First up, this meeting is being recorded. Thank you, Alexa. Public comment for items not on the agenda and additions of changes to the agenda. Mark. Hi. Thanks a lot for the chance to talk to you. I'm Mark Mahaly. I'm the president of the East Calus Community Trust. I wrote you, we, I've just partly, I wanted to tell you about this, what I think is a really great development. And we do have a request in there. I don't know if you can deal with it, given that it's not on the agenda, but there's this organization called Everyone Eats, which is funded by the federal coronavirus relief. And it's made possible through a grant funded by the agency of commerce and community development. And it has, it basically provides meals to people in need. They're simple, they're pre-prepared by restaurants that are paid to do it. And they have about a dozen locations in central Vermont and in Chittenden County. In central Vermont, there's one in Cabot, Waitsfield, Barrie, Montpelier, and LaMoyle County. But they contacted us and there's nothing in this immediate area. And they asked us if we would cooperate to provide the meals. I think it's once a week. That's my impression. And just do it on the rain or snow or shine, do it on the porch of the store. And we're enthusiastic because we want this store to be a resource for the community even before we actually renovated and open it as a store. So we wanted to let you know and have any thoughts you might have and hear any thoughts you might have. But more importantly also, we could arrange for snow removal, but in the day that it's gonna be distributed, we were wondering whether it might make sense to ask the town snowplow to make just a pass in front of the store one pass. And we'd probably take care of the steps. So I'm going to recuse myself in this because I'm on the ECCP board as well. So select board members, any comments or questions for Mark? Rose. Go ahead, Rose. I think it's a great idea. I heartily support this effort. We see every day on the news, the long, long lines of people lining up for food distribution, people that have never asked for food before. Food insecurity is a real, real evident thing in our society and it's made way worse by the COVID pandemic. So I totally support this. I think it's a great idea. And I think that the town should be able to instruct the road crew to make a pass through there, just to keep the area clean of snow. So there's no hazards. Thank you. John or Sharon or Cliff, do you want to add to the conversation? I completely agree with Rose. Thank you for putting it so eloquently. I just want to hear from Alfred about whether he has any concerns. Hi, Alfie. Hello. So this is just for the one time deal for that one event or is this you want it done all winter? No. All winter. It's probably going to be once a week. This is going to happen. Once a week, Alfie, I think it's, we don't know yet. They just contacted us. We don't know yet, but I think it would be at a fixed time once a week. There aren't any comments? Well, if we start getting snow like we used to get in Vermont, the crew would have to keep up with it. It's not like you're going to put snow out of the way. And then you're going to have to figure out where you want it pushed to, Mark. I know there are no longer pumps, so it's easier to get in there and just do one quick sweep, maybe. Yeah, I think it would be because, you know, we don't have to worry about that, you know, the sort of view shape it has, it could just be pushed into there. All we want to do is keep the steps clear. I mean, that front part in front of the steps so that people could pull in, pick up the stuff. Or drivers, if there are people who can't make it themselves because they don't have access to cars, maybe we're going to get volunteer drivers who will bring them out to them. Do we have any concerns about liability?  I guess I'm not the only one. Mark made a reference to the law school, so.  I think you're right, it is an issue, but I think it's addressed by our liability insurance. We, Noel Johnson provides us insurance and we've been in constant contact with them about each time we think about an activity. And in fact, for one kind of activity, we had to pay an extra little bit of money. So I think that before we do this, we'll be in touch with Noel Johnson just to make sure that our liability covers it. Well, and then if that's the case, then we probably should have some kind of a contract so that we're clear that the town is indemnified and that the ECCT's insurance is covering. I would be in favor of that. Just a letter of contract that says, we'll indemnify you. We recognize that you've on a voluntary basis provided snow removal occasionally and that you're not undertaking any liability and that it's ours and that we'll indemnify you and hold you harmless. We can do that. You'd have to clear that with the insurance. You'd have to clear that with your insurer, right, Mark? Yeah, I think so. And then of course, there's a shovel. Yeah, you have to get somebody to do the shovel detail. Right, yeah, that's separate though. Yeah, we'll take care of it. So Mark, will you present us with a proposed contract that we can have Jim look at for the town's point of view? Sure. I'm happy to do that. Okay, we're having a special meeting on November 30th but our next regular meeting is December 14th and we will probably find out sometime along from Maggie as to when they anticipate this might start. Right, I mean, I think that's good. You know, I'll get the contract to the town but I think it's not pressing. I mean, if there's snow before we get that contract, we'll take care of it ourselves. Yeah. That sounds good. Okay. So one thing to remember that this is private property that the town is then contracting with to do the work and it sets a precedent that you better be aware of that there's not any contingencies that are gonna come up afterwards. Well, one thing does occur, I thought about that. One thing that occurs to me is, you know, I don't know that this is a long-term arrangement but it's COVID related. And I think that if we continue to do this next season when we would be asking for snow removal by then, I think we'd have to have some sort of more formalized arrangement. So Toby, you could say it's because of the COVID emergency that the town is doing this. Also because of the food relief, Mark, if you could make sure that the contract actually includes that it's not for ECCT for coming and going of the general public, it's for specific delivery of food in the COVID pandemic. Right. There's the food insecurity issue and there aren't a lot of places between here and Memorial County that have the ability to do this. Right. Right. We'll make sure it says that, okay. Well, and to Toby's point, if another organization stepped forward and said, you know, ECCT is Mondays and we are gonna be Thursdays, then we might say, great. We'll contract with you too, you know, to clear the path. In other words, Alfred, I can hear you getting nervous but really it's just about being really clear that this is a huge public good, a specific and a specific public good. All right, so Mark will get that letter to the board. Yeah, it'll just be a contract and we'll get it to you guys. Thank you so much. So we're off that topic, but on a related matter, since we've brought up the concern of plowing non-town properties, we no longer own that school. Do we need to get a similar arrangement signed with the unified school district because we continue to plow the school door yard, right? No, actually we don't plow it. We just on occasion, we on occasion sand it, if it's icy, that's all we do with sand it. Oh, okay. They have a contractor that plows it. Yeah, pal Chuck. Oh, I know him. Yeah. He talks the whole time he's plowing. So we'll formally approve this initiative when we have a contract that we're endorsing. Does that sound right to the board? Yes. John, everybody, yeah. I see him shaking. All right, thank you, Mark. Great. I'll get you the contract in a timely manner. Thanks Mark. Thanks for all your help. And then you can agenda it. Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks to you guys. Take care. All right. Thanks. Okay, bye-bye. Scott, did you have something you wanted to bring up to the board? Yeah. Thank you so much, Denise. And where it's purely informational, I should have realized that if I pop up unexpectedly in a meeting, it might spook people. But it's been way too long since we just had a chance to, you know, connect with all of you. Everybody, I guess, is all consumed with their own thing. And right now the coronavirus is everywhere and it's popping up in our schools now. You heard undoubtedly that Calis has gone remote until Tuesday of next week so far. And U32 is remote for and tomorrow. This basically came out of last Wednesday's surveillance testing of staff. The state is, as I understand it, trying to test everybody on, generally on a four-week rotation, everybody being adults in schools, on a voluntary basis as well. If you don't want to be tested, you don't have to be tested. Nobody's forcing you. This last sort of thing on Wednesday turned into a few cases that might not otherwise have been detected. So I think the school's defenses are about as good as they can be, all the schools, but this virus is just so treacherous. If there's a way to get in, it will. And stop if, say, because the internet is unstable. So just make sure to be aware of that. However, main aim is to keep the schools outing as long as we can do that safely. There, just as you were saying, Van Gogh rose out food insecurity being one of the current situation. That's part of what school is facing well. In addition, particularly for our more vulnerable students and families that are in a more precarious situation, I think it's true that we try to do best we can by them, which is to have them in school and not get sick. So that's, it's from day, the picture can change. So it's pretty, as I'm sure, you're operating with the town, you have a good idea of how that can be. On the bright side is budget season. And we have a public forum coming up on December 2nd, a week from this, and forum. Scott, if you turn off your video, sometimes that helps. Yeah, thanks, Denise. It will probably help a lot. Also, not to high, it came. So December 2nd, budget forum at, I believe at five o'clock in public side. But so far, what we're looking at is, there's a huge range and just so much uncertainty. It's very difficult to tell which way it's gonna go. But one thing that's really important is that the legislature really need to hold this harmless on decline in pupils. Otherwise, we could really have any inquiry in our budget. And it's uncertain there will be, because all the COVID, everything that the COVID money paid for is a lot of that, especially the personnel increases are gonna have to be our base. We're now not only in the education business and in the social services business, we're now big time in the public health business. So the water is an increase of 0.7%. The over in education for last year, the kind of hopeful budget is plus 4.7% over education spending last year. And we're trying to reel that back significantly because we're hit hard, particularly if Congress continues to dither. So if any of you are interested, all of you would be welcome to attend that forum and to hold our feet to the fire and ask tough questions because I think you know how budgets, and it's even more so now that we're combined. It has, you know, it's a super tanker as opposed to a PT boat as it was maybe in yesteryear. Anyway, that's basically- But is the school board actually gonna take the questions? Yeah, basically we've set it up. There'll be 15 minutes of the dog and pony and 45 minutes of public discretion where people have the floor. Denise, FYI, Sharon somehow lost her internet connection. I was wondering what happened to her. I was just gonna try to call her. I just got a text. You're gonna try- When is that forum? It's on Wednesday, December 2nd, Shawn. At five o'clock, you said, right? Starting at five, yeah. Somebody's got background. Where do you find, how do we find the link to that? It will be sent out. We'll be flogging it shamelessly once it's released. It should come out towards the end of this week of Friday. That doesn't give people much heads up time if it only comes out on Friday. Yeah, so we're gonna, I think Dorothy is gonna be writing about it this week. They're trying to give people heads up, but you're right. I think the board members in the other towns should be doing the same thing for their people as well. Yeah. Okay, well, that's good to know. Thank you for the update. And we're all in this COVID thing together, so. Yeah. Go ahead, John. I know that with regard to colleges, and foreign exchange students that the administration, the federal administration, Trump administration will deemed students that were attending college remotely as not complying with their educational visas, and therefore how to split town and get the heck out of the country. That was a few months ago I heard that. And of course, it was a big, for all the colleges and universities. I was also wondering, is the federal assistance that's being provided to schools, it's tied to student attendance, correct? I mean, historically, and if students are working remotely, I'm assuming that that is still considered attendance, but what if a student is flagged as being a carrier? Do we lose the, the daily federal subsidy if they're not attending school? But they're healthy otherwise, and maybe they can remotely participate. That's a question. Yeah. If they're remotely participating, then we still get credit for them. We don't get credit for the students we don't get credit for the students who have gone over huddling and it's where we've lost a significant percentage of our enrollment this past year. So this is why the legislature, and a lot of it is because of COVID, because they're, and they, for whatever reason, they don't wanna participate in the remote school that has been set up alongside all of the physical schools. So that's our concern that any increase of the education spending will be amplified because of the decline in the denominator of the equalized pupils. Yeah, I can see that as a concern. Yeah. Okay, is it anything else? We're already half an hour almost behind. Cliff? Cliff? Yeah, just I had something to put out in front of the select board that the Calis Historical Preservation Commission, as you know, they've been working on having the adamant area recognized as this historic district. Their project for next year will be to have the Maple Corners area recognized as this historic district. They're getting ready to file their grants, the middle. So the question is, is, does the board wanna speak with anyone from the Preservation Commission before they file this grant? We'd have to put them on the agenda for next Monday. Do we have to sign any paperwork that we would need to get the board to approve signing the paperwork? It's a CLG grant, right? Yes, there's nothing that the town would need to sign off on. There's no money involved for the town other than we would have to pay the consultant and then the grant would reimburse us for that. Everything else is in kind and it's donated time by the members of the Preservation Commission. When I read David's email, it said something about having me sign something. There may be, we, you know, might need to sign a letter saying, you know, we support this or whatever. Okay, so I think we should put it, I think we should put it on for real quick on the 30th when we need it. All right, so if we can do that and I'll let David know, he said he's more than happy to show up and talk to us about it. John has a question. Not just to follow up. I'm thinking Denise in structuring our agenda going forward, maybe under public comment, we could have COVID updates, you know, COVID discussion, open it to community as well because as much as we would be updating community members may, as things get, if it gets really ugly, there may be a low level panic, if you will, where people are wanting to check in with us in the community and ask us. I was actually- I was actually thinking along those same lines earlier today, John, so I think just in every meeting- Okay. Update or if there's nothing, then we don't have to, but yeah, I agree. Okay. Okay, so can we move on? Thank you, Scott, do you have anything else? I do not, Denise. Many, many thanks to all of you and a great Thanksgiving.  Well, all right, thank you. And all right- Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. Take care. Okay. Trying to move things along as quickly as we can. Sandra, do you want to give us a quick update on the link on tax? I did read and look at your whole report. Cliff, do you want to call it up, please? Yeah, give me a sec here. But in the meantime, Sandra can get started. Hi, David, we're running behind schedule.  You're on mute. Denise's have referring to the last section of the report concerning delinquent taxes. And this financial report is as of October 31st, at which point there was roughly $5,200 in outstanding 2019 delinquent taxes. But as of the writing of this report, pulling the reports, November 21st, there was $1,700 in 2019 delinquent taxes. So we're really, we're closing in on that. And in terms of the tax collection effort today was the close of the grace period, outstanding as of Sunday night, no, as of Saturday night, no, as of Saturday night, the outstanding taxes for the second payment were 319, let's say $320,000. So there were 50 checks that came in today. I haven't processed them, probably another $50,000. And historically, the town goes $200,000 in the red at the end of the collection period. And we are at 385, I think conceivably we're gonna, be at our historic mark at the end by the 30th when all the postmarked checks, checks postmarked on the 23rd will have finished rolling in. And so we're, I project we're gonna be in about the same boat delinquent tax wise as we have been in at this point for the last very many years. So that's not great news, but that's good news and that probably we're not going to see any larger delinquent tax balance than we have in years past. And I'll know more about that on the 30th when, as I said, when the last of those postmarked checks should would be in. Otherwise we're in great shape, we're rolling along, everything is on track. There is one line item in the general government section, the IT disaster recovery line, that line has a bit inflated, it is about 72% we're only at the 33% mark in the fiscal year. I suspect that once I researched with RV tech what charges are attributable exclusively to the purchase and installation of the replacement server that is located in the office, what those charges are, they will be booked out of there as an accounting best practice and booked into a long-term debt expense line that was created last fiscal year when we took that loan. And so I'm hoping by next report that 71% will look much lower, that the number the expenses will still be in the budget or rather will still be shown as expensive but not in that line. Highway looks good, I don't see anything alarming, I think Alfred and Toby are here and they can speak to that, but they look on track, I imagine we're gonna see that reimbursement shortly and that's what I have to say, any questions? Any questions for Sandra? Treasurers or delinquent tax? Awesome, awesome work on the delinquent tax, I think that's the lowest it's ever been. Well, I think it's a good talking point for the select board when folks react to the level of delinquent taxes at the close of the tax effort, you can say that over the last few years, we get that down to ultimately to zero. We have no 2018 taxes to collect. So the focus will be on collecting the 2020 taxes and creating payment plans. I've already been contacted by a number of folks who anticipate needing a payment plan. And so that's great because there is already a buy-in for that and an acknowledgement that that money has to be paid and paid on a regular basis. Okay, excellent. Any questions for Sandra before she signs? You can stay, but you can sign out too. I am gonna sign out. We haven't had our dinner yet here. So unless you need me for some other purpose. No, I don't think so. Thank you, have a good evening and good supper. All right, everyone, good night. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you. Thank you. The waves. So next up is operations manager. And we have the form to sign for the municipal roads general permit. This is the form that we have to do every year. And then it gets sent in along with our payment to the state. And I think it's in the folder, right, Katie? So I just needed to authorize me to sign it. Toby, do you have any comments on it? This is just an update amendment from what we've already paid this year. Yeah, we have to send in our $240. Right. It's not the annual fee and agreement is an amendment for specific work. Any questions for Toby on this? I don't, anybody got their hand up? Okay. Would somebody like to make a motion to authorize me to sign that form, please? So moved. I'll second. Okay. We'll take a vote. Cliff? Aye. I'm an aye. Rose? Aye. Karen? Aye. John? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, Toby? Yeah, the permit for putting up the radar signs and these calluses complete. We've ordered a couple of foundation bases that we have to put in for the polls. And hopefully within two weeks, we'll have them in place. Right. I've gotten some feedback on the sign in Maple Corner. I wondered how you picked the location that it's currently at. It seemed appropriate as people come down into town, they should be reducing to 25 miles an hour. Right. Because several people asked me how can it wasn't further up the hill, where, because it's still 25. People will forget. When they pass the by that sign, they'll forget and they'll be doing 30 again, 30, 35 through the village. So it's closest to the village, which is most of where the problem is. Okay, I just, okay. So I just wondered how you picked that. So I have a good response. Just so you know, the sign actually does record speed limits of people going through the sign. There is a report that I will generate and send to you. And it's interesting that the first couple of weeks that the average violation of the 25 mile an hour speed limit is over 79% of the cars going through there. Wow. So we'll see if it gets worse or if it makes a difference, I guess. So Toby, where is that information stored? Is there a SD card built into it that you download from or what? Yeah, it has memory inside the sign and I download it to a laptop. What a beautiful thing. Yeah. Awesome, Toby. Great. Well, it's only good if you utilize the information you get. So right now, almost 80% of people coming down that road are exceeding the speed limit of 25 miles an hour. And you'll see, you'll be storing this data. Where? I will just record it on the town's laptop from the garage and we can look at it depending on when you want to look at it. Okay. Maybe we should get a game camera so that we know that thing probably says the time of the speed exceedance. John, the game camera you need is the sheriff that would really slow people down. Yep. Well, it would be cool in lieu of the sheriff because we don't have them all the time. If we could install a game camera on top of it and if that thing recorded the speed and the camera took the picture, we could send emails out to our citizens who like to go through town and wake them up to their community and we need to all pull together here. Toby, if I'm understanding you, it's recording the speed as they approach or literally at the point of the sign itself. Is that right? That's correct. So we don't really know the impact and result of the village experience. Well, when they're going by the sign, they're exceeding 25 at that point by 80% of the vehicles going through there. Whether they slow down when they get to the bottom of the hill or not is unknown. Ben, and so can you also say though, 80% of the vehicle going through are exceeding the speed limit. Does it give you data onto what extent? Like, you know, or 80% of those who exceed, exceeding by fewer than five miles an hour. Yeah, it does have categories about how many people are doing 50 or whatever. Okay, good. You know, as a reminder, that's 25 all the way up the hill and on the flat. Yep. Before you hit the inclined town, so. Right. I think, I think we should gather, certainly gather more data. It'll be interesting to see if that changes over the winter and people get used to the sign as it go up or down. I'm curious about by how much they go over. And yeah, I think it's really useful. I certainly think it's way premature guys to conclude it isn't working in that useful. Well, the other thing that we might be able to do is pull out time of day when most violations are and then we can assign the sheriff to be there during that time period. Right. All that stuff. Awesome. And we can also, when we have some good data, we can post something on Front Forge Forum. Right. Yeah. When we have good data, I think that the, I think, I think it's great and it's a beginning instead of bringing our hands and wondering and each of them having an opinion and version of the facts, we've got data. Yeah. Real, pay attention to the science. Toby, does it give you the date and time of the speed, speeder? I'm not sure how refined it is. Essentially, it has every minute or every 10 minutes or whatever it has time blocks and how many cars went through and how many of them were above the speed limit at that point.  There's a whole bunch of different charts. I will put a set together and send them to you to look at. Yeah, that would be good. Thank you. Thank you, Toby. Anything else, Toby? That's all I know about. Anybody want to talk to Doug Lilly about the big posts he put in his yard that are right at the edge of the right-of-way? Are they in the right-of-way or at the edge of the right-of-way? Right at the edge of the travel portion of the road. There's something in the right-of-way. So they're in the right-of-way? Well, right-of-way is 25 feet, so everything in Doug's yard is in the right-of-way, but they're close, they're solid posts that are put in on the roadside right at the edge of the travel portion, which means there's no place to push the snow at that point. So what do you mean by posts? Are they wood? Are they cement? Are they rocks? What do you mean by posts? They're big wooden posts. Like four by fours? They're cedar fence posts, probably five-inch diameter. You mean laying flat on the ground or standing up? Standing up as a fence post. So like you would use for an electric fence, farm or posts? Yes. But they're like five-inch diameter. He needs to remove them. They're a safety hazard. Yeah, but if we tell him, he'll just laugh. So it's your ordinance, and I suggest that the Selective Board send him a letter. Yeah. Please be advised, they need to be removed. So, Katie, would you put in the to-do that we need to send Mr. Lillia a letter? Thank you. All right, Alfred. Any updates? Nope, nothing major. So you'll see I put an agenda item on as I got to thinking more and more about COVID and the recent spike in Washington County. We should be thinking about, and I would ask you to think about and come back to the board with, what would we do if two of the road crew members had COVID, everybody in the garage was exposed and had to quarantine for two weeks. What kind of a backup plan could we or would we have in the event that we had a storm and had to plow? Who would be available and how, you know, there's a thought about something I got from, I think, VLCT about talking to our neighboring towns and coming up with some kind of a mutual aid agreement. So that's why I put that there, because my thinking cap was on like, oh, what would we do? We had a major snowstorm and the road crew was all unavailable. Yeah, that's a good question.  So I don't think they would have manpower to give up to us, nor would we until our roads were cared for. Well, the idea in the mutual aid thing that I was reading was what you said is true, but in the event that there was a major snowstorm, a couple of towns and our neighboring sister towns, what could we do to get some of our work done, maybe on the main routes, to be able to help other towns get their main routes done? I mean, right now, if schools close, it's not such an issue with school buses. But so anyways, it's just something that I think that we should be looking at and thinking about. And I would ask you and Toby to be thinking about this and come back to the board with some ideas. Denise, I really... Go ahead. I think we need to search for some more part-time help regardless of COVID. We just added another route to our infrastructure. So that takes up my spare guy. So I think we need to try to get some more spare help that will come in on occasion or in a time like that that we would need. So I think we need to start implementing some more living bodies that can drive a truck. Yeah, I wonder if there's a way to work with some of the other towns to see if we could share spare people. I don't know, I'm just thinking that we need to be... And this is just worst case scenario. Maybe we won't need it and if we don't, that's good. But I don't know if you talk to like the road crew and East Montpelier and Woodbury and I've already... I asked, I did reach out to Bruce Johnson and asked him if they had thought about this and it's not even on their radar. So... Well, I think that we're all in sort of in the same boat. I mean, we are all already into this with equipment. I mean, I've lent my grader to Worcester. I've lent my truck to Worcester last, I don't know if last year or year before East Montpelier used our truck. Yeah, I remember that. So we're already doing that mutual aid thing. I just think it's gonna be difficult for manpower because we're all short, we're all gonna be short. And not every town has spare guys kicking around that can drive a truck in that are eligible and are in the drug system, drug testing plan and in the CDL license. I mean, there's, you know, I think we definitely have some legwork to do there but give me the green light and I'll see what I can do to find some more part-time people. Sharon wanted to talk and then John. Alfred, what I'm hearing is the green light and more accurately a request to bring forward your thoughts on the whole thing. And I love that you're like out of the gates with we need more people. I'm not sure I heard a green light to go ahead and hire more people right now. And again, I think it's, I hope that we're thinking about this holistically. You know, where's the breaking point? If we have five or six guys, then this is what we can do. And then it's, and Denise's point of collaboration that's one way to go, because whatever our strategy is, I think the board would want to be really involved in approving it because the other half of it is there may be a break point where we have to do a lot of careful messaging to the community about what's doable and what can't happen in a pandemic. Yeah, I think we all need to. I mean, there's some guy called Peltchuk. He might be added to the list in an emergency. Well, I was just thinking if. Does he not already have route that he has to do? Yeah. Doesn't he have a plow route of his own? Right. He is scaling back years and years. He's just doing trickle. But what I was going to say is it worth it to just advertise for part-time spare per diem drivers just to see what response you get. You know, people who may have worked for like Pike or in construction that, I mean. They're laid off right now. Yeah, if they work infrequently, maybe it wouldn't screw up their unemployment, but maybe just so that you might have a pool of two or three people just to see what's out there. I mean, it might not hurt just to and be clear as needed basis like per diem. Just to see if you get, you know, you can always hold on to some resumes or applications, keep them on file. That's my thought. I'm just asking us to put this, I'm just putting it on the radar because we may not have this problem, but I think we need to at least be thinking about it and see what we might come up with for a plan. So I would ask that you guys work on that. And then John, you wanted to comment? John? Well, this would need to be brought to the governor's office, I expect. I'm looking at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration page which deals with CDL licenses and when they're required and when they're not. And there's an ability for a state to issue a waiver to the CDL requirement for drivers where it's an emergency vehicle. Like fire departments, states are already issued a waivers to them, right? They're emergency ambulances. But I'm wondering if the state could, we could approach the state about them issuing waivers to towns in the case of this COVID emergency, if we get in a bind, if we can allow otherwise competent drivers to drive our trucks, could the state grant that permission as an emergency, in emergency cases of an emergency? Well, that's a good idea, John. I can go back to the person who sent me the VLCT stuff about the mutual aid idea. I can double check. Yeah, I mean, well, that would free up, that would free up a lot of competent drivers who just don't happen to have their CDLs, right? Yeah. And then also would be LCT, how would the insurance work? So, I mean, we've got some work to do, but I think we just need to be thinking about it. As long as it's legal, as long as it's legal, it should be all right. It's a proviso under the federal regs. It's just how they define what is an emergency vehicle. Can you send me that? I haven't dug in yet. Can you send me that link and I can contact this person at VLCT? Thank you. Yeah. Okay, anything else, Alfred? Yes, there is. Couple things. I've been sort of kicking tires on another truck because our 2009 truck, which is now our spare, we're going to be starting to use that as a everyday route. And it's in and out of the shop every time it goes out. It's getting old. It's got over 130,000 miles on it. It just barely came out of the shop in Williamstown today. I haven't got the bill yet, but I know it's going to be sizey. So I'm starting to look at some used trucks to see if we can't replace that one with something a little bit newer. So I just wanted to make you guys aware of that, that I'm looking and obviously I will cross it with you before I do anything, but I think we need to think about replacing that 2009 truck, particularly now because it's going to be on, it's going to be on its own route, every day route. Okay. So, and then the other thing is I really want to know why I'm not being appointed for a road commissioner. It's very challenging for me to go into work every day without any ground to stand on. Well, you continue to serve as road commissioner until- But I'm not appointed and I should not be making decisions that I make every day without being appointed. I am spending a lot of money town taxpayers money. Pardon me? That's not how it works. You are, your appointment is continued until you're the decision to reappoint is issued. So you're- We're going on six months. We're going on six months of not being appointed. I am not comfortable with it.  It's that simple. So- It's that simple. Okay. Well, it's not that simple for me. It's just not that simple for me. I want to know what's going on. Well, we're not- Why I'm not being appointed, why I'm not, I can't talk to my guys. Morale is terrible at work. It's not good. And I don't feel like I have grounds to do anything about it. So I just want you guys to know that. I don't know where you're getting this from. Where are you getting this from? I go to work, John. Brayburn, I go to work every single day. I go to that town garage every single day. That's where I'm getting it. I'm seeing it every single day. You guys need to come and talk to me. No, no. Or you're going to find somebody else. Why can't you talk to your guys? Why can't you talk to your guys? Because you guys told me I can't talk to them because of the union. You did not? No. You got it, you got it. You very much did. Told me I cannot talk to my guys about proceedings with the negotiations. I don't know what you mean. We said that the negotiations are confidential. Yes, they are separate from me. I cannot talk to my guys because I'm supposedly management. However, I don't sit in a seat called management because you guys don't appoint me. I need to talk to somebody. Either I'm going to talk to my guys or I'm going to talk to the select board. I need to be on one side or the other. Alfred. I'm dangling in the air. You're here. We need to take this into offline. Right, this is not appropriate. This needs, we need to do this in executive sessions. Okay, I've been asking for a month or more to go into executive session to talk about this. Please, let's go into executive session so I can talk and know what I'm doing here. Well, Alfred, are you aware? Alfred, Alfred, you're kind of, it feels to me like you're yelling and I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Okay, I am sorry. I want to know what's going on with my job and my lifelong position. I've been 22 years working for the town of Calis. I'm feeling like I'm not being treated well. I want to know what's going on. Please come into executive session, bring me into executive session so we can talk about it. Okay, here's Alfred, you need to take a deep breath right now. We don't have, we are not going to be able to go into executive session tonight. We hear your frustration. We are still waiting to get results from the latest union negotiation that we had. There's been varying circumstances, as you know. No, I really don't, Denise. I really don't know anything of any part of the negotiation. We can talk about it next week, Denise. Yeah, well, we'll schedule and we'll check it. We'll talk about it next week. We'll do an executive session. Yeah, thank you. I would appreciate that. I will certainly be there. All right, thank you. Good. When you come, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you Sharon. No, I'm just, I'm just. Uh-oh, your internet again. Go on. Okay. So one of the items on our agenda and maybe we want to move Animal Control to a different place on the agenda. So we don't, because we have Nick and David Healy and Bill Powell and I'm John McCollum. It's on too. To talk about the LGER stuff, we can talk about the animal control issue either next meeting or maybe move it to the end of the agenda. That'd be fine with that. Okay. All right, so I'm sorry folks that things are behind schedule. So last we met on- Hey, Denise. Yes. What? I just want you to know, my internet connection is pretty lousy.  Yeah, there seems to be a bad night for it. I don't know if it's because it's pretty windy up here. I don't know if that makes a difference. I'm going to do the same thing. Good idea, John. All right. So let's talk about LGER. So Sharon and John, if you want to speak would you use the, what's on the reactions? Do you use the- They can raise their hand. There's a function to raise your hand. Okay. So let's get right down to it. We had our meeting on the 16th. We decided against consolidated. David sent us an email. Well, John, do you want to say something? I see something there. No, I'm just reacting. Oh, okay. Oh, you're not overreacting. So David, why don't you give us an update? I did with a part in there. David, why don't you give us an update with what you found out with CB Fiber and you also sent us an email that, well, I guess it was today and then there's the draft letter to Velco. So why don't you take it out? So following the meeting last Monday night, I did talk to Michael Mannbaum at Cloud Alliance about his ability to install another fixed wireless solution on Peek and Brook area. And he said he could probably do it, but it wouldn't be any guarantee that it could be done by December 30th, which according to Nick, when I talked to Nick the next day, Nick said the money had to be spent by December 30th. So I sort of took that as a continuing saga of my COVID-19 broadband emergency experience where every idea I've come up with has been killed. Anyway, so that's the sad part on my possible short-term solution there. The other email, the other thing I said I would do, I would find out what the status is of Velco running the fiber line from East Montpelier over to the Maple corner substation. And I talked to Tim Webberg at Velco today and he indicated that the plan as it currently exists with WEC was to hopefully complete that fiber line sometime in quarter two or three next year, which from a standpoint of CV-5 is great timing because that's when we're planning on doing our first routes. So I was encouraged by that. And so I still think it's worth a letter from the select board to Velco and just showing how important this fiber line is to them at twice and we're on record to do that. So that's my summary report. So is Velco's different than WEC? Correct, they run the transmission, they manage the transmission system and try to keep things reliable and working. And so WEC is part of the network that they're supporting. And so the fiber that they're running is really for network management and Bill's here, he could probably talk to that, but it also has enough excess capacity that we could lease fiber from their line, not all their lines, but all their fibers, but some of the fibers to run on network. So that's sort of the, it's a win-win for everybody. And you were also gonna talk to CV-Fiber and see if we could be first in the queue instead of second? Yeah, we haven't met. We meet only once a month. Oh, when's your next meeting? December 8th, so I'll make sure it's on the agenda. Okay, Bill, do you wanna weigh in on the WEC piece of it? I won't weigh in any further than just to advocate, David's on the right line here. A letter from the slipboard would help. I don't know that it'll make any difference, but it's certainly an affirmation of the slipboard support for Fiber to serve our town. So I think it's a good idea. And Bill, do you wanna tell the town about what WEC is trying to do with Fiber? I'm not in a position now, folks, to really disclose anything. I think there's a lot of flux. There's been some federal FCC money that's now come into the area that's significant. David knows a lot about that and his team at Central Mont Fiber will be able to speak to that more. But just back to the main issue, it would be helpful to have a slipboard letter to Velco to say that they support, you support whatever support Velco can give to WEC because that's the next step. So, David, you already drafted a letter for us. Yeah, and I have you CC in WEC and the management at Velco. Okay, Cliff, can you follow up that letter? Stand by please. Excuse me? Hang on, it's taking a minute to get it open, hang on. Okay, anybody have, well, Cliff's getting that. Any questions for David or Bill? Okay, should be on the screen now. Okay, thank you. It needs some editing. Yeah, it does. Order two or three of next year. Anybody have any comments on the letter or can we as a full board approve this? I can't speak up because I can't see who wants to talk and who doesn't. Denise, it's Rose. I looked at the letter briefly tonight and I made a few edits. But I think based on what David said that quarter two or quarter three of next year is okay, then that's fine. What I put was, could they like speed it up a little bit? Yeah, that's not necessary. Then we could go with his letter, that's fine. Yeah, and I see there's some typos, so we can fix that. Thank you. I'm just gonna go around Cliff, any thoughts on the letter? Yeah, I agree. We can clean it up a little and get it out ASAP. Okay, where's Sharon? She's giving thumbs up. Okay, John. It's a beautiful thing. All right, so can we clean it up and I can sign it and put all of the select boards and names on the letter. So it's from the full board. Thank you. Is that a motion? Would somebody like to make that motion or second it? I'll make the motion. Okay, and I'll second it. Any further discussion? I'll second. John will second. Okay. All right, we'll want to, anything else? Can I second it? Yeah. Okay, so we can vote on this and then we can go on to other things about LGER. Okay, Cliff? Yep, hi. I'm an I, Rose. Hi. Don? Yes. Sharon? Yes. Okay, so more stuff on LGER. So we talked before about going back to our other plan, which was the phone system, the copier scanner laptop for the zoning administrator. I don't know if we could also get a better scanner printer for Sandra to use. I did get an email that she, as you noticed, she was working, having difficulty with connectivity and therefore she was working extra hours to get done with her treasurer's delinquent tax collector reports over the weekend. That's one of the things which they've been encountering when they've been working from home. I did ask the, what I said I would do was ask the ECCT board if they would be consider renting a space in the store building to set up a temporary location for somebody to work. And that board is willing to consider it. It would probably be something that would take some time to do. I also checked with Melissa Brough, who has the white, she has the white house. If you go past the store on the right, headed, I think it must be south.  They're individual offices, no shared. Everybody has their own restroom. We have high speed internet. And Cliff, you can correct me because I don't really know how to say this right. It's either 200 up and up or down and 20 up or down. I don't know which is the right way and if that's good. Well, either scenario, the 200 up down would be really good if they've got fiber. That's probably what they've got. Yeah. And the rent for that office space is $400 a month. Denise, what about the, and or Cliff, I don't remember, I don't remember where this fit in, but I know it's something that, that we, we're, there's rather, Oh Sharon, you're cutting out. Guessing Sharon's probably asking about the possibility of, if we can't bring the fiber to the server, putting the server to the fiber. Is that what you're alluding to Sharon? Maybe a thumbs up or something. Yep, okay. So, I would suggest if we want to look at that possibility, I go ahead and ask Ruben Bennett from RB Tech to join us because he could better address the question. Yep. We'll go ahead and do that. We'll go ahead and do that. Or if we could clone our server, you know. If we could, if we could what, Doug? Okay. We could clone our server so we can have another server in town. Yeah. Okay. So while we're waiting for Ruben Bennett, that's my update on what I said I would check out. So Denise. Yes. Denise. Yep. Do we know if, do we know what this LGR, whatever you call it, money that has to be committed or the items have to be put in place by the end of December? If we entered into a year lease and we paid it forward or we paid it up front, would that count as an eligible expense? I guess that's the- This is our COVID triage. That would be a knit question. Yes, that would count as long as the, everything hardware was installed and the service was operational in use by December 3rd. The only thing- We could rent two of those. She and also- Denise, we could rent two of those. Yeah. Melissa said she would also give us, she would consider giving us a discounted rent. So it might be less- We don't necessarily need that. Right. We don't necessarily need a discount. We use the money up. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to ask Toby and Alfred, did you have anything else? Denise. Are you just, Toby and Alfred, are you just hanging on to listen or did you have something else about this? I'm just watching what's going on. Okay. Alfred. I think I'm good unless you want me part of the driveway designated of private road. No, because we're not going to do that tonight. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Well, so you'll let me know when you're going to have the executive session meeting for me. Yup. Okay. Very good. Have a good night, everybody. You too. I'm sorry, John. What were you saying? You keep cutting into that. Right Alfred, thank you. So John, back to your question.  Yeah, it's really bad. We don't, my expectation is we're not going to be able to spend all that money. So I wouldn't want Melissa to be giving us a discount. We'd want to use as much as we can at this point. We wouldn't want, and infusing that back into the community the best we can, we should just do that without discount. If we could rent two offices, that would be 800 a month. That's 8,000 for 10. That's $9,600 a year. That would eat up a chunk of that if we have no other use for it. I think you're- And that comes with internet. That's a great deal. Yeah, it does come with internet and it's all in its furnished. We would have to provide our own, you know, computer stuff, obviously. Doesn't it have to be spent though before there's a period? How does that, how will that end up working when we have to spend it by- We would have to ask, we would have to ask if we decide that this is something we want to do and I think we shouldn't do it until we talk to the office staff. We could ask Melissa to bill us up front. From accounting perspective, that's another, that's a question for Sandra. Yeah. Nick, it seems like- Oh, I was gonna say, it seemed like, you know, Judy said she wouldn't be interested in office space offsite because she needs everything in the office, especially everything that's in the vault. Yeah. Well, it's a lot closer. Having a space in East Calisburg for the treasurer, for instance, it's a lot shorter drive to the office from there than it could go to the vault or whatever than it is from her house. But I know that she said she was fine working where she's at. Yeah. But we have to be careful that we need to think about what we're doing as what's best for the town. Right. And what makes the most sense for the town if she's working extra hours because the internet connectivity is so bad, that's also not fair to her. Right. So I think it's a bigger discussion if we're really serious about looking into this opportunity to have a discussion with the office staff. Right. I agree. How much time would be needed to get everything in place? We would just have to talk about it with the staff. We would have to schedule the staff to come to a select board meeting to have this discussion. And that would could happen on the 30th or the 7th of December. The 7th is not a regular meeting though. We're at the point where that's a special meeting. Are we necessarily having a special meeting both? And the 7th? We agreed to have special meetings on the office on the other Mondays that we don't regularly meet. That's true. We didn't talk about whether we would do that on a Monday. I'm sorry, I'm sharing to keep cutting out. I'm sorry, I can't. If possible to not meet both of those times, I think that that would be great if we could put the issues into one meeting. Yeah, we could try to do that the executive session and then the meeting with the staff. But all I'm saying is we agreed for other various reasons to meet on the Mondays that weren't regularly scheduled meetings. But we can figure that out. Let's get back to our LGER discussion and see if there's anything else. Yeah. That's David. Denise. Yeah. Denise. Yeah. John. Yeah. So, you know, Judy did say that she wasn't interested because the safe, there's no safe there. But that said, my understanding is Judy does work from home. Part of the time. And so, so let's just think this through. We are right now looking at things through the current lens. But if COVID continues on the trajectory, it's heading nationally and in Vermont and in particular, Calis. Barbara, last I checked, was working with Judy in that office and they were comfortable in that space. And it's allowable under the current situation, I think, for two people. They've changed that. But it may come to the point where we can only have one person in that office at once. So if Barbara's in that office, that means Judy's not in there. And to have a space for Judy to work where she needs high speed and quality internet, we have it available. And she might change her mind when she finds out how good it is from, say Sandra. And vice versa, but Barb may have administrative stuff she can get done utilizing that space. And, you know, again, that she can't do because Judy needs to be in the office and using the safe. So I think we need to have it and have it available. We don't know where we're gonna be comes February and all predictions are it's gonna be pretty dire. So I don't want to see the town shut down. We didn't advance plan. It's kind of like buying a fire truck to put house fires out. You're hoping that there won't be another house fire but the expectation is there will be. And then the expectation right now is the COVID is gonna get really bad and we should be prepared. Well, I think it goes right along with the same think it goes along with the same idea that I brought up with the, with the road crew. We need to have some alternative plans here. And right now, Judy and Barbara are not working at the same time because there was an issue with maybe somebody's being exposed and being waiting to be tested. I mean, frankly, maybe Alfred would use one of the offices because he can't be where the clue is. We don't know. I think it's gonna hide the man. That's what I expect. And Cliff's got his hand up. Go ahead, Cliff. Thanks Denise. Everyone, Ruben Bennett from RB Tech has joined us. Ruben, just to get you up to speed about what we're talking about. As you know, we've been discussing trying to increase bandwidth at the town office. It looks like we have some options but they are still down the road. earliest we would see something would be probably around Q2 of next year. So now we're talking about other alternatives. If we can't bring the question that's been asked if we can't bring the fiber to the server can we bring the server to the fiber? And there are locations in East Calus that we could rent out that have those kinds of connections there. So we're wondering about the technical challenges of extending our office network to other locations. Do we do a mirror server or what's possible? On the surface of it, it's a really good idea. And we actually have had one other client who just peripherally related to COVID. It was actually more related to a relocation in their office and to have a reshuffle where they just took their server out and put it in the co-location space. And they're all VPNing to the machine there. The challenge for you as the town is the same old challenge which is if you're in the office and you have really iffy internet you're not gonna be able to get to the server. So while on the surface it seems like a smart plan that the challenge is it's the same old stumbling block, right? So right now, if you're not in the office you have no connectivity to the server. If you were to move the server out of the office then if you're in the office you will have basically no connectivity to the server. So it's basically just- There's no way to make it. So there's no way to make it so that- Couldn't we- There could be a server at the office and one at East Calis? There's no way to without impossible expense and complication. It's not trivial to have basically a mirrored instance of your server running at the town and elsewhere. Again, the challenge is bandwidth, right? If you're running a mirrored instance then you have to have some way to replicate everything that's done on one machine over to the other and vice versa because you're gonna have bidirectional communication, right? So, and the software to do that you're basically talking about moving to a virtualized VMware environment with really expensive licensing that goes along with that. Isn't that the same challenge though? When we were talking last week we were saying that having the office would improve what I was understanding takeaway. Having Fiverr at the office would improve the ability of people to work at home and obviously would improve their ability to work in the office because now both ends of the process are in the same high speed, but so, okay, but if we move the server to a place where there is Fiverr, I understand that that makes the town office another a third remote environment if you will from the server. So there's the home, the homes and whatever challenges they have and now there's the office as well, totally that, but what we were hearing is people working at home it's the server that's the problem, not their home. So if we were able to move the server to the Fiverr then we've addressed, so haven't we addressed the home to the server problem? And we have, okay, so that we have addressed and then we just have the challenge of, well, what if somebody does happen to be in the office? Same problem as before because it's so bad there. Okay. So effectively you would effectively be choosing to enable working from home at the expense of working from the town office if that makes sense, right? Cause you would have to, sorry, go ahead. No, yeah, I hear that. And that's what we were, the problem we were trying to solve last week was exactly the working from home and the fact that that doesn't work. But okay, I'll stop Denise, you have a question. Yeah, I wonder, so if could we put the server in the rented office space and there's no way for it to then work better, could we put the server in the rented office space and solve the person who's working from home in Berlin and still have it accessible to the office staff? So you wouldn't maybe have a person there but you would have the server there? The short answer is that the same limitation that's making it so that the people working from home can't access the server at the town office would make it so that if you're at the town office and you're trying to access the server offsite somewhere it's not gonna work very well. I mean, do you have any ideas? You know, the short answer is no, this is a Vermont problem and this is a problem that the state of Vermont has spent a lot of money to attempt to solve and you know, the town office in Calis is experiencing exactly what a lot of rural Vermonters are experiencing, which is that the last mile is just not there, there is no broadband beyond a certain point once you get out of town and all of these folks, like you hit this sort of hard stop and it's where the broadband lines end and technically we call DSL broadband, but it isn't and the town office is experiencing that and everybody who is behind a DSL modem, whoever the provider is, is experiencing the straight fact that DSL is not broadband access. It doesn't provide sufficient bandwidth and it doesn't provide sufficient resiliency. So any place that you're limited by broadband to only having DSL is effectively not really broadband connected. Denise, can I chime in? Hello. You know, we lost Denise, but John, go ahead. Oh, thanks Cliff. So Ruben, just so you know what we're thinking or one part of the conversation has been, what if there is office space in East Calis Village with fiber optic plumb to it and we could rent a couple of office spaces there and maybe the work effort that requires us to work on that server and utilize that server ongoing could be performed in those offices that they would be separate from each other, which as this COVID thing continues to escalate, will provide the benefit of isolation that we don't have in our current office setting. So I mean, our situation is likely, in fact, we're already there I guess, that we can only have one person in that big huge office anyway right now. So what if we instead, and until we get high speed internet fiber to premises, which it looks like it might happen by next summer, until that happens, if we could relocate the functions that demand the use of that server to East Calis, rent two offices there that would allow two office staff instead of one being in the office, two could be in a town office, they would have that ultra high speed internet and we'd also have that COVID separation that we need. And that would get us maybe through this tight spot until July or maybe beyond that. And that's like one idea and we then relocate the server and then the clerk, yes, the clerk's gonna have to do some traveling to our main office in Gospel Hollow to do the accessing the safe and doing that kind of paperwork stuff. But in terms of the work, the share of the clerk's work and the treasurer's work and the assistant's work that requires internet access, they could scoot over to East Calis, get in their COVID separate office and get that work done. So we'd have actually three viable office spaces where right now we have one because of the isolation that is now in play at our office. So that's like one line of thinking and what do you think of that? Well, the short answer is that on a technical level it solves all the technical problems with the exception of the making the town office basically an island, right? On a technical level, yeah, there's no reason that that couldn't work. So would there not be any, if we did that, would there not be any internet at the office or would there still be internet? You would still have, well, we would have to do a little rejiggering of things to make it so that there was internet access. What you would end up probably doing is purchasing a firewall for the town office and then we, six and one half a dozen of another. You would need a firewall wherever your second office space is anyway. So you're gonna have to purchase firewall. So you put that. What does that cost? A thousand-ish. Not horrible, but not nothing. And then we can build a VPN between the two and it'll work however it works, which is not gonna be great and it's not gonna run NEMRIC. I'm just gonna tell you that right now. So don't, don't get your hopes up. But it would run NEMRIC from the space in East Calis. The space in East Calis will be local to the server. So the server and the NEMRIC client will be right there. So what the town office will have in effect is spotty internet service, just like it has right now. And to the probably not mess with that. And to the extent that some of these internet at home is better than the average bear internet and then the location of server proximity to fiber makes the home experience better than the getting now with the servers out in Gospel Hall. That is true. I do wanna be, so one of the real challenges here is that NEMRIC, the software itself is not, it's really not meant to be running over a VPN. So I'm actually gonna backtrack a little bit and say that moving the server to a better connected place is not necessarily gonna give NEMRIC users a much better experience when they're not local to the server. So does that mean if the treasurer was working at home, her connectivity wouldn't be any better? Well, I'm getting lost in the weeds a little bit, but I... I think it means that if we had...  So the way that folks are accessing things right now is from their home machines, they're basically remote controlling their workstation at the office. And so that's a workable solution because the NEMRIC application is on the work machine, which is on the same physical network as the server is on right now. So basically the only way that we could really do this and have this scale without throwing insane hardware and effort at it would be to basically take all of the workstations at the town office, set them up in the temporary office close to the server. It doesn't have to be physically close, close, but on the same network so that people can come in from wherever they are and remote control their workstation. So where I wanna make a distinction is that the NEMRIC application is not runnable without the actual client workstation being in close proximity to the server. It has to be there on the network. Cliff. Right, because when Sandra's working at home, she's accessing her computer in the office remotely. I get that. Correct. Yeah. Cliff has a... So if you move the server but you don't move Sandra's workstation, then we haven't actually solved the problem for Sandra. So Cliff and then Sharon. So Ruben, would we be able to overcome some of these challenges you just described if we did move the server and now we could tap into NEMRIC cloud? Yep. But now you're talking about not just moving the server to a new physical location but you're also talking about a migration to the NEMRIC cloud. Yep. Is that possible? But the short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer just, you know, that's a change that you can't really undo. And when the server goes back to the town office, whenever that happens, then you're gonna have problems accessing NEMRIC at that time. But by then we would hopefully have the better connection. Hopefully. I'm not saying that you shouldn't explore this option and I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just, I wanna make sure that I'm presenting all of the, and I'm thinking on all of this sort of on the fly. So I apologize for like I didn't, I forgot about that piece with the NEMRIC connection but that's a really important piece. The NEMRIC application is architected in such a way that basically it grabs all of the files that are on the server and copies them to the workstation that's running the application and you can't do that over a VPN. It will not fly. Okay. Sharon and then John. Yeah, I think it's just worth really noting that what we thought we were giving up last week when we decided not to run Fairpoint. Consolidated. Thank you. Not to run, it's consolidated to offices. What we thought we were given up in function for folks working from home is actually wasn't there. It wouldn't have been there anyway because they're still not in proximity to the server. Well, no, because Sandra's computer when she's working remotely if I understood Ruben correctly, her computer that she's accessing from home is right next to the server, right in the office. No, that's not what... That's what he just said. But it would be if we moved it out to the... I thought it was the town one. Okay. Yeah. Okay, John, you wanted to say something? I'm kind of looking at chat to see who wants to talk. This is a question for Denise and Cliff and then I'm going to keep asking questions. Who is using NEMRIC other than Sandra? Is Judy? I'm not sure how much Judy uses it, but the Listers use NEMRIC. I think I'm frozen. Judy uses it, the Listers use it. Sandra uses it, Barbara uses it. The Listers use it? Yes. I think everybody in the town office uses it. It's basically the line of business application for the entire town office. Okay, so, but all those people could utilize separate office cubicles in East Calus and we could for the most part temporarily shut down the clerk's office so we would have greater functionality if we relocated the town office functions during this COVID situation to East Calus until we got the high speed internet fired up, which we're hearing is a good chance of Rubin that we might have it by mid-summer. Just FYI, you missed that conversation. That Velco is going to be running, Velco is running a fiber optic line to the substation in Kent's Corners and then it would be a short run down the hill to the clerk's office, which we would then have CB fiber install. So this would be a bridge that would solve a number of problems. Right now we have an office that only allows for one person to work there, given a whole bunch of stuff we won't get into right now, but one person in the office at the time and so that same person could instead be in East Calus. When the safe needs to be used, that person who may be using NEMRIC, the other person like the treasurer, cannot use that office, so then it has to be remote. So if we had two or three even separate offices in East Calus, we could have the server, we could have that, I don't know what you call it, mainframe computer parked right next to the server in one of those offices, the other two offices could tie into it and we could have three people functionally operating at the same time on high speed internet without delay, without complaint and all the issues we have between the COVID and the poor performance of the internet system I expect would go away. The only issue is the safe, but that would then be something Judy could access or Barbara could access as a single person which doesn't, you don't need a computer to go into the safe and grab documents. So this is what we're trying to suss out. I think we need to really seriously consider this. Ruben, how long would it take if we decided to do this, how long would it take for RB Tech to relocate stuff to East Calus and could it be done before the end of December and have it fully functionally functional? Honestly, the biggest question there is the internet. Is it already in place and running or is that getting set up by somebody? No, the high speed internet is already there and it's either 200 up and down or 20, it's 220. Something is up and something is down and I don't know which one. Yeah, all the office spaces are wired, it's been set up for that. They're all, yeah, they're all set to go. They got furniture and everything. I believe it's symmetrical fiber, Ruben. Okay. Say what, Cliff? It's 200 up, 200 down, I believe. Okay, something like that. Melissa wasn't sure. I think the short answer is yes, we should be able to pull that off. So, Ruben, we had one or a couple of us running a late night. Because honestly, our project calendar is stuffed, but I also recognize that this is really... Well, and there's grant money associated with it. There's a grant money and a deadline as you're probably well aware of. Oh, we've heard all about them. We're scrambling like mad to help people maximize these grants all over the place. So, let me ask Nick or Bill or John McCullough. Do you have any questions or comments? I see you guys are there, but I don't know if you have anything you wanna say. I can't see you, so. Well, just on the last question that Ruben addressed, if you could provide the town with a letter saying that you will complete the work by the 30th, and then we would have fulfilled our commitment in good faith, then if you, for some reason, you run over and you miss the deadline, we are not held liable to... We would still be reimbursed because you had given us a guarantee in writing. And that would keep us out of trouble with the state of Vermont. And that would still make us eligible for the funds, Nick? Yes, it would. What are the terms of those grants though? Do those, is there a clawback that reaches to the guarantor of the service? No, there's not. It just says, I can read it to you, actually. It says, if the vendor is unable to deliver due to circumstances beyond the control of the grantee, then you will still be eligible for reimbursement. There's no clawback to the vendor. Okay. And I can send you that language if you like. Yes, please. I mean, on the surface of it, that sounds reasonable, but I'm very mindful about setting expectations that we can't set, that we can't meet. So I would wanna be real careful about that. We would hold you harmless for a minute. John McCullough, did you have anything? I just wanted to add that the Listers use the vault on a semi-regular basis. There are other paper records in the office that we access regularly when we're there. Just wanted to make it clear that the Listers couldn't abandon the building. I'm sorry, Listers couldn't what? We couldn't leave the building and still do our job. What if all of that stuff was on the cloud? Jan mentioned something about if it was on the never-it-cloud, then you could. We have paper records that haven't been scanned. Now, if somebody wants to scan them. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Okay. That's all. But John, you wouldn't be able to use the office anyway because the office is limited to one person. So if the town business is going on there, you wouldn't be able to use it. And if there's no one in the office, then you can use the office. So that doesn't affect you. That's what they're doing now, John. The Listers generally go in on Fridays. Right. So this doesn't change that. Okay. Except for the network system is elsewhere. Okay. No, I'm good. I'm good with that. I thought there was talk about just closing the office down. No, relocating critical functions. Okay. Bill, did you have anything? Bill, did you have anything? Thanks for asking, no, I'm all set. Okay. So it sounds like we need to maybe put together some kind of a proposal as to how this could work. I mean, we're gonna have the minutes and all that stuff, but if this is something we're seriously considering, we need to have a follow-up conversation with the office staff. Yeah, I would think that conversation needs to happen pretty quickly. We might be able to meet with them. Denise, you and I might be able to have a preliminary meeting with them and then arrange to have the board meet with them on this coming Monday. 30th? Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would want to, I'm okay with the two of you meeting with them, but I think for my part, the message needs to be that this is a board decision. Yeah.  No, I hear what you say. I know what you're saying, I get it. Yeah, and that's totally what I'm thinking too, but give them the opportunity to think it through and say, okay, here's the challenges we see, here's the benefits we see. Yeah, they might have things that we're not thinking about. And they would have some time to think about it and bring it to the board because it's a short week this week. Yeah. No, I'm okay with things we haven't thought about, but we do, as you noted earlier, Denise, have to keep in mind what's best for the town and how to keep our town operations running. And... Well, the town operations are critical to the function. If this is critical issues for the town, being able to pay bills and all these things like that, we need to still be able to do. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of jazzed, Ruben, thank you very much for coming to the call. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad to help. I hope that I'm not missing anything important. Well, you know, but this gives you an opportunity but Ruben, this gives you an opportunity to see where our heads are at, what we're looking at. And if you think of other stuff, we would invite you back to join us on the 30th. Okay, well, I think what I'll do is I'm gonna chew on this over the next few days and kick it around with my team. And if I come up with a showstopper, I'll let Cliff know right away. Okay. Thank you very much, Ruben. Sounds good, thank you very much, Ruben. Yeah, you're very welcome. Nice to see you, Ruben, thanks. Nice to see you all. Have a good holiday.  Right, yes, no choking. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you all, have a good night. You too, take care. Well, that was very helpful, yes, Nick. Just want to point out the obvious that the clock is ticking, the sand is running through the hourglass, and if we're gonna have any of these vendors be in a position to respond to us, it's gonna have to happen really fast at the end of December as close as possible. Yeah, I think we gotta decide what we're gonna do right off. And maybe we can, or maybe our goal for the 30th will be to come to that decision. And if not, then I don't know what to say. Denise, one of... Go ahead, Sharon. Sorry. So one of the questions that I think is important is under some accounting practices, you can't spend money on services not yet received. Yeah. And that's, you know, like I love the idea of renting in East Calis, but we would want to be careful, and maybe even with Jim's input on what kind of a lease do we enter into so that we can pay up front, as you said. Yeah, we can find that out for sure. And I can also ask for clarity on that from the Department of Taxes, say let us give us reassurance that we can do it this way. Yeah, and Sandra can check with the auditors and see about how this would work. And I can certainly send Jim an email all right, good. Sounds like we've got more of a plan going forward. That's great. Was there anything else that folks were going to report back on Cliff? I just want to put it out there in front of the board that if for whatever reasons, it turns out that we can't pursue this option. We have come up with some other options for taking advantage of the Elger funds. It might not cover all of it, but keep that in the back of your minds that we do have some other opportunities that we could tap into. Okay, I mean, like, but not to solve this problem, just other things. Right, if it turns out that this solution that we just discussed is something that's not gonna work, that we can't pull it off in time or whatever reasons it goes south, there are other needs that we have that the Elger funds could be applied to. Okay. All right, are you ready to move on? Yeah. Everybody ready? Okay, good. No, no, no, Denise. What? Can you talk to Melissa Brough and get her to, how many units that she have available, do you know? I think she had two when I talked to her. Do you want me to find out for sure? You get her to draft up some contract language. So it's ready to go for next meeting in the event. Yep. We're ready to sign. Yeah, I'll ask her about it. Okay, thank you. Yep. Okay, we have several more things to do. It's almost nine o'clock. Nick, you're welcome to stay, but if you've had enough of us, you don't have to stay. I will tear myself away. Okay, same thing for you, Bill, unless Bill has something else for us. You're welcome to stay. It's a public meeting. Okay. Thanks, Nick. Thanks, Bill. Real quick, Janet Ansel is now not ready for us to take up her request. She has to work out, and good luck with this for her. She has to work out something with consolidated first, and then do something with E911, and so she's not ready, so we're not gonna do that tonight. But we wanna talk briefly about the situation in Maple Corner with regard to the wandering horses. It was pretty good for a while there, John, when the horses were in your yard, but they are back now in Maple Corner and are all over the place. I mean, I get phone calls and emails, and you guys have seen them, I think the majority of concerns expressed, and we've been down this road before, and there's very little we can do. I think the board has sent her a letter previously, but I didn't look to see, I should have looked to see, but I didn't. We could ask, you know, our town attorney to draft a letter and send it. We could send a letter as the board, so I'm just, what do you wanna do? Rose? I sent Denise a response a couple of days ago saying, you know, maybe the board should send her a letter regarding the public safety hazard this is causing, not to mention property damage, and you know, then the health of these large animals. I mean, if you think about the animals, the horses themselves to be spooked by vehicles or people to not know where their next meal is coming from, to be exposed to the elements, and then, you know, we're trying to do our public duty by making sure the people in that area, in that part of town feel safe and that their property is protected. I understand the horses just recently ate somebody's hay that the woman had covered up her gardens for the year, and the horses came by and made a mess and ate all of her hay or straw that she used. So, yeah, I mean, it might not do anything, but in my view, I mean, I don't think that we should just sit idly by. I mean, we wanna be responsive to the townspeople, and we want for whatever good or not good, at least try to communicate to this person that, you know, this is not okay. Denise had to step away for a minute. I would jump in and say, I agree with you, Rose. I don't know if it's better, if anyone has a bead on whether it would be better if the board composed this letter or the lawyer did. My initial thought is maybe it would be better if the board composed this letter. We could have Jim look at it, of course, but, you know, try the approach of, hey, we're all a community, but we're trying to watch out for each other. Sharon or John, do either of you have thoughts there? John, I see you got your hand up. Yeah, my internet's flaky, so I apologize. So as Denise said, I had those horses at my place pretty much since May, I guess.  Her horses started blowing through my fences, and there's another story I won't get into the detail of, and caused a lot of damage.  So she had to get the horses out of here. You know, next year I could do it again, have the horses, they're not a problem at our place in the summer. And, but you know, I don't know what to tell you about convincing Elizabeth that what she's doing or her strategies somehow are wrong-headed because I have a pretty friendly relationship with her as a result of her horses staying at our place, and she doesn't listen to me. So, at all, which is one reason the horses are no longer here. So, I don't know what the solution is other than the town building her a corral, you know? I don't know, she doesn't have a property that it really affords itself to have even one horse level on three horses and one is a big, big, big gilding. When he's rambunctious and doesn't respect fence and blows through everything and then the others follow him, so I don't know what to tell you. Unless the town, I think the only other solution is that the town, if we could find a place where she could win her horse, if there's some person that would like to have the company of horses in their pasture and they happen to have fencing up, that's the problem, she does not have a property that lends itself to keeping animals of this size and number.  So, it's not providing any answers exactly, unless somebody knows of somebody who's got a farm, other than mine, that's willing to take these horses in and we could maybe orchestrate help guide her there. Didn't last, was it last year, John, when she was out of commission for a while, some place in New York or something had the horses for a while and then she got them back, right? Yeah, the horses were on our location, I think for a number of reasons, remember? Yeah, yeah, we don't need to go in for reasons. There was an elk and we remember. Yeah, right. There was an ailment with the horses, so that has corrected itself, but whoever that happened. I know we- Yeah, there was another location. I know we've tried to deal with this before and there's really, there's just not a lot we can do and the contact for her to maybe get her to do anything is her father who lives out of state and he's quite elderly. So anyways, I'm not sure what we can do with a letter. I don't know if a letter would aggravate the situation or not, at least it would put us on record as having expressed our concerns. My concern is that somebody at some time is going to hit those horses and some horrible thing is gonna happen to the horses and probably the person who hits them. So it's kind of like hitting a moose because they're up tall. And I don't know, it's beyond me to understand why she doesn't see that. I just don't understand why she doesn't see that. But anyways, Cliff, do you have any thoughts? And then Sharon? Yeah, while you were away, Denise, I had said that I agree with the idea of sending her a letter and I thought that it might be better if it's something that the board composed and sent to her rather than having Jim do it, but we could certainly have Jim take a look at it before we send it. I mean, she has engaged the select board on a couple of occasions, everyone, I believe saw some emails from her. So it might be a starting point for a dialogue and if we can at least get that much accomplished, we might have a chance of achieving a positive outcome. Yeah. And if not, well, we're nowhere soft than we are right now. True. We at least maybe we should send her a letter and invite her to come and discuss this with the board or something. I just wanna make sure that whatever we put in the letter is accurate as to what we cannot do. Exactly. Sharon, you have thoughts? I agree. I agree with what we're saying. I agree that a letter from the board is more neighborly and friendly, although I think we should pull up one we sent before. I don't remember, but I trust your memory on this Denise and build on that, keeping our friendly tone and as friendly as possible while making our point. And it may not be a bad idea to run it by Jim in case there's something we can say that's not occurring to us. Although I think we've had that conversation. Yeah, we have. I guess I would, I agree. I think it would just be good to maybe have him look at it before we send it. That's all. Rose or Katie, can you look back and see if we sent a letter? Maybe that's a Katie thing to look back. So you can do some kind of a search, I bet. Okay, so let's see if we can find our letter from before. And then if you're ready, we can try to move on to some of the other items here to do. Some of them should go fairly quickly, I think. I'm gonna propose we're behind in our budget work. We should have already been doing meetings and planning for budget, but as you all know, we've been meeting on union stuff. So I'm gonna, I would propose that we start out with maybe looking at level funded and what would a 1% or 2% increase look like? The Cemetery Commission has already said that they're gonna level fund their budget. And I think if you would let, would authorize Cliff and I to spend some time working on the first proposal, so we can get cracking on this, because I'm really getting concerned. It's getting in almost into December and we haven't even started, yep. I'm okay with, yeah, that sounds good. I love, I love that you're thinking in terms of one or two percentage points.  Yeah, go ahead, Sharon. No, I was just gonna offer, you know, if you want, Cliff I think is pretty facile with Excel too, but if you want some help with analysis, feel free to call in. Yeah, yep, we'll do. Okay, having said that Cliff and I'll work out a schedule. Sean, do you wanna talk about Chittman Solid Waste? We just got word that what the state's gonna do. John, do you wanna just go into that briefly? Well, there's not much to say other than they had the public hearing that you participated in Denise. Yep. The state did and then subsequent to that, you know, we met with the Central Vermont Solid Waste District and they agreed to pen a letter to the state concurring with our position that in many people's positions and town's positions that they have the cart before the horse, the state agency and natural resources should shift their approach to focus on the enforcement action and resolving that. However, they do that and not be issuing permits to after the fact permits to in some way, bless, this is weird, bless their behavior. So the public comment closed, comment was submitted by the Saw Waste District. It was a letter, our Saw Waste District and the executive, I'm sorry, chair of the board and also the Northeast Kingdom Solid District wrote a letter that more or less mirrored it. And the state, I guess, carried or decided to not continue forward with issuing permits after the fact permits. Are you hearing me? This is weird. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, no, I can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, it's these weird things are coming through. So that's where we're at. I don't know anything else. The state has just stayed the permitting process and we'll see where things end up. And then they've stayed it until the enforcement action, quote, unquote enforcement action, whatever that is. Is that the enforcement action should see the ADs officer separate? Yeah, the agency and natural resources has enlisted the state's counsel, the attorney general's office to represent it in either negotiating a settlement or taking this matter to court. So that's where things are. We don't know what's going on in their shop at the AGs in terms of the negotiation. We do understand they were negotiating. TJ Donovan did say that in the press and he thought a settlement was close and that something would happen by the end of the week and that was two and a half weeks ago. So I don't think that's happening. Okay, well, thank you. We'll continue to keep updated on that. A couple other things happening. Our annual meeting with the East Mount Player Fire Department to look at their proposed budget for FY22, that meeting is Thursday, December 3rd at seven and that will be on Zoom. So as soon as they get that information, I'm hoping they, I've got to do an agenda for that but hopefully they'll get that information soon. I'll be on them about it. And then East Mount Player, we usually meet with the East Mount Player Select Board after we've met with the fire department so that the two boards can talk about what's been proposed for the budget and see where we all sugar out on their requests. And that meeting is going to be on the 7th at seven. Any questions or comments about those two items? Okay, moving right along. Cliff, do you want to give us any updates on the town hall friends of or IT? Yeah, a few quick things. Grady did finish the exterior painting project. Scott Bassage, David Sheetz and myself all did a walkthrough with Grady and we felt everything looked to be in good order. And so Grady is going to be issuing invoice for the final payment. I just want to make sure that there's no other concerns by any other members of the board before we authorize Sandra to pay that. I think it looks beautiful. It turned out great and yeah, it was interesting. Grady developed a bit of an emotional attachment to the project and you could really see it as he was walking around with us and we were talking about different aspects of it. We really found the right guy for the job, I think. Okay, well, then I'll give Sandra the heads up that that'll be coming. He also will give us the certificate that shows that the lead abatement was done and completed and done properly. So that we'll have that certificate on file. Interesting factoid, there was over 800 pounds of lead paint chips removed in the course of the- 800? 800 pounds plus. Holy shmoly. Yep. That's a lot of lead paint. Yep. So it's a different coat. Cliff. Yeah. And select chair and vice chair and Rose. What do you think about? I mean, this guy went over and above the call of duty.  I was thinking if we could just get him a simple acknowledgement beyond just paying the bill, maybe a gift certificate to Buddy's Burgers or something. You know, a hundred bucks worth of burgers. You could take Wimpy out with him. Yeah. I could go have a burger. I would support that. I can also tell you that I know he's an avid ice fisherman. So a gift certificate to the supporting goods place or something would also be welcome, I'm certain. Okay, so let's get a card and, is Onion River still open or is there a shop close to it? They're not really, they're not a fishing place. Oh, they're more of the... The Barry place. The place, it's Rick Sanborn's place. What is that, archery? R&L archery? R&L archery. Oh, R&L archery? Yeah, we should get a gift certificate there. All right, I'm just making a note. I'll make a motion for that expenditure $100 gift certificate for... I'll second that. Let John second it, it was his idea. Yeah. Okay, okay, let's vote. Rose? Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff? Aye. Sharon's an aye. She's got a thumb up. John? Yes. Okay. Well, that's a fun thing to do. Yep. Okay. Another issue regarding the town hall. We need to think about care and feeding, maintaining the building over the winter. We did not finalize the management agreement yet with the friends group. So I'm wondering if we want to solicit the services of Andy Feliz to make sure, check on the building periodically and help us be aware if there's issues to address. We want to make sure that we're running some level of heat in the building through the winter as it gets colder so that we don't have any damage. And the plywood needs to at some point be leaned up against the windows so that the snow coming off the roof is not going to cause damage. Wondering if there's any thoughts or other ideas there. I saw a thumbs up from John. Yeah, it makes sense to me to see if we can get Andy back on board. Would you contact him, Cliff? I can certainly do that. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. The only other thing I had with regards to town hall, we discussed this before, and I think everyone was on board with the idea, but I couldn't find it to verify 100%. But the alarm system there still needs the redundancy line booked up. Does that mean I won't get calls at three in the morning? That means you won't get calls at three in the morning as long as the board is okay with getting that service activated. Basically, the phone lines are in place. We just got to get the consolidated to turn on the service, and then we plug it in. What's the additional cost per month, you know? When I checked their rates, they said, oh, it's 35, but that doesn't include the other fees and taxes and stuff. So typically, their basic phone line, I'm thinking is gonna run about 60 a month. From my perspective, I mean, I don't always answer at three in the morning, but it is a concern if I don't, and then there's a real problem, it's gonna go unresolved. So I would be in favor of, let's just get this done. And this is not a COVID issue, so it's just something we're gonna have to pay for. Yeah, we could not use the COVID funds, unfortunately. Right, are others in agreement? Okay, do we need, Cliff, do you wanna make a motion? Yeah, I move that we activate a second phone line to the town hall to act as a backup for the alarm system. Okay. I'll second that. All right, let's vote. Rose. Hi. I'm an I, Cliff. Hi. Sharon. Hi. Don. Yes. Excellent. All right, do you have any IT? I mean, we talked about IT quite a bit already tonight, but is there anything else we should know? Yeah, no, we can refrain for now. Okay. All right, let's, we're like, we need to do three different sets of minutes, I think. All right, let me pull them up. Yep, can we do that next time? I really am beat. I wanna get out of here. We can, if we do it next time, I'm probably gonna put it closer to the beginning of the meeting so that we actually get it done. Yeah. And we can all look at it ahead of ahead of time and make sure we're all good to go. I like that too. Hey, Cliff. Hey, John. Just to, I meant to ask Ruben this, make sure Ruben, when he sends his proposal or whatever he sends to us, that he has a price tag on that, huh? So it's ready to go. Okay. Please. And then we have to get that list of other items that are LGR or whatever, or whatever, grant eligible. So I think we need to be ready to act. And if everything else collapses, I hope it doesn't because I think we're gonna be in a big trouble if we don't have an alternative work site here. So. Okay, so next regular, well, now next meeting on the 30th, we're supposed to be talking about personnel issues, but it looks like it's gonna get overtaken with some other items. Sharon and I are gonna meet on, I think, Saturday to pick up where we left off and hopefully we'll have a draft that we can send out to the rest of the board. Right, Sharon? Did Sharon disappear again? Oh no, there she is. This internet thing tonight has just been really awful. All right, is there anything else that anybody wants to bring up what we need to do tonight? Okay, everyone have a, Rose already had her Thanksgiving, so. I did, I did yesterday. I had turkey, broccoli, casserole leftovers tonight. It was yummy. Yeah, that's the best part is awesome. Well, I said everything else is screwed up, so why not have Thanksgiving on Sunday? So, Greg and I, you know, Thanksgiving dinner for two. Yeah, I got leftovers. I got leftovers. Yeah, I mean, I think, I hope, hopefully, I mean, we usually have a group here and we're just not doing it this year because we just can't. Can't do it. No. So I hope everyone has a safe and healthy holiday. Yes, I wish the same to everybody. Yep, fine. Can we get a motion to adjourn? So Mo. Second. Okay, Rose, you want to vote? Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff? Aye. John? Yes. Karen? Aye. Okay, I just want you guys to know how much I appreciate how much time and thought into all of this. Everybody puts into it, it's very much appreciated. You too, Denise. Thanks for all your leadership. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Yep. Good night. Good night, everybody. Good night, team. Oh, Rose. Rose. Dave Delcourt. Oh, Dave Delcourt. Oh, does he have any questions? Oh.