December 7th, 2020, Berlin Select Board of Order. With us is John Quinn Angelina Kaepern. Justin Lawrence and Flo Smith. Also with us is Tom Bedowski and Diane Isabel, our town treasurer. I guess Diane, you can start this with the- Yeah, with the budget. Budget. Yeah, does everyone have, I thought I would start with the revenue portion. Does everybody have that? I sent everything out on Friday. Okay, good. And I'm gonna try to make it quick. Go through these things quickly. If you've got questions, just let me know. Okay, so looking at the state of Vermont, which has to do with the railroad, levy on the highways and the state hospital. I am thinking that I'm adding a little bit for the revenue on the highway part of it. Because this for the class two and three roads, because the last couple of years we have been getting a little more money. So I thought I might just well add that into it. As far as the state hospital, that's always at 25,000. And that's because we have what we call a memorandum of understanding with them. And that is through, you know, that's through eternity is $25,000 every year. And we started that back in 2016. And that was because when they built it, they thought that maybe they would leave our services for the police more. So that's what we have that for. So I'm saying there should be an increase in that. And then when I look at the tolls for licenses and fees, I've kept everything there pretty stagnant. Although I did increase the town clerk by 5,000. And I think that that's reasonable just because there's been an awful lot of, a lot happening as far as home selling. And I think that she can get more revenue. And I think I've been underestimating the revenue that she has been making right along. So I've increased that. And that's really about the only one I increased. So I brought that total up a little bit. As far as the property taxes, I'm leaving the current use of leaving at 40,000. We never know what we're gonna get from that. That is depending on the changes of current use throughout the year. And the state's the one that mandates that I really can never guess what's gonna happen there. And then the reappraisal revenue, that is based on per parcel. And it's usually around 12,000 was 13,000 last year. So I'm gonna leave it at 12,005. I would rather underestimate the revenues and overestimate them. And then the pilot revenue, I'm leaving at 185, even though we always do more than 185, 60% of the pilot revenues from the state. And you never know where the state, if they're going to be able to fund it or not. Every year they always talk, they might not have up to this point, but I don't wanna say we're gonna make money that we're not gonna potentially might not make. And then as far as the interest, I brought the interest down in the bank as far the checking accounts go, because we were getting last year, we're getting 1.5% for interest in the checking account. Right now we're getting 1.10 of a percent for interest. So that really, we had like over $3 million to the checking account in the month of November, I got $95 for interest. So all I'm saying is I'm gonna bring that level down even at $1,500 for the year, that might be pretty high. And I didn't change the other levels as far as the limit taxes or the limit tax interest. And then as far as the miscellaneous revenues, we've drawn the second page. The water pollution control account is a rent that the sewer commission pays for having the use of my office and having stuff in my office. So that stays at $4,500. The Berlin Historical Society, they've always paid $250 last year. Dana wanted to increase to the 300, but never told them. So I'm leaving at the 250, because I don't know if you want me to try to increase that, but I wanna give them some warning before we do that. Otherwise not the police revenues, I am leaving the same. So I am looking overall for the revenues at being 0.16% higher. And I think that that's very conservative. I really think we can do that and maybe go even above that. But it only takes one thing to go sour and then we really lost it. So that is for the revenues. Then I wanted to go in to the general. So before we get there, I just have one question way back from the beginning around the highway funds. You said that those have drawn out the past couple of years. Which funds specifically are you talking about? I am talking about the class two and class three roads. Each quarter, they give us money for, I guess, for general repair, whatever it is that they give to us. And they make that determination based on how many class two roads, how many class three roads we have. And I don't know exactly how to come up with the formula. I've not looked into that part of it, but I do know for years, we've gotten a few more, it's been a few hundred dollars more. Yes, not thousands. Interesting, when I was in North Carolina, they had kept that number same for a number of years and started giving towards special projects. So I was just, I was, I wasn't aware that they were giving more now. They have been and I agree with you because for quite a few years, it was stagnant and just stayed the same. And then the last few years, they've been giving us more. So I thought, well, I might as well just show a little bit of an increase. You know, I think we'll probably get it. Okay. Are we ready to go on to the general fund budget for the expenses? That's the second part of the formula. That's a lot of different categories there. So I wanted to break it more into the categories. Now the wages I am basing on 2% increase. However, for the town administrator, we are looking at having a 10% increase for that particular position with a new person that's going to come on board. So that was showing 12% because that would reflect the new pay amount plus 2% on top of that. So I just want to point that out. The Board of Civil Authority, I don't know if anybody's aware, we never usually use that. However, if there's a lot of meetings with the Board of Civil Authority, there are occasions that they could get paid. I've never seen it all the years I've been here, but you never know. So I do leave some money in that. Office supplies, I'm bringing that down by $3,000. I think that we can do a better job as far as what we buy and where we buy it from. The majority of the office supplies is paper, but we do try to get the best deal that we can. And right now we get the state deal and that is with WB Mason. And that is the biggest part of the paper and also the ink cartridges. That's another big thing. The clerk and treasure training, I'm bringing that down. I'm meeting at $500 because there are certain meetings that Rosemary and Corinne have to attend for the town clerk every year. But beyond that, we don't really use that training for anything else. So I thought I'd bring it down to a level that where we really need it to be. Computer equipment, we don't need to buy any new computers. And if we do, we have a $15,000 reserve for computers from the previous year. So I didn't add in anything for that. The clerk copier, I'm bringing that down to the level of what the lease is right now. Because we have a new lease on that that we got from last year. The lease came down in price. Records restoration, I'm leaving that where it is. The postage as well. I think, so I'm bringing that. I'm showing an increase of 2% and the 2% has to do with the payrolls basically. And then the assessing department. On that one, I'm saying that maybe 1.5% increase for the assessors, although the last two years, they have not increased the fees. So maybe they won't, but I'm showing it at 1.5 just in case they do. Supplies, I think we can bring that down a little bit. And legal fees, I'm bringing that down just to $100. It's very rare that we have legal fees. And if we do have legal fees, it's for errors and emissions. So it's very, very rare that we've ever used that. The tax maps, I'm bringing down by $500. We've been getting new tax maps every year. Since Dana was there, it was every single year. That's one thing we might want to discuss at some time. Maybe we want to go every two years, but I'm showing it every year because I'm being consistent with the way we did it in the past few years. So I'm showing that that's a decrease of 2.44% although potentially we could bring that down even more. And for the town meetings and elections, that one I brought down by 22% because next year there's gonna be just a town meeting vote and then maybe a special meeting. There's not going to be like the presidential election or the every two years when we elect people for the legislature. So I brought down the fees on that. Then the next page is insurances. And then I do still don't have the insurance rates from the VLCT for FY22. I'm hoping to have that any time. Once I have that, I will plug it in. But right now I'm just kind of leaning stagnant where it is. Health insurance, I'm predicting that maybe it'll increase by 7%. However, if you look at the health, the health insurance for general, I've increased that higher because potentially our new town administrator might be on the family plan. Right now there's only the town administrator myself on it and right now it's just me and I'm on a single plan. So if that might go down, if our new town administrator doesn't have to have the family plan, it might just be a two person or a single for that person. And then the FICA expenses is just related to the payroll. Actually the feudal suitor, which is the unemployment, I did get the new rates that were from the VLCT on that one. And our rate last year for the entire town was $252 in FY22, so it'd be $1970. And obviously they're trying to recoup the money that they've had to pay for a lot of different towns with the COVID. So that is, I'm showing a 438% increase. And that's because that's a fixed increase. There's nothing that we can do to change that one as long as we use the link to cities and towns for unemployment. And then the life insurance and the disability insurance I've just based on what I think is going to be for the new town administrator with the population that we have right now in our town offices. So I made the changes there. Employee benefits is just gym memberships and the only person we had on it last year was Dana. The pension, the pension plan is going up from 6% match for the employer to 6.25%. And so I'm showing an increase of 10.35% because of the town administrators paying higher. So I'm showing a 12% increase for that department. The zoning department is next. And I'm showing a decrease in the zoning department. I'm saying with them, the training, I think that we had too high, I put it down to a lower level. The inspection mileage I put down as well. The telephone, I'm leaving at the same amount. And the legal fees I'm bringing right down is very, I don't ever think I've seen a time when we've had legal fees on the zoning department. Potentially it could be there, but I'm not going to anticipate that. So I'm showing a 52% decrease in that. And the DRB is the next. And the secretary, the secretary we've had for the last two years did not charge as much as the secretary we have from previous. So I'm bringing that level down to be in line with what she's actually charging. So that's a 70% decrease for her. The legal fees I'm bringing down, we rarely have legal fees for DRB. So I'm showing a 51% decrease in that particular department. And just to make you aware, the zoning and DRB, the fees for that are basically covered from the revenue that we have from the fees that we charge on a revenue side. And that actually is more than what we have for expenditures for the zoning and DRB. The planning commission, I'm leaving the same as it is. I'm both $20,000 in case we need for consultant fees for this next year for FY22. I was asked by the planning commission to put that $21,000 in. Other boards and commissions. The recreation board, I reached out to them, nobody answered me. I don't even know if I reached out to the right people, but we do have money in the reserve for the recreation board. We have $8,000 in there. So I didn't build anything in there. If they want to spend some money, they do have $8,000 in reserves. The conservation commission had asked me to put in $2,000 for them. And just a second, I can tell you why they wanted it they want it, they have to, they want to have some work done. I'll find that here. They want to improve Irish Hill trail system. So they're asking to have money for that. However, the conservation commission does have $47,000 in reserves. So potentially they could use the reserve money as opposed to us giving them money in addition. If I want to bring that up. Green up day, we always put in $400. And what happens with that one is that the seller waste also pitches in with us. So they charge us $400 and then they pay for the rest. And so we've always paid for the green up day. The state's asked us to put in some money for that normally. So I've left it at the value that we had it there. In the emergency management, they've asked me to put in $1,200. I think they might have asked me to put in more. I didn't up that. Just a second. Finally, we put my notes on that one. Oh, here it is.  They did ask me to add in $200 for animal disaster and I forgot to do that. So I should bring that up to $1,400 if we give them what they're asking for. But like I say, 200 of it is something we've never done before, but they are asking for this animal issue. So I will make that change just for my notes here. Okay, and then cemeteries, we always put aside $10,000. Normally we spend about $7,000 in the plowing. I'm not plowing, but mowing and maintenance. And I do hear that some of our cemeteries are in pretty bad shape. That some of the stones have fallen down. The fences are in really bad shape. We have not put any money into the cemeteries at all. So I'm leaving that at 10,000 at this point in time. It would be good if we could put some into it. Obviously that's something if you wanted to change that, we definitely could. Okay, and then the next page on that, or I'm sorry, I was down the end of that one already. Good, so the tolls for that is gonna be zero. I'm not making any changes to the cemetery. Okay, so now we're into the taxes and assessments. So the animal control constable, I'm leaving that the same. The county tax has a fixed amount that we're billed every year. I'll find out probably the next two months how much that's going to be. So I'm leaving at 40,000. Ambulance service for both. I am increasing that by 7% because I do believe that might be the increase from if we were to continue to go with Berrytown. So I'm showing an increase there. And then I'm showing that in part of our ambulance service is through Northfield. It's the town of Northfield. So potentially they may also bring that level up. I haven't heard anything from them at this point in time. Humane Society, I brought that down to $500. We don't tend to get that many fees from that. Central Mont solid waste. We did get the new rate for that for FY 22. So I put that in a central economic economic development. We always give them $500 every year and they do help us in various items. I have not received the new VLCT do the LCT dues for FY 22. The regional planning commission, I have not received anything from that. I'm assuming that will probably go up a little bit. Now totals for the town offices. I am leaving the janitorial services at $8,500 despite the fact we pay like under $5,000 at this point. It would be nice if we could, I'm not trying to put down the person that's doing our cleaning, but it's not at a very good level. I would rather, I think I'd like to have us put that out to bed and see if we can't get somebody who would do more cleaning. Because right now, basically she empties a trash in my room and doesn't do anything else. And I don't know how much she does the other parts of the building. So either we need to talk to her again or probably go out to bed with it. Supplies, I'm bringing that down because I think that we're doing pretty good with the PPE and cleaning supplies. Admin training, I'll leave it at $1,500 because that's normally the town administrator training and I'm assuming that the next town administrator is going to need some training. I've got the copier. I've got that at the level that we have right now in 1650. So it's up a little bit, but that's because we, I think we got it. I think we're going to be getting a new copier maybe this year, this next year, or contract should be up pretty soon. And the admin advertising, I brought that down by $500. The software support. Now I've left that at $11,500 if we are to continue with the equipment that we have right now, $11,500 is just not even going to be enough. And I received information today that the Linux that we have, which is what drives our outlook program no longer is being serviced. They do not offer anything for it. And the reason is because it's too old. And so the RB tech is telling us, well, maybe we should get, it's time to get a new server. So I will forward that information that I was sent today from architect to you so that you can see that. So right now I've left it that I'm really hoping that we can get a new computer system so that we can avoid a lot of these fees because they tend to grow and grow as time goes on. Okay. And then the web page. I'm not super excited about, I'm not super excited about some of the modern things that R&B or RB is doing for us. Like we should be on a email platform that lets you check it from anywhere, right? And that's easy to use. We can do that with Microsoft Office and a quick subscription that anyone in the office should be able to set up. And then as far as server needs, like maybe RB is the right place, but some of the things like email are definitely outdated as far as what we should be doing. I totally agree with you. And we need to do something with the server no matter what. Last year we were going to get a new server. That's why we had the 15,000 and then it just didn't happen. So I think this year we need to make something happen. So help obviously. I think that Johnny we're going to help us at one point anyways. So that would be great. We talked about it a little bit. I don't know enough about the server, but the communication piece, the email piece is very easy to solve. We just got to sit down. It's been difficult with COVID to figure out exactly some of the details. Okay, good. We'll do it. Yeah, let's plan on that then. At least if we can get one piece of the puzzle done, then I think that would help us tremendously. Okay. The webpage, I mean, that's a service that we have. Some day it'd be nice to change that web, but our website, but for right now it is working for us and it does what we need it to do. The cloud backup once again, that's expensive because of the server that we have and the Linux that we use. Backup storage fees, that is starting to grow. So I've got to get in touch with RB because our cloud backup is with Amazon. And for a very long time, the monthly fees were like 15, 20 bucks. All of a sudden the fees have been growing. They've been going back 150 to 200. I think the last time it was almost 300. So I got to figure out what's going on. I'm going to call RB Tech and ask them to help me look into this because this doesn't make any sense to me. Why should that be growing at such a rapid rate? So I'd like to be able to bring that one down, but I have to be able to bring it down realistically before I can present it to you. So I'll be working on that this next week. And maintenance for the building, I've brought that down a little bit, although there are things that really should be fixed. And then office for maintenance too, next year we'll be fixing that wall, I'm assuming. And I have a certain amount of money that they're going to pay for the wall that we discussed last year the insurance company gave me. And so I know we'll probably end up having to kick in some money, but until Connor can come in and fix it, and we just don't know exactly how I'm just going to be at this point. Now the vehicle, I am putting zero for that vehicle. That vehicle is old. It needs an awful lot of repairs. And nobody really, I don't think anybody really needs to have an office vehicle. We all have our own cars. If we have to do something for the town, then we get paid mileage. And the mileage would be a lot less money than putting repairs into that vehicle. Cause like I say, the vehicle is old. I can't remember it, maybe it was the 2014 maybe, something like that. But every time, it seems like somebody puts it on the road, there's more and more money to put into it. So like I say, I put it at zero, just hoping we can sell the vehicle and not have to have one. For the town, but maybe you might feel differently. Heating and utilities, I'm leaving at the same level. The internet, I am bringing that up a little bit because of the fees that we're going through right now because of the Linux program that we have. Equipment contracts, I've brought that up to the correct level. Last year, Dana did not put in all the Dockstar fees because we have Dockstar, which we're, both Dana and I were using that. And that there's this software for that, the hardware and an annual fee. And we are using it more and more, putting in more and more information. I think I have like 20. Alexa. Bluetooth off. Hello. I think someone has mute their phone or mute there. Okay. Okay, can you hear me? Yep. Okay, good. So I'll go on with equipment contracts. That's why it's hired because of the Dockstar. But like I was saying, we've got like 20 years worth of minutes in there and we keep building and building information in there so eventually we'll have more and more. And I think the biggest reason we put it in there is we're running out of space in the vault. That vault is as tight as can be and you can not add any more paper to it, unfortunately. And then for general expenses, we have got the legal services. I'm gonna leave that at 15,000. I think that that's a reasonable amount. CPA services that we have a contract and that contract normally goes up about $500 a year. Plus I put it up a little bit more because we might still have what they call a single audit. And because of what we're going through right now with the sewer commission and paying term five North, I'm not really certain that we'll be completely done with the project FY 21. It might last FY 22. So that's when putting more money for that. Payroll services, I'm leaving the same select board minutes. I'm bringing that down to a more reasonable level. The emergency generator that we have right now, that generator is a 2008 generator. It still works and we only, we need service for what we call, but it is a 2008 and when we do need service you usually cost five or $600 to fix each time. So I've left that at the $2,000 level. Tax refund and abatement, abatements, we have no control over that. That's the board of abatement that does. So I put in $5,000 for that, which is usually low, but hopefully it's a reasonable amount. And then miscellaneous general expense, I'm leaving that at $500. So the total that we are looking for for the office is an increase of 1.85%. And I do think we can work on some of the items that are in here, but I was just presenting everything that I have as of now. And if we don't change the computers, then some of those levels will stay with the fact. So finally, the final product of what I sent to you was the capital expenditure budget. And the capital budget that we had last year, $15,000, which we rolled over, I'm not anticipating any new tech or equipment type things that we don't have a reserve for. Highway equipment and structures, to me, $250,000 to set aside every year to try to build something is a minimum. And whether you approve that, that'd be great. Whether we change it lower or higher, whatever we do, I just wanna have a level in there so we can talk about it because we really don't have enough of a build up for structures and equipment. Police equipment, the police to possess me to put in $45,000 for a new police vehicle. And the debt service that I'm showing is just the actual debt service that we have. There's no lowering that at all. I mean, we have loans that we have to pay off. So I'm showing overall a 7% increase for the capital expenditure budget. So those are, I've presented all the budgets, we have revenue and expenses now for the whole entire town. So I think the next time we wanna go through it, we're gonna wanna look at what changes we may wanna make. Okay, thank you Diane. Thank you. Thanks. If you have any questions, let me know or email me. I'm good to go. Okay, we are over with the budget prep. Additions and changes to the agenda. Tim Davis won't be with us and the Fisher Road culvert issue is not gonna be on. Public comment. Hearing none, Treasury report Diane. Yep, I hope to have the audit report done by this week. I've been in touch with Linda Mellon who is with Father Gillesa Galli. She's given me four adjusting entries to make bars. I know everything looked good. We were doing fine with it. So I'm really hoping she gives me the final information. So that way I have a way because I am going to really scrutinize it and look at everything. I'm hoping that by our next meeting that she'll be able to be part of the meeting as well. And we can just go for the budget together. So that's all I had. Thank you Diane. I don't see the warrants on here. We'll have to add that. 815. Oh yeah, there it is. I see it now. Okay. Conservation Commission. Illegal tapping on the town force. Bill? I saw Bill join. Very muted. Thanks Brad. Good thing. Yeah, I think did everyone get copied on our memo to you through the select court? Okay. Yes, Bill. What out? Good. All right. Sounds good. I think I'll let JC speak to this. I think our findings were a little bit surprising. And obviously we, I think we showed quite a bit of concern in our response. We as a conservation commission would love to get your response as a board. But I think I'll let JC speak to the issue on behalf of the board at this point. Hi everybody. Thanks for having us here to speak about this. So we were unable to hire Rose Beatty as we had talked about in a previous meeting. She has just gotten too busy with regular stuff to grandkids. So we were able to hire a gentleman who's a state forester out of Northfield and he's on the Northfield Conservation Commission. So he actually knows the parcel and the parcel boundaries pretty well, which was very helpful. And he determined that the guy, the gentleman had tapped about 12 acres. And I'm forgetting the exact number if I don't have it in front of me. Maybe you do. It's around a 12. He estimated around 1,150 taps is my recollection on Berlin town land. And he had been doing it for two years, two seasons of tapping. And he found it difficult to estimate the damage and looking at it from a timber value perspective, which was what we had sort of hoped that he would give us a number because the law is very clear about damaging timber on other people's parcels. It's treble damages. So we did some calculations on what taps, what a rental fee would have cost. We feel like it would be appropriate for him to pay. At the very minimum should pay for the rentals that he didn't pay us. Plus our fees involved with an attorney and hiring the forester to go up and inspect the property. Plus we do feel as a commission, we agree that some kind of deterrent penalty, which our recommendation is to sort of seek the advice of the town attorney to see what their opinion would be on the matter and what would be sort of appropriate might be the way to move forward. But the conservation commission feels very strongly that we would like to not do what Northfield did, which is basically say, oh, whoops, you tapped on our property. Okay, well, how about you start paying us some money for those taps? I mean, we feel like it, sort of like coming home from having dinner out and somebody's walking out of your living room with your TV and then they offer to pay for it. It's a little late. So anyways, that's our feeling is that we'd like him to remove the taps. Our recommendation would be to turn it over to the town attorney and see what kind of negotiated reparations would be appropriate. Did the forester, so he didn't think he could take and figure out to put it as damage to lumber. All he can figure is that they can have as a cost per tap. Well, one of the issues Russ found was the ice storm did some damage. I forget what year it was, 99, maybe after that. He thought there was a little confusing with the damage up there to the trees through natural, that storm we had. I think we had a couple of storms up there, but. I mean, from talking to Rose Beatty before she even got up there, you know, it's a very, it's not, unfortunately, it's not a very, it's a very gray number if someone was even able to come up with a timber damage number. I mean, there's the distance from roads, how much cost to get the timber out. I mean, it's a very difficult thing to calculate, unfortunately. So then staying with the cost per tap would be the easiest way and probably the most cost effective. I mean, that's, that was one approach.  So that's why we're hoping that the slack board would choose to seek the advice of the town attorney. I would think that with that confirmation, it would make sense that, unless we have another avenue, don't you, Brad? I don't think we really do have another avenue. I mean, no matter what we do, what we do, we're going to have to take and talk to Rob about it. So I would say probably just send it over to him. Sure. Be glad to. No, you filled the conservation commission submitted some, I don't, it was your estimate of what the, what should be due to the town in your, in your memo. Say that again. He, we would like to what?  That the town should be reimbursed. Correct. I mean, what we figured in that number was. Once again, it was just a calculated, you know, educated guess in the sense that if wholesaling syrup or low retail was $30 a gallon, and he made so many gallons for two years off that many taps, he probably, he probably grossed, you know, I think the number was $17, $19,000 off just the syrup alone. So we had, we had added that Tom to the, to some numbers, but you know, once again, we're just making a recommendation here. That's something that Rob Halpert or the, the select board could decide further that that would be part of the preparation. That's just another number, but certainly we feel as though that the dollar, the dollar number we gave per tap times two years, plus fees to settle this matter. You know, it would be the minimum. Have you guys, have you reached out to UVM at all? They have the maple department or the maple where they're actually looking at developing forest for the cultivation of maple product versus timber. They might be able to put a really good number on that for us too. I just don't know if anybody's reached out yet. We were kind of using Russ's export expertise, given that, you know, he's been dealing with this for years. I think he also, I think he extrapolated that because it was probably a vacuum that he would be possibly getting, you know, what volume per tap on 1100 taps, how many gallons he would have made over two years at anywhere from 30 to a high of I guess 45 or 50 gallon. But, you know, those are just all ballparks, but I don't know if we'd get much more from UVM. We could reach out to them if we feel it's necessary. But I also think we would, I think the sooner we get on, the sooner we're going to be able to get to the top of this and have him desist and not think he's going to be sugaring there again for a third season and actually possibly start removing, removing taps because the flip side of all this also is this is a beautiful piece of property we own that we're, we want to discuss it in further length, even tonight on the next, on the next item that, you know, the town, it's a natural resource, and because of that, we certainly don't want tubing and cables and all that crossing any part of our, our town force that we might want to use. Yeah, I mean, I think that wouldn't the first logical step to be have Rob asked to write him a letter to remove anything from our property and then maybe reach out to UVM, see if they can be of any additional resource for monetary determination and also talk to Rob about how we proceed with that at the same time, but first and foremost, yeah, like a cease and desist type letter out there to him. I would love to see a cease and desist letter. I think that's a good starting point. And I didn't reach out to UVM directly. I think they're great on the research side. I did reach out to the county forester. And he, he said it's a pretty, there's, there are some of these cases that have happened in other places and, and, but it's, it, it would take quite a bit of legwork to find the foresters that have dealt with people tapping on other people's property. It just was a little beyond what I had time to dig up. But I think that from the little I know about UVM and their projects is they will be great on the, the research and the maple side, but I don't think they'd be much help in determining damages on the other side. But there may be another forester out there that, that could give us a better sense. I mean, I think that it probably be worth circling the town attorney and at this point, just to see if that's worth investing any more money in. And if that would, you know, how that would affect how we move forward, you know, what kind of numbers we would need and stuff, because anything that they did up there would be an extrapolation, you know what I mean? They basically look at a certain area and they'd extrapolate it over the 12 acres. I mean, how, how well that would stand up in court. I mean, I don't know. There's just if it may be worth doing, but may not. Well, for the most part, any, anyone who was his renting land or trees isn't, they're just renting taps. They're not renting a potential profit. So I would just take and stay with the, the, you know, find out what the average price per tap is or the average, average rental fee is. And give it all to Rob and let him go from there. Because he's certainly should be able to figure out, I mean, come up with a. Answer for us. Yeah. I think our starting point there was, I think it was a dollar and 29 cents a tap times 1100 taps for two years. At a minimum. Yeah. Yeah. Plus any other fees we incur in, in settling this matter. Yeah. So I would take in, I would send that information to Rob and then. Well, if you sent the information to Rob and had him take that and have him. Put out a cease and desist to what are right off. Before we do that, anyone on the board have a different idea. Justin. I'm in agreement, Brad. Go on. Okay. Angelina. Yep. Sounds good. Well, I didn't hear from Justin. Okay. Sounds good. That's what we should do. Okay. There you go, Phil. All right. Thanks. Appreciate it. Yep. I do have a question on this, Brad. Sure. Do you want Phil to contact the attorney or do you want Tom to contract? Probably Tom because. Yeah, I think he should be Tom. All right. Okay. Yeah. He'll respond to Tom. You might not respond to you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think that's great. I'll work with Tom if he needs any more information, but I think he has it all in that. Original memo. Okay. And the next is the vast application for use of town lands. Well, we have.  We would love to work with any interested parties on talking about 10 town lands and recreation. What we ideally, what we'd like to do, and I think we mentioned that in that memo is we would like to involve those people in a committee. So everyone has. A piece of the action. for them but we would like to form a steering committee and get this get the ball rolling on how to address not only using the land for vast but kind of getting a narrower or more defined usage for the mountain bike association and the way they use the land and just our our thoughts were to see if the board would consider some sort of steering committee with all interested parties involved to discuss how we move forward because we really don't want to keep amending or rewriting the management plan we'd like to kind of get an all-inclusive let's let's address this for once and for all given the the constrictions on meeting in person and COVID and everything it's a lot of it it's going to be you know the way we're doing tonight emails and zoom but you know that was our thought and I think we articulated that in our memo to everyone that we would love to have that as a starting point there's a lot of finer points to be discussed and at this at this juncture if the board would like to hear more thoughts Wendy on the commission has taken quite the lead on taking a look at not only our agreements with the Vermont land trust and all three parcels and now the town forest too but she's also you know looked over a lot of the vast material and I think she's got a pretty good handle Wendy do you want to say something about this at this point um I had I mean the memo that we got today gave a lot of information I think we need to drill down and I'm not sure whether this is the format for drilling down on it or whether we really should get a smaller group together and start you know drilling down in some of the details um just from the memo today I've got about six questions I've got a question you know from um the initial letter that Dave Rolo um wrote to us a couple weeks ago so there's a lot of detail to get into um which is one half of it is the detail of you know just exactly what it would look like to have a trail up there and what would the maintenance look like and you know more detail what is the cost on the bridge that type of stuff um the other half of it is we still need to um put this out to the public in the same way maybe the town center puts it out to the public and just you know we can do these parallel but um we'd really like to get more feedback from people who may not have been may not be organized enough to know to come and give feedback we want to solicit that type of feedback and see what people are thinking and what they want to do with the town property I do have information on the bridge okay you should go ahead you know Wendy and um maybe after Josh speaks you could ask your questions but I think Josh may um may you know have some information that you're looking for okay the conversation I had with him earlier okay yeah that'd be great um what I've done is gone and um cutting the material list together for what the bridge is going to take for the upgrading and to get the the wider width and the material cost and with a gate and everything was going to be about $2,700 and so talking with the rest of the members of the snowmobile clubs we would donate all the labor for free and then just turn the bridge over to the town so the conservation board would pay for the materials we'd use the bridge along with everybody else throughout the winter but the snowmobile trails are only open from December 15th to April 15th and and we don't get to there's not snow on the ground that whole time as you can see where the snowmobile trails won't even be open this year just on December 15th so we were hoping that maybe we could work out a deal with you guys on on the bridge part there and I think the other information with the um um management plan kind of covers everything you would need from us on what we would do we wouldn't change any anything on the trail that's there now other than just cutting the brush back a little wider just for safety issues so you know when people are riding their snowmobile they're not getting slapped in the face by a branch or you know so we would we'd be looking to have and roughly about a 10 foot wide trail but we'd clear it to about 12 feet wide so that the brush would stay back and and and I don't mean clear it would just be kind of cleaning up and maintaining it and and and by going up there I see like all the water buyers and everything are all still working very well but we would take on the responsibility of keeping the water buyers know all maintained and any other issues that come up along the trail air portion of the property you know we wouldn't want to take on and we would volunteer to help you guys doing other projects up on the mountain but um we wouldn't want to take on being responsible for mountain bike damage and you know other damages that were going to be up there we would definitely take care of our people and I would say our mess but really we don't make a mess doing this you know there's a few soda bottles maybe sometimes but a lot of the members when they drive by and see a soda bottle in the trail they stop and pick it up because it's you know it's a fragile system and with uh 4700 miles of trail in the state of Vermont you must understand that it's a pretty good group of people yeah I know that you do a lot of work I mean a tremendous amount of work in the state of Vermont um just um a question on the bridge does that bridge is it going to need some design work and about meant work um as a matter of fact I called um Pat Ross from agency and natural resources today and I'm going to meet with him on Thursday at one o'clock and we're going to go over we're going to walk up to the bridge on Darling Road and we're also going to go over the bridge on Black Road that we need the Bass would need to put in on the class four section of Black Road so we're going to go over and we'll be go by all his standards and it's and it's a pretty well standardized thing that they have with Bass it's not the first time they're building bridges and they know what they're doing you know and we all know what we're doing and Pat Ross what's his he's with uh agency natural resources okay what's what's his job there I'm sorry what what you know I'm not sure I I'm not sure what his actual position is called I think it has river conservator conservator okay he's like the river manager type person okay okay as far as I know Wendy that's his position okay he does the permitting yes okay yeah and he'll come up and look at it and say no you can't do it or no you need to do this or you know they'll just give us a guidelines on what we need to follow and then I'm sure there would be a follow-up inspection after so so Josh yes so Josh what you're saying is the local clubs would take on that responsibility to make sure to work it through the state system so we so the conservation committee wouldn't have to do anything there it would really just be that twenty seven hundred dollars of materials at the end the town of Berlin would own the bridge correct and then the snowmobile club would actually maintain the bridge as well yeah and you would and you would put a gate up to mitigate concerns of bigger vehicles going up there when it's off season absolutely and as a matter of fact on the other end on the north field side one of the property owners there are requiring us to put a gate up on that end too so that's going to block off access from the north field side as well where is the north field side I'm I'm unclear on where this trail is taking the north field the north field property line is right at the end of the Berlin town forest he's asking where the where the gate's going to be maybe you can come go in on that one Steve on where the gate would have to be I think it was the lingo property is where it was going to go on that is correct the the gate will be at the top of the lingo which meets the old poor farm it'll be a gate process you know the complete trail so no vehicles can go through it and also I can say that we would put up a lot of signage as well about making sure people stay on the trail and it's private property and like I said some of the other other than the Berlin town forest is private property and people are just gracious enough to let the snowmobile trail go through but they don't want mountain bikers they don't want skiers and hikers and any of that stuff on their property so we're going to have to sign that property that it's uh private property and snowmobile use only and um do you have a map from darling um from the darling trail to um northfield so we can see exactly where this trail is going because I'm not really clear where it's going once it leaves the town forest we haven't done that yet Wendy we were kind of working through this stuff with the conservation board to get permission we've kind of like spooky walked through and found our way through and so we were kind of waiting for the green light from you guys to go up and then we would ribbon it and then get approval from you where it is another thing about that is um this the tapping of all the trees up there that really kind of pushed us into where we were putting the trail now we would much rather have the trail up where those the sugar lines are it's on the town forest which well there's an existing trail there as opposed to building the new trail I mean that's you know where we found also Wendy is an existing trail as well where where they had logged previously up there we stayed right on an area where we would have to cut very few trees and that the very few trees were going to be right about it the Berlin town forest border where borders northfield other than that it's just little saplings growing up so are you saying the border is with the northfield town forest nope it's a border with a private landowner it's a carol brison is the there's the private landowner that borders where we were going to cross into northfield is on carol brison's property we weren't going on the bridge that you're talking I'm still not really clear where the trail is yeah I'm not you I'm looking at my ox map right now and I don't see any names like that on any of the surrounding parcels okay well that's that's the guy we've we've contacted him and uh yeah and that's the guy I mean I remember seeing the maps you guys drew of the town forest land and the the the ridge the ridge line parcel and it and it was very clear that you were following the existing ridge line trail and then and then it was a little unclear to me where it crossed the town forest land but that's great to hear that you found a map that I mean a road I mean so my one question is is if the the lines were brought back to where they were supposed to be I mean our preference would be that you followed continued along the I think the the the the ridge line trail because that's already pretty heavily impacted and would require less less impact would you have permission if you were what could you continue along the ridge line trail or not we could but there's a lot more construction involved on that trail there's uh there'd be quite a few trees that would need to come down along that area to get a 10 foot wide trail through there um I don't know where uh where you guys where I met up with you Wendy when you guys were checking the trees where we are you're checking the taps on the trees was pretty close to where we were going to be cutting down over the hill but and that's actually private property that's owned by this guy in Williamstown and um so right there we're going to cut down from the cell tower property it would be really helpful to have a map um okay because we're all sort of talking about stuff that we had to yeah that'd be great we're not sure well is it I mean what I mean what's what's the big issue with where it really goes with you guys why why was it why is it different up there what difference does it make as long as we're I think up on the ridge line there we're impacting the land a lot more well part of the problem is that we've got um state highest priority land in there um so if you look at the um A&R map where you look at Biofinder the state map you'll notice that um we there's a large section in there that is actually richardwood forest and it's rated highest priority by the state right now um so we would like to be involved in where the trail goes because that area may have since you know plants that need to be protected it may have we don't know I mean we really haven't surveyed it yep um so how about knowing where the trail would go allows us to sort of look and see you know what are the plants what what's there sure how about if we get up there and try to ribbon that after that it's still muzzle loader uh uh deer hunting season this week and so how about right after that if the weather permits um a couple of us from the snowmobile club get up there and uh ribbon ribbon the way through and then I could contact you and let you know when it's um when we meet you you know we would do it and then I can meet you wendy or meet other people's on the conservation more than just me up there yeah that'd be good and we can walk through would it make sense to try and ribbon that with the conservation committee there well we got some we got some more um um maneuvering around a little bit because of the people that own the land that butt up to the butt up to the cell tower there's a camp down if you if you go down past the cell tower there's a camp right down below there and there was people on about 30 acres there 26 acres there and so we're using some of their property and they said that they could use our property but they wanted us to go around go around so we weren't going by their camp so that but and they showed us where to go so it was going to be a little a little more legwork up there to cut down onto the town forest where we've already you know found the trail but Josh the town forest piece you guys could ribbon that that's the that's the part that the conservation committee would like to be a part of right I mean once you get on to private land the conservation committee is it's kind of out of bounds for them I mean at least sure that's that's what I'm thinking I mean conservation committee speak up if you're correct no you're correct yeah yeah yeah okay that would be no problem and let me ribbon below the ridge then instead of up below the ridge yep okay my only comment is is that the the more of a logging road it already is the the less impact is going to have on smaller you know on the because there's a lot of it doesn't look like might not look like much but there's in the richardwood forest there's a lot of small plants that are of significance ecologically and part of the ecosystem so yeah it might not look like much but it'd be our preference to keep it on okay already heavily impacted road systems okay I'm pretty concerned about going down below the ridge um we've already backed out the mountain bikers from from that um so it would be worth it would be worth giving people just the the mountain bike association came to us with a proposed plan that went through a richardwood section of the forest and they were turned down so anyways we just have to be a little bit delicate to turn down one group of people and then and then a green light another I agree I agree um we're more of a straight line through than a zigzag you know our trail will be a half a mile where they they go a half a mile and it's really like five miles the way they zigzag through nothing against their trail system either you know and and also um you know we've got a lot of work involved in this now and I don't want to involve like other entities into this you know this is the snowmobile club we will you know allow whatever on those trails that the conservation board wants on there but I think that our plan that we have given you is pretty thorough for what we need to use for the land so I guess also from our perspective you know that was one of the reasons we were talking about doing a more comprehensive um plan bringing you in with other people who also want to do trails up there we've got limited amount of land up there um you know and if we can have them used by more than you know one group with that would be preferable than you know snowmobiles have their group their trail the bikers have their trails um and it would be shared and it would definitely be shared in areas for sure and you know and we plan on seeing bikes on that trail in the winter time and snowshoers and skiers and hikers and you know we definitely plan on seeing that and that happens all over the state where people open up their private property but they say well we want you to we want to be able to ski on this trail and the snowmobile club is fine with it you know it's just like they put up signs caution skiers and trail you know and the speed limit is low and I guess from my perspective and I don't know what the other parts of the conservation commission feel about it but I would prefer to upfront you know say to the mountain biker say to these other folks um you know this trail is being proposed is this going to work for you also you know so we can get something that works for everybody um and I guess that was part of what we were talking about of you know looking at the management plan as you know collaborative effort among everybody who's going to be using using the trails up there we've got a lot of sensitive habitat and you know it looks like there's a lot of land but there's really not as much land as it appears you know when you see that snowmobile trail in the summertime you wouldn't even know there was a snowmobile on there in the winter time we really have no impact on the land whatsoever um the plants all still grow any work that we do we see in mulch and so you really can't it's it's very hard to even tell that there's a snowmobile trail trail there in the summertime josh are there other conservation areas that vass goes through right now in the state oh yes there is actually the the very town forest they go through actually and that's a conserved property and actually Dave Rulo he would be at this meeting but he's um he's um president of the rec rec board in in very town so he's in a meeting with them tonight that's why he's not sitting in tonight right but that's not a high priority highest priority state we're we're talking about rich hardwood forest as opposed to conserved land um you know we're talking about what's national community like uh we can't hear you wendy wendy you cut out i'm just saying that what's going on in the very town forest is not natural communities which is what we have going on up at the ridge um it's a little different i'm sure they're in the state where they i'm sure that even if barry town wasn't i'm sure they're familiar with other areas that are um and i mean i don't know barry towns forest it sounds the way like you might wendy but i'm a little bit familiar with it yeah i mean i'm just assuming that they would understand it um they work with that they they they would absolutely be familiar with dealing with scenarios like that and how to be you know environmentally friendly ecologically friendly whatever i think i think what we as a board are trying to emphasize here is not so much that we think there's going to be a lot of damage left behind after snowmobiling in the winter months i think what we're trying to determine here is a fair and equitable way to uh revisit the land management plan including vast mamba other other concerned parties so we have for the for the for the sake of the town we have something you know a real strong blueprint that when more questions come up in the future we have answers instead of having to go to the well and you know drawing up a new document with each person now i'm not saying we don't want we don't want to necessarily we we're not trying to impede the movement of vast in any way we're just trying from our perspective of the board we're trying to make sure that let's not do the homework two or three times and uh you know i i know i know we you want to expedite the process as quickly as possible and i certainly understand the reasons why but we as a board who just you know as a commissioner feeling like you know this i'm glad this came up i'm glad vast is approached this i think we want to get something done here but i also think from our perspective there are other there are other players out there in the community that we maybe we haven't heard from and uh i we want to keep moving forward but we also want to make sure we're doing our due diligence and well i think i think that their management plan would be different than our management plan i don't know if you could have the whole scope together i think that the management plan from the snowmobile club would be different than the management plan from the biking from mamba oh yeah i'm not i'm not saying it would be a management plan that i mean obviously each each recreation or each use of the land would probably have different parameters we're just saying from an overall we're revisiting the plan and having to go back to the vermont land trust to make sure that uh our agreement on those two parcels where they're party to that they also are in agreement with everything we do uh you know and us too yeah us too phil yeah what do you say um so um you know like i said we'd like to maybe go and rib in the trail but we're kind of getting off track now with wendy wanting us to maybe go right along the ridge line when we would be happy to go right up there along the ridge line and do the trail there but it but it would be more impact i mean you you guys know that know that trail where we wouldn't even really have to ribbon that trail then because you guys are familiar with that trail right so we could so so what we'd be looking for is just like a uh a green light to go up and and do our work that we would need to do which is actually it's actually going to be a lot more work going up that way than the way we found but we have no problem i mean there's a beautiful trail up through there through the ridge line there's just going to be um a little more work around the legend stuff that's there in the in the bigger trees does it present a problem because of the steepness and a few there's a few spots there is a few spots um where the steepness is but it's um it's more off a burl in town for us it's beyond and on to um on to the old poor farm property on to uh tim samples property which we're the we're the sugar the sugaring guy has gone on to his property too hey curiosity you go out of that property with permission or or or not he did not he has not got permission and actually i brought it uh to their attention that i knew that that the uh town was in litigation with this guy and that and i did let um samples know that that their property is being encroached upon by this by the sugar maker so i i might have misspoken earlier i i mean i i do think it's worth flagging that your proposed trail and we already know where the pitch line trail is and uh you know just to then we can go up and take a look at both options and and give feedback and suggest so i i misspoke if i allegedly that um and i think that you guys have had other meetings i think that uh we just have to that there has to be a a town management plan that goes to the land trust because of their interest in the in the three parcels i believe so for for any anything like this to happen legally do you have a plan do you have a plan right now with the uh with mama for the trails that are up there existing now do you have a plan from them they maintain just the mountain bike trails that they built are you are you talking about the ridge trail do we have no no just the just a mountain bike trails that are on town property they're on the town forest and they're actually on some of the loss in property and on some of you know some of the other property up there well i mean the uh there's not there's not the kind of uh first of all that we are requiring that mama to come up with a plan as a commission we go to vermont land trust with a plan and there has it it's not been as as well managed as it is it should be so there's there's been a lack of of uh proper communication already so you know we're trying to we're trying to get on the right foot rather than keep going forward on the wrong foot so yeah well vast is a as an established club that's been established for over 50 years in the state of vermont so yeah i i really don't think we we have any qualms about the legitimacy of vast or wanting to support them or recreation we just you know it's been less than a year we're taking it slow we we've been you know you know our role as a commission is to just wide eyes wide open and make sure we have input from everyone including you know our goal is that conservation is to make sure the natural resources for all these hundreds of acres up there are being protected in the right way and let's add recreation yeah sure we all we all agree with covid and everything going on we everyone i think is on the same page here we want people outdoors we want people experiencing you know exercise the beauty of outdoors the landscape we have we're just we're just the stewards of it so we're just being you might you know i don't i don't want you to think we're a roadblock we're just being uh stewards of no and i appreciate that what we're trying to do no i appreciate what you do what you what you're going to do yeah phil um so basically what has to be done is um to uh get the trail or get eyes on the trail where the where vast things that wants it to go and uh see if you can come to a compromise with them to get a trail there that will benefit uh the conservation committee push for recreation and also for a vast uh desire to go through there is that right yeah i think that's right um we're getting along on this subject so one one more quick thing if i could sure go ahead um i was wondering if we could get approval from uh conservation board about the deal for the bridge it would be the town select board josh okay i'm not i'm not saying that the conservation committee shouldn't weigh in i'm just saying it's a town property that just so that we will know so that we will know what we're up against here you know if we can maybe start working on that bridge because we have another bridge we have to do also on black road which um i was going to try to talk with a select board with about tonight the trail that you already have or the roads that you have open um black road and brookfield road there's um there's just a small bridge on black road now it's actually really deteriorated and unsafe and um you're wondering if we could maybe go forward with a bridge there may i ask a question about the bridge that's open after the fire department yep are those bridges going to be sufficient to be able to have say a um one of those side by side six wheel atvs get across it wide enough and heavy enough absolutely will okay yeah we're gonna make them 10 uh 10 feet wide they'll be 10 feet wide and they will carry about they'll kick you know and they'll carry about a 15 000 pound vehicle okay you know about what the um uh grooming machines okay and what about what about those gates where the gates going to be installed in relation to darling road and the the parking lot well that would be something i think we'd go over with the conservation board where they would like to see and whether we just go with the boulders that have been working throughout but which but those are in the way for you guys to get up there the reason i the reason i ask is we had two calls this summer one was a uh brush fire and the other one was a injury on the mountain bike trails and the between the boulders and that the bridge deficient it cost us about half an hour of time and being able to get that patient to the hospital yeah um we should definitely um make it much easier for you the only thing is is it would be like the key you know what we would do whether it be a combination log or a key we could work that out but i'm definitely interested in being able to have the fire department and the ambulance get better access to that area yeah same with us too we knew that was an issue and and we were kind of hoping that you would be on our side with this too okay yeah i think it's definitely a public safety issue after i saw how long it took to get that person off the mountain this summer yeah that was we definitely have to do something there i think you know a partial bridge so you can still get uh mountain bikers and hikers and everything up but keep bigger vehicles off from it when they're not supposed to be is really important so i see two two actions here that we that we need to follow up on that are part of this agenda one is uh resigning the permission form to allow vast to go down cross town road which they had last year and the second piece is at allowing the as long as we're all in agreement that you know as we work through the details there will be a vast trail going up through there that we allow vast and the approval of twenty seven hundred dollars for of conservation funds to be used for a new bridge in that way as weather permits we can build the new bridge and uh get things rolling there well either either way the the bridge should be fixed whether it's um not to have access for safety vehicles up there is is pushing her yep and so is there any more on this for right now um just one more thing um phil had hit on about i'm having public comment on um you know getting more people involved on what's going on there well i took it upon myself there a week or so go and uh took a few days and went around talking with my neighbors just so i wasn't going to cause any trouble in the neighborhood about having a trail go through and uh within you know five or six hours i got over a hundred signatures from uh friends and neighbors you know uh burlin residents um stating you know i i put at the top of the paper as a burlin resident i think the town should open certain areas on back roads as well as certain areas in the burlin town forest on irish hill to reestablish a snowmobile trail linking burlin corners with a northfield trail system and like i say within within a few hours i had over a hundred signatures on uh on like a petition it wasn't even looking for a petition i was mainly looking for input from my neighbors so that i wasn't causing josh yeah josh are all these people burlin residents they're all burlin residents you did this by yourself did this by myself wow and that was and i could go with more i had other people that i could have gone and seen when i got a hundred i was like hopefully this will be enough to let them know that you know other people interested in this so we as a conservation commission that would like to open it up to the whole town um this is our this is our fourth meeting that's been publicly warned how would you like to open up to the town windy well wouldn't okay so when they did the road diet down on 302 um they actually held a meeting that was well advertised um um for people to come and talk about they put out a survey i got two two or three surveys on that um you know if i wasn't on the conservation commission i would not have known that this was being discussed i guess um and the process that other towns have gone through as far as rewriting their management plan um has been you know putting news articles out putting things out on the website putting um you know front page forum letting people really know that we're going to discuss recreation on town property and inviting a lot of people in and you know providing different you know people who don't have access to computers they have a different um maybe they fill out a survey maybe they you know call or write a letter but give people everybody give everybody the opportunity to weigh in on this um and weigh in on all the recreation you know weigh in on you know the people who like to ski the people who like to snowshoe um you know the people who you know everybody weighs in so so if people don't like the hikers on on the trail anymore they'll they can weigh in too i yeah i mean yeah but the idea is you know the two biggest things that you're managing when you're on a town forces recreation versus the natural resources and the other is user conflict um you know different users um needing to share the same resource in other towns one of the ways they have done it is put out a trail alliance where you've got a member from vastly you got a member from the bike club there you've got you know members um you know hikers you've got skiers you've got everybody there and everybody works out together how they're going to share the land and you know if there's you know people sharing trails what what does that look like and you address you know potential conflicts up front instead of um waiting to see what's going to happen and then having to address them so it's just a matter of whether you approach this from the front end or whether you approach it from the back end this happens all over the state wendy and i don't know if they go through that detail to have this happen you know we're going to have a trail that goes up through where there's an existing trail and if people want to ski and they want to make their own tracks they don't even have to be on the snowmobile portion trail they can be beside it and making their own tracks or a snowshoe or wanting to make their own tracks through the wood somewhere um you know this happens all i'm not seeing i'm not seeing other members of the community besides to ask here i'm it's been it's been in the paper it's been warned in four different meetings i mean the short of sending something into everyone's tax bill you know i think i think just just showed with a hundred signatures and what he says was a few hours shows overwhelming support at least me as a select board member that's what it's showing me right now and the only people i'm hearing um i wouldn't say opposition but you know a long drawn out process of including every potential user group out there and and soliciting and and pushing for comments it is the three or four people here from the conservation committee i agree it does feel as though i know you guys have spoken that you're positive in support of the trail but i feel like we're trying to get something put together for residents that strongly support this for this this coming season if at all possible as well as to fix a known issue with the potential safety hazard of the bridge along with emergency access i think you're always going to run into this group that group there you know everybody's going to have conflicting uses but i do feel as though the the we're being stalled here in the process because i think it's it's i think we're making something too complex when it's actually much simpler that's just my input does there need to be any sort of signed agreement between parties between town and vast or anything like that as we proceed forward just the just the permission slip that we sent into the town we sent a permission form into uh tom uh bedowski um it's just a normal um what every landowner signs it has our insurance information on it and it has a place place for notes if you wanted to put in make sure you put a gate on the bridge make sure this happens by this day um uh tom bedowski has that form that just really needs a signature from a town administrator are you feeling as though the the bridge is a a project that could be done this season i am feeling that yes as long as the weather stays the way it is and it looks like it's going to warm up and after i talked with um pat ross on thursday i can give you more information and phil if you would like to meet i'm meeting him um right at the right where everybody um parks to walk around the pond i'm meeting him right there at one o'clock on thursday and then we're going to walk up walk up to um or you know go up to dialing road walk up to that bridge and then we're going to go to black road and look at that bridge so if someone from the conservation board wants to uh be in on that uh meeting that would be fine i think someone probably will i mean we'll we'll discuss it but we'll try to get someone there for sure okay that seems like it's yeah it would be a a contact i'd like you know to meet someone from an r i think is important at this point sure you get their eyes on sure as far as this plan we up jc were you saying sometimes i just want to clarify for for one briefly and i know we've talked about this is um the it would be a very different conversation if the vermont land trust didn't have easements on three of these parcels if these were just town-owned parcels straight up with no interest then you know there would be no conversation here the vermont land trust is is wants this kind of process that we're talking about to happen on the parcels that they have easements over that's what they want to see happen when things are proposed to them so we're not trying to like stall things we're not trying to go slow they have a very the the process that wendy's talked about is actually abbreviated from what they would like to see now would people you know show up to meetings i don't know but i think that i just wanted to clarify that that's where it's coming from is trying to honor the vermont land trust interest in the three parcels i think it's perfectly reasonable to have a public hearing um schedule it 30 days out like we would for anything else and hold that public hearing but i guess you know you know and i don't think wendy necessarily meant it this way but when the the way she explained it sounded like you know it was the ideal scenario where it was going to you know be a year or two long process like we're developing time center right and i'm looking more i'm not looking at a town center thing i'm just saying you know a real you know make an attempt at least to get a wide variety of people to weigh in yeah i think we should do a true public hearing 30 days out and that gives you know everyone plenty of that's what we would do for anything else and let's do that does that meet the re you know your your thoughts wendy yeah i mean usually what they do is that and they do a survey um you know so you know so a person who can't show up at a zoom meeting has another alternative um you know there's some alternatives and we're working you know during a pandemic which makes it a little bit more challenging right now when i was in the town clerk's office and i read read about the agreement that you have with vermont land trust on those parcels it maybe i'm just assuming but they seem to approve whatever we wanted or whatever the town wanted they just wanted a management plan it wasn't like they needed to have a public hearing and everybody weighs in which i i don't care which is fine but i i think you're reading into that way too deep oh no it it they do require public hearing it's in the easement okay we have follow-up emails from the vermont land trust okay it's in the easement if you're really careful pretty explicitly so uh we're not trying well i like i thought john's suggestion is a good one yeah let's do that john yeah let's do it and uh let's see who shows up and and you know no will that be something if nobody shows up nobody cares then we got to do something brad will that one will you do that brad as a select board you want to just well will the select board post uh from 30 days to now hearing we'll put a we'll take and have a hearing on um i don't have a calendar i'm sure we'll take and get a hearing scheduled um and then we can uh uh make sure everybody the conservation commission and uh the rest of the uh people can have a have their say but uh again it's uh it's um it's hard to get people to do these things you know show up so so brad that meeting that meeting would be january fourth and we'd do it probably just prior to the select board meeting right probably yeah because i can't see it taking more than a half hour no right six six thirty january fourth i i would like to make sure it's a full 30 days out i think that's the requirement for a lot of public hearings and i i just want to follow and being consistent with you know the rules of those type of public hearings might be better off taking schedule for january the 18th that would give us an extra two weeks to get the put notice out and everything else with with that being said um select board uh is there any opposition to signing the um the road openings that we have already uh agreed to in the past one of them uh being crosstown road and the other one being the black road uh brookfield road that we uh voted on a few weeks ago bass just needs their permission form signed and i think that was warned on the agenda so we should be able to move forward with that if there's any major opposition the signs are out and bridge work as well if we could get started on the bridge work that was definitely the darling hill bridge really needs work it's in a bad shape i just want to take a one action item out of time josh because i think that we're going to have a little bit more discussion but so is that a motion or what well no i'm yeah i was straw poll was me making a motion i was strong are you looking for consensus here or what josh or excuse me justin i agree yeah so do you want to make a motion justin to approve uh the applications for the roads i'll make a motion that we approve the applications for the roads for the bass the existing trails uh or the existing approvals and that we signed the landowner permission slip for the crosstown road section uh the brookfield road section the black road section and was there any others that we needed no not that i'm aware of here a second all second all those in favor all right motion carries okay um so the second the second item brad not to be a pain in the butt was the bridge piece which josh asked about do and i'm interested in the conservation board's opinion here do we do we want to approve using only about half of what we originally approved the conservation committee to use a five thousand like the twenty seven hundred dollars and allow the vast community the vast local clubs to build a right size bridge there that would allow both emergency services potential vast use but it would be town owned and be a safer bridge for the the current traffic on the mountain yeah i don't i don't certainly have a problem with that i if maybe you have a genie in a bottle i can't believe twenty seven hundred dollars will do it but i would i would say that's about exactly what we were looking at before and that was only a four foot wide bridge so we're five foot uh yeah i think this is all contingent on our meeting with pat ross right yep right yep so i guess we can squeak that under the vast application for town lands uh so a motion on the bridge i i make a motion to allow up to three thousand dollars um thanks john two or just in case to replace the existing bridge at the beginning of the irish held trail with a wider bridge that meets public safety and recreational standards second any further comment i don't know john about the um i would just take it i don't know about the standards i don't think there's any standards yeah i i know there is there's railing height standards and stuff that um the a and i will bring up bring up to us there's like a 44 inch rail height standard and there's certain standards for sure and and for public safety for a six by six or whatever you need a certain you know weight carrying capacity yeah correct yeah well of course for the six by six or any emergency vehicles i mean a trail groomer if they're using a piston bowl or anything like that that's going to weigh you know close to 12 000 anyway so yes i don't think they're going to take in i don't think you have to worry too much about the the bridge holding a uh any kind of emergency vehicle okay all those in favor hi hi motion carries and thank you all thank you guys sorry about taking up all the time and now i'm moving on to the berlin volg here fire department thank you i'm good thank you guys for hearing us so what we have tonight primarily is our presentation of our annual budget for fy 22 to go up for the uh town meeting day vote and um at this point i'm going to turn it over to joe stubb the corporation president who uh is the chief architect shall we say on a lot of this so oh thank you keith um let me ask i think everybody got a copy of this is that true okay so if if we move to the i'll just kind of go down through and talk about some of the high points and we i'll answer any questions maybe i guess at the end um so if we went to like the page two with the income and the line items there uh facility rental will be going up almost four thousand dollars for an income that's going to be primarily very towny and mess who who rents space there at the four corner station and some of the other uh income there as far as like miscellaneous or various fundraisers um and donations we we kind of adjusted those to be more online what was um more realistic so we do see a decrease in some of those there is no other real change down through the administrative expenditures that's all staying the same well with the exception of sorry i didn't see that the accounting so batch elders is doing our accounting and we did have an audit done and and i apologize i should be getting a couple copies out to you to you guys for review but the accounting portion of the of that has has been brought down five thousand dollars um and going down through to um the insurance is is virtually staying the same um and the retirement benefits are staying the same now i want to just kind of point out um on fy 20 is if we look at the insurance and how the insurance was actually the line item was 30 500 and fy 20 we have the actual 39 200 change um and if we look directly below that at the retirement portion is we had 18 18 000 for retirement but yet only 1100 um and change on the actual what we ran into is um i think just some bad communication bookkeeping with um maybe our treasurers and also batch elders um i believe that insurance line item would be more in line with 30 500 on fy 20 um if you took that roughly nine thousand dollars and put it down into the retirement i think there was uh i don't know some bad bookkeeping there um we we've addressed it and still working with that um so down in utilities utilities aren't necessarily changing much of anything except we're going to be hitching on to the town water and sewer um so with i do believe tom badowski gave an estimate of the 21 so we're going up going up from 800 to 2100 50 now here's here's the the big increases in communications and our dispatching fees so we this is one of those line items that we don't have any control over and so this kind of dictated a four percent increase we were just over 50 000 dollars and probably about three weeks ago now um we were then informed that they were looking for a loan they got approval for a loan for upgrades to some of the cell top some of the towers and such that they use which was divided equally amongst all the departments using the services for capital west who is our dispatching service um so we are looking at 2500 dollars a year for the next 10 years um on top of those dispatching fees going down through um the building line items they're all staying roughly the same um you know heating and plowing the rubbish removal is the rubbish is like the only thing that we can actually count on anything else it is merely up to mother nature and whatever building maintenance that might come up as you can see in 2000 by 20 we did end up overspending on the buildings so um moving down to trucks um and again this is one of those ones that you know you don't have that uh crystal ball to really see how much what the cost of fuel is going to be or what the repairs to vehicles will be um we have just early spring picked up a used vehicle and we can talk about that a little later in the down through the budget but uh so being a used vehicle and it's much newer than than our others that we should um see a less in vehicle repair but again you know not willing to cut it the whole lot so so we're kind of leaving that the same tires the the only thing on tires is is just enough to get two two tires and that's an insurance it is basically what i'm looking at right there we have no vehicle that isn't in need of tires at this time so moving down through to gear we've pretty good shape with gear and the chief and and another officer has gone through and and looked at our gear and looked at the needs of the department and so we were able to uh got some from the gear purchases as well as the uniforms uniforms in this case are basically t-shirts hats like them it's not official uniforms so moving down to equipment equipment is staying the same virtually with the exception of the hose testing there's a couple departments that utilizes a company that would come in and test and they would test all the hose and and provide all the records you know with and i can't tell you exactly how many thousands of feet of hose that our department has but i can tell you it's probably a fortune six thousand feet that needs to be tested and that is uh very very demanding labor intensive and we would spend we spend most of the summer or at least a good portion of it testing homes ems purchases have been brought down some and moving down to the loan so we currently have an scba uh loan and it's costing department just over three thirty thousand dollars thirty thousand four hundred ish um and we have probably eighteen to nineteen months left on that loan and we have enough funds in our reserve to pay that off and at the same time we just picked up a loan for the used vehicle and and Keith can talk more about about the vehicle if you had questions about that which is coming in just a little over half of what that current loan is at seventeen five so there's a there's an actual savings there and paying off the scba and just replacing it with the used truck loan one of the things that kind of stood out and and it's not so much in the budget for miscellaneous we have a five hundred dollars line item of miscellaneous and as you can see in two that in the f by twenty it was well over a thousand um this is I guess poor judgment on uh designating the line item of which some of these purchases were made so um we have also addressed that I do not see a miscellaneous line item being overspent like that so you know bringing it down to uh total expenses for f y twenty two is three hundred thousand three three hundred and twenty five thousand two hundred and twenty nine which is twenty seven thousand dollars uh less than the f y twenty one budget so that's a little over eight percent decrease of last year's budget is there any questions so we we reduced the budget in in respect to you know the the town asking its different departments to reduce their budget due to covet and we looked at that we looked at this this budget really really hard to see where we could save to help out the residents because of economic impacts for this year we were and we brought it down down by eight point three percent less than it was last year um in respect to saving for them I I just want to thank you guys I know that we spent a lot of time on that and I think we did a good job of getting that budget right where it needs to be um and getting a better handle on it so that it's going to be you know much more predictable in the future and we're going to be able to spend more effectively for the fire department thank you Keith and Joe I I sincerely appreciate it both as a select board member and a taxpayer that you know you took that you know guidance or suggestion seriously and I mean going down eight point three percent is is a you know big ask and I certainly appreciate it thank you well and and and I think um to add to that it is there is there room for more and and we'll be looking into that but I'm going to tell you some of these cuts are something that uh some of these cuts are going to hurt and I and I think in in time it'll catch up with us just just uh you know be clear on that nor do I see an eight and a half percent increase next year because of I I'm not saying that either yeah I think I think when you look at these things I mean starting over eight and a half percent down right even if you gained four back the next couple of years and you think about that in the out years the amount of money that you're saving the community is is tremendous even if it's a short period it it accumulates our compounds over time the only but are these cuts are they going to how how are they going to affect services the biggest cut we had or one of the biggest cuts we had was the the savings in that loan if you remember a couple of cycles back when um Randy was on the select board we had talked about taking once that loan was paid off being able to take it and put it toward capital replacement well the time is that we're we're able to pay off that loan early and instead of just taking it and putting in the capital replacement in respect for you know what's going on now we just did it as savings that was one of the huge largest sections right there um one and we still have a fair amount going into the capital replacement budget correct thousand a year right correct we have we didn't reduce it we we kept it at 20,000 a year going into the capital replacement I'm going to say is that enough to go into capital replacement if you want to pay for a a fire apparatus cash definitely not nowhere near enough um but it's a definite it's a it helps to take the sting out of it when it's time for more vehicles the um we do have a couple of purchases that we're looking at doing for improving our services coming up in the next basically the next six months and then the next six months after that uh the biggest thing notably is we're looking to upgrade upgrade our hydraulic extrication tools you know the ones we have right now were purchased in 2003 and their technology doesn't really cut those high strength steel vehicles as well so we're looking at upgrading those um each of those tools is about ten thousand dollars in in and of itself and we're looking to getting two of those basically over two budget cycles um so that's going to be an increase that of basically keep up with the world for our capabilities right there so you're saying one a year over two years so one each year yeah yeah okay and yeah anything else i have nothing anything else on the uh the for the Berlin volunteer fire department yeah we wanted to mention and talk about just a couple of other quick items one is uh i don't know if you're aware of it but i i think i've mentioned it before for sure but the fire department's working on a like a town merger study um to uh kind of develop what they see is uh maybe not so much pros and cons but you know what what would be the benefits of being a municipal department versus a separate volunteer uh corporation and also um we wanted to mention that we i had spoken with Diane and i don't know how the how would be handled but one of the options we had spoken about was when things when we get our new town administrator in place um after the first of the year obviously uh looking at having some additional maybe savings for the fire department um by having seeing if Diane could do their accounting for them um and Diane said it was it was an it was an option um so i just don't know if we need to have a discussion down the road obviously about what that would look like but i wanted to give you guys an update on that would that allow room for a paid position at the fire department one of the things we're doing with a merger study and we had to we had paused we paused work on the merger study for basically the last six eight weeks to to develop this budget we just presented one of the things that we're looking at is the different service delivery methods that we could provide to the town um combination department with possibly a paid member all volunteer so on and so forth and so that is something that we are looking at as a as a possible benefit in with this merger study great thank you anything else keith um nope that's it for me joe i'm good thank you okay thank you both very much thank you thank you guys thank you uh emergency medical services contract award uh keith uh so we we went out to rfp and uh one response back from berry town uh and um uh keith van eiderstein uh fire chief uh did an evaluation he sent out his his uh review of that contract uh he and i are recommending that the select board award the three-year contract and it has a has an option for two additional years to berry town in um in uh in the for their for their um in respect to their response here to us so i i sent out everybody copies of the of the response and keith's review and recommendations if there's any questions we we can answer them now any questions for keith or tom if not a motion i make a motion to approve the recommendation for a ambulance contract with berry town a second any further discussion hearing none those in favor i motion carries thank you both very much vermont trans v-trans um alternate alternative transportation grant tom oh that was submitted uh on a timely manner v-trans that's that uh grant that the uh select board was participated in for the recreation path in the new town center area uh v-trans has received it they will not uh they'll wait it it'll be march when they uh award the grants we don't know if we've got it or not we'll we'll find out in march okay anything else on this uh berlin planning commission public hearing so the planning commission has scheduled two public hearings for december uh 16th at 7 p.m the first hearing will be for the zoning proposed zoning changes with respect to the new town center and the second one will be for a hearing on the official map that you folks have seen for last several meetings um um invite the select board to attend that if if they so desire assuming that the public hearing does not create a substantial changes to what was warned the planning commission will then send that to the select board and the select board in turn will hold their own public hearings on this uh sometime in mid january okay um um let's see here cannabis regulation act angelina one second there we go okay so i got a message from a community member saying the act i believe it was 107 was passed let me double check so uh just asking if it could get on the 2021 ballot for acts act 164 that allows uh town the towns to permit cannabis retailers to operate within the town and it has to be voted on within the town meeting so responded and sent an email so this is just to get it on to the uh the warning yep just to get it on to the to the ballot okay i have a motion do you want to make a motion for that angelina i make a motion to add the uh sales of retail retailer cannabis to operate within the town um according to act 164 for the march 2021 ballot here a second pardon i'll second that any further discussion my my computer froze from my computer froze for a minute so i just want to make sure i understand i understand the motion it's it's still allow the town uh or it's it's for us to put on the ballot um to allow uh potential uh growers and resellers of cannabis in inside the limits of berlin is that right i think it's for release yeah so i mean retail retailers yep so i believe stores would be able to sell as well i haven't looked though so don't quote me i'm sorry yeah just to get on the ballot any other questions comments all those in favor right hi hi motion carries thank you uh yeah tom somebody uh write up a warrant that to be on the uh ballot who's gonna do that you just the administrator uh is there okay um i good luck i'll take in uh i'll take in uh get a hold of you we can take and work it out uh let's see here uh minutes for november second 2020 november 10th 2020 november 11th 2020 and november 24th 2020 brad yeah i sent over today revisions from the conservation commission that i received on the november 10th minutes so that's with changes with changes on november 10th okay so uh let's have a motion on november 2nd 2020 i'll make the motion i need a second you're on mute john second second second okay any further discussion all those in favor motion carries uh november 10th minutes with uh with um amit with amendments hear motion i haven't had a chance to look them over um since they came in this afternoon unfortunately so i'm gonna be a abstaining so i don't think i should make the motion okay i haven't i haven't had the opportunity to review them either maybe we should do that next time okay so a motion to um set these off till next meeting so moved here second second all those in favor all right hi hi okay uh let's see here use of a town-owned koos trail property there's two other sets of minutes there oh i'm sorry uh november november 11th 2020 which one was i sick for it was the the second week in november right i think so the second meeting yeah but i was there yeah so i can make the motion okay i'll second um i'm gonna get any further discussion all those in favor motion carries the minutes for november 24th 2020 make a motion to approve the minutes of november 24th 2020 need a second okay um all those in favor all right hi uh motion carries uh this is killing me i can hear i can hear i can hear oh oh she's here i didn't know she was here i can't hear her at all well she's in the uh the hallway and i can hear her through the door just how uh let's see here the uh use of town-owned koos trail property whenever i brought this to the select board a couple meetings ago i've talked to the gentleman about uh requiring a certificate of insurance naming the town as additional insured and we discussed a uh $2,000 performance bond you thought he would have all that stuff by tonight's meeting and it has not showed up okay uh so we'll just put that off till uh next meeting then if he doesn't come up with it we i don't know probably no uh uh motion to um motion to uh put this off till next uh select board meeting i'll make the motion to put it off to the next select board meeting second uh all those in favor hi hi the motion carries uh approval licenses permits vouchers and applications move to uh approved payroll 121-11 for payroll from november 8th 2020 to november 21st 2020 paid on november 25th 2020 in the amount of $43,350 and three cents payable warrant uh 21g 11 with checks uh 20720 to 20742 in the amount of $53,626 and five cents payable warrant uh 21g 12 with checks 2043 to 20746 in the amount of $2,537 and 10 cents november reconcile bank statements for the general fund sewer commission and the water division here a second second hmm okay uh any any other discussion on this hearing none those in favor hi hi i motion motion carries uh round table john i'm speechless i have nothing tonight uh justin nothing low and angelina uh just want to mention that i talked to wane today and um he explained to me what the confusion was and that there shouldn't be any further problems because he's uh publicly or not publicly um has it on record in agreement to the issues that were going on between him and the and the uh the the committee so okay anything else that's it motion to adjourn the select board entered and enter into executive session move to adjourn the select board meeting and enter into executive session for a personal contract issue all those in favor all right all right okay well brad i need to move some people expect any action brad who's the ipad all right yeah dave we do okay all right i'll hang out who is ipad on the on the call are you ipad no no i'm good i'm moving ipad there was a name on there before i i don't remember okay hold on hold on brad keith i'm gonna move you for a bit they're queuing up i believe everyone's back back mr chairman okay uh so i'm uh there's been no action taken uh those uh a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second all those in favor hi hi we're adjourned have a great night thank you all thanks