--- title: "Stamford Select Board — March 7, 2024" date: 2024-03-07 session: regular speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 1 named from roster attendance, 10 of 12 clusters unnamed voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":16,"SPEAKER_01":8,"SPEAKER_03":3,"SPEAKER_04":5,"SPEAKER_06":4,"SPEAKER_07":13,"SPEAKER_09":11,"SPEAKER_10":2,"SPEAKER_11":1,"SPEAKER_12":10,"SPEAKER_13":7,"SPEAKER_14":46} duration_min: 158 audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8FJui_9oE audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78) minutes: http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%203-7-24.pdf minutes_pending: false present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari, Douglas Wright, John Dunn] absent: [] transcribed: 2026-10-12 (faster-whisper large-v3, CUDA; names corrected per data/name_fixes.json) diarization: pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 (automated; cluster labels may over-split a single voice; unattributed paragraphs have no reliable speaker) --- # Stamford Select Board — March 7, 2024 **Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 158 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8FJui_9oE) · [Minutes](http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%203-7-24.pdf) **Present:** Nancy L. Bushika, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari, Douglas Wright, John Dunn --- **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Appointments. In your box, Lori left a list for appointed officers. Their terms have expired, and they're up for appointment. And I brought those two letters. I brought two letters. Last year, did we come to a meeting and say, anybody interested in these open positions, please give us a letter, or will we appoint them tonight? **Speaker 1:** You're normal to disappoint anyone tonight, and if they're not interested, they'll let us know. I think one year you've had me send out letters asking if people were interested, but I think that's gone out of it. And I think, too, we've put it in minutes before, and not many people have come forward. We've had it in the minutes since we started, when we put the warning in the back. Anyone interested should look at the expired positions and let us know. And I just have these two letters. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Was it expired, have not? Does anyone do it? **Speaker 1:** Well, they haven't said they don't really do it. Okay. **Speaker 2:** There's a letter from a couple of them. **Speaker 3:** Yes, we have a letter from Sheila, and one letter from Nancy. **Speaker 1:** And one letter from your chair, and one letter from Lisa, and one letter from Lisa Graham, and one letter from Lydia, and one letter from the planning committee. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, to make it easy on Lori, we will make the motion at the end, after we discuss these, and then we'll go to open. Bill, you had a question? **Speaker 4:** Yeah, I didn't know how you were going to go about the list. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We'll go down one by one, and... **Speaker 4:** Okay, because I don't want to skip. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, okay. So the first one we have is for Zoe. She's the zoning board of adjustment. Sheila Pecor was appointed. It was Peter Gruden's spot. And Sherm is up in 2024. And Dave Saldo is up in 2024. We had a letter from Sheila Pecor that she would like to be reappointed to the board. Yeah, I'll... Oh, you want to do them all? You don't have to sign. Do them individually, or... I think it needs to go to Lori, if you want. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All right. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Unless you have any objections going down. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's my question. Oh. Go ahead. If we don't... Okay. If there's people on here that have not... Yeah. I'm going to use one for an example. Luke. Okay? No one sent the letter, but should we reach out to these people and ask if they wanted to be reappointed before we appoint someone? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, that's what I was asking before. **Speaker 5:** Typically, historically, we would just basically appoint the person that was appointed. Unless there was a... Okay. So let's move down. We have Erin, and then Lisa has sent a letter for that position. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. Should we send out a letter to Erin or ask Erin first before we appoint her to Lisa? If you read my letter, it's as if there's a seat that's open. I don't want to take Erin's seat. Well, that's what I'm wondering. Is this open, though? Right. I don't want to take Erin's seat. **Speaker 6:** I don't know if it's center open to me. I'm just going to try to figure out if... **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Okay. ...this is the appointment for the seat. **Speaker 6:** Okay. Okay. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, we got the... Oh, you got the position. Yeah. center open tonight or because he's not here you know what i'm saying yeah he hasn't resigned but **Speaker 7:** he also hasn't said why should we make it public to the people in town and his other interested **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** parties well laurie does at the end of the minutes that's no one to step forward i understand her i **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** understand lisa saying look if erin wants it you're good with that you're not trying to say i want it and pull that but if there was you don't understand i just want to make sure that we reach **Speaker 6:** yeah i just didn't know how else to word it so i kept it short and sweet **Speaker 5:** people especially someone like i'll take dave for example he's just been reappointed year after year he probably if we change the situation he may not realize that okay all of a sudden they got to come down and reapply right we want to change the whole formula we can do that but historically we **Speaker 1:** would just reappoint people okay right and probably since mid-december we've added anyone interested in serving as an appointed board member please review the expiring appointed positions in the town report and contact a member of that board **Speaker 8:** or the select board so these have been out since december laurie did you forward mine to the planning **Speaker 9:** commission also i'm still i didn't get it slow because i did we said tonight okay we're going **Speaker 6:** to appoint lisa because then i thought i thought aaron would get it that way well that's something **Speaker 10:** i wonder if i text him **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** one that really would be an issue yeah let me just send him a text kind of straighten it out yeah because i mean these people something might be **Speaker 5:** so i mean i do have a question with some of my situations uh at the planning at the planning commission i mean i'm an ex-officio i kind of know what that means my term is off this year vote as a board to go down to seven i don't know if that position is just eliminated at that point i think that's what we've decided kirk it's not a vacancy though right because my seat is just gone we went from nine we went from nine to seven so i i'm assuming without any real uh you know knowledge on the statutes or wherever that that just disintegrates my position um that's my assumption i don't really know who decided to go down the side we did and move forward **Speaker 11:** percent board now **Speaker 5:** she's still a member but so it's seven seven when you guys **Speaker 1:** right when you guys decided recognizing you were both ex-officio you chose you could have said there's two vacancies and kept it at nine but you went down to seven **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** which seems to be smoother is that correct **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yes maybe in fairness to everybody we should have lori write a letter and just say if you'd like to be appointed to your current position please get back to lori or send the select board a letter saying you would like to be reappointed as energy coordinator or septic officer if we don't hear from you by next meeting next meeting we will appoint someone else in your position **Speaker 5:** is that agreeable yes yes okay so that would be the time that i would then not accept the appointment to the conservation commission **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it probably would hurt if you get the letter **Speaker 5:** so one one word just about the conservation commission quick if anyone really wants to get involved in tom's holiday that's the commission that i got my start at 12 years ago they don't meet but i would strongly suggest that someone tries to revive this thing just as an advisory type of work especially with all kinds of fema stuff going on you know invasive plants that come into the into the town these are conversations that they could have you know advise us on things that we should do you know as a select board it's a dead board i mean we don't need it's it's real easy it's a real easy involvement it shouldn't be dead **Speaker 12:** 17 aaron is staying it shouldn't be dead not the planning board the **Speaker 13:** conservation okay aaron is staying yeah aaron's not on **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the conservation commission um i did get you mentioned the fema and conservation commission i did get a letter from fema saying uh they will be meeting soon fema community coordination meeting soon to discuss the preliminary data in the fairly small deer field river watershed portion of flood insurance rate map panels in our town who do we contact uh chair and town clerk and zoning administrator **Speaker 5:** where is the deer field where does the deer feel right now **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's probably got to be way up maybe the road that goes nowhere that's part of the deer field coming down **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** what's that oh um yeah **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** they want to know who to meet with soon so i don't know how soon this but did they probably didn't get in touch with you yet not yet i think they still want to know who's who the town clerk is who the chairman and who the administrative office is so i will get **Speaker 2:** back **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i want to look at the deer field portion of the flood map **Speaker 14:** where is that fancy i heard you guys talking about it the road that goes **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** nowhere in cartwellville where they're walking **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if you go down past that show come back down yeah right before near the garage is the road where they all go snowmobiling you go all the way back up that there's brooks to go back into stamford okay so that brook that comes out runs down towards neutral but there's not much is **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** there **Speaker 2:** blood **Speaker 5:** there right APPLAUSE **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** mud pond **Speaker 5:** yeah this morning brook goes in right here usually right here in the oh i guess��릴게요 **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay so we are not going to do any Tonight we're going to leave everybody as is. No, I didn't even say your name. Who's that? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm letting him know. **Speaker 10:** You're only thinking of us. **Speaker 4:** It's like, yep. Okay. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Judicial Bureau appointments. Lori, can you tell us? **Speaker 1:** So the five-slot board are normally issuing officials and appearing officials at the Judicial Bureau. So you would probably need to remove Marie and add John and Bob. I believe everyone else should stay the same. Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's the Justice and the Peace? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, this is on the Court. Oh, okay. **Speaker 15:** I thought it was like that Board of Appeals. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. It's the issue. **Speaker 16:** It's all of us. **Speaker 5:** It's not just, like, the... **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, say if you see something that's wrong, you want to be the appearing official also. Not me. Because I didn't see what was happening. So we can be issuing and appearing officials. So I wanted the motion that we remove Marie and Pam and add John and Doug. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Second. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Aye. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Designation of meeting dates. Keep it the first and third Thursday of the month. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, just getting the hang of that. Yeah, well, I'm just trying to change it. Yeah, well, I'm just trying to change it. I've been waiting for 10 years and it won't go before me. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did you have another meeting? **Speaker 5:** Yeah. 6 o'clock. Works for everybody. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 6 o'clock. Designation of newspaper for publication. Right now we put our legal notices in the EGLE. The fellow, the attorney that does our tax sales said that the Bennington banner is much, much cheaper. So I called the EGLE to ask how many... People get home delivery and how many get just online for each, the EGLE and the banner. So the EGLE, there's 37 families that get the EGLE and 7 that just get digital. But of the 37, they can get digital and hard copy. So there's 42 and the banner is 3 people get hard copy and 2 just digital. So I think we probably have... Do we stick with the EGLE? Yeah, I was actually surprised 42 people get papers. I know. Or do we... My father brings them to me. **Speaker 17:** How many are at Belmont? They don't deliver it to where I live. Yeah, he just gives me a stack every time he sees me. What's the difference? It's a little bit faster. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know. I'm a director here, but I know there's some people up in Bennington who can't get **Speaker 10:** the EGLE. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. **Speaker 18:** I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. We are going to have to give them the EGLE for wind, and things of that sort. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I question if we need to do a newspaper at all? Yes. That's legal. It has to be paper? Legal. It has to be papers. **Speaker 1:** Would you and do like an online, like iVerger, or something like that? What'd you say? Would be arranged? She said it had to be, and I said I think the statute reads a newspaper in general circulation in your town, so you can try to pick what you want. Okay. Do you see what will the Beyoncé horn? Oh. **Speaker 19:** That's an easy one. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I like myself the Deerfield Valley that seems to get some a little bit of local news but it tells what's going on in other towns like what are they dealing with floods snow removal roads the mud roads and they're dealing with the same thing **Speaker 16:** as we are **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do you want to do a vote for your vote any time? Oh yeah, okay. Motion. Second through meetings. All in favor? Aye. Yeah. Designation of select board member to review bills. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'll make an answer to the chief. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** These could be done on the week. Some months we have three pay periods and we don't have a meeting so I'm sure the board would like to get paid. Okay. Yeah. No. Yay. I'm not going to say the rest. What was your motion? For you. **Speaker 20:** Okay. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Second. Second. All in favor? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Aye. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Aye. Designation of highway liaison. Brown. **Speaker 21:** Kirk. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. You expressed interest in that? Yeah. **Speaker 22:** Yeah, I came out of school though. I can do them both. **Speaker 2:** Whatever. Nice. The school's not on here. There you go. **Speaker 23:** Oh yeah? **Speaker 19:** Where's it at at? **Speaker 23:** I don't know. We just pulled it out of the air last year. Not only Kirk. Any second? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Second. **Speaker 5:** On data. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All right. Kirk, you're up. **Speaker 15:** All right. **Speaker 5:** Well, I think the school's not on here. We just pulled it out of the air last year. We did. Yeah. Just in the moment. I think it was because we weren't having those joint meetings but I tell you, Erica, after this town meeting, Erica actually approached me and said she wants to get back to those **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** joint meetings and try to, you know, work a couple of things out. Once they're done, they're done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 5:** Yeah. But right now the town office wants to do it. They want to edit it in here. I don't see it hardware, I think, but it's not on the wall. **Speaker 15:** Well I think anybody that wants to go and report back to the board... **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. ...you really didn't...you heard what happened there and then you came back anyway so I guess **Speaker 16:** any one of us could go. **Speaker 5:** But what you need is we can always get back. I think the original fact was some of what you brought up at a meeting here tonight was about how to manage infrastructure... Right. ...and who should pay for what and stuff like conversation that we should have. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I asked about the town office windows cause every year, the school board replaced a few windows and I don't know, maybe it was the district. I don't know. north side, east side, whatever, and they have two more windows to go behind Teresa's desk, and Erica thinks they're in the budget. Yeah, thinks they're in the budget. **Speaker 1:** Another one that isn't on here that I thought of later is the website. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Designation of sheriff or state police liaison. Mike, do you want to continue doing that? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't mind. There's not much to do now. **Speaker 5:** Motion. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do we need it? **Speaker 16:** Oh, I can still do it. **Speaker 17:** I have a good idea. **Speaker 15:** Okay. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can I have a motion to appoint Mike? **Speaker 5:** Motion. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any seconds? **Speaker 5:** Seconds. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? **Speaker 5:** I seem pretty dead here tonight, but you don't know. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, if you still, if there's time, we might just need to call the sheriff if we want it or not. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know if I can call the state troopers or something. I'd call the state troopers just because people have reached out to me and said that things weren't what they wanted, and I just reached out and said, you know, this is a communication. That's it. What happened? Yeah. You know, they didn't know last year. It's a good one. It's good to have that communication back and forth. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Designation of D.V. Fiber representative. Last year, it was Bob Briggs, Bill Levine, and C.J. Should we send them a letter again? **Speaker 4:** Bob. Bob, I would like to continue. **Speaker 24:** Okay. **Speaker 4:** I have not discussed it with C.J., and he has not attended anything since you appointed me. So, perhaps a letter if he wants to continue. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, a motion for Bob and Bill. Second. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Aye. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did you get the paperwork from D.V. Fiber, too? There's a form that you have to fill out? Okay. **Speaker 1:** I'm pretty sure I did. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Now, I think I got, I think they sent me one, too. I got hooked up yesterday with the silk. Yes. I see it's going to be. Yes. Just saying. Did you get your phone hooked up with it, too, or no? No. That's separate. That's separate. Yeah. Now, I'm just doing cell phones. I'm just going to get rid of it and consolidate it in my memory altogether. Because, you know, the power outage, you couldn't use it anyway. You know, I was like, why am I taking, you know, jump calls? Right. Do you, so, on your cell phone, do you get, does it go through? **Speaker 25:** Do you get it through your computer, or do you get cell service up there? You can do both. I get cell service, or it can go, you can, I can get Wi-Fi calls, but I can also get regular calls. Sometimes I have to walk up to Doug's. **Speaker 26:** If you get cell, yeah, if it's windy or cloudy. **Speaker 25:** But usually I still, you know, if I step out onto my front, if y'all see me sitting out on my front stoop, drinking a glass of wine and talking to somebody on the phone, it's because I'm getting better reception there. But generally, my cell phone works great. Sometimes I have to say, I have to walk a little bit up the hill. **Speaker 20:** I understand. And the battery that that's up to, and the power goes out. Six. Yep. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. **Speaker 4:** Five house disconnected this week. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Good. Well, it's quick. **Speaker 4:** Start going out. **Speaker 24:** So quick. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Mm-hmm. And my son found that we can stream now. I go, I don't know anything about that. **Speaker 25:** Oh, girl. **Speaker 4:** Just as a side comment, the entire town has been released for connection. All of, you know, they had originally done the north end of town and then the south end, and there was kind of a middle, which was over. We're toward East Rose as of Wednesday, the entire town was available for connection. **Speaker 27:** Nice young man. Very polite. **Speaker 25:** Ishmael. No, I can't say it was Ryan. Come on. Ishmael. Look at that. 12. I have a question. **Speaker 28:** Oh, yeah. Um, just to clarify, the only thing that eight hour battery does is keep your motor running. It doesn't do anything for your router. So if you want to keep your router and your modem going, you need to find a separate battery backup for that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So you can't use it without the route without the right to use it without the router. **Speaker 28:** Well, it's designed for the telephone part to keep the modem because it's the modem has the telephone section in it, and so it's only designed to keep your phone running. So you'll have to get a separate battery to keep your router running for the Wi-Fi. Yeah. **Speaker 6:** Found that out the hard way. **Speaker 2:** Turn it down. **Speaker 25:** You read my candle. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Someone to, um, work, uh, to, uh, keep up our website. Um, Marie was doing it last year. She offered to continue doing it. Uh, we, I believe we found that it worked pretty good if we had a select board member doing it or somebody out of the office because we've had problems before, but it's up to you guys who you want to. **Speaker 5:** Could that be working? Appointed position like some of these other positions are appointed. Well, I mean, I don't want anything to do with me. **Speaker 1:** Yeah, I, I don't even think about it anyway. No, it's up to you. I mean, I used to do it as part of the core job. The way you wanted it. She did a good job. Yeah. We're going to do it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So whether you want to go outside the board, but you're still sending your stuff to put on. Right. **Speaker 29:** So you're, I guess that's my question. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. So you're sending. The stuff outside now, if you want to keep it, do you want to just put it on or do you want to say, well, is it a lot of work? **Speaker 1:** That's what now that it's all more on you, it's really not that hard to do. **Speaker 28:** I'd be willing if you need somebody to do it. I'd be more than willing to do it. **Speaker 6:** Well, Marie said she would be right. **Speaker 28:** No, I'm just saying if you need somebody, I'd be more than willing to do it. **Speaker 6:** The problem I think that was with Marie was, um, the website somehow wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. When it first started, that's exactly what it was. Yeah. It was not getting, I don't think we knew what we wanted. **Speaker 6:** Like even the election stuff wasn't on the website for the longest time. Yeah. Right. **Speaker 30:** Right. **Speaker 6:** So I just think there needs to be some kind of liaison with Marie if she's going to be doing the site since she's not on the board anymore. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Do you want to try it for a year or just let, what's the, what do you think? I don't have a problem with that as long as we can make sure that it stays within our guidelines that things don't get put on that they don't work. **Speaker 20:** Right, right. **Speaker 5:** That's basically how we managed it last year. I don't think she was going to try to read into something like that. I don't think so. I don't think she was going into the town, so she's just going to judge. I don't have a problem with that. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Thank you. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do we want to appoint a Marie for a year and see how it works? Yeah. Whatever you guys want. Do we need a motion? Motion. Second? **Speaker 31:** Second. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? **Speaker 20:** Aye. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. I think that's all our appointments. Hearing of visitors. Okay. **Speaker 28:** We talked about recording video and our meetings. So I'd like to try to keep doing that. I'm doing it now with my cell phone to see how that works for sound and quality. I've got a couple other things at the house. So as we do meetings, I'm just going to, if that's all right with everyone. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do you have to let people know that you're recording? **Speaker 29:** I mean, we're in the public here, so I think you need our information. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We can make that statement. If he's doing it for you. If he's doing it for the SLATnet, we should make that statement at the end of the recording. If we are doing it for the SLAT board, I would like to make sure that it stays within the SLAT board and doesn't go out on social media. Because what happens on social media is they can add things to it, put the music to it, make it look. I've seen it on YouTube where . **Speaker 6:** What is it going to be? **Speaker 32:** Yes. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It needs to be hosted. Yes. Let me see it. If you're recording it for the SLAT board, where does the recording stay? How do people get a copy of it? Because I don't want to be bugging Lori. They're going to be here 24-7 for Lori. **Speaker 28:** My idea there would be almost to, I can do it, send it to Marie. Marie can attach it to the minutes for the website. So I guess it could go on social media anyway. Yes. So I mean, if you're going to give it to the public, anything can happen to it. Right. Once it's public, anything can happen to it. But anybody wanting an official version is getting it from the town website. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So unless they are looking for trouble, they can get it from the town website. If they could, they wanted to. Just like they could take a picture and put a mustache on it. It would just be a good, you know. Somebody might take off your clothes, Mike. Exactly. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's a big sign there, beware underneath this. And people can get a copy of that recording. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But mostly she's recording it for her summer examinations. The minutes only need to be who's in attendance and who makes the motion and seconds of what the motion is. You don't have to put anything else in there. **Speaker 5:** We can always use like some kind of legal document or something, right? **Speaker 33:** Before we, like, put it out. **Speaker 25:** There are many towns that do a video of their meeting for people who, you know, work late, have little kids, whatever. I mean. Accessibility to our town meeting is a good thing, right? More people should know. I mean, I just think we need something more inviting rather than just making a decision right now. I mean, it's an open meeting. It's already in the open meeting. **Speaker 5:** And Vermont's law is as long as one party knows it's happening. Right. So that's, that's kind of how it, how it lands. We learned that with our dog catcher. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. Do you want me to get in touch with Vermont League of Cities and Towns to see what they have to mind? **Speaker 28:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's suddenly out of season about policies. You can't so. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I mean, I know, like you said, I'm a personal and like, legally, he can just record that right now. He doesn't have to tell anybody. NO. Right. He records it. He'd say, hey, I'm recording this. Yeah. And there's nothing he can do about it. It's like, ready to pour it into the company. Right. I think, you know, the point is to get it, because obviously, not many people can attend meetings. Right. The thing is have more transparency and involvement across town, so people with, **Speaker 6:** Sure. ...cooking dinner come in. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Sure. The thing is to have more transparency and involvement for our town, so people with cooking dinner at home for their kids right now can be more involved with our town government. I think it's a win-win, you know. **Speaker 5:** I don't disagree with that. I just want to make sure. **Speaker 6:** So I think the town website is a place, like when Lori puts the minutes up, I think a link right there that would bring you to the video would make sense. **Speaker 28:** And until you guys decide, I'll just keep them to myself. You should just ask the LTC. Is the school board recording? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, I'm not going to show you a lawyer. No way. What's that? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The school board, do they do video, or is it just Zoom? They do Zoom every meeting. But they're not looking at the people out in the audience. **Speaker 6:** Do they record the Zoom, or do they just have the Zoom at that moment? I'm not sure. **Speaker 34:** I'm not sure if they record it. **Speaker 25:** Yeah, I think it's just like you can live stream. **Speaker 6:** Because you can record Zoom easy enough. **Speaker 34:** Maybe the school board should also put that on there. **Speaker 25:** But, you know, if I had to do tech, they could on their own computer. He's very, I know. **Speaker 5:** It's hard to control any of it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, right. **Speaker 2:** Oh, I'm not going to do that. **Speaker 17:** I don't know if they have a broad. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You can't record somebody without their knowledge, not in Vermont. Only one party has to know. So the person recording knows. In Massachusetts, both parties know. That actual situation with the dog officer that we had, he recorded someone in town. He came to my shop and talked to me and asked if I could record you while we're talking. I said, absolutely not. I said, I don't want you to record me right now. I didn't want you to talk to me at all. But that's for the half of a mask, which makes sense, I guess. **Speaker 35:** I don't have a problem with that, but it doesn't hurt to reach out. **Speaker 23:** Alright, I'll let you do that. It's your check. It's all baby steps. Exactly. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors? No? Um, reading and approval of records and orders. What's the date from February 15th? **Speaker 17:** Motion to approve. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? Yes. All in favor? I guess it's up to you. Yes. These are the orders going around. There's four sets, and if everybody wants to look over. In the past, we've gone through every bill and looked at them. Some boards didn't want to do that because it took up too much time, so if you want to look at them ahead of time, before the meeting or before the meeting, it's up to you. i come in like the day before and look them over when it's quiet and peaceful because i don't want to sign anything that that's a lot of money yeah so pass these around and your signature **Speaker 14:** so be sure to sign the last page so you kind of pre-approved everything right yes okay but **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** laurie and theresa know what bills have to be paid and if there's a question hey nance we got a big one here or what's going on here so we'll hold it and i put a note on there so the board sees that that we spent ten thousand dollars on right and we've been else we've been so what's **Speaker 10:** going on here yeah yep i think what my point was you've you've kind of gone through them all so this they can almost streamline signing it like each person yeah they can if they want yeah **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this is dave's time sheet what equipment he uses on what day and usually what road or in his time she can tell what world he's working on and trading or ditching or following because if we have to apply for grants or reimbursement this is good to keep track of that we have food for coming hours we use that equipment yeah just go right here under your name just your initials **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** is fine did you ever want to keep track of your miles too **Speaker 20:** no i don't think because there's a lot of tools there i don't know if it's you know like you don't have fuel tax so we don't know what the truck's doing two of this so it's kind of right and usually i drive long vehicles that's not great **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** morning while we're at a little lull here have you heard anything from the auditors still sending stuff and i've been sending stuff **Speaker 1:** A couple of days they wanted another couple of documents and I asked them to wait a week or so until after I got through town meeting and election, but now we'll start right in with any indication when they might be done? Our last auditor only wanted fake statements and everything through the end of December. These guys wanted to wait until everything was reconciled through the end of January, and they wanted all that information, so they haven't even given me any dates because they wanted to wait until all of that was sent to them. **Speaker 25:** Nancy, you talked about having a meeting for the rest of the city board of authority about the aftermath of that. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, that happened. Board of Civil Authority. This year we're having reappraisal and the first step is the assessors will send you a notice that your assessment is, and then you come in and meet with the assessor, and if you don't like that, then you come to the Board of Civil Authority, and there's various steps that we have to go through and say, Okay. Yeah, the assessor was wrong. This is preparing your house to, say, pop his big client house down there, and that's, I mean, he probably has two bedrooms, three bedrooms, and they probably have ten. I don't know, but. So, we'd say, wait a minute. Why are you doing this and how come? So, we're, because it's the reappraisal year, we think there's going to be a lot of people questioning how come. So, we're, because it's the reappraisal year, we think there's going to be a lot of people questioning how come. So, we're, because it's the reappraisal year, we think there's going to be a lot of people questioning how come. So, we're, because it's the reappraisal year, we think there's going to be a lot of people questioning how come. And the Vermont League of Cities and Towns does provide training. I set one up for March 21st, but they can't do it. So, now I'm hoping for April 7th before our select board meeting, like at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but I haven't heard back from her yet, so. It is still at home. April 7th is a Sunday. Oh, well, it must be. 11th? 4th. I'm first meeting. First? **Speaker 1:** 4th. Yeah, the first meeting will be the 4th. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Whatever date that was, that's what I asked. So 4 o'clock that day? Maybe. I just want to pencil it in. I haven't heard back from the cities in town yet, so I don't know what's happening. But it's good to see the steps that we have to do and how we do it. There's certain things just because we like your house and not your house or something like that. We have certain steps to go through. Have you ever been through that, Mike? Yes. I'm pretty sure with your reappraisal, we will have a lot. Okay, everybody signed? **Speaker 20:** Yeah, the back of the folder, though, we're supposed to initial it as well. And it still has Marie's and Boone's. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, are you down at the bottom? We're down at the bottom. Yeah, you did give us a new one at the bottom. Because I don't think we've been paid for that folder yet. We're starting a new term, so she's still got it. Right? That came on for something. That must have came on for that footwear. If you keep them together, the doors will figure them out. Oops. **Speaker 4:** Oh, it came on, that's why. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, I didn't see that. Are you signing? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, Kurt didn't sign either. I signed the one. **Speaker 5:** Yeah, Kurt's right here. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, Kurt. They'll take those off. **Speaker 36:** Okay, just take this whole thing off? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. **Speaker 1:** I figured we could start fresh with that for now. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, I see. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Here, before we do any more damage to it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Okay. Stop me if you have any more questions. Any questions, guys? Okay. Annual financial plan on the road conditions. **Speaker 1:** Dave and I met with Patrick Wilson. He did say that because we're not receiving all four AOT payments for this year, then we should really only mark what we are receiving. So our income, like our budget, is a lot less than what we were expecting for road. It will help us with our percentages in case there's a disaster. We still do, what, a 60-40 split between winter highway payments and non-winter payments. Here. So you're going to sign, yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because we got two agency transportation payments last year, should we designate them or ask the auditors to designate them for 2024? And make a motion to sign the plan because you went over it and we're good? **Speaker 5:** I'm sorry? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, sometimes we ask, sometimes we miss the motion. **Speaker 1:** Yeah, yeah. And then along with that, the town road and bridge standards on the back. We're saying, I guess, we're in compliance with what we usually do. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We're in compliance state. Yeah, sorry. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do they still check them over, each bridge, or do they do it every year? **Speaker 20:** No, they do that every other year. And then we'll get a report. We're doing better than North Adams Bridge. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And say that we need a new bridge for a million dollars. No. Take the light out of your hands and go ahead and bridge them. You're not signing the road and bridge standards. And this one is saying you're in compliance with the road and bridge standards. Okay, we're in compliance with it. Yes, we make a motion for everything. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. Motion. Second. All three of these. All in favor. **Speaker 29:** Recycling. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We don't want to talk about roads at all, is that it? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, sorry, Dave. Yes. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Before a guy came here, he looks tired already. Hey, how's the roads? **Speaker 7:** It's snowy. **Speaker 20:** Muddy. Muddy in my home, but it's the end of the season, I guess. We've been out, probably put out a couple hundred there in the stone. Thank you. We've definitely done a lot. **Speaker 37:** How's the brochure? **Speaker 7:** Good. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Last year, that seemed to be a... **Speaker 20:** I mean, I did have to put the stone out up on the far section of the hills. It's the shady areas this year, most of the shady areas. We had a lot of rain last year, and it never dried out, so all that rain is there. And the pitches are all running good on the side of the road. Yeah. And we're, I can't even begin to tell you how good of a shape our roads really are, considering. Yeah. If you go north, they... Yeah. I mean, I think if you had to move nine years, you'd see a lot of cars parked on this side of the road. The UPS and FedEx guys are telling me that, you know, I'm white man, or he's black. All the time. Yeah. All the areas that can't handle the weather, so... Yeah. We got ahead of it this year. I could see where some were starting to black out, you know, because of the way the thaws have been. And some of the frozen days, we just went crazy. And got ahead of it. And so, we're in good shape. Thanks, Dave. I mean, it's going to be weeks, you know, before we can actually come great, probably. And that's all that depends on... It seems like we're going to go back cold, and then warm and cold, so... Yeah. They're going to take a while to get back out, unfortunately, especially with all this rain. Sure. And the water table's already nine in the road, so... Just bear with us. We'll get at it as soon as we can. I don't know if I want to run more than anybody else does, so... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. **Speaker 20:** Well, Dave... Um... When it's good? Yeah... I have, uh... Just kind of been looking online. There's a lot of used equipment that I don't really have a specific sample of. It's more in the east, right now. There aren't any letters throughout the North East. So, most of that's going to come back in at the end of April, they said. So, we're... phone calls to be able to help with that summary. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What would you, what are you thinking of doing with the current loader? **Speaker 20:** I mean, if somebody wanted to take it on trade, that'd be great. I'd say it's worth a lot of money. I would rather they did that, so we didn't have to sell it to anybody. Right. If you feel like the frame on that loader is some borrowed time, just call me. It's pretty crowded, and it may be a safety issue for somebody, I don't know. Yeah, you can, somebody can fix it up if they really wanted to make a farm or something, but I don't know if the bottom loss would liability to kind of sell it unless they really were fully aware of what's wrong. Right. You know, maybe they sign and say, hey, we realize that this thing's pretty much selling, you know, and I don't know. It's not really, so it's not going to cost a lot of money. Cross that bridge, we'll get there. Yeah. Most people don't seem, I don't know, really interested in it. Right. But tell me, once I tell them about it, they don't know how much to do with it. They don't want to have to resell it or something. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Good. Recycling. **Speaker 4:** Are the batteries used less? I mean, you said you had a couple boxes of batteries. Did they go out, or? **Speaker 1:** Do you know if they went out? I don't see anything there. Camera brought two big, heavy boxes, and they both expressed half of them. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Two boxes in, right? As soon as they get them, they get new boxes in. **Speaker 23:** Did we? Hardly put print on all that. Did we? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know we discussed that the patrons should be taping the tops of the batteries, but we didn't put that in our recycling minutes, or our recycling. Recycling type tape. Oh, I see. I don't think they did that. We didn't put it there. **Speaker 4:** Somebody asks, from what they told us, you know, above them, they said electrical tape. Yes. We don't accept packaging tape, or cell phone tape. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, because they went, they didn't have to do the class before we could accept batteries. They had to do the video on how to accept the batteries, and pack them. **Speaker 38:** Somebody asks, you know, what do I do with my batteries? **Speaker 5:** What's the end of the line for the batteries? What is the final stage of the batteries? No idea. Hand film? Where the pages are somewhere in the middle. **Speaker 4:** Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere. I don't know. Recycling. Recycling. Recycling, yes. That's because . **Speaker 39:** What do they look having, what do they look having the role of electrical tape after recycling centers? So if somebody brings in it, and they say you didn't take your foot there, so. . **Speaker 20:** I gave them a pause. I did that specific thing when they were having issues, that here, if somebody comes in and hand them this roll. Yeah! Then, next time, they'll remember it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. If you cater to them once, you're going to tough traffic catering. Mm-hmm. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know how many batteries we get there all I mean it was a really a backlog of batteries **Speaker 36:** now should we be getting as much as we had or how often do you replace the remote batteries **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you know what about all those christmas toys you know those little dogs that go and then spring and summer when you change your smoke alarms **Speaker 40:** yeah do you even know that they recycle batteries I think a lot I think we said it in our **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** in our uh handout when we recycle when we hand out our recycling **Speaker 25:** but that would be the whole thing on the website right all the information about recycling and doing taking your batteries and what you're having it's on to not the tanking part right **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** before I came into this meeting I got a report from my UPS guy that I sent a part out to Arkansas yesterday and they destroyed my package and they cannot find any of my parts so when they do the same thing with these batteries I wonder what they do if they don't have any of my batteries they don't have any of my batteries I wonder what they do if they don't have any of my batteries I wonder what they do if they don't have any of my batteries they don't have any of my batteries there's a lot of times you find UPS packages just over there 7 and a half inch discs 1 inch thick there's 20 of them in the box they can't find any of them **Speaker 5:** a big parking lot outside a mohawk trail state forest number 2 has a lot of this packages so yeah can't deliver them I'll keep it outside I'll keep it out there's no plastic so I'm the woods. Sure. I know. Woods are great places to get rid of all your trash. We got a whole lot of **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** furniture out there. Did they find out who that furniture belongs to? It must have been recent because my son went up on the jeep to go to camp and he didn't see it and then the next day it was **Speaker 21:** on Facebook and we had pictures of it. We got money to get up there. Couch and chairs. Maybe. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe you shouldn't fix that part of the road. Yeah, you can get in there and make sides out of it, right? **Speaker 17:** Yeah. Oh yeah. You can see it's stoves and refrigerators and all kinds of stuff. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Anytime you can find a remote place, there's still an access fire room. I would dump it right on the side, like right on a nice turn around or something. **Speaker 41:** When they throw it over the bag down into the rug, it's like, come on people. Like people that put their dog poop into little **Speaker 5:** baggies and wash them into the tree, right? Yeah. **Speaker 10:** I've never heard of that one. **Speaker 20:** It was kind of on the back of the roads a little bit. That last storm we had where all the wind and the power went out. Three mountain powers were gone so it was really unacceptable in that storm. I say that because at midnight or a little before when the power went out, I looked out the window and saw how icy the road was and decided that I better try to get after some of that. I couldn't get to the highway garage so I had a special motor. I had a special motor that I could call right through their dispatch so that they were kind of prioritized, especially if we can't get through the road. That was at midnight. I had a thought that the guy couldn't tell me when they were going to arrive so I started more towards the state garage to see if I could get some salt from them to go around there occasionally until they did get here to borrow some. I ran into the power company coming out so I turned around and met up with them at the line. They came up and decided that they couldn't be here in the tree because of the tree company. They did trim a few limbs off so that I could get under it to get to the garage so I could at least use our small ram truck. I went around the pavement and saw and came back and noticed the tree company was around so I said I'll give them a little bit of time. I think I came back. **Speaker 20:** I came back about 45 minutes later and I was sleeping in the truck. They had cut a piece of the top of the tree off and I knocked on the window of the truck and woke them up and asked what they were doing. The guy said that they needed it dead. He had cut that piece of the tree and it took him 10 minutes. He was tired out and he felt like he needed a power company here to be able to do the job. I said well they called you. They couldn't do it. They called you. And he told me well we're not doing it. And he said we're going back to our shop. So they left it in a worse state than it was because then it was lower. It could barely be under it then. They started sanding some of our gravel roads. And about an hour later the fire department got a call on Tetra Road for a chimney fire. So Michael and I ended up cutting the tree off the line because I felt like it was an emergency. The power company had already caught this tree. The line was cut. There was no power in the whole town. So I felt pretty confident about that. It just was completely unacceptable. They came down at least four times I would say that day. I reported trees on lines, blocking roads, I'm sure roads. There was trees on lines on Basin Road. There was blocking roads. There was trees on lines on Sportsman Road. It wasn't blocking roads. It was still hanging over the road. And the following day none of it had been addressed. They left the lines. After they had come back to deal with the tree on Mill Road, which Michael and I had already dealt with, they left the lines hanging right in the road. **Speaker 42:** It was really bad. **Speaker 20:** So I called them the next day. And the dispatch said the only thing they were aware of at that time was the Mill Road. So it was just a giant mess. **Speaker 37:** Even though they were aware of it, they still had come down? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, they didn't. **Speaker 20:** I would say they were here at least a half dozen times and really didn't do much. Right. It was so inefficient. **Speaker 7:** I went out there and had to go to my daughter to come in and deal with it. It was horrible. **Speaker 10:** And I couldn't believe it. It was pretty scary. **Speaker 4:** They left those lines down so low that to get to the fire, the chimney fire on Cape Crow Road, they used pipe poles. The hole was high enough to get the engine under. What? I mean, they knew. That's a bad idea. **Speaker 43:** Well, but still. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know, I know what's going to happen. I think we should definitely reach out to them and tell them how concerned. I know what's going to happen. They're going to play the blame game. It's a tree company. We're going to get another outside source. And the tree company is going to say, hey, they're going to play the blame game. Look, they're, at least reach out to Greenmount Power. Send them a letter that we're not happy with what happened. They should be made aware of what happened. I don't know what our alternative is. You know, we, we have to figure out what to do. We're going to do this. We have to figure out what to do. And, you know, we've got to do this. We're going to figure out what to do. You know, it's a nonopoly, so when you're, you know, if there was a customer that you use, you could say, well, I'm gonna buy it from someone else and get my pizza somewhere else, you know? This is, they got us. You know, it's really. But they're an operating office. And they really need it. Right, I mean, they didn't even put anything up to tell you there was a line down. **Speaker 20:** I come around that corner, I'm like, holy crap. I put cones up to try to get some awareness. Yeah, it was like a couple of cones and there wasn't so much I could do, you know? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And the letter, and also stating that the fireman had to respond to a fire. **Speaker 20:** I mean, they were already here. **Speaker 44:** People they hired were already here. **Speaker 23:** Right, and then they had to hug you. I mean, what if someone's lost their life, haven't really lost their life in the fire? That's right, yep. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. **Speaker 4:** That's right. I mean, well, they're responsible for whoever they hired to do the work. Yep. Absolutely. Well, that's true. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't think that's on a dotted line. What's all that all? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Write a good letter, but don't flop it. No flops. **Speaker 29:** No flops. No flops. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Write it like it's coming from Dave. I mean, I don't want to use like 400 words. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Also, Dave, I wanted to ask about this. Is this something new that we have to post the notice at two public places that the roads closed because of mud? **Speaker 20:** That's something that we've done in the past. Those were the post, spring postings. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Have you posted the road yet or not yet? Yeah. **Speaker 36:** Yeah? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, I thought it was something new. **Speaker 20:** Well, that page. I actually got new signs this year, so the state delivered those to the town and basically gave us those fancy little things to post in town. We've posted in town before, but typically, the select board just makes a motion to post. Yeah. So I guess you should probably do that. OK. I'll make a motion. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Post the roads as Dave feels they should be posted according to the state level. **Speaker 4:** First step to what I was asking you to do. Second. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor. **Speaker 31:** Good. **Speaker 20:** All in favor. Good. Thank you. All right. All right. **Speaker 17:** All right. **Speaker 45:** It does go by weight, right? **Speaker 20:** Yeah. Weight and axle. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Moving on to emergency management. Bill, I have a question from the follow-up last meeting about the de-rute fiber, about the charge to some households. **Speaker 4:** I didn't bring it. I printed it out. Specifically, when you sign up, they either mail you or reference you to. to the terms of the agreement that you've taken by signing requesting service and when you request service it says that they will provide service to your house to a router and up to 25 feet from the router from the entrance in the house to the router anything beyond that you will be charged for and that 140 odd dollars seems to be there flat rate because stuart johnson was connected this past monday and stuart had cables he had already cabled his house a long time ago but he opted for the 300 megabyte service and what he had run in his house was not adequate for that technically it was 5e with rv rf4 5e rather than rm6e that carries a higher frequency signal so he charged enough black and took 46 hours he could have done it himself i discussed it with him on the united firehouse he said for 145 dollars he didn't have to buy the cable the guy was there he didn't have to **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** make another appointment they read it did we get no i i don't remember getting a notice did you remember getting a notice have you got a notice maybe some didn't **Speaker 1:** some didn't you do have to sign up i guess you just don't always read that fine print and you know that you know you don't know that there's going to be an extra charge until **Speaker 4:** well you don't yeah because you don't know whether they're going to need extra cable in your house it's part of that same thing where they say we'll connect the first 400 feet 100 feet they're going **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** to charge it for is it online signature a form that we had to sign do you remember jeff here **Speaker 28:** we we got ours it was part of a packet that said you know won't be here this day these are the things that you have to be prepared for the kind of situation i had to go online and ask **Speaker 4:** the vd50 people to send me a copy of it because i signed up and i never got anything **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i didn't either but it is you know when they told me i had to have an extra line they said i could rent it from you but it's not enough that's for an extended that's a physical bonus remember we uh we voted to give money to this and it was supposed to go to people that can't afford it has anyone would you ever know if anybody used that i don't i don't want to know anybody's name i'm just saying if someone uses so far it has not been used okay so it's all in their **Speaker 4:** pot somewhere right they are sitting just sitting there okay seventy five hundred dollars okay i'm i don't remember whether we put a limit on it and ask for the balance we returned or not i don't think so i don't think so and i think they said they don't match you did ask for the balance and **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i don't know if you put a limit on it but we did ask for it on your balance okay okay but when you out there should know that that's available someone you know maybe at least you'll get in minutes but you know someone's out there saying boy i wish i could have that i can't afford that **Speaker 4:** there were the original plan as it was explained to me and to bob was that there would be outreach workers and i don't know how those people were going to identify those people who might need privacy and security i don't know how they're dealing with it theoretically they had trained people they talked about coming and training outreach workers here in town i've never heard anything **Speaker 5:** more about it that didn't sound like the original pitch but i don't remember her name but she came down here originally when she was before we even voted on the 7500 somebody came here and **Speaker 4:** i've just never seen it happen now the original consideration was that they weren't going to be concerned with that for the first few months as they were connecting people they didn't expect so far as i know in stamford they have not run into anybody they've only got one house that i know of they had a more than 400 foot conduit somebody don't make roads i you know out of personal knowledge i don't think that person would have ever asked for or qualified for being needy right you know the kind of perspective we asked for some money and you know when i explained to you at the time how i tried to calculate what might possibly be needed and i had to think about how many people have underground conduit to their home and might need help in all likelihood if they managed to lay conduit all the way to their house they are probably not needed but that wasn't my judgment to make right so i don't know and he laid conduit in and don't know but it hasn't come up to this point but i can make the point of asking again what they are doing with it and i'll be back um what else do **Speaker 24:** you have in their emergency management after that i've got a can of several cans of worms yes i'm **Speaker 4:** sure in the last two weeks relative to what dave was talking about we've had a couple of power auditors the first one that for some people was under a day and a half we're going close to a day and a half without a power the second one how long was yours oh it was one hour and a half. How long was yours? how long was it? how long was it? **Speaker 10:** It was well over two days, yeah, we were over two days without power, it was 48. **Speaker 4:** There were, the second one was about four hours from 10 in the morning. **Speaker 10:** That kept me awake. **Speaker 4:** There were people who were looking for, what's the town doing for them? Really expressing that they had need, that they wanted to know what was going on and what were we gonna do. And I threw this, I talked to Nancy and Mike at one point the afternoon of the large power outage. At that point, nobody had called 911, saying they had an emergency or were looking for help. We hadn't done really any further in talking about how to make a public announcement, if we were going to open the gymnasium. One person thought that we had a heated room in the firehouse, We don't really. The meeting room isn't really set up to receive people. We certainly could not feed them. And if it was something that was really busy and a lot of stuff going on with floods and trucks going back and forth, that isn't how you're going to keep them in the meeting room. If we open this community room as a shelter, it would only be a warming shelter. We don't qualify with Red Cross because we don't have showers. We don't have police, nor do we have any plans for keeping animals. You know, it's a fine line between opening it overnight for a warming shelter and once. You know, how big is the disaster going to be? If it's more than that, our actual kind of agreement with Berkshire County is to send our people to St. Elizabeth. They are geared for a large-scale sheltering project. They took on very generously on Tuesday at the library. To offer space from 10 to 5 in the library to the library. I didn't get to go back and ask Danielle how many people, you know, I don't know if anybody took advantage of it. If we're going to do something like this, I can't just ask the school or anybody else to just throw the room open. Who's going to come watch it? Who's going to care for it? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is this something the emergency management committee can work on? Or, I know... We'll get there. **Speaker 21:** We'll get there. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But we need people. We'll get there. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, we talked. I talked to you about this. And I volunteered that day that if you need something to babysit or whatever you want to call it, watch the room while it's open. You can sit on it to feed them or anything like that. Just to keep warm. That's fine. We have no problem having you call me at any time to come down. But there are going to be other times where my house might need attention. We need attention first. So, you know, we need a lot more than just me, you know. **Speaker 4:** There have been more than once that I left Joan sitting in the store without power for herself. While I was at the firehouse trying to, you know, coordinate a house being moved. **Speaker 5:** Was the school in action, though? The school was in session, right? What are you going to do with it? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's right. You've got kids there. **Speaker 16:** They don't like the public. **Speaker 5:** It's just really one of those things, again, that we always talk about, right? I know. I'm getting short of it. This is just the way I like it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But there is a sensitive area in some people's minds. I understand. If St. Elizabeth's, I guess they wouldn't necessarily be open if it's our, we could be having an emergency of flood and not them. I mean, there's more power. There's nothing going to happen. Right. **Speaker 5:** I mean. So what's the town going to do for me? The town's going to tell you that it drove to St. Elizabeth's, I guess. **Speaker 29:** But they're not open. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, if they're not open, like we said, this past one that we had in St. Elizabeth's we didn't have any problems at all. **Speaker 4:** We could have gone to the point of taking 20 boxcots and blankets out of the emergency trailer that's down in the fire, set them up in a community room. **Speaker 46:** Are the schools in session now? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well. Personally, I think you should have. I think it would be okay. Do you confine the kids to classrooms? Yes. That's what I would say. Look, you're not coming out with, if you want to keep the kids safe and put them in the **Speaker 46:** classroom. **Speaker 4:** You can confine the people who was still in session that they have to stay in the library or you put the cots up on the stage and that's it. We don't really have the facilities. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I want to bring my dog. And do you tell me to stay in the library? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The bottom line is this was something that if it's freezing out and you have 40 hours of cold and now these people, their houses are freezing and not because they want to just you know, feel, you know, talk with people. They need to come, they need to get out of their house. It's cold. You know, I reached out to my neighbors and told them, hey, if you need anything, you need to come out of the house because they haven't generated it. But if we have to, if someone calls 9-1-1 and says, you know, the house is too cold, I'm freezing, what do you do? Do you bring them, do you call the ambulance, bring them to the hospital, or do you bring them here and just keep them here? Well, they call the fire department. We have to respond. We have to respond to that. But also, no one calls 9-1-1. No one calls 9-1-1. No one calls 9-1-1. No one calls 9-1-1. But just seeing someone like, what's the problem going to do for me? **Speaker 47:** I'm not really an emergency. **Speaker 5:** No, but we've had this discussion twice now. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We had one where it was a snowstorm. That one there, we had this much snow. Yeah. **Speaker 4:** And then we, you know, looked at the situation of if we opened the school and people came here to get warm, we'll be getting into their cars. And how are we going to keep them from going through this traffic? It's a complicated thing. One of the things that they're doing to address this kind of situation in North Adams is they are trying to activate something called CERT. CERT is nationwide, it's a community emergency response team program. You can look online, CERT with periods to show it's an abbreviation. And there's a whole program and it has a lot of different things that it addresses. I don't know where we get the people from. The same, you know, problem that I've got, who's going to babysit in the gym? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because we can't expect the firemen to do it. Right. They're already handling whatever emergency is that comes up. **Speaker 4:** And we'll get around to that in a minute, too. I told you, once we got a can of worms, is that enough? **Speaker 40:** It's just so hard for little rural towns like this to evolve. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do we need to say, we need help, we need people to form a group? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yes. **Speaker 21:** We need help. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I do like that we told people, you know, have like a neighborhood watch type thing where you just get out there and just tell your neighborhoods, look at it. John was right next to me. It's banned. He was right across the street. He didn't help. Me and John were on the other hand, you know, with no problem. Although he's trying to help us because he's so stubborn. But nevertheless, I did reach out to people in the neighborhood. If everybody could do that, it really would help. And that's the old fashioned way to do it. **Speaker 4:** You know, 20 years ago, our ultimate emergency response effort was if the power was out and communications were out, we would send every fire engine that had a public address system up and down every street in town to tell them the school was open. That's a lot of work. Pushing. Well, yeah, but that's pushed to the limit of what you can do. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Lisa. **Speaker 40:** Yeah. **Speaker 6:** I just was thinking of something Betsy said that we used to have town, neighborhood captains. Did that like disintegrate? Because I feel like we had a by neighborhood by neighborhood thing. **Speaker 32:** I think it did. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It felt hard. **Speaker 6:** Because like Betsy and Tammy and we're all up sportsmen. Like if you have areas that can all check on each other, at least, I don't know, some kind of like when I was teaching, we had snow chains that you called everybody. **Speaker 4:** Yeah. Once upon a time when we first got the equipment from the Red Cross, these cots and blankets and things, five, six, seven of us went to a program that the Red Cross put on. And I think Nancy went. John and I went. How about those people who weren't with us anymore? She was. Rose Marie. Rose Marie Curran. And the understanding was if we had an emergency, these were the people who were trained or expected that we would. Get in touch with people. Get in touch with people. And a year or so ago, a couple people got together with me and we went through and we inventoryed the trailer to see what kind of people were going to come and do their job. And then we went through and we went through and we had a few people come in and see what they were doing. to see what kind of condition it was working in and what kind of things we might consider needing or adding to it. A couple of chairs so that once you set the pop-up tent that has walls and such, that there's a range of emergencies that you might have to deal with or anything from radioactive material that was spilled on the road and you're going to isolate and decontaminate people as they come in before you let them in the building. It's been a long time. All we know is about that kind of question. **Speaker 5:** This is where we need a community center, right? It has a kitchen in it, a bathroom, a place where people hang out, have a healthy... That's what makes it manage it. **Speaker 23:** Take care of it. At this time, it's the closest thing we have to that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We still have a bathroom in it. **Speaker 10:** Does it have to be a municipal building? I mean, can we coordinate with the church? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We could. That's what St. Elizabeth's does. **Speaker 10:** Right, but I mean, the Stamford church. They have a kitchen, they have a great room downstairs. **Speaker 4:** I'm going to push one more thing. And I'm asking you not to send out any letters to anyone from emergency management director or emergency management coordinator because I don't intend to take an appointment. I've done this for close on to 40 years. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've had a lot of considerations over the last couple of years or such. I don't have the strength to really respond very well with the fire department. I don't have the strength to stay up for 12 or 14 hours to help supervise something here. I'm leaning on and depending on 40 years of experience, both as a firefighter and as an emergency responder and all the education that we took, which goes back to Yankee Road, we've got to find somebody new to pick this up. And I'd be happy to sit with a group of you with an executive session at the point that you have some candidates. I have some feelings about it and some of the things that we've got to talk to. In the next couple of weeks, we've got to come up and re-sign our emergency response plan. Right now, Nancy, perhaps Doug, are the only people I know of, who have taken an ICS course, Incident Command System course, to have the authority and qualification to sign that. I've talked to the Senate Board over the past two years about taking a three-hour online course for IC100. There's a MIMS course that runs closer to 400. The difference, ICS is Incident Command. It's for the local activity that's happening, responding to an immediate, urgent emergency, and it's the kind of thing that's broken down to operations like the fire department, who's doing it, who's planning for it as to what we're going to do, logistics of who's going to bring food and a pizza and whatever, and an accounting and financial arm of it. Underneath the incident commander is a public information officer, which we don't have, but we ought to have for somebody, appoint somebody to speak for the town. You certainly don't want three or four different people speaking to the town in an incident of an emergency. We start to go beyond telling people in town, out of the minutes, and whatever that would have been for emergency management personnel. I will bring it up next Monday at the firehouse at the monthly meeting. It's always served me well to have the kind of communication and relationship that I have with the fire department, because, in fact, they're the first responders. They're the people we're going to lean on. This community emergency response program is something that you don't have to go to a national thing and national standards, but the idea of having a group of people in town who feel they're able and willing to come and help with that kind of situation is something we want to pursue. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Did you, is this the first you've talked to anybody where you would, have you mentioned it to anybody in a fire department? No. So you don't have a person in mind or anything like that? I wouldn't try to bring somebody's name up here **Speaker 4:** without having talked to them. As a courtesy, because she's worked with me for years, I talked to Sheila Lawrence over what I was going to do. You know, our first response was, does that mean I've got to step up and, you know, take this? And, you know, those she's interested and she travels with me for some of the training and meetings. She says, you know, I don't mind traveling locally, but I'm not going to be able to go anywhere for distance. She doesn't have the help to take on this kind of thing. And over the years, with her responsibilities and her children and her children, her grandchildren, have gone to doing any of these training courses. So she's not prepared to take that on this right now. So I'm not happy with dumping this on you, but this is the place and the time to do it. **Speaker 5:** Thanks, Bill. Your level of dedication will be impossible to replace. **Speaker 4:** I mean, I don't mind spending as much time over the next few, you know, several months or, you know, whoever wants to take on the job. Apprenticeship? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** An apprenticeship? Well, a mentorship. As I mean, you want to do it now, you don't want to wait. You want to wait and wait, and then we're in big trouble. Yes. **Speaker 20:** It's a gun. It's a person's job. **Speaker 48:** It's a lot of work. **Speaker 17:** Doesn't FEMA set up things like this for towns and cities? They have coursework. They have offensive forces online. The problem is personnel. **Speaker 40:** That's the problem. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They don't come here right away, either. **Speaker 17:** Oh, no, I'm just thinking for a long-range plan. If people are the biggest thing, they have to make a plan. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Wouldn't that be a good resource? You know, we've gone down this conversation of every position in this town, whether it was a board member on the zoning board or the, what do they call it, people who do the listers. The listers. Every board, every department we talk about, the age, average age is way up here that we don't have this new group. I hate to pick on the younger generation, but we don't see all this stuff. **Speaker 37:** Yeah, they got to find somebody else. **Speaker 4:** I mean, there's a state office of emergency. I mean, there's a state office of emergency. There's a state office of emergency. I mean, there's a state office of operations, you know, and that's my ultimate fallback. Worst case is I've got a number for the state watch officer. There's somebody who either carries a page or is on duty 24-7 who can marshal, who else, whether it's National Guard, depending, you know, how severe it is for them. **Speaker 5:** This is one of those positions in town that needs to be fairly dedicated to them. I sure do. It's not just, I mean, there's so many. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know, we've been talking about . . . All the volunteer fire departments, that exact same thing I just said, that age is going this way. It's not, there's not that . . . When I was young, all our fathers said, come on, get, join the fire department. We had a waiting list. **Speaker 4:** I think the average firefighter age right now is about 57. **Speaker 5:** In this town? Of course. Well, schools don't teach anything like civics or, you know, athletics, anything like that anymore. You're still in classes, right? Yeah. Someone understands. I mean, seriously. I don't remember the function. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I was on a fire department. I bought a house in North Adams. They politely shook my hand and said, thank you for your service, but we have to step down. You don't live in town, and there's a waiting list for people to get out. There was 40 members on that department. We're happy that more than a third of our current firefighters do not live in Stamford yet. We'd be happy. And all the volunteer departments have opened the doors to anybody. Like, what if they're real? **Speaker 5:** Like, come on in. I mean, I'll focus on society. It's probably really more about just joining the rat race and trying to get ahead rather than taking a little time for civic duty or anything like that. Not here, because, you know. **Speaker 4:** So anytime that you want to sit down as a group or individually, I'd be happy to discuss it in, you know, points and directions. In the interim, if you go online and look for NIMS, N-I-M-S, or I-C-S. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well. All right. I don't know that for sure, I guess. I keep saying, I keep saying I want to do this, and then I kind of forget in a week or two. I mean, I have no problems going online and doing it. **Speaker 4:** Well, that's why I, you know, want to, that's why I'd like to talk to you, kind of an executive session, once we see who might be interested. Because I've had people over the past couple of years who have said, yeah, yeah, meet me. I want to be involved in the emergency management. Fine. The next meeting is, you know, three weeks from now. Great. Yeah, I'll be there. And I booked up and I found out about the course, and I'll be there for the training, and that was the last time I heard from them. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So the big thing is, we need help. We need some volunteers that can help set this up. Let us know. Yeah. Because there, I mean, we've had three of these incidents now. **Speaker 4:** Yes. You know, at the fire department, and, you know, if we hadn't had Dave come, and cut a tree, we wouldn't have, we might have gotten one pickup truck up to that chimney fire. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We never would have gotten a fire truck there. So what happens, you know, that incident, what happens to the power company? They shut the power off, they didn't go there. Now you've got a fire up there, now what do you do? **Speaker 46:** Burns. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. You know what I'm saying? It's not a game. This is, what's the next step that they don't show up at all, you know? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They can go four wheel or whatever. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We have to send them that letter. **Speaker 4:** I can't go up there with, you know, the 10 gallon back pass. Right. **Speaker 10:** Yeah, if, I know you can't have worms, I'm opening up more. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** She needs to go fishing, she needs to go fishing. **Speaker 10:** Oh, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Mill Road, of course, seems to be the issue in a lot of these emergencies, because there's only one way in, and one way out, at least, unless it's the dry part of the summer. Are we going to address that this year? Is that something we can bring to the forefront on access out of that way for? **Speaker 5:** We gave back all the access. **Speaker 4:** Well, we have, you know, just as a point of fact, this one chimney fire, when the tree was down at Henry Hill, the response was, okay, we'll go the long way and over Clonbeck, and they said, oh, but there's a tree down across the road at Steve Mullock's house, so we aren't going to get through there either. **Speaker 49:** Okay, sure. **Speaker 4:** I mean, we have some backup direction of access, **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but there's Lincoln Road, Sumner Road, Yeah. Leisure Road, Boulder Road, they're all been in the right road. **Speaker 50:** Yeah, that's true. **Speaker 1:** That's true, Facial Road. Mm-hmm. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know, to get people, to save people, and get them out, you can use, you know, ATVs and stuff, but to actually put a fire out and get them out, it's not easy to put a house fire out, **Speaker 4:** where, you know, of course they won't. At your convenience, if you want to have another meeting on the side, outside of a public meeting, I'd be happy to come. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But just, Well, we need people. **Speaker 51:** Well, we need people. **Speaker 4:** We need to fill issues, that's the most important part. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, we need somebody to volunteer for that. **Speaker 5:** Just one view for a second, hopefully beyond all our lifetimes, but Mill Road itself should be a conversation and why we gave back, why we gave back some roads, right-of-ways and stuff. I wish I was paying more attention on that. It's crazy beyond me what we gave someone back. **Speaker 4:** As a by-the-way pass, and I think Nancy and Lauren both got copies, there is a webinar at 2 p.m. on Monday the 25th about the emergency management plan that we have to sign off for for the town, and they're going to talk about those things. **Speaker 24:** Oh, with Dara Zink? **Speaker 4:** I'm sorry? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** With Dara Zink? **Speaker 4:** I think Dara sent out the note. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is that the one she's having some public hearing, or it's got to be a public hearing? **Speaker 4:** Oh, no, that's hazard mitigation. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's the one I got. That's the one I was thinking of, too. Okay, what was this one? **Speaker 4:** This is, maybe it came to me for emergency management. I'll have to see who sent it. This is a webinar that I think the L.C. T. is putting on, or else Vermont Emergency Management is putting on, as to what should go into your emergency management plan, your local emergency. Okay, I'll go back to you, and then I'll get back to you. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, a lot to think about. Big letters, Laurie, in the minutes. We need help, especially. Anything else, emergency management guys? **Speaker 4:** I think that was enough on me. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Result of town meeting. I think it was very well handled, very calm, a little bit confusing with the school part and voting and that, but yeah. **Speaker 38:** I think I got up and locked it, and it was safer. **Speaker 5:** I thought it ran pretty smooth. One thing I wish is there was a lot more people on some topics that had their hands up, so I wish I had a chance to say whatever it is they had to say. I hear sometimes we cut things short just **Speaker 47:** because we're watching the clock and trying to get out of there. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No. Everybody said, move the question. I voted no, and everybody looked at me like, what are you doing voting no? It wasn't that I was voting no on the issue. I didn't want to move the question because people had their hands up. So I understood that once you did it. And I was the only guy, everybody's like, what are you doing, and I'm like, let's give Carol. Oh, I think you did a great job. **Speaker 4:** You did, because it really does take a lot to pay attention to the conversation, to watch all the hands, and some of them that are eight rows back, and I've certainly taken enough advice in the past where I said, okay, let's go on to the motion, and somebody says, wait, you missed this person, that person. So it's something to probably discuss with Paul and tell him to look at it more carefully. **Speaker 46:** I mean, I thought he did a great job. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** He did an excellent job for the first time, don't I? I'm not nodding to him at all. I wish that people, unlike you, I wish people understood the process. When they say, move the question, and everybody's like, ah, that's, we're not voting on the question. There's three people out there with their hands up. Slow down. So we can get out of that 9.30 instead of 9, so what? Slow down. **Speaker 4:** I wish people knew that until 10.30. **Speaker 10:** Yeah. I looked into that, the statutes and everything, and actually after a question has been moved, as long as you haven't moved on to the next question, the next topic, you can bring it, you can reconsider it. And I think, had I known that before, I would have asked to reconsider what just happened. **Speaker 4:** In fairness, this used to be stated at the beginning of each town meeting, and that's experience, and I didn't go to the webinar for a lot of years. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, Paul, Laurie, and I sat here, and I said, wow, all the things you can do under a motion, and stuff, there was a whole page of the terminology, and I think, wow, we've never, never done that before. Move the question, reconsider, table, language, **Speaker 15:** and everything. **Speaker 5:** I thought you had it all, you had it all in there. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sure. **Speaker 16:** Yeah, but you have to. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But maybe, I think maybe next year, if we set it up different, that we could see everybody, because I couldn't see everybody where I was sitting. **Speaker 21:** Well, you don't. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, you were. You were a long way today. Yes. A mind spot on him. Yeah, I didn't see you. He's got a hand up. **Speaker 5:** There were several people. One of the other, I mean, people had a lot of questions about the speed radar signs as well. Right. Yeah, for sure. **Speaker 4:** We probably ought to explain to people if you think you're being passed over, stand up and say something. Shout it. Right then and there. Shout it. Point of order. I haven't finished. You didn't come around me yet. Right. That's not easy for some people to do, but. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Or, you know, if they spoke once, okay. I understand what he was trying to do. You speak once, but not this back and forth with you talking to you and the audience. And that he seemed to keep control of. **Speaker 10:** And are people allowed to actually stand up and speak at a podium? No. That was there. That was, that almost spoke with authority. And out of place. Right. In the presentation? Yeah. **Speaker 4:** I didn't really. He had no right to a presentation. He had no right to a podium. And Paul didn't have enough experience to tell him, talk from the floor, here's a microphone. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think Paul was just taking the back because I looked back at him a little. **Speaker 29:** He just walked up. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So I can't, I have to use the podium. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But in the past, anyone that wanted to talk, they usually come up front, but now we have the microphones going around. But people could come up front, not behind the table or not at the podium, but they stood in front of the podium. **Speaker 28:** I don't think it will ever happen again on Paul's walk. Why not have like a separate podium for people asking questions that they can go up to if they have the paperwork? It's like in the down, like in the middle of the, you know, the runway kind of idea. Because then, the runway, you know, the walkway. You've got your notes and then it's just faster than trying to send more, you know, here and there and everywhere else. **Speaker 39:** And also people just get. They didn't want to run out and they didn't want to use it. Right. And some people don't want to speak in the mic either. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Exactly. Even if you bring it to them. **Speaker 25:** Even if they're standing up at the front and there's not a mic, they're more visible. It's not like they're speaking from the back. **Speaker 6:** And they can queue up also. Like correct. Like get behind him and buy the question. **Speaker 32:** Yes. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's hard to hear. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I mean, that's one good thing they do at the school board meetings. They, if you're a visitor, you get up, you go up to the podium and you talk. You don't talk in the audience like that. **Speaker 25:** We did that in the COVID year when it was out in the tent. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We did that, too. Yeah. **Speaker 25:** Because it was hard to hear outside. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. They won't have that back and forth. They can't. You can't let that start. Right. Because you, it's impossible to pull it back in again. **Speaker 4:** Yeah. That's all I do. I mean, falls in state at one point at least, **Speaker 20:** if not more than twice, whatever conversation you have **Speaker 39:** is directed to me as the moderator. **Speaker 4:** Right. Yes. Yep. Yep. That was good. So we try and limit some of this back and forth kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. **Speaker 10:** And it happened . It happened. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So I think I saw the **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I've seen zip tie. **Speaker 10:** I don't know. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And then I saw the numbers of the voters versus the active voters. So this, what was it, seven-something? That's actually down to six-something, since active voters. So that brings your percentage up to almost 60%. 60%, you don't get that in any town, ever. I mean, that's amazing. **Speaker 5:** I think it's the presidential priming plus the races that we have. It's just a testimony of people getting the vote. I would say it's a select board race that chose to vote because there was less people that voted for president. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. So it's a select board race that chose to vote. I tell you, this town should be, just be proud of everybody involved. That was awesome to see that. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Next item, sign extension denial. Okay. We went back to, this is about the sign itself. We went back to the DBA. And asked for a waiver, no, a variance in January. They denied the variance. And they sent the board a letter saying that we had to remove the sign by January 28th. And then they came back in February and said, well, we backed off again. We asked the board that we wanted to investigate something. Oh, we wanted to go. We asked the board that we wanted to go to the Judicial Bureau. Yep. Or something. And I started filling out the paperwork. **Speaker 14:** Oh, the Environmental Court. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And it was, yeah. But it cost us a lot of money, a lot of paperwork. And we didn't have what really they liked to stand on because the ZBA followed their rules. So. **Speaker 5:** Where are we going to put the sign? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So anyway, the ZBA said they will uphold the decision to remove the sign by January 28th. 2024. And they copied this letter and sent it to Deb as the Administrative Officer. I saw it. **Speaker 52:** So. **Speaker 1:** I got it. **Speaker 4:** There we are. This is a second letter in response from asking for an extension of the date? **Speaker 53:** Yes. **Speaker 4:** And they said no? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Correct. **Speaker 5:** Correct. Yeah, I think we burnt all versions as far as the sign goes. **Speaker 10:** Well, I have a question. It's not the same. I know that the select board can. No. They can make a change to the bylaws removing the compliance with municipalities for certain bylaws. So we talked about this way in the beginning. Why can't we take, unscrew the sign, take the panel down. **Speaker 54:** Change the bylaw. **Speaker 10:** Change the bylaw. Put it back up. Put it back up. I mean, have we looked at that? Is that just so simple crazy? I know we've talked about it a lot. **Speaker 12:** Yeah. **Speaker 10:** Jeff? I think it's going to be. I think we definitely need to have a municipal rule because it's just this sign. **Speaker 28:** But then what other signs that are. The church. It can be continued on. Yeah. And if we want to keep our town together, it will become this person's attacking this person kind of situation. So I think we do need a municipal kind of like plus sign. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like plus if you're going to say the letters have to be this high. There's no way you're ever going to have another sign that's going to be 12 square square feet. It's going to be bigger. Right. It's got to be bigger. Yes. So these things need to be done. We need to kind of catch up with the times, and I think it's just, it's something that needs to happen. **Speaker 5:** The other 50% of the town. I mean, I agree with what we want should be exempt from the. **Speaker 10:** That's what I'm seeing. **Speaker 14:** Take it down. **Speaker 10:** process over. And the challenge that I had is, you know, the footprint is, so if you take the sign off, do you still, are the posts considered the footprint? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I mentioned that, and I thought you actually said yes. **Speaker 10:** Well, I did, and then I looked into it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And that's what I don't want, I don't want to give that deep into this. **Speaker 10:** I looked deeper into it, and, you know, again, my God, you can talk to so many people in the government, and you're going to get variations of opinions. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think you did, Deb, because BCRC said, you need a permit. **Speaker 10:** Okay, and so did the PLCT. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right, and then BCRC said, now what's the footprint? I mean, they're telling you one thing right in the beginning, and now they're changing. It's like two lawyers, two different opinions. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Exactly. **Speaker 29:** I agree that it should come down to that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If this was not a municipality, it was a private business or whatever, and they were in violation, and they were ordered to take it down on a date, and pass that date now, what would your job be to do that? **Speaker 10:** I've never had to do this, so I need to figure that out. I can, I know that I have to send a letter. I have to send a letter, and then it finds. And then it's, I mean, I'm sure Ron had to do it. **Speaker 55:** There's a lot of letters in the catalog. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There are letters, yep. So there could be a. There's a fine, you have to fine yourself. Right, so now we find the town, the town finds the town. The town finds the town. Let's just say it's a hundred bucks, and the town pays the town a hundred dollars, and then the hundred dollars goes back into the town through that board, back into this, and that, so this is, this is silliness. Isn't that the latest one? It is. If the ultimate goal. Mm-hmm. If the ultimate goal. If the ultimate goal is, and this is where, I know people don't like the sign, that's not the issue. Right. Like I said, add some more stuff, say in school, in town hall, and we can add to it, then it's better not to take it down. If we take this down, and we never change the bylaws, that means, I agree with you, we will never, ever have another sign. We can't. Mm-hmm. What a shame, okay? That's a shame. **Speaker 10:** Well, we can, we can have a little sign, and it's gotta go back. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But then it's a safety hazard. Yeah. Then it's a safety hazard, so we can't. I literally went through this with my shop in North Adams. So, I have a little sign over my door that says, Deerfield Machine and Pool. It's a lot of letters, and it's this big, because it wouldn't let me have a big sign. Right. I mean, I spoke a gun, but I spoke a gun with no permits, but I had this little sign, that's beside the point. You can't see it, nobody knows, it doesn't really affect me, but it does in school. But if the ultimate goal is to take it down, change the bylaws, put it back up, and the words of my good friend, Dave Pedro, that's silly. **Speaker 56:** It is silly. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's silly, right? If that's the case, and we're not getting fined, and we, why don't we take it down, just change the bylaws? **Speaker 10:** Well, I, I agree with you. I, I follow your logic. I'm just saying to try to appease both sides. **Speaker 23:** So, we're not gonna... **Speaker 25:** Could you appease both sides? No, they didn't take it down, so they're getting fined. **Speaker 10:** I'm just, I just don't want to hear that again, Mike. The biggest argument was that the town should be held to the standard that everybody else... We did it. So, well, then, then we should not just leave it up, and if... I get it. Take it down, change the standards, put it back up. **Speaker 13:** It's a few bullets. **Speaker 5:** Basically. I don't think so. **Speaker 10:** We're not exempt at all. No, we're not. **Speaker 54:** No. But... **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We should be. Most municipalities are. Most of them. Most of them. Yes. **Speaker 57:** And that's... **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's what I'm trying to make. It's like a 50-50. That's why Mass MoCA was an entity of the city. They're not owned by anybody else. The city owns them. It's an institution... Okay, that's... ...owned by anybody in the city, exempt from the rules. Yeah. Because I looked into it. I'm like, you guys just put up signs that are figuring it in my building. Yeah. They're exempt. Right. So, we're not exempt. We're not exempt. **Speaker 56:** We're not exempt. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We're not exempt. We're not exempt. We're not exempt. Right. So, same thing here. Most municipalities are exempt from bylaws. From all kinds of laws. Right. Exactly. All kinds of laws. **Speaker 10:** I just think if you leave it up and change the bylaws while the sign is left up, you're going to hear that same drumbeat over and over. Right. **Speaker 56:** Right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, we take... **Speaker 21:** I don't know. **Speaker 14:** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It is silly. **Speaker 16:** It's stupid. **Speaker 5:** Let me avoid the drumbeat either way. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is it bolted on there? **Speaker 5:** It's not. We're not going to... I don't know. I don't know how... I think it's just bolted on. I think it's bolted on. **Speaker 10:** Well, Kurt, what would be your solution? I'm serious. There isn't really a solution to this. Well, there's two solutions. **Speaker 5:** We either change the bylaws or we take the sign down. Those are the two solutions. But I'm saying you can do both. And you can put it back up. So, let's look at it like this. Nevertheless, whether we go with your path or we take the sign down, either way, the **Speaker 13:** sign's got to come down for at least some time. **Speaker 10:** Yeah. We could... Correct? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We could... We have a meeting, I think, we're trying to get to. We're trying to get to that. We're trying to get to that. Why? Because... Either you've got to take the down... In order to change your bylaw? What? This is what I'm saying. **Speaker 10:** Change the bylaw of the sign down? That's what it... It doesn't look right. I'm not. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It doesn't look right. **Speaker 10:** Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It doesn't look right. It doesn't look right. Yeah. It doesn't look right. **Speaker 10:** It doesn't look right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It looks like we're trying to get away with that. We've got 100 something to take down. We can... **Speaker 23:** No, you don't have to hunt. **Speaker 58:** No. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We can't... **Speaker 39:** We can't... **Speaker 23:** We can take it down. We can do it... We can? We can do it. **Speaker 59:** Oh, no. **Speaker 60:** I will come down with my tools and take it down. **Speaker 10:** Yes, we all have tools, many of us in town have lots of tools. **Speaker 5:** We've got to have a place to store the sign and then we've got to hire somebody to put the sign down. **Speaker 10:** No, we don't have to hire anybody. It's called volunteerism. We can put the sign right here and store it. **Speaker 17:** I hear you. The sign should be stored right where it is before we change the bylaws. **Speaker 10:** I've had a tough time taking it down. I am too. I think it's... **Speaker 18:** I hear what you're saying. **Speaker 10:** I almost resigned over this because I'm like, I'm not going to enforce this. It's crazy. **Speaker 61:** Bill. **Speaker 4:** Town bylaws were put in place by the town. I have a special town meeting. Ask for permission to exempt municipal signs retroactively. By the vote of the town, since the town established the laws, the town should be able to bypass the laws. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't agree with that process because we're stepping on the toes of the planning commission. The planning commission does the plans first and then it goes to the public hearing and then it goes select board. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, here's what I think though is, I think the planning commission did their job. I have nothing to say bad about them. They did their job. Okay? What Bill's saying is this board has the authority to change a bylaw. You do. This board. We voted that bylaws in. We did. We asked the zoning board for their input. It's that many days, years, months, whatever. And they gave us their recommendation. But we ultimately are the ones that voted it in. Now we did have towns. We had to post it for the town. Public hearing? Public hearing. If we change the bylaws, like Doug said, do we have to have that public hearing? **Speaker 10:** I'm not sure for individuals. I think if you're going to do a sweeping change with a bylaw. But, Lori, do you know? Like, certain, does it have to be? **Speaker 1:** I think it should. I mean, the process is the process. **Speaker 62:** Did you have a question? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I personally think, you know, we all know where this all went. But I think the select board did their due diligence by following the rules. The zoning board, same thing. They followed the rules. Deb's followed the rules. If the rules are followed, if we have to take it down, so be it. But I just think, and Dave said, what's in the best interest for this town? A sign or no sign? Now, if we were to take a vote right now, seriously, don't worry about whether or not you like the sign or not. What's in the best interest of this town? Should we have a sign or shouldn't we? We should have a sign. Anybody think we shouldn't have a sign? No. And if I was at a town meeting and I said, is there anyone, don't be a smart ass, is there anyone out there that think we shouldn't have a sign on our town hall and school? And I doubt very much you'd have one or two people just be wise guys and go, yeah, we shouldn't have a sign. But ultimately, 99% of the people would say, we should have a sign. How do we get that sign? If we take this sign down and we follow the rules, we'll never have a sign. We can't put the old sign up. That's a violation. We can't ever have a sign. So where do we go from here? We have to change the violence. We must. **Speaker 41:** Or get rid of the sign. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's not in the best interest of the town. I'm just saying all the other choices. **Speaker 18:** Does the sign have to be here? Aren't there other locations that would be compatible? Imagine that, though. Weird. **Speaker 63:** Where do you think you could put the sign? **Speaker 18:** I don't know. That's what I'm asking. **Speaker 64:** It's not in compliance, regardless of where we put it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The sign's too big. What do you mean, though? **Speaker 29:** Put it down like a . . . **Speaker 21:** Oh, because it just says Stamford? Stamford or whatever even? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** When you say it had to be, where do you want the sign to be, though? **Speaker 18:** That's what I'm asking. Are there other locations that we could possibly put it? On this property? Not necessarily on this property. Somewhere else in town. **Speaker 23:** No, that's . . . It's too big. Right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's too big. Any place. No matter what. And that sign just says . . . Okay. But let's just say we could. That sign could go down on . . . Say we could. What do we do here when people drive by and say, where's the school? Where's the town hall? Where's the library? Where do I check my gear at? You know, that's the problem is we need a sign out there. We've had many people stop and go, we don't know. That's one of the complaints about that sign. I agree with that. I do, too. The sign's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big. The sign is not fulfilled. It needs more to it. And we can't have it now. I want to have it . . . A bigger one. Put more stuff on it. But the bottom line is in the best interest of the town, if someone's driving by and they want to stop . . . We've always got an appointment with a lawyer and he drives by because he doesn't know where it is. You know? You can't always count on two people. GPS, we should be able to have a sign out there that says this is what we have. We should be proud of this town and proud of this building and say this is where we're at. That's my opinion. I mean, this is not, like, if we wanna vote on something, you know, we wanna make a motion to vote on it, we can. That's the thing, this board is stronger than you think. We tell Dave all the time, you're not gonna make everybody happy. No, we're not gonna make everybody happy on this issue. **Speaker 5:** I wanna follow the rules. I don't agree that everything that comes around should go to the town vote. I mean, the town had a vote three days ago and the five of us are here. Right. That was the vote for some things. And there's some things that need to go to a town vote. I just don't know if this needs to go through a public hearing process. I wanna follow the letter of law to do it. **Speaker 65:** If someone didn't know my letter of law, **Speaker 17:** we wouldn't be having this issue. **Speaker 5:** Correct. This whole idea that everything needs to go to a town vote. Yeah. Is ridiculous. This, the part being, Ali, Ali. The part being, what you just said is that the spirit behind this whole signed thing is ill nature, all right. It's all a personal vendetta that the town's been dealing with for a year now, that substantial financial trauma. Well, it became that, can I just say that? **Speaker 25:** It became that after the fact. Well, let me show you an example. Because it was done with the spirit of volunteerism. It was done with the committee, and I wasn't part of this committee, but I know people who are in the committee, and it was done with the spirit of volunteerism. It was done with the committee. I know people who were, that went to the authority and were told by the authority in town that they did not need a permit. There were meetings after meetings after meetings about the sign, the design of the sign. This all didn't happen until after the sign was in, planted, et cetera. Correct. So the ill will came afterwards. **Speaker 66:** Right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, yeah. But let me show you a good example. That, do I need a permit for the benches out there? For the benches? Did they put up? No. Okay. So now let's keep going now. Did you put that in writing? **Speaker 56:** Oh, there you go. **Speaker 10:** See what just happened? No, no. I had to do this recently. So that's what happened when this DM signed me. Yes. Less than a guy. Yes. He said no, and they moved on. They moved on. That's what happened. That is what happened. So if the, I don't believe anybody's lying. It wouldn't make sense. Oh, no. I don't think so. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So when someone says, well, he never said that. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. They're all right. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. My son said no because they moved in. Oh, my God. So that's what happened. And this is where we're at because a man that doesn't even work here anymore, which I'd love to bring him in here and ask him, did you see. Did you actually say no. They don't meet us. If he did, then why are we going through this? And two months later, the state comes down. We're gonna go behind him and stand behind him. He works for us. The same thing with Ryan. When he did this, we stood behind, we should stand right behind this decision. He said, no, you didn't need it. To come out later on is craziness. It's crazy. And to take the sign down forever is crazy. That's my opinion. And there's a lot of people that I know are gonna be mad at me for that. **Speaker 41:** If it's been some volcano worms, **Speaker 5:** we should have never touched. Right. It's just state and personal vendettas that could go on forever. There's been so many permit violations in this town. It's ridiculous to go down this road. And we shouldn't go down that road. **Speaker 28:** I think we do have to at least take it down and then change the rules. Because if we just change the rules and don't take it down, then it can be considered we are like, you know, it's just, we're taking care of ourselves versus- We've gone down this road so deep now and now we'll keep going. It just, it just seems like it would be the one thing that could make everyone say, okay, it is now complete. And then change the rules, put it back up, and then everything from there on in, nobody can say anything about anything. Because you did what they wanted you to do. **Speaker 17:** Well, we just changed the rules. So 50% of the town is gonna be bridge set. Oh, it's still gonna be bridge set. **Speaker 28:** Right. I mean, everyone's, but at least you can curb some of it because it's been done. **Speaker 22:** Oh, and you can help them. **Speaker 2:** And it's just a- What's up? **Speaker 67:** Do I have a hard time? **Speaker 18:** Nevertheless, nevertheless, this is gonna give us- **Speaker 2:** I'm good, I got my little refill of the- Whatever. Do you need more? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** In a minute. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But at least the hard thing is that we didn't follow the rules. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Okay. And I don't even care what it was. That's not the point anymore to me. The point is, I'm gonna keep saying it. What's in the best interest of the town? If we have to go down that road, we've already gone, I'll tell you, Jed, you've seen it, we've been locked. Six months now, a year, I don't know. It's insane. I'm like you, I'm getting a headache over something **Speaker 68:** that we shouldn't be a headache. **Speaker 25:** Maybe at the end of the meeting, we can go and see how many bolts there are and how possible it is to- Okay, so we take the sign down and the folks still stand up? **Speaker 69:** Seven months after this. **Speaker 28:** Because they're saying, take the sign down. They're not saying, take the uprights down, they're taking the sign down. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't think we should bring that can of worms up even though it's in a minute. Just take the damn sign down. Lori, turn off the- **Speaker 68:** Let them send us a, well, let them send us a letter saying, **Speaker 6:** well, do we have a post rule in town? I mean, no. You don't want a rule in the world? **Speaker 18:** No. **Speaker 68:** You don't want a ruling thing. **Speaker 18:** You don't want a free footing. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You want me to take this- **Speaker 4:** If you take the sign down, I will put a flag on those remaining posts. Right, it's a good point. And they will be flagpoles. **Speaker 70:** Oh, good idea. **Speaker 17:** There you go. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Good idea. **Speaker 17:** Excellent. Well, I haven't let them bitch about it. But do you need a perfect word? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** For what? I am not saying word. Oh, dang. **Speaker 71:** Yes. **Speaker 18:** Why don't we just make it a little better? Why don't we just make it a little better? **Speaker 10:** Because that's what this is all about. Put the letters on the back. There you go. Do you want to sign the letter S? Yes. I'm trying to read. Well. All right. **Speaker 1:** Oh my God. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So what are we doing? If we have to take it down, everybody agree with that patient number? Yes. **Speaker 21:** So we make the motion, take the sign down. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Where are we going to put it? Exactly. Well, let's- Discussion. Where are we going first? If we take it down, first of all, who takes it down? Is there, is there, I'm looking right at them. Yeah. **Speaker 29:** Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Is it, is it, I think it's more, it's like multiple panels. I don't think it's one big sign. I'm not positive. I think there's like- I think there's like some bolted from the footings. Oh, can you? Can you? Yeah, it's got a steel frame. Yeah, bolted from the foot. Oh, look at that. I'll help if we need to. Because I think that the increase will be down before it's Easter. I think we should just put the board on the back side and call it a bench, first of all. **Speaker 10:** There you go. **Speaker 72:** There you go. **Speaker 20:** I like that. I don't know why that should be such a big deal. On the back side of the bench that says Stamford to run. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, you can redesign it. **Speaker 20:** That's not a good idea. Okay, well, I'm going to build a bench sign. I tried a way to beat you guys. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's okay. Give us a break here. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. When you build a bench, the sign will be down. **Speaker 41:** It's still 35 feet from the center. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, so let's just say we got game down, okay? And you're right. Where do we put it? Okay, so I don't know where we're going to put it. We have already given permission for one sign to go into a private home, which I was not very, I'm not big into that. There's another whole discussion about putting town things on private property. We're going to have to get in trouble down the road. Do we have a storage? Yeah, where do we put our stuff? Well. We don't. We don't even have a storage for our historical stuff right now. It's in the closet. And the janitor's room. **Speaker 73:** I can barely get into my little filing tent over there. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't care where we put the . I mean, yeah, I don't care where we put it. Let's try not to ruin it. **Speaker 10:** Well, you guys, you can't kind of leave it outside. Okay, you can leave it outside. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's outside now? Right. That's true. **Speaker 10:** Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We could bring it back here and put it on the bench. **Speaker 10:** Put it up against the building. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Still too big. **Speaker 23:** I'm sorry. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did we get the permit for the generator problem? **Speaker 4:** Did we get a permit for the generator? No. Got a permit for that. I don't know . **Speaker 5:** There's been so many permit violations that this was a crazy road to even go down. And we need to enforce. There's signs out there right now that are on the road we went for. **Speaker 74:** That's why you need this permit. **Speaker 2:** That's why you need these laws. the phone . **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You got a permit. Okay, there's a law. We can't enforce the law. Give me the permit. Exactly. Exactly. That's what we're going to do. **Speaker 18:** We're going to change the bylaws and get rid of that law. The law that is ignored is oppressive, because you've got some people that . **Speaker 68:** So we got a little sign out there that says library, right? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Small sign. Yeah. It's too close to the road. It's too close to the road. Oh, it's way too close. But it says the library. It's okay. And we've got another sign over here. Okay. Okay. over here that white thing there that people yeah that's that's never never permitted right yes i mean there's a yeah welcome back welcome back students oh that was a permit from the state right **Speaker 50:** not from the town oh did it okay what was that one didn't that white telephone box have to have **Speaker 18:** permits there's one out there which puts a signboard yeah that's like a telephone **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah but nevertheless let's do it right we'll do it the right way get the sign down like i said it's an outdoor sign if you have to leave it outside to the outside just hate to have someone take it you never know they're going to take it they've stolen farm equipment out of the field **Speaker 75:** up here yeah you never know i don't know behind the building somewhere no i'd ask clay if we could **Speaker 4:** store it in the box **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we'll figure out the place to put it okay that's the that's the point the point is if we're gonna take it down let's move on to the we're gonna take it down all right do you think so i can do it i think we made a motion so i'm taking a motion we got a second i'm done with my discussion **Speaker 4:** i'll second it motion to warn a bylaw change just wait a minute **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no all in favor take the sign down **Speaker 1:** five no five five four four you're after all that discussion you're saying no don't take the sign down right i'm up for election next year he's in the best interest of him yeah okay okay **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** uh who's gonna take the sign down and where's it going i lost clay to be investigated on our **Speaker 4:** board with the next meeting okay **Speaker 10:** is it staying up now we don't we have to look at it to see so we said we gotta take it down who's **Speaker 68:** staying down we were waiting well first let's have to see how big of a deal we're going to **Speaker 21:** we're going to investigate how we're going to have a field and figure it out you just said you're going to help me i didn't say i wasn't going to help i just said i don't **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** want to i'm saying no i don't believe we should be okay that's not that's there's something wrong with that i didn't have a discussion saying what we should do and i just don't vote against it okay **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you you just said something about the bylaws or changes or something that's a warning you should **Speaker 4:** make a motion now and one that you intend to change the bylaw regarding signage on municipal **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** property i'm not comfortable making that motion i want to go back to the planning commission and ask them if they would work on changing the bylaws to change that we have i don't want other things **Speaker 10:** to change too yeah so it'd be great if we could have you have one more bylaws passed like three **Speaker 13:** 2020 2020 or turn it over that's the last thing keep in mind unless it's a quick event that keep **Speaker 5:** in mind that that could be five years down the road before the planning board makes a decision **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** especially if we add more things to it if they're easy we have to imagine four months or five months if they're easy simple things you can so are you willing to not have a sign the plan board has not **Speaker 13:** five months i've had a meeting are you sure it's been five months no no no i don't think there was **Speaker 4:** one yeah okay a different motion so they don't request the planning board make an amendment **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we don't need to change all the bylaws at this time we can just throw an amendment in right **Speaker 4:** request directly with the bio that the planning board change or amend the signage bylaw **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the section of the sign **Speaker 17:** to say no i have a tough time with this i thought we were in charge we are **Speaker 5:** whether we can change it ourselves or we need to have a public hearing to do that but we need to have a public hearing to do that we should do that right we don't i mean we're risking all kinds of no votes i mean if we send it back to the plan to work we can do that if you want but they **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** can say no then what so you think the select board should overrule the process of zoning bylaws **Speaker 35:** the select board approves all the bylaws we're not overruling it they've they made a decision **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** based on today's bylaws and that's fine we're not saying that we're overruling what we're saying is in the future because of this incident in the future municipalities should be exempt from these bylaws i mean those you don't know okay but he has the set of the fewanting the bylaws anyway we should be able to add an amendment it says we should we should be exempt from where our signs go or how large our signs are, whether or not we... **Speaker 43:** Look, there's a paragraph that talks about signs. **Speaker 4:** And it talks about the size of the sign. And you add a sentence onto the bottom that says municipal signage exempt. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We might wanna look into, there's other things. I mean, blacktop driveway, do you need a permit to put a blacktop driveway in, you know? I'm not saying, now we're just repairing it, but what if we want to put blacktop up by the solid shed? Do we need a permit for that? I don't know. I'm just saying, if everybody else needs a permit, now we have to get a permit. But hypothetically, we did end up **Speaker 5:** with a community center someday. Say we bought the Catholic church or something, that could be a community center, and we wanna do things there. **Speaker 47:** We need to go for a permit or anything like that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We should be able to vote as a board on all those issues. And then the people, this is different than a private entity. If the people don't like what we're doing, they can vote us out. We should be able to, as a board, say, look, if we wanna buy the church, we vote on it, we buy the church. And we wanna put a sign up that says senior center or community center. Signs should be able to be whatever we want. Now, if people say, we don't like the way you guys are running this, we're voting out, that's their say. When you're a private resident, you don't get that. So in a municipality, it should be up to this board. And I'm not trying to influence anybody by voting either. If you guys don't believe that, you can vote whatever way you want. But when we make a motion and say, okay, let's amend something, I don't think we need to go back to the planning board. And I think, I agree with you. If we go back to the planning board, and they're just gonna think we're going after them. We're not going after them. **Speaker 10:** No, no, I disagree with that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I don't know how quick an amendment is. **Speaker 37:** How do we change the bylaws **Speaker 20:** so we can put the sign back up without **Speaker 18:** What would be a normal procedure? It would just, this idea would go to the planning board, and then they come to us, is that the normal procedure? **Speaker 64:** We ask for recommendations. We ask for recommendations. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Recommendations on bylaws for the planning board. When they rewrote the bylaws, they recommend, they spent two years doing it. With VLTC, Jim, whatever that's his name. **Speaker 54:** Actually, VCRC. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** What was his name? I'm sorry. Jim Sullivan. Jim Sullivan. Jim Sullivan. And they spent a long time on these bylaws. And it, most of it's good, but some of it is bad. Yes, well, are we banning them now? **Speaker 5:** From there it goes to a public hearing. Are we legally adding them now? From there it goes to a public hearing on the bylaws that the planning board creates. Goes to a public hearing, and then you go over all the bylaws, and then it goes to the select board to vote it, or basically veto it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then we have to have a public hearing too. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And we did vote it with the recommendations of the planning board. I'm gonna tell you, to be honest with you, we voted it because the planning board said this is, we spent two years doing it. Kind of like Dave just said, sign the papers, and we signed them. Did we, we just signed papers that Dave told us to sign. Did we really read them? We put our trust in Dave. **Speaker 5:** What I think we need to do is get ahold of Vermont League of Cities and Towns again, right, and ask them what the process is as far as changing. To amend the bylaws. Do we need to go back to the planning board, or can the select board do it, A, and B, does it consist of having a public hearing? We wanna follow all those. Yeah, you guys can amend the bylaws. **Speaker 12:** How do we amend the bylaws? **Speaker 5:** How do we amend the bylaws? Is there something the select board can do on their own? **Speaker 18:** I mean, couldn't we just ask the planning board, this is what we're dealing with, and we'd like you to do that, and then they can go over it, and give it back. All I'm saying is I wanna follow the procedure all the way. I don't wanna take any shortcuts. Right, excuse me. Right here or what? **Speaker 76:** Exactly. **Speaker 20:** We're gonna have to be right back to the circle board, right back over here. Any negative writing, no, I guess, no. **Speaker 77:** And then we can move. **Speaker 23:** In the meantime, we'll think about how we're gonna take the signing off. **Speaker 5:** Dave's gonna say, I'm the coach, and I'm the sole judge. I'll let you know when I get it. **Speaker 20:** I got broke, and I had a problem with my mom. **Speaker 4:** I'll let you know that this round's a little soft to change damage in the front yard. **Speaker 5:** Yeah, that is true. I'll be aware, too, that once the sign comes down, there may be people that are not aware of this issue that have no idea. It's hard to believe that maybe some people in town that have no idea this is going on right now, when they graduate the school and not see the sign anymore, they're gonna say, what happened to the sign? Right over here. Cellular. You guys have the last session. Lord, just tell them they, somebody stole it. **Speaker 13:** The last session we streamed, we are getting it. **Speaker 10:** Somebody stole it. Yeah. Somebody stole it. It was little Sheila Peek. **Speaker 6:** She was an adult. Yeah, she was an adult. Yeah, she was an adult. It was an adult. Did you see that? It's her middle, you just beat her to the dwindle pitch. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I will get in touch. I would love to add all the hours that we spent about this sign to that lady in the top five issues we've ever talked about. I think ATV's heavy beef right now. **Speaker 6:** Yeah, but. The chicken's crossing the line. We won't get in there, ATV. **Speaker 28:** But it wins on the dumbest thing. **Speaker 60:** Okay. **Speaker 14:** This one. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The sign said, I will contact the LCT how to amend the zoning bylaws. I'm fine, though. This is tough. I do it. Send in writing. Next item, FEMA buyout program. Okay, I gave you guys a new packet. February 26th, I got some information sent to me from the Vermont Emergency Management Fellow, Brian McWalters, that he has a few remaining items of town signatures needed on the statement of voluntary participation, the Model D restriction, copy of the Lister's card, and I think Deb's gonna take the photos now, because he said in the beginning that Deb was. **Speaker 10:** Oh, yes, I'm taking, yeah, I forgot about that. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, attached is what Brian had sent us, and I didn't sign anything because I wanted the new board to look this up. It was over, it was a Model D restriction, and he also did send a copy of what Deb and her husband signed on the Model D restriction. There is a lot of reading to do in there, and attached is the property acquisition and relocation for open space that is mentioned in the documents that we should read. So, my thought is read it and figure out what we're doing in that next meeting. There's a lot of reading there. **Speaker 10:** I would also recommend doing a lot of the research yourselves on this and educate on all the intricacies of this program. It's not as cut and dry as you might suspect. So, there's an algorithm that goes into even having a property qualify for this program, which many properties, Right. which are in the river corridor, probably would never qualify for. So, I would highly recommend doing a lot of the research because the original, what a lot of people, and this is something I wanted to speak in town meeting, but what came to light at town meeting is not necessarily what this program is all about. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I read and I don't know where I read it, but since Hurricane Irene is, there's been 176 properties taken. **Speaker 10:** I thought it was 117, yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 117, yeah. And that's in the whole state, and that's 12 years? **Speaker 10:** And it's not FEMA that approaches the homeowners either or the property owners. This is a long, long process that even they can back out at the last minute. It requires a lot of documentation of events. **Speaker 5:** I would just say, I would just say keep in mind that there, just imagine that there's never a situation in town where this might apply. What do you think there is or isn't, right? Then, just like we said before, if you say yes to one, you have to say yes to all. Well, the opposite is true, right? If you say no to one, you should probably say no to all. So, there is, upon hours and hours of research, I'm like . This is basically my own opinion. I found, in the 100-year floodplain, there's basically four structures in town within the floodplain. The river corridor has a lot of houses in it. Not all these houses would qualify. From my opinion, there's maybe five other structures that could be under some level of consideration from FEMA, whether they would agree on those houses or not. So, that basically puts this town at about nine structures, in my opinion, that I think would be probably in the conversation for this program. One of those structures being the town garage, so that's not a private property. Another one of those structures being a house that caught on fire and is probably going to be abandoned, and the town's going to have to do something with ultimately, or it's just going to sit there as an abandoned property. So, that leaves about seven other structures, four of which are probably no-brainers. Out of that, that are in the floodplain, out of that four, there's, I'm not going to say any specific properties, people can do their own research, but out of the four in the floodplain, just from knowing the families, I guarantee three of them voted against this program. All right, so out of the other houses, there's one that's less than 20 years old, so I doubt they're going to want to participate. There's one that just had major remodeling done to it, so I doubt they're going to want to participate. So, town-wide, we're really, looking at the reality of it, and this isn't something that's just going to happen overnight. Like, holy cow, 15 houses just went off the tax rolls, and all this is put on the verge of the taxpayers. This is something that's going to progress over years and years of time. So, for my opinion, once again, there's maybe two or three, three residents max that would even be able to participate in this program or willing to participate. It's a voluntary program, so you don't have to give your house up by any means. And in a sense, we already voted for this in a binding way when we wrote the flood hazard regulations. It states right in the purpose that we are going to allow our residents to be, you know, have available to them federal relief. This is federal relief. We're already paying taxes on this. It's part of your federal taxes. It goes to P&O. They generate programs like this for flood relief. I'm just saying we need, it's a very deep subject, deeper than some people just can't understand. I mean, there's way too much information out there to absorb to just put it to a vote on the floor where people don't really have all the information about this program, you know? And through climate resiliency, we really need to start thinking about these things in a certain way, you know? I, you know, I think the fact that, you know, it may increase people's taxes some too. But we're talking, the situation, in my opinion, has kind of really been blown way, way out of proportion. Like, even if, say, 10 houses went to this program. I mean, what are we looking at on someone's individual tax payment if, hypothetically, 10 houses were to jump into this program? 60, 70 bucks, something like that? I just want to put everything in perspective, you know? It's kind of been, like, blown right up, and there's not a lot of information out there. And, you know, with a town that does have certain houses sitting on the brink of disaster, you know, I just think it's something that we should really, really consider and not, like, rush into a vote on it. It's just, I mean, I know we're already kicked it forward. It's a tough decision, and I'll be the person to say it's a crappy, it's a crappy situation that's just been put on, you know, small town boards like this that don't have a lot of knowledge on these situations. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Where do you think, when you, you did your assessment, like you said, it's an opinion, you know? Yeah. You're not a female by any means. No, it's an opinion. Where did, what do you think, and I know that, I've argued in the past with people, this number 40 came from. **Speaker 5:** Yep. Where did it, why did that come off? So that came from the original study on a map, a map that was drawn out when we, whenever we did the flood, originally did the flood hazard, I would say it could be 2010, something like that. Well, all the possibilities of all. **Speaker 23:** It's on one of the. Well, it's FEMA, FEMA creates the map. Right. And they decide, you know, what. But you disagree with most are even possibilities now? I don't think, I still would like to get some more concrete, **Speaker 5:** definite answer that they're only looking into the floodway. Now, I think when we had our last Zoom meeting, she basically said they're only considering houses in the 100-year floodway. That would basically be four structures. When you look at Vermont A&R right now, the map is up to date. It's about three or four years behind. So the river meanders, changes courses over time. So, I mean, you can argue the amount of houses that might be in that 100-year flood, flood area. All the rest of the houses are either in the wetlands, what we used to call wetlands, they now call flood hazard areas. **Speaker 41:** When a river changes, can it possibly, can this possibly, **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** down the road 20 years from now, can that add houses to it? It could, it could. You know what I mean, it could or could not, either way, okay? The number 40. Yeah. The number 40 came up because other people mentioned it. I didn't bring that number up. It's in the, the number's in the . When I, when I see that number 40, instead of saying $60 now, I see 200 or something added to your tax. And throughout the years, that goes up, okay? And I'm not saying people don't have issues. I believe there's issues. I want, and I do agree with the vote the other night, 99% of the voters on it didn't, don't understand it, because we're still aware of it. We've been talking about it all the time. The other thing I did see just come up recently is there's other programs that are available now to save the homes. And I'm not saying that all of them are eligible for that, but I'd rather see that than that demolition, you know? But they were talking about, you know, ashes. Elevations. Elevations. Elevations. **Speaker 23:** Elevations of the river. **Speaker 5:** So where Stamford suffers from the elevation problem, right? When you elevate a house, you're basically building in a wetland area, right? It's hard to elevate along a river corridor. River corridors consist more of what we call fluvial erosion. That's erosion that keeps kicking into the bank. **Speaker 23:** So why don't they offer it in these homes that are in these situations? It makes sense, it makes sense **Speaker 77:** for flood hazard areas, what used to be wetlands. **Speaker 5:** And there's certain houses around town that did this. They elevated up without. Right. But the river's not going right through it, right? But the river's not there. It's more of a flood plain area that floods out here. And out of the field up here. Where as opposed to you're right on the river bank, then you're dealing with fluvial erosion. So basically the erosion of the bank over time. **Speaker 47:** We've already talked about actually fixing the river. **Speaker 5:** That's basically lost language and the art of, you know, that was mitigation. They're really trying to, I mean, this is just a push from the state. They're really trying to renaturalize these areas rather than have any kind of manmade structures or anything like that within, within. **Speaker 10:** Except for heavily dense. **Speaker 54:** They want . **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But they wouldn't just go over and say, look it, 20 years ago the river was over here. And now we've had a, you know, a hurricane, the river. **Speaker 47:** They won't just go over and bring it over here, back over here. **Speaker 5:** There's so many big. Yeah, the crest of the . **Speaker 10:** Yeah, and also one thing that I found out, I'm, I've done hundreds of hours of research and I'm not, trust me, I'm not trying to influence. I'm just trying to tell you what I have learned in our situation. If we were to now shore up the way the river is, has, if you come down main road you can see it. If, I couldn't even get a permit to even put rip rap in there now because it will create now a barrier which could potentially. . . Go into Clough Road because no longer does it curve. It has come and done this. So if you stop it here, it could back up even further and change the path further into Clough Road. And that's the problem. That's why they don't want people messing with the river because while it may protect you, you may be creating something else. If we backed up, if we did this. . . On our property, it very well could then channel more erosion towards the Darjees and hasten the river path that way. So they're just not allowing you to go in. And that's why these programs were created. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It was my understanding when I read that other program that FEMA will come down and they will come up with a plan. I just said you will come up with a plan. **Speaker 23:** You're the one who did your part of the block digging. **Speaker 5:** I'm not a fan of our. . . I'm not a fan at all of the raising, elevating because it's like a 25% match with the town. This program has no match. And there was very other stipulations too. And if you think this is a lot of paperwork, I mean, I'll let you have some of that and those mounds and mounds of paperwork. Plus, I just don't think it's an ideal thing for Stamford. We should be filling wetlands anyways. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And they're going to be looking at each individual property if they can raise it up. **Speaker 10:** They're going to try to mitigate it as best as possible. **Speaker 5:** I'm fundamentally against raising the property of wetlands. I don't think it's something we should do. We've already lost more than 50% of our wetlands in this country. I don't think we should be losing much more. There's other places in town that we can develop. This really needs to be a bigger conversation, even with the planning board, on how do we move forward, maintain the tax base of areas that we can develop on higher ground. There's still land out there. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. We talked about ancient roads earlier. One of the ways we probably maybe shouldn't have got rid of it, it was probably all grown at Enway. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. We talked about ancient roads earlier. One of the ways we probably maybe shouldn't have got rid of it was probably all grown at Enway. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. We talked about ancient roads earlier. One of the ways we probably maybe shouldn't have got rid of it was probably all grown at Enway. I mean, there's a lot of land out there. We talked about ancient roads earlier. We talked about ancient roads earlier. We talked about ancient roads earlier. We talked about ancient roads. We talked about ancient roads. There are places that are so old today and they're hard to maintain. But there was an old road from Forget over to Basin. Very flat elevated land, a lot of space up in there. Right? There's still space around. And none of this is gonna like happen over, right? Like all of a sudden you're there like, okay, when you approve this stream of thing, 15 So this is something that may progress over time, you know, 50 years or more, with how you restructure your town, how you redevelop in a more, you know, sustainable way that makes sense. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, you know, just like we were talking about with the signs, I like to do what's for the best of the town. Yeah, absolutely. So it's not a personal thing for me at all. So my last question to you would be, because you seem like you know a little bit more than I do, is what benefit, benefit? I don't want to, just what benefit, if we allow this, and you say just two houses, say it's not an expense, big expense to the town, but what benefit does this do for the town? **Speaker 5:** Well, if the house is really vulnerable to ending up in the stream, you know, we save a lot of pollution that can end up in the river. The house may become abandoned. Someone decides the house is unlivable, they don't live there anymore, they're not going to pay taxes on it anyway. So we're dealing with a bunch of abandoned properties in town. All of these are positive, but they're definitely negatives. Raw sewage going into the river. You know, these are things of the past. You know, a property where we either decide that we're going to buy it back on tax sale and the town owns it anyway. Well, I know we don't have to do that. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But that is a, and I know this is a desperate example because you're in a real tough situation. **Speaker 10:** Yeah, well, yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Because you're given the information. And you have a piece of property that is through the program. **Speaker 56:** But you know what I've been doing this. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So people are looking and saying, well, you're given the information, you're going to be biased. **Speaker 10:** That's why I'm asking, I'm happy to give the information. Yeah. But just like you always say, Mike, you're only one person, I'm only one person. I've done the research because I am affected. Absolutely. Makes sense. One thing, I'm looking into so many different alternatives to keep the structures on the tax. Well, somebody approached me and said, my God, the shop was only built 2008. Would you consider, you know, with the town, because it would be the towns at that point, would you donate it and let somebody call it off, put it on their property? It's got to stay in town. There you go. What I mean, that would be the shop. That would be the easiest one to move. Can imagine moving the house. But this same person said, oh, yeah, we just moved a house down. Well, around town, it's hard to move a house, you know, going up and down. But these are considerations. These are huge considerations. Keep it on the tax roll. Trouts Unlimited has an interest. So it would not become the town's responsibility. Trouts Unlimited would come in and turn this into. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** How can that happen? I don't know. Yeah. I worked a lot. I actually couldn't do it. I got to come on myself. I don't know about you. I'm not a homeowner. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 56:** No, in that, you hear it one way and I hear it another way. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then my colleagues tell you guys and you tell me. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I can do it. You ask a question or I can ask a question. Right. And we get more questions than I can ask. **Speaker 25:** Some are ready to hear that they have the sense at all that FEMA is sort of like, on the one hand, they are a government program that they need to justify their existence. So they're like an insurance company where they sell you the insurance policy or they put themselves out there. As being, you get sick, you get injured, you're fine. But then when you actually go to collect, there is so much more fine print, so much more whatever. And people, you know, the emotion around the idea of our taxes going up is scary. I mean, everybody has this consideration and that is, that does have to do with the, with the, with the good of FEMA. But the reality, I just wonder if like the reality of people actually being able to do this, being able to accomplish this is something to discern, to find, to come. And we also have to consider that the town, the good of the town, also consists of each person in the town. True. And them being able to avail themselves of, of, of, you know, I cannot see free money, free, like being distributed all over the place for FEMA to just let everybody relocate to Florida or wherever they want to go. So I just, you know, I feel like. I feel like that, that right of people is, is also something. And of course, yes, taxes should not go up and should, and shouldn't, but I, I feel like it got to an emotional place that was emotional rather than. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If FEMA, our federal government that we pay taxes into, really wanted to do it right, they would take care of the individual and the municipality. So you go, say, let's just say in the next hundred years we're going to, we're going to take this much taxes and secure you as well instead of sending money over to who knows. Oh, you don't get that at all. Yeah, I agree. If I had it my way, I'm going to tell them that, hey, how about that 80 billion coming back to this? Yeah. **Speaker 5:** I think it's an awful decision to put on the five of us that make like 75 cents an hour or whatever that we make. Right. We all have a day job. Is that a raise? No. It's just that it's, it's, it's not. **Speaker 41:** I got to bring that up at a town meeting. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The raise is for the sweat board. Damn. Like you said too, in the beginning it said no match, the town doesn't have to do anything. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's a very simple process. That was the first paper that I read on it. Well, now they're sending more of the model deeds you have to do with the other stuff you have to sign up for. We can reach out. I did read somewhere too that. No, there's a lot of paperwork. We're going through that process. I did read somewhere where you can reach out to the regional commission and they can help you with the paperwork. It's part of the $4,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 15:** Yeah. **Speaker 5:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 5:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 78:** Yeah. **Speaker 77:** 25% match on it. Why does it do that for $25,000? **Speaker 5:** What's the 25% match to $250,000? **Speaker 2:** It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, so what's that $50,000? That's crap. I mean if they want a part of that they should just take it all. **Speaker 79:** Exactly. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Read it over and we'll figure it out. If you want to sign these forms, they have to go back to Brian with Walters. There's paper clips. That's what he sent to me in his cover letter. **Speaker 10:** He's pretty good if you guys have questions individually. He's pretty good if you just call him. Send him an email and say can I give you a call? **Speaker 80:** I'll give you his number. **Speaker 10:** And it doesn't have to be all at once. Like if you have a question **Speaker 81:** you're thinking of something. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Correspondence, Lauren. Sign deed transferring lot 270. **Speaker 1:** So months and months and months ago these people paid to purchase a lot in Alba Wall. They've reduced the paperwork, decided everything looks good, and paid the rest of the fees so now it's time to sign the deed. Nancy wants to sign it as chair and then only two witnesses. Okay. Motion to sign it. **Speaker 17:** Well we made a motion to sell it, right? **Speaker 53:** Back in June. Yeah, that's good. **Speaker 82:** So it doesn't have to be a lot. It doesn't have to be a year? **Speaker 80:** Oh, you guys own it. Okay. **Speaker 1:** Never mind. Did you get a second? Can I keep this paper? No. **Speaker 25:** If you put it through your ear... **Speaker 4:** It might be an archival paper. It might be an archival... **Speaker 18:** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That went to Vaughn. Yeah. He's building a house up there in Alba Wall and... We'll get more taxes. But I don't think it's in our section, is it? But that's his property there, right? But this one he might do something with it too. See? **Speaker 25:** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Three, four, four properties. **Speaker 25:** Are they part of the Alba Wall thing? **Speaker 20:** Yep. So you have to pay the fees and everything associated with Alba Wall? **Speaker 7:** $300 or something? **Speaker 28:** Per acre or per lot you have. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So if he buys this lot, it's two lots. **Speaker 83:** Right. So the next... **Speaker 28:** That pays both fees. Yes. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You know what I mean? Did O'Neill ever come through with his deed? The one John Shaw goes with? Yes. Is that official? What is he doing? He's got a lot of money. All right. He's got to get $1 million. Oh, yeah. $1 million. Yeah.