pulled out he said they're not doing it first was it coming to me or to you I think it's coming to you I thought well that's it I was going to take the paper because I think he's coming to the town office oh okay and at first to me we probably ought to have two copies signed so they have one and we have one so they gave us three copies when they brought them the other day and they said they needed one back but we'll want one for our records which they've signed do you didn't have to bring any others no I didn't I didn't think of it until just now I just printed that out there's one copy that is fully signed of the contract because I went to Maple Corner store and signed it you'll be in the office next time I'm in the office snap me and I'll sign it and you'll take care of making getting that to Larry alright thank you anything else from the collective bargaining team I think we're all set alright I don't know why it says process for hiring a road crew member possible executive session just scratch that so we're down to the last item which is the status of Shed v. Callis executive session at the moment we are the status is largely not changed we're trying to engage in some dialogue but we're just trying to see if we can even get there right now so I spoke with attorney last week about the status of our our appeal we have until so right now we had to have the civil suit dismissed that was not fully accepted the court has requested some additional validation I guess or argument from the Shed party and the deadline for that is September 5th so there's still some time before and then there's going to have to be a response to that we can go into executive session if we want to discuss other things yeah I don't think we need to I mean they probably need to be looking at potential placements for the three that are currently together just a second fostering situation they were hoping that it would be over August and it's really hard to know how long this is going to go on so right I'm working on that the other one's doing just fine so I mean they're all doing fine but with winter coming again it's a sneeze issue okay anything else all right thank you in that case I'll take a motion that emergency action plan and the two things that Nick had I guess I'll just circle back with Nick and Scott and make sure that Scott actually emails it to Michelle Miller because it came up in the parking lot after the meeting and I didn't know where to find it or anything I just understood I thought the strategy was to file it and just check yes we did accept we are legally responsible and then put that in the vault in case we get audited and has to be documented actually one of them asked for the document that had what are the properties impacted because they were sort of saying well do you have a maintenance schedule for the dam like yeah so I think I don't know I guess it just depends on whether they even remember they asked for it or not so let's see so you're saying we should hold on to it as a safeguard without calling attention to it well it's just you're storing all these documents in the vault for potential audit and that just needs to be one of them that's all I was saying I'm not saying you can't share it with anybody it's about a document I want to send it because they think if they remember they ask for it I do have a quick if I might refer back to Grads so are we going to are we meeting in other two weeks before we start actively looking for it for a minute yes we don't have a final job description I mean yeah I guess we have to have it before we can put it out to be it is that a problem it'll be fine okay are you going to share the description with them the description there won't be none of them want none of them want they're all being very clear none of them want to do it because don't they want to know what the job description is though since they are impacted by it I can share with them the month in when yeah looks more like an actual working job than because but I read it did feel very office heavy which I know they really like that they have their do it stuff so I can share that with them but it's probably good because Bruce Will and at some point and winners parents they just want to make sure that all of you yeah okay take a motion to adjourn second all in favor something I couldn't get it's the MOU the agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers yes that was a very weird yeah so is that like because they're having the thing that we have to like make it larger I don't know but Thomas recommended that last paragraph and so I've sent that to Eugene Colleen and Jamie yeah and I guess the next thing is Mark looked at it said it was fine with him yeah I think it's not I think it's just part of the permitting process yeah so you guys are going to send that on to the Army Corps right yeah so the ball is in your court now it needs a signature of Colleen from the CPA and myself from the town but don't we have to be sure they'll accept it or do we just send it back in that form oh good question I'll send it back to them and then we can do it at the next meeting now we're adjourned thank you


The challenge of the Yukon The Wonder Dog King, swiftest and strongest of Eskimo lead dogs, blazes the trail through storm and snow for Sergeant Preston as he meets the challenge of the Yukon Sergeant Preston was typical of a small band of Northwest modded police who preserved law and order in a new Northwest country Where the greed for wealth and power led to frequent violence and bloodshed But in spite of the odds against them, Sergeant Preston and his Wonder Dog King met that challenge and justice ruled triumphant Sergeant Preston plotted wirrily beside his sled His team was exhausted and strained to keep up with King, the huge husky lead dog who seemed the only one with enough strength and reserve to carry on They pulled up in front of Jacques LeBlanc's trading post. The dog team laid down in their traces too tired to move King followed his master into the store. Do you run this post? Oui, I'm Jacques LeBlanc. This is my post. I'm Sergeant Preston of the Northwest modded. Glad to see you, Sergeant I have here about you, but you never come up here before. This is the first time I've had to come up here It's a little outside my usual territory. I'm trailing a criminal. C'est quand, Sergeant? Oh, you look so tired. Let me get you some hot tea. Thanks, Jacques, but there isn't time. All I want is some information. Have you seen anything of a half-breed? He's big like an Indian, talks good English, a stranger around here. That description fits so many. I could tell you turned 15 like that to bring furs to trade. This man's name is Pedro Duchet. They call him Indian Pete. I do not know that name. I've been trailing him for two months, almost caught him at Circle City. He had to abandon his dog team. He knows I'm following him and his trail leads here. You have seen him? You know how he looks? No, I've never seen him. My dog here knows he sent those, so I know I'm on the right trail. He's a murderer and a thief, and I'm out to get him. He's a murderer?  Silver fox. Silver fox? Like this? Exactly like that. What'd you get this? There is man here. One hour ago. He's very tired, but hardly walk. He trade me these for supplies. King, come here boy.  He not like fox smell, eh? It isn't the fox scent he's growling at. It's the scent of Indian Pete. Can you tell me which way this man went? No, I not see. He very tired just like you. He can't go far. Why you not rest and eat? I can't stop for that. You almost got him at last. King will pick up his trail from here. Come on boy. Thanks shark. See you again. Goodbye Sasha. Good luck. All right King. Get that scent. Off into the woods. All right. Up you Huskies. Come on boys. Up I say. Push! Push! The dog team dragged at their traces where, with very little rest, they had traveled almost a hundred miles on the trail of Indian Pete. As King led them into the forest, the trail grew difficult. Stomps of trees and snow in drifts hindering their passage. Finally Preston called a King as he broke the trail in front. King, come back here boy. Come here. Hello. Hello you Huskies. I guess you're gonna have to double duty boy. Help these dogs pull that sled. I'm sorry old fella, but you're the only one with enough strength left. And King, hello you Huskies. Though it was unusual for Preston to put King in harness, it had happened before. And his amazing strength and stamina eased the burden of the dog team and enabled them to go faster. Darkness was almost upon them. And suddenly a shot rang out to the forest. King halted the team and turned anxiously as Preston staggered and fell. Hitting his head against the stump of a tree as he went down. King, come here. King! King, the harness holding him back, could not pursue the man who shot his master. He turned the team around and came back to the unconscious body. And tried to arouse him by licking his face and tugging at his sleeve. The dog team sank down in the snow exhausted and were soon asleep. King and his harness finally curled up close to the body of his master, his head on the mountain shoulder. When Preston regained consciousness, darkness had fallen.  What? What are you...leg? King, I guess you kept me from freezing, boy. Now if I could drag myself to that sled... Painfully, Preston dragged himself to the sled, crawled into the blankets and furs, and sank into an exhausted slumber. Teela, the young squall of Big Feather, the Indian trapper, crooned softly to her baby in her small cabin at the edge of the forest. Big Feather would be away for two nights tending to his traps, but Teela was used to being alone in the wilderness. She gazed fondly at her firstborn child, the son that she and Big Feather had wanted so much. I'm a trapper! What do you want? I'm sick. Come in. I come fast and far. You lie down. Teela give you hot soup. Too tired to eat. No soup. I just... Sleep, Big Feather, here.  Oh, sleep. I've been asleep. You sleep all night. All right. I gotta get out of here. You got some breakfast? On table. You eat, you go. Warm me some tea. Hurry up, be quick about it. Me, hurry. Hey, listen. What's that? Me, Luke. Don't him come. Men sit on sleds. What? Can't be trailing me. I circled and came from the other way. Where's my rifle?  He's after me, ain't he? I was sure I hit him, I saw him fall. Where's my gun? Here it is. This time I'll get him the dirty red coat. Him, police? Now let him come out. Why do you break windows? I'm gonna shoot through it. You won't know what hit him. What now? Where did the bullet go this gun?  No, why not? Yeah, I know you did. I would have bashed you over the head with this. Well, I got more bullets here.    Why, you double-crossing rat skinner? I know what I'll do. No, you not hurt Papus. See this knife? I'm holding it right under the kid's blanket.  Please, I do. No hurt Papus. I'm putting this blanket around me and holding the kid. You say I'm your husband, see? You big feather? Tell him I'm in then. I can pass for one. Get him in here. Then go outside till I come and take the dog team. You no hurt Papus. You doers, I say, and your baby won't be hurt. Hello? Anybody here? Open the door. I'll be watching from the window. Bring him in. If you say anything you shouldn't, this knife goes to your kid. Me do. No hurt Papus. How? Well, will you help me, please? I've been shot. You, please? I'm Sergeant Preston of the Northwest Mounted. Is there anyone else in the cabin who can help me in? Husband, he's sick. I do, and he's strong. Quiet, King. He's not used to being in harness. We'll bring you in later. Boy, be quiet. You think you can get me in? I've been shot to the leg. Oh, Tila's strong. You lean on shoulder. Me get you in. Wait. Hand me that stick to support me. Here. Thanks. Here we go, Tila. Hopping sure makes it hurt. That's it, Tila. Now if I can get hold of the door. King grew almost frantic as he saw Sergeant Preston disappear into the cabin. We had left the trail of Indian bait.  He somehow connected the scent of this man with his master's injury. And a growl rose in his throat as he felt the restraining harness that kept him from the mountain. And lastly turned and began to slash at the strap with his sharp teeth. Inside the cabin, Pete sat hunched over the baby's basket, a blanket wrapped around him, as Tila put Preston on the cot. There, Tila. Thank you. Now maybe I can dress this wound. It feels good to get warm again. Where are you shot? I'm on the trail of an outlaw. He ambushed me and shot me through the leg. You haven't seen anything of a strange man around here, have you? No. No man around here. Woman. Take off Parker. Gun belt. M1 fixed bullet hole. You can take my Parker, Tila, but I'll keep my revolver. Thanks. Now I wonder if you'll go out to my sled and get my first aid kit. It's a square box. Me too. Me help bring blankets in. That's not necessary, if you're sick. Me not too sick. Where are you, woman? As the door of the cabin closed, the last strap of the harness parted between King's teeth. Pete rushed to the sled and King got his scent. The son of the man Preston had told him to get. As Pete reached for Preston's rifle that lay under the blankets, the great dog rushed in. All right, Tila. I'll lean on the door. I can cover you with my revolver. You all right? Yes.  Back, boy. All right, Pete. I've got you covered. Don't reach for your gun. Him not got gunned. Me throw away bullets. I'll see you, Tila. All right, Pete.  Bring him in, King, and watch him. The dog's staying right behind you. Come on. Papoose. He all right? He's all right, Tila. Sit over in that chair on the corner, Pete. Guard him, King. Don't let him move. Don't incur. That's enough out of you. That dog's going to be your jailer until we get you behind bars. You better be nice to him. Where's your husband, Tila? Big feather. He'll come home tonight, maybe. You sick. After you lie down. I guess you're right. I am a little dizzy. You want me, old guard? It's not necessary. We don't need a gun with King watching. Do we, boy? Watch him, boy. Keep him in that chair. If he moves, get him. Now, if you'll help me with the cot, Tila, we'll fix this wound, and maybe I can get some rest. King guarded Indian Pete well until Sergeant Plustin's wound was healed enough to travel safely. The outlaw was brought to justice. The Mountie still went a little when he made his report to headquarter, and King stayed close at his side. I'm not the one who deserves commendation, Lieutenant. It was King who did all the work. Oh, you both did a fine job, Sergeant. And if King were a man, we'd commend him, too. He's the finest dog in the service. Hear that, fella? You're the finest dog in the service. And from the look of him, that's all the reward he wants. A pat for doing to hear that tot in your voice. I wish you were right, Lieutenant. We kind of like each other, don't we, boy? These copyrighted dramas originate in the studios of WXYZ in Detroit, and all characters, names, places, and incidents used are fictitious. They are sent to you each week at the same time and reach you from our transcription studios. Now, Neil speaking, this is the Michigan radio network.