---
title: "Stamford Select Board — April 4, 2024"
date: 2024-04-04
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, 7 of 9 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_02":4,"SPEAKER_03":3,"SPEAKER_05":6,"SPEAKER_07":8,"SPEAKER_08":2,"SPEAKER_09":20,"SPEAKER_10":1,"SPEAKER_11":10,"SPEAKER_12":7}
duration_min: 97
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmfEnULQio
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-4-2024.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 — April 4, 2024

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 97 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmfEnULQio) · [Minutes](http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-4-2024.pdf)

**Present:** Nancy L. Bushika, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari, Douglas Wright, John Dunn

---
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God's justice for all.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We have a matter of order to discuss that is not included on the agenda, and we do so by addressing the chairperson and stating her name in the address. You will notice that all our meetings are recorded, and this is to aid the summarization of the minutes. Visitors are welcome, and we allow five minutes of comment per visitor and 15 minutes for topic. Discussions will be held in a calm and civilized manner, and respectful of others. Select board members present are Will there be any adding of items to tonight's agenda? Will there be any adjustments to the agenda, such as changing the order of the items? Hearing visitors, Lisa.

**Speaker 1:** I just have a quick question. With all due respect, I was just wondering how the Planning Commission, the assignment seats were given out, because it wasn't really discussed last select board meeting, so I was wondering how it was decided. I'm not trying to change anything or anything like that, I'm just curious.

**Speaker 2:** Did we say what seat? It wasn't what we talked about, so I just picked the first appointment and just kind of ran with it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, because there's year terms?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, Lisa, you went in for Deb. Or did she? I don't know.

**Speaker 3:** It wasn't discussed.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It wasn't discussed. I mean, Aaron said he did not want to run again, so we appointed Peter. Maybe I just put him in, too. Then Deb resigned.

**Speaker 4:** I think Lisa was first, though, right?

**Speaker 1:** I put my letter in first. Yeah, her letter was first.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** She was also. We made the motion with Lisa first, too.

**Speaker 1:** No, the motion was first for Peter from John.

**Speaker 5:** Oh, okay, I thought it was more.

**Speaker 1:** It doesn't matter to me, I was just curious, because, you know. We like rules in this town, for some reason.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I just assumed that when Deb resigned, we just put Lisa in there, because we said,

**Speaker 2:** yeah, I'm just kind of watching the order of, but I guess it's at your discretion, why do you want to do it?

**Speaker 6:** Well, it's something like that should have been determined, but I don't know.

**Speaker 5:** I just assumed they were all on two the same terms for some reason.

**Speaker 2:** No, Lisa's got one year. It was up for renewal and one resigned during a term, so then it was just finished.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, I would say generally what happens when you're in an appointed position, as long as you want to keep doing the position, I mean, there's no reason if you're in the position of doing it that this board here wouldn't appoint you to that position. It's not usually a runoff. Right.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, no, I was just interested. That's fine. That's fine with me.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. So now we still have an open position now, right?

No, I don't think so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do you want to do that? Now? Okay.

**Speaker 1:** Sorry, I didn't mean to. Was I out of order?

**Speaker 6:** No, Karen, is there a show?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is there an open position still?

**Speaker 1:** I don't know. Is Jen now staying on the board?

**Speaker 6:** I think there is. I said something about a resignation reaffirm that on the agenda, I thought. Yeah, I had a few emails that came in after last. Maybe they were just getting back, maybe they got back to sleep.

I don't know. Maura said she accepts. That's the position of septic officer.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, this is her resignation. That's good. We have a resignation from Carolyn Brooks from the Planning Commission.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Mm-hmm. And this is a letter.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And this is. This is Aldi. This is Aldi. Yeah, Aldi presented it last week. Oh, he's here.

**Speaker 6:** He's here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** So has Jen Hughes gotten back to anybody?

Yeah. I don't know.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, she's on the board.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. But we have another resignation now, right? Yeah. This is the third resignation. Right. This is the third resignation. Carolyn Brooks resigned.

**Speaker 7:** Erin, dad right now, Carolyn.

**Speaker 6:** So Jen's on the board. I don't know if she expressed interest at one time as becoming a voting member. She doesn't vote now because she's the energy coordinator. But I don't think she responded to that. She has not responded. She was sent a letter asking if she wanted to. So? Oh, no. She was sent a letter for her energy coordinator, which is a one-year. Oh, okay. So she's on the board. Yeah. So she's on the board.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah. So she's on the board. Yeah. So she's on the board. Yeah. So she's on the board. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she's on the board. Yeah. So she's on the board.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. She's on the board. But she's on the board. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good thing that she's on the board. So I don't know where interest is being a voting member on the board at this point. I think we should ask her. We should find out. I mean, she's a viable member. She's knowledgeable of what's going on. She's pretty .

**Speaker 8:** Why didn't she respond when it got sent?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know. I don't. Just a suggestion.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, she's a pretty valuable member of the board. I'm not sure of the vote. I'm not sure if she's on the board. Yeah. I mean, things are going really well in this. I mean, she's a she's a pretty valuable member of the board

**Speaker 9:** Also, I'm saying if you're saying that you like

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I said These positions are open

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You should respond to the other one

**Speaker 10:** Just my feeling that is that we have a letter from somebody who did say I'm interested in being on board And I think we should go he took the time to come forward and say I want to be on the board I think we should consider that I think so too

She could still go to the meeting

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So

**Speaker 11:** We should accept There's an opening for Aldi Finney to get in, correct? So let's make a motion for Aldi Finney to take the spot

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can we accept Carolyn Brooks' resignation first?

I'll make a motion I'll make a motion to accept Carolyn Brooks Second All in favor Aye Now go ahead, John Motion for Aldi Finney to take Bolton's spot as planning board committee

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** To expire in 2027

**Speaker 4:** Second Boy, that's quite a commitment

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It sounds like they believe

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And motion for Morrow to be septic officer

**Speaker 6:** Motion for Morrow to be septic officer

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** She said she was interested in staying Second All in favor Aye Any other, any other visitors for Reading and approval of records and orders Motion to accept Oh wait, okay, go ahead

**Speaker 5:** Motion to accept

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any second Second All in favor Aye And before we go on I just want to make note that Jeb, are you recording tonight? Mmm Okay I think we should make note every meeting that if Jeb is recording it We should let the audience know That you may be on Can't be somewhere But what's it doing with me? They're not ours They're Jeb's

**Speaker 9:** I think there's a body of law He's supposed to let everybody know he's recording, right?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm not sure about that I don't know on that

**Speaker 11:** I don't think so The technical answer is no Because Vermont has a one person As long as one person knows

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And so I am the one person that knows But it's It's

**Speaker 12:** It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's

**Speaker 13:** It's

**Speaker 1:** It's

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's It's It's

It's It's It's It's It's It's

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's uh lost control consultant for the league and he wants to come down and inspect the garage and he'll come to the town office to make sure we're in compliance with all our forms paperwork and protects us in case we get an osha inspection but he works for us so he's telling us and dave knows about it um it's going to be on april 12th no i'm hoping he calls the day before because he said he's available anytime

**Speaker 14:** and we'll watch the weather too is that something you want to attend

**Speaker 11:** be part of that supervisor of the roads road liaison yeah it consists of the contact between

**Speaker 6:** the residents and the road commissioner the way i understand that basically

**Speaker 15:** i'm in charge of much of anything wayne hasn't been down there in years

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that recommended the cdl policy for a road in your box i hope it's in there the response from green mountain power for the last outage i believe i put it in dave's box i'm not sure if you saw it this is from mike burke and this was regarding the february 29th power outage where he was they were prepared at 60. 16 power crews and eight tree crews but within three hours their outages went from zero to 105 incidents in their area with fires and blocked roads and mike said they did follow the their osha guidelines and they did turn off the power which dave said the power was off but before asked one of whoever the tree service could work on it they realized that there was no power was not tested and grounded by green mountain power so that's why the tree service could not cut that tree and dave should not have cut it either because just in case it wasn't grounded or turned off properly but i did explain to him about the fire truck not being able to respond and he said they're trying to listen and improve and sorry that it happened and he did not believe we were without power for two and a half days but really but all he looked at was the mill road county road area we were off for close to three up there he said he checked the meters they can do it remotely okay i need to watch that yeah

**Speaker 16:** it's a little bit of time to slow down showing the meter on my generator

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and there is a training video at vermont fire academy that would be helpful to our fire department emergency management and highway workers regarding downed trees and on power lines and all that so if they're interested

**Speaker 5:** fire department has they have come down on occasion it's probably 20 years now

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's what he said they used to do that but now they do it through the vermont fire academy right up there and you take your training or whoever takes training so you think it's useful i have mike burke's phone number and can contact him or mention it to paul but i think this power outage yesterday they might have been really staged close by because they seem to be here right away the outage that was my opinion usually when they were on defense

**Speaker 17:** they were able to get it out it was a huge problem

**Speaker 5:** because he was a great resource person when he worked for the power company.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, I think he's there because we saw him with the tree service. He's still working for him, but he's obviously out of town.

**Speaker 16:** I don't know if he's, yeah.

**Speaker 6:** They're in the village pretty quickly.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He was there yesterday. Oh, John? John.

**Speaker 8:** Oh, John.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I have nothing else.

**Speaker 2:** I have something for you. Yes. Just to report, I've worked hours, hours, hours, hours, hours in the past couple weeks trying to get everything done with FEMA. This is from the July flooding where we had several rows that had washouts or problems. It is awful to work with FEMA. I went through about five different people in I don't know how many different forms because every other person has a different set of forms they want me to fill out for the same damage. So we were able to submit five rows this week that totaled about $58,000. And the road that we submitted last fall, they kicked back and refused to accept because they didn't agree with the culver upsides that we did to mitigate problems. We had to get on the horn with Vermont AOT, who, jumped our deal with both feet, made phone calls, sent emails, did research, came down, looked at it, and then worked with FEMA to explain, this is how we do it, why we do it, and that they take care of everything properly. So they really supported us, and FEMA was able to accept that, and so now they're going to put the Klondike Road damages back into the portal for approval. The only one that we have, we still have outstanding is Ewell Road. It's about $61,000, but the guardrails have to be replaced. So until the guardrail company can come out and do it, and give us a bill, that's still pending.

**Speaker 18:** But everything else from this life run is now similar.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know this has taken you an extreme amount of time, more than it ever has. I mean, you went through Irene, Hurricane Irene. It was a piece of cake. Yeah. Yeah. But, I hope you put it in your time.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, because the town should, at the end of the day, be reimbursed even for all of my time. Right. On the FEMA project.

**Speaker 6:** Great. Will BCRC not help us out with any of the paperwork, or anything? You know, we give them money every year.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, BCRC doesn't help. There's supposed to be a state-assigned person that's supposed to help us and be our liaison between, you know, the town and FEMA, but he seems to be MIA, and I'm just kind of working through it with the FEMA people. But, I mean, I have had women who want to know what gravel is. Oh, dear Lord. Oh, wow. So,

**Speaker 16:** that's where we're at.

**Speaker 19:** And we,

**Speaker 2:** you know, we went from an 18-inch culvert to a 24-inch culvert, which is standard in this area. And she looked up in her magazine and found that you could get a 21-inch. So, in her book, we went up two steps. So, you know, we went up two steps. And, you know, in her book, we went up two size culverts, which isn't a lot. You're only allowed to go up one. But it's a special order, really expensive. It's something we just don't do around here. So, they refused to accept it, and it just put everything, you know, back weeks and weeks. That's where the Agency of Transportation guys really helped us out and showed them around here, we don't do 21 inches. 18 to 21 is a negligible amount. So, that's where the agency of transportation guys really helped us out and showed them, around here, we don't do 21 inches. 18 to 21 is a negligible amount. So, you know, that's where we're at. So, you know, the 18 to 24 is what Dave put in and it was the correct size

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and the correct way to do it. Thank you, Lori, for all your time you're putting in on this. I mean, you're taking time from your regular work and everything else that's going on to deal with FEMA. It's got to be done. I know, it's got to be done, but it's there. Sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it. You know, they give you money,

**Speaker 6:** but... It could be the way of the future. Well, I don't expect a lot of closing costs.

**Speaker 15:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Yeah. Anything on recycling? One more holler. One more holler?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. I have a question. I don't know if you know this. Do we accept mattresses at our... Do you know what the cost is? The reason why I'm asking is there's a facility that just opened in Adams.

**Speaker 2:** They're recycling them now.

Now,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** they go to towns and, you know, negotiate. I think it's between 30 and 40, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yes. They have a facility that's between 30 and 35 dollars in mattresses. And they pick them. They take care of it. They recycle them through the state of Massachusetts, but mass is allowing them no longer

at the transfer station to do that. That's why they're all over the place. $40. $40. So, we could actually probably deal with this guy.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Would they come up or take them out? What do we do typically? How many would we typically get? I don't know. But, we do every once in a while,

**Speaker 20:** Do we have to store them in a waterproof container and keep them dry?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't think so, but I can actually have him come to me and answer all the questions. He's a friend of mine, so I know these people. There's two gentlemen that are entrepreneurs pretty much, and they started up a business in Adams. They're getting so big that they're going to need another facility. The steel goes one place, and the linens go somewhere else, and so on. I guess the foam is the big issue right now, because they used to use foam for something else, and now they can't get rid of that as fast. But they're still looking for customers, so I guess Adams, of course. So, how long?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, if you can find out some information.

**Speaker 6:** Flip some mattresses. Come on, flip some mattresses.

Mattress is for profit. For the past 40 years. That's pretty funny, Kurt. Good one.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's it, Lauren? That's it? Okay.

**Speaker 5:** Emergency management?

**Speaker 17:** Nope.

**Speaker 21:** No.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, I automatically look at Bill, then.

**Speaker 17:** Okay.

**Speaker 5:** I don't really have... I know that Bob is working with Paul Ethier, and they are trying to structure some future cooperation and building some plans. That's as much as I know about that. Usually, I put my two sons in about UB Fiber at this point, and we've got two things going on. They are actively... They are interested in coming and having a... Like, there's an ice cream social going on in Whitingham, celebrating the access to UB Fiber in Whitingham at the end of April. They'd be interested in putting something like that on in Stamford. So, we encourage more people, and they are knowledgeable people. They're technicians that come down to explain questions and problems. So, you know, if you're interested in working that out with them, they come down with their canopy and flags and... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. people to get in touch i sat on a report meeting last night said there are two people two homes at least in stamford that are waiting on common for some kind of conduit problem i don't know whether they suddenly discovered they had to do it and you know the weather hasn't i don't know but because of privacy concerns they don't want to tell me who it is and you know the whole thing was kind of complicated originally they said you know that they would have support people to try and see about qualifying people who's you know have limited means and need financial help to do it so we're trying to go back north to identify at least the street locations and hopefully the end of next week we'll get that meanwhile whatever we can publicize through the minutes or he wants to take a shot at facebook or stamford you know reformed about stamford uh and mention that somebody if anyone is having problems with getting a conduit in

**Speaker 2:** reach out to bob griggs or me that's it uh griggs did come into the town office and said we need for a good hour or so to go over the local emergency management plan and talk about what you'd like to improve it and things you'd like to see happen so

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's all sort of what my discussion signed zoning bylaws um does anybody remember well the sign is still there but i'm sure they have this schedule and what about the zoning

**Speaker 15:** bylaws are we going to ask them to we just voted whether we're going to leave it up or not we didn't

**Speaker 6:** well i remember we didn't really we didn't do anything we didn't decide this 29th i think you said Sheila said something there.

**Speaker 22:** The last one here is April 29th.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, they set their own agenda. I don't know if they have to take anything off the table. Right. We'll have to petition them at some level, I would say. I think we'd have to say whatever. We'd like you to look into this, this, or that, or whatever it is that we're going to say. Right. They can choose to amend bylaws or not. They've got to vote. They've got to vote their whole board who's going to be chair.

Didn't we vote last?

**Speaker 6:** To take it down. To take it down. Oh, yeah. So it was voted to take it down. We never proceeded any farther as what we're going to do from that. The discussion is whether we are going to petition, whether we're going to petition to change bylaws. To sign us now. Whether we're going to sign bylaws or change them or whatever. But I mean, that's basically a discussion. They can do it or not. At the end of the day, there will be no sign out there eventually.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's the whole point. Right. So what we'll do. That's the whole point. Would they allow a different type of sign or change bylaws? Right.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, I don't know how you want to petition them. I'm of the futuristic thinking that municipalities, schools, churches, fire stations, things of that nature should be exempt from certain bylaws. Signs probably being one of those things just doesn't make any sense. Right. You have to permit yourself to do certain things and then pay yourself to do it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That law that you cited last week, 4413, the way I interpret it is that when the planning commission does their zoning bylaws, they can exempt or make certain exemptions. But that's how I interpret it. Yeah.

**Speaker 20:** Well, that's the problem with all laws.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know. You interpret it one way.

**Speaker 8:** That's why the board has made so much money.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So.

**Speaker 6:** It's going to be basically a whole new board. I don't know. There's a lot of new members. I don't know, you know, what they're going to want to do, what they're going to do. From where we left off, we haven't met since December, I don't think. So, you know, the chair was Aaron and he's, he's gone. He was setting the agenda.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, if this board has any ideas to present to them, get them ready and we can do that. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, my boss last week, you know, the sign isn't hurting anything. It really doesn't hurt anything. Do you want to petition the planning board? We can do that. I guess. So you don't want to petition the planning board? I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, if you guys want to do it, come in and have at it. At this point, I don't know what I can do. Yeah, I hear you. Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The bottom line is it was voted to take it down, so it's.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, I mean, it's got to come down at some point, I suppose. But. Yeah. It's not hurting anything to stay in, I mean, where it is, except maybe feelings. Might hurt some feelings, the sign being there, but it's not really hurting anything. I. I sit there and probably still looking at a lot of motions that have been passed in the whole situation. Follow through so I don't know how we have to keep following through. I hear you. I mean, people got hurt feelings more than anything over the sign. It's really not hurting anything except right where it is. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Um, FEMA buyout program, um, John's been doing research.

**Speaker 11:** Yeah, I've spent a lot of time on this, and there's multiple programs out there, and it's all a matter of applying. For seeing if it's, if you're going to get it or not. It's like a whole process, everything's a process, um, but in the long run, it comes down to that. Whether or not, you know, she wants to apply for those programs or not, it's not up to me or you guys. Right. So I can look at all these things, it's all blue in the face.

**Speaker 4:** We have, we've looked at them all.

**Speaker 6:** So most of the other programs that I've read into and looked at still require a local sponsor, which would be awesome. Um, most of all, the other ones have a 25% match. This is really the only one that the town gets out with no expense whatsoever. Um, other than the loss of the tax base from the one property. Uh, there's really, there's other programs where you can elevate the house, but that's not going to work in this situation. And the other programs, why would the town have to pay to come to that? It's usually a match. Why is the town going to have to fire? Because we'd be the local sponsor. It's usually a municipality. So FEMA comes in and... And pays the homeowner. This one was through a, there's different FEMA programs. This one was through the watershed management program. And, yeah, most of them are a match. And you have to, the same thing applies as far as the maintenance of the land. You usually have to, I mean, one of their objectives is to reestablish floodplain. That's one of their objectives. So those stipulations are always going to be applied to any FEMA type of land. And, you know, if you're going to buy out or assistance, it's usually that it's restored back to this natural habitat. It's just the way things are going now. Elevations may work in some circumstances. It's not going to work with that property. You're dealing with bank erosion there. So it's a different, the house is already elevated. It was elevated in wetlands. So there's bank erosion there. It's different. Elevations work more if you have established properties within floodplain that don't necessarily have flowing water through it to erode it. It's just how, it's properties that may fill up with water seasonally because they are built in low level ground. You know, those may work with some kind of elevation. I mean, that's a different program. That's usually a 25, 75, 25% match as well. At least from the research I've done, which is, you know, a lot. I mean, we've been at this for seven months now. So pretty, pretty in depth in all different directions. You know, I'm pretty where I've always been. I'm pretty where I've always been with this project. It's definitely going to be eroded away at some point. It could be the next storm. It could be five years from now. We're going to have to deal with it at one level or another somewhere.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I need to apologize to the board and the public for the meeting that wasn't held. It sounded good and then, and then it wasn't.

**Speaker 6:** I think that was just a missed opportunity to be really educated about river morphology and things. This guy wasn't going to discuss the FEMA program. He's not with FEMA. He's a river engineer. He was going to discuss river morphology and how things change over time. You know, and maybe discuss some possibilities that could have been done or not done with this property as far as the river channel, the river corridor goes. But he wasn't, in my opinion, he wasn't really going to comment anything on FEMA. He's not from FEMA. He was just a river engineer. It's just a wasted opportunity to be educated on the river that flows through this town.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But when we have a work session, it's always open to the public. And I just didn't follow through with that. I thought we could have it there. And the more Laurie looked into it.

**Speaker 6:** We've done informational meetings before on the back.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, but not on private property that I know of.

**Speaker 6:** I just, you know, that's the way I viewed it. This guy wasn't going to discuss FEMA whatsoever. Right.

**Speaker 4:** I think he's coming Wednesday.

**Speaker 6:** Your property?

**Speaker 4:** He's available Wednesday at 6 o'clock. Yes. So John and Doug.

**Speaker 6:** I know he's already looked at it at some point.

**Speaker 23:** He's looked at it.

**Speaker 4:** I can't tell you how many times he's been there.

**Speaker 6:** He's already had some level of opinion or report or whatever he might have found.

**Speaker 4:** Oh, I have a report.

**Speaker 24:** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** He might have a report that's public information that we could obtain.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Deb, did you have another question?

**Speaker 4:** No. I was just letting you know he's reached out to see if Wednesday at 6 o'clock. And, you know, he wanted permission to come then if he could. I have no objection to it. I just don't. I just don't want the liability of the town on the property unless the town. Now, if the town would assume liability for having a public meeting, then fine. But not my homeowner's insurance.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we probably don't want to assume that. So.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, like I said, I just viewed it as good future knowledge. These events are going to keep it coming. There's a lot of properties that are within the corridor. So. I mean, it's just the nature of where we're at. This is the town we're in. And, John, also, I didn't hear from you. I have names of everybody I've spoken with. You had asked me to kind of.

**Speaker 4:** Yeah. I reached out to Brian. Brian never got back to me. His liaison or his partner, Stephanie, did. And pretty much was like we would prefer one person from the town reach out to us versus one person from the town. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 25:** Yeah.

**Speaker 11:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was not really feeling it at all. I mean, like you've said, there's other people. And I was mainly just reaching out because I was involved with all the other stuff the previous board was. And she pointed out some other programs, she stated about the erosion and the moving of the house, which we're all aware of. What was the waste water? Watershed. Watershed management program. She says that's the one she points everybody towards. And then if you look into that, there is that, you know, the water management program. And these are all listed. So, they're listed there. So, I was looking for that one. another number to call for a gentleman I can't I was just looking for I couldn't find it but he's like the one guy in Vermont in the Angles and it's just a matter of calling him but I'm sure it's just like reaching out to the FEMA people it's like

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** playing the other thing is Stephanie and Brian deal with one program then you've got another one that deals with another program and they don't there's not one person that can tell you what every program does they just deal with their

**Speaker 6:** program that's it. I think this is the only program where like I said the town gets off without any type of percentage or match or whatever.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I did read some of the programs and I did read the 25 or there were some that did say match but I didn't see where it said municipality was the one that matched it. Okay. There were some that were sponsors not all of them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think the one I read was homeowners did the 25.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So it's also under my assumption that this river was messed with by someone at one time. I don't know if that's true or not but that's the historic knowledge of the people that live in that area. This river was messed with and it should be the responsibility of the people that messed with that club.

**Speaker 6:** One of the reasons it's probably almost going to be impossible to get any type of alteration to a stream nowadays is you're basically messing with a stream. From the way I understand it and this is one of the things I wanted to pick his brain about in particular were stream alterations. Because in my opinion it's really on the emergency measures that you're going to get a stream alteration accomplished. It's not going to be fixed by any means. This property just has a whole bunch of weird sets of circumstances going on and it's just setting it up to be kind of right for the pickings as far as the river is going.

Deb?

**Speaker 4:** Yeah, I forgot.

**Speaker 11:** Deb, you said you had a report from Josh Carmel.

**Speaker 26:** Is that something you want to share with us or? Absolutely.

**Speaker 4:** It's kind of a brief synopsis of... the way the river has been migrating. We had a... I don't know if anybody has a drone here. If anybody knows anybody. But... The most recent aerial photographs... I think it was like from 2020 or 2021. So I can't... Because such a huge... It's taken this massive leap literally since July. We have no current aerial photographs. If you look at it, even on the parcel viewer or the ANR site, it doesn't look... I mean, you still see the trees that are along the bank and all that and they're gone. I mean, everything is gone. And it's taken such a drastic path towards the house now, whereas before it was more towards the east side of the river, per se. Now it's definitely migrated. So what he did was, you know, kind of outline that. That, yes, maybe in the past it's been a slow progression. But now that we're seeing more dynamic events, things are moving. And it's not just our river. It's rivers all over the state. And also... Yeah, I could... I could put rip rap along that. But it's... Dave and I were talking about... Dave and I were talking about this before. And it would probably back up onto Clough Road if we put... You know, if we put boulders there, which they won't let you do anyway. I wanted jersey bearers back in 2007. And they laughed at me. So they said, no, you can only do rip rap. So...

**Speaker 6:** So the river is back through wetland property, which...

**Speaker 4:** Yeah, and now... Well, that was the other thing. Now we have wetland. Now they have identified the wetland that border... It spans both of our properties up towards Clough Road.

**Speaker 6:** I wouldn't be surprised if more of that property is chewed into the next time the river crushes the river bank. It's... I mean, wetland soils are silty. It's all soils. And then when you put fill on top of that, which this is basically already into the fill, which, you know, it's natural fill, but it's also unnatural fill. It's not there natively. So it's already tearing into that. So, I mean, this is a dune property. It really is. It's just... This is just the bottom line. It sucks, but it's a dune property. What's that? What kind of property is it now? Dune for the river.

It's going to be washed away by the river. It's already up to the subject. Well, okay. So Doug and John, you're going to get some answers, hopefully, or ask some questions and get a better understanding of this and...

**Speaker 6:** John, can I get your email address? I appreciate all the effort. John did put in a lot of effort, if you'd like. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 4:** Yeah.

**Speaker 24:** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 11:** Yeah. Oh. ften. I spent a long time on this, more than I would've liked to, but I felt like it was necessary and it was educational, at that. But the meeting I tried to set up with Josh was supposed to be more like the do's and don't's of what we can and cannot do. As far as the homeowner perspective, say they used, Nancy, for instance, what you are allowed or not to do as a homeowner on a river corridor, you know, to maintain and protect your property. Oh. property and you can yes so i had a brief conversation with josh on the phone and it was pretty much you can either put money into it or do a buyout that was pretty much like

**Speaker 4:** the two options and that's okay and i 100 agree and it is it's put money into it but again i i would love for you guys to come individually and really take a look at it it's hard to it's hard to describe but if i could nancy would you like me to send you all of the um aerial photographs marked up photographs josh's response back to me or john do you want it

**Speaker 24:** how would you prefer okay i think i mean it seems to me you have to rip that back so much

**Speaker 6:** that you're going to alter the string you will as soon as you alter that stream you're messing

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** with the direction and i think she would have to go up further yeah you have to go up and you have to go up to

**Speaker 4:** boris a little past his property even into the lincolns yeah you got to be very careful

**Speaker 6:** unless we're on the way through any anything is going to alter that property to the straw

**Speaker 27:** to the south it's a very narrow stream channel that's something the engineer you know those are all questions you gotta ask him and you know so however it came out it was just kind of wasted

**Speaker 6:** opportunity one thing in exactly i mean i agree

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** um um you know actually join said let's stop kicking things down the road last week remember are you saying that you may you made a couple of statements one you just made a statement of fema says hey look when you're There's an emergency, then you can go in and you can really, you know, create a river. If a river's gonna take out someone's sewer, isn't that an emergency? Yeah, I mean, you would think so. So why wouldn't FEMA come in and say, yeah, this is an emergency, we know that it's gonna be a problem with our river, and fix the river. Where they have the ability, where I could say, oh, you know, the Burchards have the ability to go fix their property. They can't drive up to Laura's property and fix that, unless Joe gave them permission. But FEMA can, FEMA can go and fix the river. They have the rights to do that, just like they have the rights to take part of your land for a road. If that's an emergency, and I know how the federal government works, they don't like to prevent things, they like to wait until an emergency happens, which doesn't make sense, but that's what I'm saying. There's programs in place that will allow that to happen. If you're saying that it's gonna wipe out the sewer, call FEMA and say, look, this is what's gonna happen, this is gonna wipe out the sewer. I'm not saying you, I'm saying our river. And I keep stressing that it's not about one particular land, in my opinion. Either we're going to, this is, we made a vote last week, or two weeks ago, and the vote did not pass. We have to sign papers. Originally, I voted against FEMA, and I did that because we should either be in it or out of it. I don't believe that once we say yes, and I've said this a million times, I don't think we are, right now we're in a situation where we're talking about engineers, because we're not a knowledgeable enough board. There's no engineers on this board to make decisions. So once we are in, we're in for the long haul. I look at it a thousand times, is it in the best interest of the town? There's a lot of people talking, you know, at the meetings and everything, the town as a whole, percentage-wise, in my opinion, you do not want it, okay? I'm looking at it and saying, is this in the best interest for the town? And I have sat over and over and over going back and, you're using me on 100% one way, and you know, these guys, I'm looking going, I just can't see the 100% or even the betterment for the town at this point. There's other programs, there's emergency situations. The home was built about 60 years ago. There's been floods 100 years ago, there'd be floods now, I don't, I'm not buying into the. So all the options were BFOs, more land there, you can move, move the house, there's not enough property there. Well, I understand that, but I'm also saying is this, is it the responsibility of the town? So we just talked about FEMA, about another problem. We talked about us asking FEMA for monies for our town roads. FEMA gives us money, but we're not passing those roads to anybody, we still own them, we still maintain them. They're giving the town resident monies, and then they're passing it on to us, and I don't think that's fair. If they were just giving it to Deb, or anyone, I hate to say people's names, because I want to keep this a secret. If they were just giving monies to a resident,

and not handing it to the town, I'd be,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** wait, go ahead, it's not my problem. Like he said, it's not the board's responsibility.

**Speaker 6:** But they can become the town problem.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But I don't know about that yet, and that's the other thing is. So let me finish with the FEMA note. We just got done talking about how hard it is, and how much time she spent on it, and on FEMA, if we have to do this 10 times, 20 times, if it's getting worse, like you said, how many more will we do? We always go back to that number 40. Will the river come, will the river take Clough Road out?

**Speaker 7:** Not everyone's going to be able to afford it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But even if we talk about Clough Road getting washed out, if we take this property down, and we don't do anything with the river, it will eventually keep going to Clough Road then. That's what we did, that's what you just said, right?

**Speaker 7:** I did.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You can fix the roads. You don't even need a permit for that. You can fix this, too. It can be fixed. And that's where I'm at. I'm looking, going, if, and then, so then, if that's where I'm at, then I believe that we should, we should definitely retract our FEMA sponsorship, or whatever you want to call it, and say, look it, the town of Stamford is not standing behind us anymore. We have to, we have to be fair. We can't sit there, if we hand-pick everyone, there's never going to be 100% where we're going to be. And I think that FEMA, the federal government, is wrong by putting this board, or any municipality, in that position. This is probably one of the hardest decisions, and hardest thought processes we've had as a board. Yes. It is the hardest, because we don't have the education, and just like Nancy said, FEMA, this program, you were on that, the webinar. Oh, we don't talk about anything else. This is all we're talking about, is the buyout. So you have to go, and you have to search, and it's a rattle hole, isn't it? Yes. And you just keep reading, and reading, and you've got other things to work to do during the day, so you're sitting there saying, well, I'll get back to that. I mean, I. And then you call people,

**Speaker 7:** and they put you up to another person.

**Speaker 6:** I think, I think that we should proceed forward on a face-by-face basis, because every case is different. There's different scenarios. No, that's discrimination.

**Speaker 7:** There's different scenarios for every.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** See, and that's, that word, discrimination, was mentioned last time. Yes. That's why I'm in a position, so if we're not, if we don't go forward with one.

**Speaker 6:** So there's people out there right now, they have properties within the hazards of the river, River, Florida, or wherever, that do not have homeowner's insurance, right? I almost guarantee it. What are we going to do with these properties when they launch away? The town is, this is going to end up in the town's lap, one way or another. So the town is not. They've gone to the property and stopped paying taxes on the property. The town's not liable to take a property by tax. They're not, but if it ends up in the river, we're going to have to do something with it.

**Speaker 8:** Yeah, we'll see it going in the river.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's a good question.

**Speaker 8:** Will the state come in?

**Speaker 6:** I have no idea, but it's not just going to go away.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And won't those, will the state be responsible for it?

**Speaker 6:** I don't really know. If the state, or what? I don't know. The town, we're going to have abandoned properties in our town. There's one on the river flood plain right now that just burnt out. I doubt anyone's going to buy that.

**Speaker 24:** It's for sale.

**Speaker 4:** I do not see that on the MLS. I don't think it's for sale anymore. Anyway. Why don't you get a for sale sign? It doesn't matter. They just didn't come in. They didn't come and take the sign. Long term, this is going to be something

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that we're going to have to deal with. Deb's got a question, and then I think we're going to move on because we can't solve it tonight.

**Speaker 4:** No.

**Speaker 28:** I agree with Jed.

**Speaker 4:** I'm tired. I'm tired of this being kicked down the road. So if you guys want to make a vote, please do so I can move on with what we're going to do with that property.

**Speaker 29:** So we made a vote last time.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So just. It was voted down. I said, do you want to reconsider so you can get educated, right? Making sure that the two new members knew what they were all for. Have you reconsidered anything?

**Speaker 10:** One thing that comes to my mind that has nothing to do with the river or anything else, like you said, we just had a vote at the town meeting, and the town said no. And I feel we have to represent the town.

**Speaker 4:** No. The town, no. You guys, I'm sorry. I take exception to that. I had requested a special town meeting so that both sides could see the pros and cons of what people were voting for. People were walking up there voting, not even knowing what they were voting for. Gee, it's a yes, a no, or a no, a yes. So Doug, I disagree with that. I was listening. I heard people think. People had no idea what they were voting on. People, it was not represented both sides. It was advisory.

**Speaker 9:** It was advisory only. How could the town as a whole possibly have an educated stance? Didn't I?

**Speaker 10:** We got out of the electorate, and they sent us here. And as far as the information, I felt they had a good amount of information last week, and John gave me some more. But I feel I was voted on to express the town's will. OK, and Deb, I understand what you're saying, but I've heard a lot of people out there say they were opposed to it. That's OK. So I guess we disagree on that. I do it respectfully, but we disagree on that. That's perfectly fine.

**Speaker 5:** I don't think those names are going to fall out. Respectfully, I think you really ought to consider having an information meeting, because you allowed, right or wrong, a poorly worded, biased Warren article that was severely slanted and poorly worded enough against all the regulations of how a Warren article should be presented so that there was no ambiguity, so that people clearly understood what they were voting for or not. And that Warren article did not meet those standards by any means. You also allowed, not blaming Paul, but allowed somebody to take points.

**Speaker 16:** Well, we heard that before when we picked on it and we got up and was shocked. And it's a pleasure to finish. What's the big deal? We heard that last week.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** OK, let's not argue back and forth here. Let's move on with this. You were supposed to vote tonight. John and Doug are possibly going to meet with the next Wednesday. You're going to dispute. Do you want to vote tonight, or?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I asked a question and reconsidered. You already had a vote. Right, we already had it. If they didn't reconsider and they stand by their vote, I would like to hear it from you, Seth. I stand by my vote. I stand by my vote. So then the vote did pass. The motion didn't pass. So we're not signing papers for one project. I personally feel that we should retract from the FEMA program 100% on it. And I will make a motion that we do that tonight. So there will be no more discrimination for anyone. And Stamford, the town of Stamford, doesn't stand by that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's a motion. Second. You want a second? Second. OK, you want to vote?

**Speaker 11:** No. Oh, third up. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

**Speaker 2:** Aye. Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Aye.

**Speaker 2:** Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

**Speaker 10:** Aye.

**Speaker 2:** Aye.

Aye. Aye.

**Speaker 10:** Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Aye. Aye. Aye.

**Speaker 10:** Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. can you make pretty sure we're out yep good so you know john said no no he said yes

**Speaker 14:** what were we drawing what drawing yes

**Speaker 2:** progress okay so no no yes no yes a stain yes i'm i'm sick over it

**Speaker 5:** one quick one how did the city of north adams put in their flood

**Speaker 30:** control project 1952. yeah that's that's the difference that's the only difference

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** mowing bids uh lori and i haven't been able to get together on that things have been hectic on the roadsides here and now we've got snow so they won't be mowing right away and we try to work some dates um joint meeting with the school directors i emailed erica and she said uh if we could wait to the end of april beginning of may they have a lot of district meetings they're working on hiring a new superintendent and so much more let me know what you have for available dates the last week in april beginning of may and i can make sure we don't have anything and can get it scheduled so let's pick a day they meet on tuesday

anything more tonight she sent you that recently she sent it the 31st she just said make sure it was a couple weeks over there

**Speaker 2:** it's pretty long yeah so end of april beginning of may so next i'm going to do regular meetings on the off meeting and now on a regular meeting um

**Speaker 18:** an off meeting a separate meeting yes so april 25th is a thursday um may 9th is an off thursday

**Speaker 2:** wednesday or thursday is a good view yeah anybody else i'm pretty close

one of the days

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** back and back we're here we're meeting there and we're meeting on the 8th oh that's the meeting

**Speaker 31:** tonight

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the 25th yeah but that's our that's our meetings anyways but we could have it either

are you going to be off this week

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** why don't we do with this

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 25th i have something else about the school i think is it six o'clock 6 30. i don't think they can get ready 6 30. 6 30. 6 30.

**Speaker 6:** all right april 25th right that's the third day

**Speaker 8:** april 25th it's okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** can i have another date just in case um yep the next one would be the second may 9th

the second

**Speaker 2:** may 2nd will be your regular

may 9th 6 30.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay i'll get back to it

**Speaker 6:** so a little more school stuff when i was at the meeting yep you ready for that other um we had a meeting with i think it was shane and the building facilities manager and rivers came in and he i suggested to them to do a pre-osha inspection of the school um before osha would potentially actually ever do an inspection and there was a bunch of questions what that actually entailed everything would be reportable back to osha that they may find and the school would be obligated to fix it so i mean that could be anything from you know missing all that cover

**Speaker 32:** to a furnace that's totally so isn't it for mike's idea about us picking up some of the debt well it

**Speaker 6:** could it could yeah um or they could find an unfortunate thing there was just a discussion that took place background hold on a minute uh who owns the building so yeah this conversation is coming back around who owns the building there was some conversation that we may be an exam for osha inspection there was some conversation about why we want to call ocean here if we don't have to it comes from the school and a lot of these things weren't answered but it may be something that we definitely want to take up that's when we discuss with them if they can just hold off until

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that hold off because if we could take over to build it first of all who owns the building we do the town of stamford does you look at all three d's and it says the residents of the town whatever of stamford it never mentions the school there is a law on place that says once there is a school they are in charge of the operations once the school dissolves or forever dissolves they don't own the building they don't own the land they can't sell the land to someone else if there was a merger they can't transfer the land that's my opinion but we dug into it pretty deep so that being said we just talked about ocean going it's a guy working for us coming in and saying hey look you think notify ocean he goes well you better fix that before ocean comes in right that's a much better deal than a guy coming in going oh look at all this i'm sending it though holy crap i did all those inspections

**Speaker 6:** exactly we were saying when i was in public housing right we would hire out just before the main inspection the one that's going to come yeah and he was paid by us i asked the guys who's working for who do you want to report back to osha the guy asked him straight up are you working for ocean he's like uh i'm working for ocean then why are you reporting back home correct so so there was a lot of conversation that you know took place around that i definitely

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i would like to have them hold off i would really like to transfer maintenance and there's a lot of other reasons financially it makes sense i know it's a little bit of time to do it our budget will look our side of the budget will look higher but you know the bottom line is it's your cat it's cheaper money who cares right yeah your taxes are your taxes but if we're getting down for dollar on our side it just makes sense to me as a business person it makes sense you know osha i don't even want to talk i don't want to say a word again that's all right

**Speaker 6:** i've got 40 years without a workplace i've doubled them up even if ocean didn't come and inspect i mean i believe they gave you some level of warmth it's not like here's your fire right away oh no no there you go what's the point i have in the pre-inspector community yeah

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** are a health thing so you're going to get out immediately maybe you come into an air quality test say hey it's too stuffy in here you gotta put an air ventilation system in here well my

**Speaker 6:** hesitation is i don't know enough about the maintenance of the schools to know you know what they may or may not find out yeah i did these inspections for a long time but i mean it could be

**Speaker 8:** anything really yeah i mean pinch points another thing to think about if we take over

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** if we take over the maintenance of the building we may have to hire someone to be in charge of this maintenance man or i i don't know

**Speaker 33:** this guy is checking out our town barn and he might once work if this is our building he might

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** be able to check out the whole thing that could be you know and that would be in our best interest because in my opinion wouldn't he have to come and check out the town office anyways he does so and then out here who's it who's responsible for that work if someone comes in for town business and trips on a door who's responsible for it well one of my

**Speaker 6:** questions too is like this is a public school isn't there some level of safety inspection already there should be in fact some level of safety inspection i know the health office there

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** is nothing to do with this i i truly feel that some of the decisions that were made i won't pick on this board but some of the decisions that made for safety issues over there were just frivolous to put a uh a door that is bulletproof glass in one window and there's a school full of windows it doesn't make sense to me why spend that kind of money you know

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay um um board of civil authority training i have not heard anything yet i emailed her this morning still didn't read that good luck with that right now that's another of them it's another female thing um but i will keep after her um building permit fees we're going to discuss the fees in executive session but we want to talk about revising the form the building permit form i lori had some suggestions a couple things we added on the form was a location of property and parcel id on the grant list gave it to jeb she had some input and currently this is our this is our commitment and then that likes the final permit which is basically got a lot of the same information it does it's just formatted a little bit different form um lori jump in here anytime both of these are current this is for the regular building permit and this is for if you have a farm structure or a small building but you still have to put a notice into the ao if we could combine both of those onto one form it might work

**Speaker 11:** and we want to put something in writing that says you checked on a permit and you do not or do not need one well that's

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah how are we going to put that on there we should we should and it should be recorded what was the question if a permit is not needed but it uh needs to be recorded yes saying that you do not need a permit for this you know what this form is but what what happens to it somebody calls you and said i'm gonna put up an ironing or a deck and it's gonna be yeah offense you don't need a permit i would never

**Speaker 4:** say that without them filling out an application i would never give somebody that verbal we've got in trouble way too many times doing that right everything has to be filled out so yep everything

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so but but yeah so then we come up we say hey do we need a permit for this you say no i wouldn't

**Speaker 4:** say that you hand them the firm i wouldn't even say no i'd say please fill this out okay and i'll let you know lori will record it um i they're gonna have to pay they're gonna have to pay a 50

**Speaker 34:** i don't collect the fees so that's up to you guys that's the recording that's the recording

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that way it's not your own record and not so recording fees only if you actually record a

**Speaker 6:** permit isn't it i don't know i'm trying to do that because this is group territory

**Speaker 8:** but what if deb doesn't write it down like we just had it's not written down because no work no work should take place whatsoever until

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** all the paperwork is so she writes it down at home oh well then she moves out of town and takes it with her and it's gone it's never here in the town office we don't have a record the only way it's

**Speaker 8:** going to be recorded is if you pay the 15 and put it in so that shouldn't be just like hey do i need

**Speaker 6:** a permit to i mean you can say yes or no yes then you got to go through the process of the final but if

**Speaker 35:** you say no it has to be enough so here's a hypothetical you can say yes or no but you can't

**Speaker 6:** you can't put the sign up based on that answer we just just did a couple of meetings ago i asked

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** deb in the meeting if i need a permit for a swimming pool you said no no it wasn't a swimming

**Speaker 34:** pool because you do in certain instances i can't remember what okay yeah whatever it was yeah and

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you said no and i waited a couple seconds and you didn't write it down just right and that's why i'm

**Speaker 29:** so never ever ever going to answer that question right so my question would be is what's the fine

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** for me look let's just say i do my my homework and i look and see the common website has this is what you need permits for i look and it doesn't say it says i don't need you know it's not out there and i go and do it and then someone says hey he built something he put a sign up i didn't see on there it was something i wouldn't use a sign i put a fence up fence was an analyst put a fence up but i put a fence up too close to my my property my neighbor's property neighbor complains what do we do then what are the consequences to me and what are the fines we have 14 days to appeal or whatever yeah so is it didn't say i lose the appeal but i said i'm not going to take the fence down who's responsible now it becomes a civil issue that's right so it becomes a civil thing so the town doesn't have to pay anything at that point and i go to the court you know what i mean it just looks like we have to have something a form a separate form it doesn't cost 15 dollars right to get information right we should be able to say do i need 15 you know what i mean do i need a permit because i'm

**Speaker 7:** i'm new to town i don't know what your bylaws are i don't know i don't understand why that just can't

**Speaker 6:** be a question if you start building something based off that information that's wrong which was the case with the sign right he said something verbally never violated augmentation but there are other structures you can't build like a fence you can't build a fence with no purpose there's certain

**Speaker 4:** there's certain specs and certain specs right yeah setbacks or not even setbacks

**Speaker 2:** she's always off to this side i can't see her so this happened not too long ago where somebody had a porch with a roof and like a deck i don't know and it got ruined so now they want to replace their porch the exact same length the exact same width the exact same porch that used to be the old way would have been no you're just rebuilding what you had because it broke or whatever the wind took it that would be an answer no you can rebuild it you don't need a permit you're not doing something new but there's an answer that a question that needs to be answered

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** right because if they change it by that bunch

**Speaker 2:** but if they really do what they say they're going to do are you going to make them pay 15 so that she can say no you don't need a permit

**Speaker 36:** but i also think on the um permit itself there should be a box that says does it need a permit or yes or no and you just click off yes or no and then that piece of paper gets filed so and then

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** there's a 15 recording session about losing 15 dollars and then when it got off the parking to

**Speaker 1:** in the file for one but then no one's going to want to ask questions i wouldn't ask for the 15

**Speaker 6:** it's a way to keep track of stuff that might be out here that doesn't necessarily require a permit like the whole 10 by 30 foot shaft or whatever i mean it doesn't necessarily require a permit

**Speaker 37:** but you may want to know how many of these things are you feel to ask without getting charged yeah

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if we go to the sign we go back to the sign nothing that wasn't involved in us so we have ao that said no if that ao came forward during all the meetings we had if you didn't know about this you live under a rock okay if he came forward at any of those meetings and said yep i said no i would have loved to hear him say that did anyone ask him they wanted to sign what we got him down here that's what i was doing

supposedly

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** technically and you're supposed to keep track of all your encounters with anybody when it comes to understanding but there is some that do and some that don't but now he doesn't he didn't when the

**Speaker 38:** sign was brought up he didn't work for us but how did you know he said no obviously he could have

**Speaker 16:** said yes i don't know i couldn't say i don't know people are going out all hearsay right today i don't know i believe it was in the minutes uh no it wasn't you know there was nothing

no it wasn't i don't know i would keep i'm not going to be exhausted yeah do you believe that they never saw him in the community group they never submitted on us that's the problem they had a notebook nothing was shown yeah they never there was no proof whether he ever said it yeah i said he said she said

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but the bottom line what i'm what i'm saying my whole point was

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it happens

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's not about whether or not it was yours or not

**Speaker 38:** this can happen

**Speaker 16:** you're saying that you should have been here

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so now we have to hear him say that you're wrong now he's saying that he should have been here We've got a new AO going, jeez, I don't want this to be happening again.

**Speaker 16:** I hear what she's saying, and I agree with her. Like I say, you're talking about who said what and why. I said it, you said it, who knows? I agree with you. That's what I'm saying. A lot of them went on to show just because he really said it. I know he really did. You never know. We never know. We'll never know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, so what will we do if Deb says, no, you don't need a permit?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's my only point, and I agree with Lisa. I don't think I'm – I'll just do an ask up and plug it out to you. Hey, I want to build an X by X that doesn't need a permit. You're not even building a structure that falls within this $15 one. I just want to know, do I need a permit to put a weather vane on my house?

**Speaker 6:** No, you don't. Okay. One of the holes is here. You actually have an AO that's knowledgeable enough to answer these questions correctly, right? There was a lot of mistakes made in the past. You've got to know the zoning bylaws if you're going to be the administrative officer, and you should know – I don't – I mean, there's a lot of things you need to look up, but you should know, generally speaking, if I'm putting up a document, so-and-so, these are the –

**Speaker 16:** With all the houses that are still – have been sold in Stamford, how many have gotten a copy of the zoning and the planning? Nobody's getting anything from the town. They don't know. And I can tell you right now that I know two new owners. They've got sheds on their property. There are no permits.

**Speaker 6:** Most of it's online now.

**Speaker 16:** It's not my job to go find them. They don't know. It's not their fault. I'm not disagreeing with you. So how are we supposed to – I'm not disagreeing.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But if we make it – If we make it where – If we make it so it's an incentive to come in and not take a pace on it.

**Speaker 4:** I think we're kind of getting away from it. It's good.

**Speaker 28:** It's good.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Too many people are talking at once. Let's go back to this. I like the idea. They fill out the form. No permit needed. So the town waits the $15. That's what I was going to say.

**Speaker 11:** I think you're recording me. Yeah. Yeah. But it's still recorded.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's still recorded.

**Speaker 11:** Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Are we putting it out now?

**Speaker 6:** Why does it take us a half hour to print it out?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Lisa.

No. Okay. We'll put that on there. That was easy.

**Speaker 4:** So to clarify, just to clarify, they're filling out the form. Yes. They're giving still the diagrams, setbacks, and all of that. Yes. No permit needed. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep. One little thing. If we can combine this into one form.

**Speaker 6:** One thing I'll mention, I hate to mention, but just some of the confusion that goes along with the bylaws. It's small. It's a small little thing, but it says a lot. When you look in there under permitted uses, it says permitted uses, right? It doesn't say things that need a permit. It says it's permitted, permitted uses, and everybody goes, oh, build them, build them one family, that's awesome, that's permitted, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. We need to change the wording, we really need to change the wording on that. It doesn't say you need a permit. You know the, go ahead, you're all set. Things that need a permit rather than permitted uses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds like double box. It sounds like everything's permitted when you re-throw it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Ah, that's right. Yep. So the box halfway down that's number one, you must include a plot plan. And Deb. So she likes that. And the applicant is responsible for verifying plot line locations, state permits may be required. And PONL has this graph attached to their building permit that says one inch or ten squares, ten feet. If people fill this out and say north, south, east, west, and it's ten feet from there, it's more of a scale than some of the drawings. That are submitted that you don't know what the drawing means. So we take out certificate going down by affixing my signature below, which is the applicant. We can take out certificate of occupancy, we don't have that. Yeah. We grant permission to the zoning administrator. I like how zoning administrator, appropriate town official, i.e. Lister, assessor, road commissioner, can go on the property for inspection purposes. So we're getting their permission to go on the property. And everything is done on one side to be recorded. The back is just permit of the fee schedule. Applicant has to. Oh, it says in there. If you start building without a permit, the landowner will be charged twice the normal permit fee that would have been applied. Take out number three, because we have, our permits are valid for two years. Two years and you can apply for a term. We've never talked about a $25 extension fee.

**Speaker 4:** Yeah, I think that's free.

**Speaker 39:** Right, Lori?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We don't charge.

**Speaker 28:** We don't charge for that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. Due to necessary work involved, all fees will be retained whether a permit is granted or denied. We got referred. Oh, we're not getting a requirement.

**Speaker 4:** Yeah. I'm not sure about that. Right? I mean, we keep, it depends on if they want to move forward. Well, if you get a permit, are you going to refer it to the ZBA or are you going to deny it and let them appeal your denial to the ZBA? Yeah. I usually deny it. This is how it's been going.

**Speaker 2:** If I have a permit. This is how it's been going. This is how it's been going. This is how it's been going. This is how it's been going. This is how it's been going. This is how it's been going. If I have to, yeah.

**Speaker 4:** You deny it. And then they have to move forward. Right. But then the referral thing came into play. Yeah. Nancy and I had a question on that. What was it? The referral. Because if a permit comes in and it's denied, you know, for pretty.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, whatever. So it's denied.

**Speaker 4:** Then it would be, it would be a, it would be a, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. So it's denied. Then, it would be up to the landowner to appeal to. To the ZBA. Okay. But a referral. Okay. If a permit comes in and they want to subdivide, again, I can do two. But say they want to subdivide their property into three. And it's, it's legal. They have 15 acres, three, five acre parcels, whatever. I would have to refer that to the planning commission. At that point. So there wouldn't be no other plans?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** fee for that because that's still in your that's still part of your it's yeah any Planning Commission reviews it they don't get any they don't get anything

**Speaker 40:** right it's just the ZBA fee I think the ZBA is different because the way it's

**Speaker 2:** set up I have to publish it in the paper I have to send out certified mail so we charge a fee to recoup some of those costs or a referral to the Planning

**Speaker 33:** Commission there's no advertising there's no no we shouldn't so somebody

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** fills out $100 permit to do she denies it they appeal to the ZBA and that's important $115 or another $100 I think that's one time we talked about that that doesn't

**Speaker 2:** seem fair but people get frustrated I paid $115 for her to deny it now I gotta pay $105 to go before the ZBA but she still has to review this right and do all the work yeah people get frustrated that they have to pay double that's how they feel yeah but you know what can you do going to ZBA has its own set of costs

**Speaker 41:** that are out of our control very few of your permits get denied for ZBA I have

**Speaker 34:** never had any I would deny it alright I I refer it I mean it's not necessarily a

**Speaker 4:** denied permit it would be a referral if if my permit is going to be denied I doubt this EBA would approve it it's not necessarily a denied permit it would be a referral if if my permit is going to be denied I doubt the ZBA would approve it

**Speaker 23:** it that would be my opinion oh that's right you did you yours went through

**Speaker 2:** yep right any building in the forest district was automatically denied and had to go to the CBA and they've since changed that that she can't approve so yep a lot of things that were just automatically denied in the past are no longer a deniable thing she can approve it so it stopped a lot because I had

**Speaker 6:** because it was in the forest district it was one of the main purposes of rewriting the zoning by-law

**Speaker 35:** that was the simplification that we always talk about right I mean it's not that the CBA

**Speaker 2:** isn't meeting appropriately it's just that they're not being referred the amount of stuff that they used to

**Speaker 6:** most conditional uses were taken away like it used to be uh five acres to build in the forest but it was a conditional use permit that no longer exists right don't say that too loud but it's not it doesn't exist anymore you can build a house you can build a forest district right now yep it's permitted without a conditional use permit at five acres

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so one of the items on our old permit um the assessor asked do we have the partial id on the permit so that's on there the other one he asked location of property is shown on the grand list but what Deb was saying today if they don't have a 9-1-1 address is there a incident where you have location of the property without a 9-1-1 address anybody building would have a 9-1-1 address is this kind of a duplicate I don't know we couldn't think of anything

**Speaker 4:** the only I and you just brought it up again the only other thing is if you were subdividing then you may not have another 9-1-1 address but it should be issued if you're if you want to subdivide

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** after the building it will be issued right

**Speaker 2:** should be less a b and c

**Speaker 42:** a b and c

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** now does Laura have a 9-1-1 number on the barn up there now we talked about that a while back he does

**Speaker 43:** he's always had one

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** he has okay because I remember when Bill was talking about getting the 9-1-1 he's had one okay because my camp didn't have one and then when I was issued one no because that was too far and then I was issued one and it was the wrong one

**Speaker 16:** Danny Trudeau Danny Trudeau wrong pocket the number on that barn that's how long it was okay okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so maybe we'll leave location of property is shown on the grand list it kind of sounds like a duplicate but

**Speaker 4:** yeah I don't care I was just questioning it

**Speaker 2:** I think that the parcel ID should be pretty what's that parcel ID should explain it pretty yeah

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so um instructions around here so if it's okay can we redesign the form and combine it into one I mean it's two forms into one somehow there'll be a lot on it but

**Speaker 6:** there'll be two pages right

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** but I like the notice form there's a couple sentences at the top of it at the top of the notice form that I like if we can squeeze them in there somewhere

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah you've got a lot that you've been taking out on that yeah and this here that's

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think that was it we talked about Deb right yeah and I'll run it by Lori and see what we missed and thought about can we move on now to the uniform municipal excess weight permits

**Speaker 2:** camp free pass concrete

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** does he want to sign I don't

**Speaker 6:** second

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'll pay all right

**Speaker 11:** back to the permit fee not to skip back but we charge like a flat $115 almost broke theirs down to like per size of the building in the executive session we'll be talking about

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** because we're not sure how we're going to base the AO salary if it's on those fees or hourly I'm sure if we were we wouldn't have exactly the recession we would have we wouldn't have exactly the recession before but we really never made a final decision on that except presentation consider reappointment which we did sign assignment on main oh okay sign assignment of main road parcel the attorney the attorney prepared the assignment of the tax sale parcel that we bought at tax sale and we accepted the assignment last meeting so this is just a little bit of information saying yes does this need to be witnessed by just

**Speaker 2:** it's funny that it doesn't have that yeah it's okay if someone wants to sign on this piece

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well I don't know doesn't it well I guess you could be the oh no I don't know if you no no no I don't think it should be the witness

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** make sure that it says $2,500 or something not $25 bucks

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no it says $265,000 oh oh oh

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** there you go ching ching

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** who's the notary here oh Theresa okay I'm signing it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we can't make money on it anyways right so we have to get it back this is the parcel she was a question of

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yes she's yeah

the proud owner of this home later no problem I asked to go farther down she said she don't own it for a year is it the proper year

**Speaker 11:** we used to be allowed to go farther down we used to be allowed to go farther down yeah it's more like like a right a guard and stuff yeah good luck with it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** laurie knows there's gold or something out there I think so I know old business Doug attended a select board class

**Speaker 31:** yeah select board eight by four basic

**Speaker 10:** training for new select board members and I watched it on zoom and they also mentioned that a new manual for students Our manual for select board is now available on the DLCP site. Just go to that and then go to resources and get the information right there. It's pretty well laid out.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe it's something we should look into to have, if anybody wants one here, that we should get an updated copy. Anything else we're doing right or wrong or should be doing?

**Speaker 10:** What's good to me so far.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is this the one you went to late morning?

**Speaker 10:** Well, fortunately, they did a Zoom. Because it was a day of a big storm.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, yeah, you were worried about that.

**Speaker 10:** I was.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, well, that worked out.

**Speaker 10:** It did.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's it? That's it. Okay. I want to ask about old business, dogs. Everybody's registered so far, so good?

**Speaker 2:** No, Lori. We're at places like 96. I forgot.

280. How was the day like? I'll confess. Can I register now? I'll sit down. Lisa and I talked about it, too, because we'll be signing out. March of Vipers. Yes. It's held up in June.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, so they just need to be registered by April 1st with a fine. Yep, I'd have fines on, too. How are we doing it this year? I can't remember. Do they get turned over to move right away?

**Speaker 2:** I think I'm going to send out the notices, I think, on June 1st is when you guys can send it out with a look.

**Speaker 42:** I can't remember.

**Speaker 6:** June 1st is about an average number. We've got that April 1st, doesn't it?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, Deb's got a section about that.

**Speaker 6:** It's literally.

**Speaker 4:** It just dawned on me today.

**Speaker 2:** Oh, my God. April 1st. And that was just the auditors will be coming on Monday and Tuesday, April 29th and 30th.

**Speaker 44:** Oh, wow.

**Speaker 2:** I don't know if it's their only one or just their initial visit. This has to start. I'd like to come in and meet them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know who, but probably one day. You can let me know the time.

**Speaker 2:** Yep. When do they come to work? April 29th and April 30th, Monday and Tuesday.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other old visits? New visits?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I received an email from the sheriff. Okay. I don't know if Tom Stamford needed to revisit the contract. I told him that during the town meeting the budget was voted down. He said if anything changes, I don't know. I can say he was in contact with the state troopers who told him that Stamford residents had reached out more often to the state troopers than usual for patrols. The troopers, I don't know if they've been here. I haven't seen them, but.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So. That's all I want you to know. Any other new visits? you mentioned you need to go into executive session with us also what's that you need to go into executive session with us also on tax sale we could oh i thought you i thought you

**Speaker 16:** said that no oh okay i'm sorry if you want there's one coming up if you want to do that

**Speaker 45:** no no no i thought i'm just the next meeting anything else motion to go into that motion

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** to go into executive session for personnel matter thank you very much