--- title: "Stamford Select Board — May 2, 2024" date: 2024-05-02 session: regular speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 2 named from roster attendance, 9 of 12 clusters unnamed voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":3,"SPEAKER_01":21,"SPEAKER_02":1,"SPEAKER_03":13,"SPEAKER_05":14,"SPEAKER_06":57,"SPEAKER_07":6,"SPEAKER_08":23,"SPEAKER_09":4,"SPEAKER_10":3,"SPEAKER_11":7,"SPEAKER_12":2} duration_min: 124 audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WtyGm_G6b0 audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78) minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%205-2-24.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 — May 2, 2024 **Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 124 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WtyGm_G6b0) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%205-2-24.pdf) **Present:** Nancy L. Bushika, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari, Douglas Wright, John Dunn --- I should know you. I don't know you. I don't know you. I don't. You care. I don't. So good for one of you. So good. So good to see you. So good to see you. I'm going to stay away from you. Where is she? Oh, here. So many more. So you're stuck on the floor? I just need to go. Yeah. I know. You're stuck on the floor. Take this. Take this. You're stuck on the floor. Yeah. There you go. I'll be right back. It's a fancy one? We've got to get the captain's chair on this one. What? If you wanted to bring it over here, right over here, we're going to bring it over here. Oh, okay. Where are we? Aw. Aw. She keeps getting all the calls. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Welcome to the meeting of the Stamford Select Board. If you have a matter to discuss that is not included on the agenda, you may do so by addressing the chairperson and stating your name and address. You'll notice that all our meetings are recorded, and this is to aid with the summarization of the minutes. Visitors are welcome, and we allow five minutes of comments per visitor and 15 minutes per topic. Discussions will be held in a calm and civilized manner and respectful of others. Select Board members present are Michael G. Denault, Nancy Bushika, **Speaker 1:** Douglas Wright, John Dunn, Bert and Mari. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will there be any adding items to tonight's agenda, Lori, or removing them? **Speaker 2:** Additional correspondence. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Would there be any adjustments to the agenda, such as changing the order of items? Just to let you all know that Jeff is recording the, well, video recording the meeting, and this is not through the Select Board. It's his own personal . Sorry, YouTube? **Speaker 3:** YouTube. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** YouTube. Okay. First order of business is open mowing bids. We've only received one bid. Mowing to be done at the school, $170 each time, this includes mowing, trimming, and cleaning off clippings, and spring clean-up to be done prior to mowing is an additional $500. Do you want to wait and discuss it later, or? **Speaker 1:** What is the $500? I guess we can discuss it. I'm just curious what the $500 entails. I know obviously the lawn's in front, but there's trees, too, in the back that are down on the . Like in the soccer field, there's some trees I wonder if that's included. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I think he just picks up what's been passed. All he's done is picked up where he mowed it, so if something's in the way, it might be. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He wasn't here. Nobody was here for the pre-bid. And I would like the ditch along the fence line cleaned up. That's full of large limbs, broken and dead limbs. And I don't know what's down in there. **Speaker 1:** Last year, he cleaned the ditch where there'll be cut trees. Well, I'm just curious, because last year, he charged $300. Right. So it's . **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. And the mowing last year was? **Speaker 1:** $170. **Speaker 4:** Was the same, $170? **Speaker 1:** Yeah. Okay, good. I don't think you're going to find something that's going to be cheaper now. **Speaker 5:** We only have one bid, right? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. Yeah, great. In the past, it was done by our road crew, but they've been out grading. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You did, like, you haven't done this clean up in two years? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** More than that, because Rich was the one. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, okay. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Since Rich was there. Yeah. We haven't mowed mowing since I, no, he's never mowed mowing. Even the yard cleanup, we haven't, since the school's had a hand-pair. **Speaker 2:** Oh, what? More like a full-time. **Speaker 6:** Yeah, since we've had a full-time. Was he mowed like the ditch? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Um, he's supposed to, because it's all on the fence line. **Speaker 1:** Three or four guys, he brings his museum in, but I always hear probably two hours. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do we have his insurance? Did he submit his insurance for this? Um. It seems we only have one bid. I'd like to accept it, but we need to see if he's proof of insurance or other paperwork that he's self-reported. Discuss this later. **Speaker 1:** I agree with you, Nancy. That's, yeah, he needs to be insured. If I get my camera shot. He should have a cash debt. Yeah. **Speaker 1:** Do you want to make a motion to accept it as long as he's self-reported? Right. **Speaker 6:** There's more in here. I missed something. So, yeah, I mean, I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion that we accept the bid as long as he shows his proof of insurance. Yeah. I'm going to accept it. Oh, yes. Second. Oh, I'm getting nervous. Yeah, all right. All right. I'm going to accept it. I'm going to accept it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Four. **Speaker 1:** I'd like to accept it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Um, so as soon as the insurance is here or the proper paperwork, tell him he can begin. Okay. Hearing the visitors, the first on the agenda is Martina Barnes. New Mountain National Forest. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. **Speaker 7:** I'll stand up just because otherwise my back is... Um, do you mind holding the map or... Hi, everyone. Some of you I know. It's been a little while. Um, it's been a little while since I've been here. Um, I'm the district ranger on the Manchester Ranger District. And, uh, we thought it was a good time to just give a, just a brief update on some of the activities happening in Stamford. Um, a lot of them are more... Timber-related and, uh, forestry-related. So, um, most likely soon pass it over to Josh Wills and Stacey Stratton, um, who are staff on the district. But, um, yeah, just wanted to... We'll leave this map with you. But, um, yeah, we, as you know, have been here before with our law enforcement officer, Colin Fisher, who actually retired. Lucky man. Um, at the end of December. So, we currently don't have a permanent law enforcement officer on the Manchester Ranger District, but we will be filling that position, hopefully in a few months. But, um, Colin, if he doesn't answer his phone, that's why. That would be a joy of life. Um, but, uh, yeah, so just wanted to highlight a few items on the recreation side. Uh, the old Seth Warner shelter on the, um, ATLT was, um... Removed, and a new Seth Warner shelter was completed back in, I guess in 2023, a little further into the location, um, to, um, we were seeing a lot of, um, unauthorized use by ATV, illegal ATV, um, riders and not, um, necessarily taking the best care of that shelter. So, the decision was made to relocate it, and there's a privy or, like, an outhouse as well as a... Um, shelter that was, um, newly constructed, so if you're ever interested in checking it out, it's, it's, um, it's there, it's been built. Um, so that's in Stamford, and, um, wanted to, not on this map, but the, um, our fire, uh, forest fire management officer asked me to mention that we may be doing a prescribed burn in Woodford, which I know is not Stamford, but close by. Um, on... Near FR273, um, with... So, yeah, in Woodford, it's about 41-acre, um, parcel, and this is, tis the season for prescribed burning right now before the winter, so, um, if the weather conditions permit, we may be doing that burn in, here in the next couple weeks, so, you know, I'll... We have a system to notify the fire wardens in the town. We... who are in the surrounding town to let you know, but that would be for wildlife habitat enhancement, like a wildlife opening type burn. So that's potentially, you may see just a heads up if you see smoke, that may be why you're seeing it, but we'll let you know. So yeah, those are, and then really the other things on this map are primarily timber related, and then if there are questions, I'll only pass it over to Josh, and for your safety. Yeah. Is that part of the on course initiative, the burn? The burn, no, not that I know of. Is that in partnership with the state? **Speaker 6:** Well, I didn't know if it was a federal program, or I know it was in Massachusetts. **Speaker 7:** Oh, okay. Yeah, that may be, I mean, it's not, it is not that I know of, but it's just part of we, if we're able to, and it's dry enough, and before the, after the week out, we try to do as much prescribed burning as we can in April, May, sometimes June, but it's for the benefit of wildlife habitat, but as far as I know, not. **Speaker 8:** And then there are permanent wildlife openings that are down here, like, I think it's what the ATV park and a lot of those. **Speaker 6:** This is essentially a would be on course initiative, is just openings. Yeah, they're openings. It's a younger forest, so they're out of like 12 years or something like that. **Speaker 9:** Just one of the many we maintain on course. I'm just curious. **Speaker 7:** Yeah. So, yeah, I'll pass it on to, and then if there are any questions, other questions. **Speaker 10:** Well, I don't know why, **Speaker 9:** we just have a series of timber sales, so up here is, it's mostly in Stamford as camps, you know, I would say that's about 85% done. They'll probably finish it up if we have a winter next year. And then. Is there a new road to the camp? There, oh. What was that? **Speaker 11:** Is there a new road up into the camp? **Speaker 9:** Well, there's been some improvements to it, but not, I wouldn't say it's a new road. **Speaker 12:** You can drive a car to it. **Speaker 9:** Yeah, you probably could. That's no. Yeah. I think, if there was a gate on that road, it's still there. **Speaker 11:** So, yeah. **Speaker 6:** That's been up there a while. **Speaker 9:** And then the other ones we have off Roaring Brook, or the Cardinal Brook sale and the Roaring Brook sale, those are sold and active, I mean, not cutting right now, but there's been purchase. And then we have a future one over here, the Meadows sale. It's out a few years. There's no work done yet. And then also, as with off the Roaring Brook, we have been doing it off the forest, treating ash trees to just conserve genetics, because I've done trap trees in Stamford on Roaring Brook, and I found EAD. So I've treated about 15 trees to just try to conserve some genetics. We have that done. So if you're out there and you see some tags on it, they're hopefully holding on and fighting off the EAD, and you can have ash after the killing truck comes through. And then just a little bit left, there's the Broad Brook sale that's just barely, partially in Stamford as well. And that's been sold, but no one has harvested it yet. That's kind of what we have going on in Dubai's end session. Have you guys found a fix to that ash warmer yet? No. I mean, they have some native, I mean, not native, but they have some biologically controlled, you can these bugs, but they have issues with overwintering, and they produce it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why we've been trying to, we'll have to re-treat these trees every three or four years. Maybe you can pump cocaine or something to the base? There's some insecticides we use, and then it's go for it, and you pump it into it. And the amount you put in depends on the size of the tree. So it's bigger trees and more expensive. **Speaker 6:** It just seemed like it started showing up in this immediate valley right here, just for the . **Speaker 13:** Yeah. **Speaker 9:** So yeah, I treated some there, I treated some over in Pownall, and then working up in the Somerset area. So we've been working, because it came up in Massachusetts, so we can try and focus on the southern half of the forest and move forward. But yeah, no control otherwise. Try to save some where you can and hope it keeps reproducing. It's definitely saving. Oh, yeah, maybe. While I'm doing that, just to see if the trees would still be there. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, wow. **Speaker 9:** Yeah, they're saving, I see. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I noticed on your map. You still have some parcels that are going to be transferred to National Forest. They haven't sold yet, they haven't closed yet? **Speaker 7:** Not yet. Yes, exactly. There's the Warren Brook or Warren Branch. Yeah, there are still two . OK. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So when that happens, about how many acres will National Forest own in Stamford? **Speaker 7:** Good question. I know the current is, yeah, there's 18,000 acres . Yeah. I know current, yeah, currently it's 12,203 acres, but that's according to the data base. So yeah, I don't know off the top of my head. I'll find out when we know. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So just looking at that, it looks like maybe half a stick. **Speaker 6:** It's roughly half. Half a stick. Oh, it's . **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I think it was picked to scale to go more than half. **Speaker 6:** It's probably a little bit over. It's a little bit over. It's over its length of . **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Put a stamp right up on 22,000. Anyway, but that would be it. **Speaker 12:** Bill? Are there any plans to make the new set border shelter any more acceptable for emergency response? **Speaker 7:** It's a pretty tough way to get in there, yeah. **Speaker 12:** And it's a real long time to get in there now. **Speaker 7:** Yeah. I don't know of any. I have not heard of anything immediate. I mean, yeah, but it is. **Speaker 6:** Designed for a primitive setup. Yeah. Well, long hikers. **Speaker 14:** Well, we should bring your primitive first aid. **Speaker 12:** They're long hikers. **Speaker 7:** Yeah, I mean, I can ask, but I have not heard that. I think that was part of their sort of, it was intentional a little bit to put it. **Speaker 12:** I know last, late last summer or fall, the fire department attempted access. Mm-hmm. **Speaker 8:** With our six-pack, and it just didn't work out. I don't think they started. Did they go off the Risky Ranch road, or? Yeah. And then go up out to the county, right? County. **Speaker 12:** I don't know, where'd you guys move it? **Speaker 6:** Because it used to be off of Risky Ranch. I would go in county, but I had mentioned why I didn't just hook it in from there. Exactly. You can come and look at the map here. **Speaker 12:** I think it's actually across Risky Ranch. **Speaker 6:** This is to, I think it's to the north of the alley. **Speaker 12:** Across from Reno. **Speaker 14:** You're down the highway. **Speaker 6:** It's probably, I don't know, maybe a quarter mile across Risky Ranch Road. That's the old one. **Speaker 7:** That's the old one, yeah. It's up. **Speaker 12:** Which one? The other is further into the wilderness. Further down, or down the tunnel. Further down. Yeah, it's, um. Out there. It's out there. Yeah. Thank you. **Speaker 15:** What's allowed in there for a vehicle? **Speaker 6:** I think it's the Appalachian Trail. **Speaker 7:** Yeah, it's the Appalachian Trail, and so. **Speaker 15:** Oh, that's the Appalachian Trail? Yes. That's what I thought about. When the fire department was trying to get in. You were trying to get in on the Appalachian Trail? Yeah, for an injured hacker. So, again, I'll ask the question. Emergency, what's allowed in the vehicle? **Speaker 16:** 50 feet. **Speaker 7:** You're not going to get in there with 50 feet. I don't think you can't. It's a narrow trail. **Speaker 6:** It's a donkey trail. Yeah. **Speaker 15:** Yeah. So, my Arovo wouldn't go up there with tank tracks? Probably not. **Speaker 12:** I mean, a winter tank, but. **Speaker 17:** Yeah. **Speaker 12:** It's a carry-on. **Speaker 6:** Right. It's a carry-on. Most of them are long hikers. They're ready. They're ready for long trails like that, anyways. **Speaker 15:** I just stand for an emergency. **Speaker 12:** You know what? At this point, our best response is our gurney that has a single wheel. Yes. That's how narrow it is. With a team of four or six, I mean. **Speaker 6:** Just different type of forest, wilderness, grass fields, **Speaker 15:** basically. Just wondering. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anybody else have questions for you? You speaking, too? **Speaker 8:** Yeah. I was going to go over a little bit more. Sorry. Stacy Stratton, the timber manager. And I probably have met some of you here before. Maybe not. It's been a while. So, like the roaring brook sale and the carnal brook sale, there's probably going to be some summer harvesting on it. And that's kind of at Lumberholms, though. So, they're planning to go in there and try to do some harvesting when it dries out. **Speaker 18:** Did they start harvesting there last year? **Speaker 8:** They did. And then they got kind of pushed out. And that's a lot of them that are overwashed out. So, we're going to try. We've got some that are probably going to try and fix that roar up a little bit better, you know, for people to get in and out of there. And so, yeah. So, that's the two sales that are going. I don't see any plans for Maltese or Broadbrook. So, the other ones do have some of the wood in them. Does Dutch Hill show one here? No, probably too far. But Dutch Hill is another sale. You know, it's kind of on the edge. That hunter excavation also owns that one. They've got five sales on the district sale. Well, they've purchased and are operating on it. Just wanted to let you know about the summer stuff that's in there and, you know, in case people come in and recreate or whatever, you know, there's going to be signs. And we'll try to, you know, be a lot better about contacting the neighbors, you know, when they're coming in. Because I've contacted them before, but then over COVID, everyone's kind of sold their houses and people moved in and they just didn't get passed on. Then there'd be a lot of truck going by their house. So, I got a lot of phone calls. So, I've got some new things to do and new people to contact. So. **Speaker 19:** So, it's basically going up Mill Road and then up 264th? **Speaker 8:** And it's probably, you know, probably all going east. That's, I think, the Kennebec Lumber is in New Hampshire. I think it's kind of where Hunter's been kind of going out, going east and then up 8th to 9th and wherever he goes from there. But, so if anyone's got any interest in it, I mean, I've always come down here and went out to work here and dropped off sale packages. But if a town's interested in knowing, even though we don't have any more planned sales down here to sell, if they want to know when we're operating or they want to know the rest of the towns in Vermont that we have on the district where we're harvesting, if you just send Martina an email and I can put you on my list and you just get an email with like a good letter on it. And if you want more information, I can send it to you electronically if anyone's interested. We try to do everything electronically now. It's a lot cheaper on stamps and letters. And by the time you hear about it through snail mail, it's probably already two weeks old. So, there's not much time to react. So, and this map here like Martina has, you know, it's available and we can send it to you electronically. So, if you want to put it on your website or you want to print it off someplace else, if somebody wants it, we can send it. And I think a lot of this probably is, I don't know if you've heard of Avenza. It works on your cell phone or tablet and it's just a GPS system. It's pretty. And like I think that map is probably, because if you put this on your phone, you can probably navigate with it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Dave, how's our roads up there? Because we only go up to Tim's, but not even that far. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, it's a trail. Part of it's a town trail. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, that's right, yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I haven't been up there in a while, so I really couldn't tell. **Speaker 8:** We walked in there in the spring and, you know, and that was, you know, the spring and it was still snow and ice in there, but the road wasn't in too bad shape last fall. It's still not perfect. Amazing how much water comes down that road. We just fixed it up to the spec, you know, all our specs and then it's all washed out. So, it's amazing how much came down through there. **Speaker 20:** There's no other questions. **Speaker 21:** Are we all set? **Speaker 12:** These sails, is that just lumber? **Speaker 8:** Well, there's pulp and saw logs in there, you know, whatever they need to do. Yeah, just lumber. Yeah, yeah, the timber sails. So, we offer those, like this district, you know, this town and, you know, three or four of them on here, you know, this is all, you know, land that we accrued. Was it from the North Adams Water District? Yeah. And so, as you know, this area down here gets a lot of snow and a lot of ice. And so, a lot of these sands were hydrated before we bought them and so the health of them is pretty poor, so that's what we're trying to, you know, we're trying to do our best to do our best to do our best **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** to do our best to do our best to do our best to do our best. **Speaker 22:** Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. What are you doing over there? Oh, okay. Oh, thanks. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Again, I'll get back to Lori in terms of a follow-up question. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Good to see you. Thank you. You probably sleep on that one, too. Okay. There's something out there. I'll have a good night. Thank you. Thanks. Good to see you. Thanks. Have a good night. You too. Have a good night. **Speaker 19:** Bye-bye. **Speaker 15:** I'd like to discuss what happened at the last Planet Board meeting when we tried to reorganize. The only people we had available to show was the Vice Chair, the Chair of Head Design. And when we tried to put it together, it ended up being a lot of controversy in terms of motions made and then motions being made behind it. Okay. So, the end result is we ended up in a 3-3 split, so nothing was done. But one of the things that was brought up during the meeting, and I'm still befuddled how it was done, other than through ex parte communication, was to have the select board ex officio become the chairman. And I felt for a variety of reasons that wasn't a good idea. Well, David, that was my idea. That's fine. I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. **Speaker 19:** Thank you. That was my idea. **Speaker 23:** That's fine. **Speaker 19:** Just clearing up saying that you didn't know how. **Speaker 15:** No, what I'm saying is, a lot of people seem to be aware. So, I don't know how...what came out of that, was that somebody had called the VLCT, and they said that it was okay. I wrote to them. So right off the bat I had an issue in terms of being on the Board...anybody calling anyone, especially graduates, anybody, 입니다. Good Lord. legal it's a board decision not an individual decision and i you know i can overlook this at this time but whether i'm on the select board as chair or whatever when people need to get information that's a board decision different people let me can i can i can i finish please i i really need to be able to speak without being interrupted **Speaker 24:** i i talked about for the board for somebody to talk about the board without the board voting on **Speaker 15:** it i think is a problem but let me let me uh i i would like to somebody somebody to expound on why they think the dlcp says it's okay because i got an awful lot of information that says it's not **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay well i don't think we need to argue this i'm not arguing we'll discuss it here yeah why not **Speaker 25:** because it's more of a planning commission i mean the glpc are the lawyers of the people you go to **Speaker 19:** for legal advice right and when i did my day for avoid training i um i understood maybe i'm out of place but i understood that i could ask people questions and they gave me their address to ask any questions i had and so i did and i'm not allowed to ask the vlp **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** any questions it's my understanding that i agree with kirk it's my understanding that we for informational purposes we can ask questions that would be obviously i can call them off ask questions a decision cannot be made of course the rest of the world i just wanted to know it's a tool almost like an internet tool we just did a training session and there's a website that we were told you can go on and we don't have to ask a board of power member to go on we can just go on for informational purposes just to get educated on a subject matter then when you go to your board and you talk to the board you can give that information to the board and they will hear it as far as the slack board being a chair i don't even know if you're are you even going now or i mean yeah but i don't know if you've ever heard for **Speaker 6:** a while i think i was always going to be going again in the last meeting unless i misunderstood what we decided here is that i was it's still going to be the ex-officio and still go to the board meetings. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we were negligent. We didn't make a motion, but we just continued going current. **Speaker 6:** So, I mean, you can name up to two ex-officios if you want to. The way I understand it, as this board, you could name someone else as an ex-officio to the plan where you wanted to. So the question was posed, as I see it, to the DLPC, can an ex-officio be a chairman of the board? That was basically a simple question, and the answer was yes. There's nothing to say that they can't be. That's the advice that legal gave. There's no legal advice to be found. I don't know who else we would go to for information if we can't be an ex-officio. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, then I would say, just as a flight board member, I would say that I would agree with Mianci then. If the answer's yes, the answer's yes, and Mianci says it's yes, then it's a planning board decision to vote on, not the flight board. **Speaker 6:** Right, exactly. So I really personally have no skin in the game whatsoever. I thought it was a logic. I don't think it's a logical thing for this planning board to do because, A, it's almost beneficial that I'm a non-voting member of the situation. I can just manage the meetings. They can go on in a orderly fashion, which they never do. They're a scatterbrained mess at these meetings, and anyone that went the other day for the first time can attest to that. I'm just trying to keep order and functionality to it. I don't see any conflict of interest at all. I'm not going to vote on that board, so I don't see the conflict. Including this vote, you wouldn't be able to vote. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Like, they wanted to bring us on. If Lisa made a motion, got a second, and it was legal to do, you wouldn't be able to vote for it. I saw it the other night. So it was three, it was three. **Speaker 15:** So I'd like to finish my, I don't know why you got off on this tangent. I'd really like just to finish what I have to say. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Hold on a minute. Kurt, but you can, as a member of the board, as a physio, you can still offer your opinion, discuss things along the way. Yeah. **Speaker 6:** I could have all the input. I could, you know, if I was the chair, I would just manage the meeting, and they, I just, you know, basically put whatever's on the table on the table, and the voting body would vote for it. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** In your opinion, you can offer that, too, or your expertise? **Speaker 6:** I mean, there's even arguments to be made now, and I didn't know this before, that the ex-officials can even vote. I'm not asking to do that, because that, I believe, would be a conflict, if I'm voting on two different boards, but I'm not. I'm only going to be voting on this board. I'm just trying to. How many members do you have on your board? **Speaker 15:** We have seven, but I just need to clarify. We're rambling here. I just want to get my points across. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I thought you were finished. Okay. **Speaker 15:** What do you mean? I didn't even get the start. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, jeez. **Speaker 26:** Okay. **Speaker 15:** So, let me address what they're saying, in fact, the VLCP told me I could do it. Can a select person also serve on the plan? **Speaker 27:** A is me, just want to clarify. **Speaker 15:** Excuse me, please. **Speaker 23:** No, I just want to clarify that A is me. **Speaker 15:** Okay. I just, let me finish, please, and then you can have your say. Can a select person also serve on the plan? I'm on the planning commission or a zoning board of adjustment. This is research I did years ago when I was on the select board and whatever. Adjustment development review board, select person can serve as the administrative officer. The answer is yes, yes. There are not statutorily incompatible offices. However, holding these dual positions presents multiple opportunities for the appearance of, as well as an actual conflict of interest. While most of the conflicts discussed below are direct personal conflicts of interest. A select person, a direct financial conflict of interest can also arise in a town where the select board sets compensation for town and office. There are a whole array of reasons why the select board is an ex-officio. So, let me just read this little part to you here. Let me finish, please. What year was this stuff? This is all up to date. A planning commission shall have not less than three, no more than nine voting members. All members may be compensated and reimbursed by the municipality at necessary reason. At least the majority of the members of the planning commission shall be residents of the municipality. The select board of a rural town, which we are, not more than two elected or appointed officials of an urban municipality are chosen by a legislative body, shall be non-voting ex-officio members of the planning commission. So, that's up to date. That's, uh, you can look it up yourself, uh, 24 VSA 4-43-22. So, just to carry this out a little further, when we had a select board member on, uh, Dan, uh, for a long time, he was on the select board as a member, and he was also a voting official, uh, on the, uh, planning commission. At that point, I felt, uh, that huge conflict. We were doing the town plan. We were doing the town planning. We were doing the town planning. We were doing the town planning. We were doing the town planning. We were doing the town planning. Um, he was giving input for the, um, uh, for the planning commission, then going to the select board and voting on it. You can't legislate in one group and then adjudicate in another, and they're very clear on that. Uh, and, and, though, and, you know, I blame the VLC team in the state of Vermont for this, because in one breath they're allowing it, but in the next breath they're saying very clearly, um, not recommended. The statutes of, uh, select board also serve the zoning board of adjustment and development review board. Therefore, a municipal assistance center, uh, considers the practice permitted, but does not recommend it because of the following possible scenarios. So if you want to take the time per, to read the laws, uh, as, uh, annotated from the, uh, uh, VLCT and lawyers, it clearly says they don't want it. It makes it, it makes it impossible for them to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to breathe together. Even if someone wanted to ask a young woman for help, uh, if they didn't have that right document, they wouldn't because she couldn't 2013 assault them. To get their rights to back up, you're not allowed here at the VLC, at the city hall, you're not, you're not entitled to that ballot. No. **Speaker 28:** I'm not, I wouldn't do that in the state of Vermont, but I should know this right now. **Speaker 15:** We, we, we are, we are, we should know that the transfer of, of federal funding does also women should be allowed to enter the play area. Uh, okay. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I can't be counselor, I can't be treasurer, so I can pretty much be on every other board. Right. So you can't have, because we're a small town, we don't get the volunteers. Although we get a lot of volunteers. **Speaker 29:** We've got nine people on the board. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You actually mentioned that you don't want to be a voting member. When this board appoints that board, that's the authority we do have. And we also have the authority to remove. We have the authority to appoint or remove. When we do that, we can set any stipulation we want. You're allowed to be chair if you're voted in, but we don't want you to be a voter. We could do that. I'm not saying we would, I'm saying we could. I'm also saying that I truly believe that, and I guess what I'm looking at right now is what do you want from this board? **Speaker 15:** Right. I wanted to address your comment where you just said that. If he becomes a member of the board voting, and then the select board decides to remove him, all he has to do is say no, because you have to have a complete vote of yes on your board. I'm not going to vote. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, excuse me. **Speaker 15:** Please, understand what I'm saying here. You have to have a unanimous vote on your board to remove the chair. If you allow him as a select board member to be chair, he just votes no. You can't do it. Right. And what that is is instant lawsuit. That is true. Okay. Instant lawsuit. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Didn't you just read that an ex-officio is not a voting member of the planning committee? Yes. Well, why are you saying he's voting? **Speaker 15:** Because once he becomes chair, the chair has to vote because they're the tiebreaker. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Look. **Speaker 15:** I'm just being honest with you. Look it up. Don't take my word for it. Don't take my word for it. **Speaker 6:** Two, two. I want to do it because I think I'm the best person for the job to do it. Good for you. Period. If they don't want me to do it, fine. I've got plenty of stuff going on. I don't need to do it. Nobody's questioning your ability. I'm not doing any of this stuff for me, Dave. Kirk, nobody's questioning your ability. I'm not doing any of this stuff for me. All right? None of this is for me. Kirk, we've worked together on boards for almost 20 years. **Speaker 15:** Well, I'd like to ask one question. **Speaker 6:** It's not an issue. I'd like to ask one question to this board. If any board that we appoint has a tie of... So you said an ex-officio, right? **Speaker 28:** Yes. **Speaker 15:** An ex-officio. An ex-officio. **Speaker 6:** An ex-officio. **Speaker 30:** An ex-officio. **Speaker 15:** An ex-officio. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So you said there's a tie on this vote of chair. Yeah. Okay? Because there is no chair, so no one's there to break the crowd. . If there is a tie, what do we do from there? Is there... There shouldn't be, though. There's one member who's missing. So we... There's seven members. Oh, okay. But there could... Someone could say, I abstain. Don't want to... Someone could... 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. **Speaker 19:** I don't know. I don't know. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. **Speaker 24:** abstain don't want to vote the chair generally makes the deciding vote okay we proceeded because **Speaker 6:** i mean we just i mean i suppose we could just proceed as sheila being the ex-vice chair and you know as a temporary chair or whatever until the vote's decided about you know the rationale i won't let it go on too long the rationale behind that curve was i'm just doing it because i think i'm the best i'm the best person for the job that's not different **Speaker 15:** you know i think you're very good i don't know if you're the best person you're very good you **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** brought this to our attention okay but i think it's a planning commission decision well it's **Speaker 31:** your decision too because you put you put the exhibition i'm going to stand by our motion that **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we did last week or we didn't do it we just implied her please be exhibition yeah i mean **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i do have i i still have a question right uh because of their dave is correct with the vote and dave is correct with this vote if we remove any board member asking unanimous we can't remove without we can appoint but we can't remove unless it's unanimous i know that so when there is a tie and the chair has to break that tie and you're not a voter how do you do that if the chair has to break **Speaker 6:** the time a non-voter yeah i don't know i don't know if you don't that's why i'm bringing this up i mean we've had meetings before we've had people at it we've had there were six people at them how do you break i mean how do you break a tie with that right **Speaker 15:** we have a seven-man board you can't you don't only have you can't die right right right you can't tie with a seven-man board it convolutes the chairman being the select one member when you're supposed to be exceptional do you understand what's going on here bill **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so can we just move on here and go to the plan efficient and just try to work together that's oh we are that's why you want to be on the planet it's certainly not for the seven oh okay okay okay **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i thought he was going to be the second yeah yeah **Speaker 32:** oh okay i understand it became a very hostile meeting uh there was a lot of things said that **Speaker 15:** should have been said i heard not a chair you can't get it i i urge you to listen to the tape **Speaker 29:** according to me okay then you'll understand why i'm here so without a chair you can't get it back **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** in the line but someone wasn't there correct **Speaker 19:** and my reason is because i think eric wouldn't draw the meeting back together it was chaotic **Speaker 6:** uh sable's calm force there's some industry dream about her like i said i'll step away from the whole thing at best but people think the best thing is to do my work which you know i wouldn't **Speaker 33:** think that'd be a good move thank you any other hearing visitors all right reading and approval **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** records in order no conditions participate in grants where is this uh project going to be great okay just say you want to just say yes and there's no guarantee that we would get it oh we will oh we will okay oh we don't know **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** they've already pretty much told us the amount of money we'll get right yeah so i have to pick a crowd you can pick after the break for 20 local match which i'm sure you've **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** figured out that you have enough money and yeah normally **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** time covers that but our time equipment so we don't end up putting money in we typically end up taking money in on these you have an idea where you're gonna do this right here i don't want to say this it's not going to prove okay if i have a motion can i sign it already **Speaker 9:** together yes sure **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no we have a letter to uh came to glory can you back up your paper? Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, a bunch of construction. Yep. I just gave a familiar letter that somebody wanted you to fix their culverts, but you said it's their own culvert? Yeah, it's their driveway culvert. So we should send them a letter saying it's their driveway culvert. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It says they need to assess the problem. It takes a little time, but you can once you, you saw that. It was crossed by the line there. I've spoken with this individual a couple of times. He's not happy with this. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** When you draft a response to the board, can you also capture the part of our ordinance called driveway culverts? I mean, we don't. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Where it said the town installed culverts. That's not a culvert, right? Not driveway culverts. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No. That's what I was just going to get to. That's not the problem. We don't install people's driveway culverts. Right. That's their access. It's their responsibility if they wear clothes. It says, installed and forever maintained by the property owner. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. **Speaker 34:** So we attach something like that to. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Matter of fact, we could say, hey, fix your color. Yeah, we could. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yes. **Speaker 30:** Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** First of all, it's washing up the roads. It's not a paved road. It's not a paved road. And the road, the water typically, you don't have to go around it. It doesn't cause a trouble. I'm trying to . But in this case, they're trying to get us to do it. So I guess it's on them now. **Speaker 34:** What else do you have on roads? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I do have the sweeper coming at some point, but this has been a problem for years now, you know, scheduling. They schedule, but don't show up. I'll let you know one day. So it's kind of, yeah, I'll get the day or two warning, and then I'll know for sure. But they were supposed to be here the week of the 15th, so we're past that. **Speaker 1:** So what do you sweep? What is the roads? The pavement and the school parking lot. Yeah. You don't do the main drag. Just in front of the sidewalk. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Just because of the sidewalk now, **Speaker 35:** because I sweep the sidewalk off on the shoulder. **Speaker 1:** So like the lane, part of Jefferson. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Anything that's paved. Oh, you're sweeping into there, so you clean it up. Yeah, I figured it's kind of a, plus it plugs up the drainage, and then it'll just end up down here in the school. So we might as well just clean it up there instead of down here. It's easier that way. **Speaker 1:** Yeah. I have a question for you, Dave. I was in Reedsboro this past week, and I noticed that they, I don't know who did it, but they sprayed the roads, unless there's any dust here. Do you do that at any point in time? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, we have magnesium for use in the summertime. Typically, we only spot treat because we're the washboard area. It gets expensive. It's really expensive, and it's a long time putting it down. So I kind of balance with, I don't really need it. You know, it depends on how the roads hold it. It depends on how much chloride I have left, because then I have, I don't know, three or four thousand dollars or something of chloride, so it's over a dollar a gallon. So it doesn't go very far. So we do, it's just we don't do, you know. Yeah, I don't know how they did it. It was something a fire department did, or what, but I don't know how that works out. Well, we have kind of a farmer style. We have a total that I built a, **Speaker 1:** I don't know, I don't know how they built it, but it's kind of, I don't know how they built it, but it's kind of, I don't know how that works out. We have kind of a farmer style. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We have a total that I built a T bar on, and he just stuck your eyes in the back and turned his bell on, the other night driving down the road. As long as it's a big bed, right? Yeah. The stuff we use is more environmental friendly. It helps, you know, it's the same stuff that's in the cellar. **Speaker 1:** Thanks, for answering my question. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sure. Who else do you have to grade? We've been out pretty much non-stop rowing the grading, I'd say, the last couple weeks. We're getting, we're getting, **Speaker 1:** we're getting, **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we're getting a lot of, we're getting a lot of, **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you know, we're getting a lot of, we're getting there. I've got a cool, I'm on a guardrail on Mill Road. This is the third company, I guess, where they come down. They're from West Springfield, Mass. It's somebody that Clarksburg has used, so, so they do good work. Well, **Speaker 1:** I noticed Clarksburg's got a couple guardrails that need to be replaced, so maybe, it'll be incentives to come down and hit them on the rail. He, he asked, he asked me if it was, if they could come on the weekend. I said, if you show up, **Speaker 36:** I don't care what day it is. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** He said, if you show up, I don't care what day it is. He said, if you show up, I don't care what day it is. We just need to get it done. So, the cool ones are $8,000 now. I'm thinking that might be a little light judging when I've had other guardrail repairs, so this, it may be higher than that when we get here. They want to look at pictures, so. And this is part of the, uh, FEMA reimbursement, too. That's correct. Yeah, **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's holding that up, right? Your guardrail's holding that up. On one of the roads. **Speaker 1:** Is that the only road that's being held up, or we're still trying to submit to FEMA? No, **Speaker 4:** no, **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no, no, no, no, no, no, no, **Speaker 2:** no, no, no, no…. All right. To bring this home, sorry. We have another one, another project, that needs to be submitted this fall, in the final stages. What'd you say, we have four roads? Who's? Five roads, that one, **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's, like, ready to submit, **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** and then the guardrail one. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Two projectsK. Well, **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** keep picking away at them, maybe a couple years we'll get an reimbursement. We've definitely done it too many times with the thing, I mean, forced through one of the projects that they were trying to hold up on us because they had some nonsense about we use the wrong size collar, which doesn't even really exist, what they want us to use. It seems like a game by FEMA to try to delay because we don't have to pay. I got kind of frustrated with it. **Speaker 2:** Yeah, I mean, my part is pretty much done, but they, our last person quit and there's a new person that's going to be assigned to us and then once that is assigned they give the okay, we're okay, but we're just waiting. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I just want to make clear that it's not Gloria or myself that's really **Speaker 34:** holding this up. I've been here one morning when she was on the phone **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** for a good two hours. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And I did have, there's hydraulic studies being done on the intersection up there in Sportsnet. Oh, okay. And I actually met the stream alteration in this lab. It's not what was proposed at the meeting. It's pretty much just what I said. It's not as simple as just throwing in another collar. But they actually, the permanent board would actually be a pretty extensive job. And actually require alcohol to spend a significant amount of money because they're going to have to put in equivalent. Yeah, because it would end up coming straight from where it comes out of the woods on Sportsnet. Yeah, so it wasn't as simple as ordering gravel from Barclays. No, it's a big project. So, you're just waiting for the written response? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, actually we got a parable and spoke to some of the information before we went on that. We're also going to do, write up a project on Nell Road. There's a two foot culvert cross. It's going to have to be replaced sooner than later. And that's going to end up being probably a five foot squash realigned to the brook. So it's going to be a pretty good project too. These things are all changing. $4,000 a year for culverts is going to be kind of a lot. **Speaker 6:** Yeah, there's a whole database being set up through UMass, through like all New England area to identify every single stream crossing and every single culvert. **Speaker 37:** Vermont, are they having it? **Speaker 2:** Yeah, we have it. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Vermont already has it. They went around probably 10 years ago, traveling under it. Did you find a lot of them? Everything is cataloged. I mean, you can't just say, well, I'm doing it anyways. Because I can tell you if we run into issues where people are accused of doing certain things and the state comes down and they bring satellite photos and say, look, no, you're wrong. You did not do that. There's huge databases of culverts and brook crossings. Wow. So the days of just thinking that we can do it. No, they can't. They really can't. **Speaker 6:** I mean, I suppose there's still some out there in real old roads that haven't been discovered yet, but they're looking for them all. Yep. **Speaker 1:** Bring them up to loose house. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything else on roads or trucks or equipment? No. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Probably when we get done with the grading, I've got a lot of work to do with the excavator. It's got an oil leak that I've got to kind of explore. I think it's the valve cover. But with the excavator, that's a big problem with the engine and like that. I'm sure we can get it fixed. It's just something that's, I can use it if I have to, but it needs to be repaired. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I noticed a building here, I can't remember who it's from, but it's for the new grader. The loader. The new loader. Yep. So that's all working now? Yeah. Is there some problem with lights or something? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, unfortunately, it didn't have a beacon on it. So we're going to have to figure it out. So the way this new stuff works, the computer has to be programmed. All the electrical stuff goes through the computer. So they had the guy come to program for a beacon. It had a switch and a cab for it, but it has to be programmed. And just the, I don't know, whatever the guy had to buy to be able to do it was $500. So, and then he has to travel here. And he was recommended through PLT, somebody they used. Yep. For me to even truck that machine to St. John's here, we'll probably talk to what that bill was. So for him to come and program that, and it was a wiring issue with one of the correctionalists. So I had him take care of it that way. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we're all good with it now. Good. All good. We got, I don't know if you had time to look at this yet, but we got a report from VLCT, Wade Soar. He did a risk management report for the garage. There's a few things on there that perhaps he can start working on and get a couple of them done. But I know there's a couple of big ones here that that's probably not going to happen, especially in the wood burning furnace. That shouldn't be there. That's not going to change right away. No. But if you can maybe pick at some of these. I don't. Money fiscuses. Money fiscuses. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You already got email? I would say that. I think he must've got it in your box. A lot of them are low. Oh no, maybe, they're not. They're recommendations more than, hey, this is a problem. You saw that? Why would he complain about the wood burning furnace? Oh, okay. I thought it was a signal grade. Well it's the insurance company. They don't want risk. Well, that's a different, yeah. But that's different than, well, I thought they were up there almost like a, I hate to say that, but risk. to say that they're worried about osha right now i don't even like to say that word well that's kind of what it is yeah it's he looks it over and sees if there's a motion inspection while the town might have a problem right that's what i'm saying so the furnace i mean i don't see where you get prepared yourself for the word you're working you're working with head can't speak for the guy it's always been an issue with the insurance company so yeah and they've never not insured us you know i can't declare you should come and check out where i've been to chimney fires and propane fires i'd rather go to a chimney fire **Speaker 38:** so i think some of the other things are best practiced **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah i mean he actually agreed that he didn't like our setup but he didn't think that the setup that he would want would be feasible with our garage so we can't even do what he would like us to do but he still has to put it in there **Speaker 37:** he's got to find something yeah i was just going to say sometimes **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** there are a few things like he he said there's no eyewash i do have an eyewash i have solution on the wall that would take care of you if you had an event but it's not okay for motion if they came in they wouldn't say that was okay right some of the other things that was the emergency lighting when the power goes off there's an exit light with two lights that come on but it's old enough for the batteries i've just you know gotten cluttered whatever verbose the outlets aren't ground false protected you know okay where do you start and stop **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you know start picking at one or two and then let laurie know so she can yeah maybe he gave **Speaker 1:** you like a risk management it's like medium low high you start with the higher ones and **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i don't know if we had any that were really high no no no it was like low medium so were you okay with me overspending the budget because whatever line i didn't know this this is what this is my torment because our roof is in need of some real repair up there and i was going to try we put a little extra money in there but at some point i got to try to figure out get some kind of quote **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** on the roof has fellow ever come to look at the efficiency they're working on they're working **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so your batteries in the exit thing you put them in and then by the time they come that we're out again we're good for that last time he was here was 2017. they worked bad i think yeah yeah put that out there was one of the things that we ate they recommended we do when we did so that's something you can do yourself oh can you use the passive program for this for any reason when does **Speaker 2:** that come on around it well we could still apply for it if some of these things would qualify and **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we could get maybe like an eye wash around that's one of the recommendations i would say that that is could be one that screws onto the faucet but the type of faucet i don't know what's going to work with this we just have a little bit right right and if you have something bad in your eye and you're doing that there's only two of you so you're over there mike runs in and goes i got **Speaker 6:** something in my eye that's well i had one time but one guy told me that screw on was fine and then they came in a year later and he's like now you gotta have a car yeah you gotta have a car **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** he did tell me they won't make a cabinet one on the wall that is boja okay i know you don't like to overspend but if you just do a little bit i think i think if you're making movements where you're coming here you're saying okay i'm going to take care of something but our budgets you know holding us up on certain things if there's nothing out here that's high you just say you know what i did right within the budget we fix this right i'm not sure right so i mean we if we need a roof right i mean to me that's a priority i mean we don't operate without a roof we can operate without some of the other stuff i mean that's my mindset it wouldn't hurt to like hire somebody unfortunately i know our insurance is but if you had some handyman type to do some of this stuff it would really help because i mean michael and i have our hands we'll be seeing how this brings up a question **Speaker 1:** again at some point do you feel like we should hire a third guy not you know correct me if i'm wrong but you are like running the place and working the place and i feel like you're in the position you should maybe be handling a crew and taking care of things behind the scenes more your expertise over the years too you you know you've learned and you know how to handle a lot of things looking at grants so that might be something **Speaker 36:** that you might want to look into um just an idea i would i would agree that i'm stretched out pretty **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** thin um i think the problem is it's not practical i've always looked at that third guy it would almost have to be just the right kind of a right person right person you know like you said if you had a because in order to do that handyman stuff because it's been this family you have to have an employee's licenses but if we hire a guy who paid 20 an hour he doesn't need all the licenses now he works for the crown well he goes in there and puts a rail up because you can put a rail up but then when you're all out of that work so do you hire just a maintenance guy or do you hire someone that like you say it has to be your jack off like that i'm hung over there i don't even do just about anything it has to be that type of guy that can plow roads in work on a truck training finding the right guy and training you take your best guy and now he's training your worst guy and i'm either one of them again again anybody that's probably worthy of hiring you're probably going to have a family you paid me your money right because my son just started a clock job he's 17 years old and i can tell you that he started at more money than well you guys are probably **Speaker 37:** to pay some full-time guy with a bunch of skill it's the struggle it's the struggle of small towns it almost has to be built in if you need someone that money he started at i probably only **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** made a couple years ago working for that town 17. no experience don't say it because i don't want my guys to hear it so there's the reality of hiring somebody is we're not they have to represent the town hall too we can't just hire somebody we can't just hire somebody but i think **Speaker 1:** we should put it in like the radar and try and keep an eye out for somebody the right person **Speaker 6:** comes along i mean the ideal situation would be like a you know 25 year old homegrown person that **Speaker 30:** wants yes this is going to go back to what you said before it don't care it's these boards these **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** uh you know listers who we're not getting no no there's people that want to step to the plate enough to get people to join the planet i mean we're talking when i looked at that zoning board no no offense at all but the age of a zoning board what's our future look like yeah you know **Speaker 30:** just work i mean what you don't see no young kids you know that this stuff lost in society **Speaker 6:** has started so it's you know civic to me goes i don't really know how to pinpoint any of it but it's going on everywhere whatever it is so you know his his boy **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you know we're going to be able to fabricate our water you know that's a good trade to work for the town that's one thing now you gotta you gotta have your cdl license you have to have you know a little bit of mechanical auto mechanics you know trucking mechanics you know then some maintenance you have to have a good work ethic yeah put it all together and you're right you know what finding one of those guys i'm gonna tell you one of yours is paid right now how's that here **Speaker 6:** the problem is the struggle it's even going back to planning here just talking about the the the headache of a culver and that road only extends what 30 yards yeah i mean what if roads start going off and all that in different directions and i think these are important **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i do believe i do agree with john i think down the road you could be down the road and you know then the next step is okay so now david retires i'm not saying he's going to do it tomorrow but there's a future here right and in the future everybody knows so this third guy so if i mean i would i'm not going to speak for michael but michael might not want to be the supervisor after seeing what david goes through right he might there's a lot of guys don't want to be in that position they're also similar in age right so now this is third guy that guy is going to lead up to that or now you're going to hire **Speaker 34:** have to hire out and find an administrator maybe the third guy do the pick up the brush and **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** branches on the lawn well there's you know if we could talk part-time that might be another idea right you know you know if you could get a part-time guy the problem i had as a part-time guy was finding something you got i think i had a lot of you know guys that were like 70 that yeah you know i've been down this road now a couple times and this is always the same but the other the other thing **Speaker 12:** right just thinking that perhaps you as a board ought to authorize conceptually to david that if you found the right person even in the middle of the year oh yeah you would find the money to hire them i don't think that **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah i don't think qualifications and the cdl now you can't even hire somebody without a cdl anymore because they have to go to school just to get it now you can't do what i did with michael or am right i can't just train them myself bring them up so they either go to school or already have to come out with that and you're not getting them in the middle of the year and you're not getting **Speaker 30:** them in the 20 dollars **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** like that **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** now the other when you mentioned cdl this fellow that came down from the lct said there's supposed to be records that we're keeping too that if the dot came in and wanted to see some of these records they're not easily available and and he had a town that was fined $8,000 because they weren't produced so this is more work on Lori or Dave I don't think any maybe a road commissioner and other townspeople but I don't think so **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** What record is it? **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You have to keep a CDL record **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Did you update? What was the other one? **Speaker 2:** driver's licenses something on your record and we've got to do a lot of stuff that we just don't do on a yearly basis **Speaker 1:** Just not enough time Checklist Checklist Dave can focus on it as a supervisor and coordinate someone else One of the things that Kurt mentioned **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** before too is this town and I know there's some stubborn people in the town but this slide board in the future has to start looking at allowing things to happen in the town The tax base is at a standstill You've got to do evaluations that's not going to drive your tax and what's going to drive your tax is expenses Hire a third guy Your school goes up blah blah blah Expenses drive taxes They're going up We all know that But our population our number of houses that we tax hasn't gone up to keep up with it So what happens? We don't pay more You have to allow things to happen If a guy wants to start a business up the road here we have to start looking at zoning and putting business in and maybe even think about I don't know if Vermont allows it but a commercial tax I pay a much higher tax for commercial than a residential tax **Speaker 37:** So Vermont **Speaker 6:** last legislation I don't know about now they had a bill going to the floor because not every town in the state of Vermont can charge that 1% tax This bill was going to make it allowable so everyone could charge tax A 1% bill that's built on it Now what about the difference in a rate like Bankton has a different **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** tax rate for their business Maybe they have their own **Speaker 39:** bylaws **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So why wouldn't you you know right now as far as I'm concerned Stamford seems not everybody but many people see anti-business If someone wants to come in here and start an ice cream business it's like oh what are they doing You know wants to sell Commodore Let them sell Commodore **Speaker 6:** We've argued recently for two or three meetings about a home farm stand A home farm stand You can't have a home farm stand in Sanford Vermont What I'm saying is if you could get these businesses **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** even if there wasn't a different tax rate the valuations of these properties would go up So you have a person that's making money He's got a store The valuation of that property would go up And then you will have a better tax rate Then you can afford the things I don't see it We just voted no to law enforcement **Speaker 6:** because we don't have the money The only source of income in this town other than some kind of grant is taxation That's it Period **Speaker 37:** Period **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Period Period Period What'd they say 12000 acres of land 12,000 acres Lore' They were not taxed **Speaker 6:** What was the hidden cost of some of these things He never really **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I understand there's pros and cons You let someone build a house up Le Chevre Rouge And they send four kids to the school On the other hand the other hand you can't have just all summer homes **Speaker 6:** Then you're not going to have a community there's a balance i mean i don't know i don't know about anyone else but i recently just looked at all the new appraisals and there's four five six houses on there now over a million dollars right so there's a lot of different trends that are starting to take place and come you know i don't remember seeing many dollar prices lisa you had a question david anything else on roads uh one quick thing that kind of pertains to roads and rivers i have a bunch of people a lot of a bunch a few people asking about the equipment and the stream over here by the bridge it's for a debris clearance job that the dod has commissioned just so that there's a storm or whatever ponds and stuff come down the river i'll have enough clearance and not **Speaker 33:** plug that bridge up basically what you know the couple that was is doing it said this is the **Speaker 6:** fourth time that he's done it yeah they do it they're out roaring brook runs very he knows a lot of fall in a short period of time time so it's a very erosive type of stream so it does deposit a lot of stuff as soon as it blasts all over the place that's the reason they call it roaring brooks yeah it's just a lot there's **Speaker 14:** a lot of fall just in the short distance for that and the stone that claims against each other yeah **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** they took a lot of stone out of there i don't know if jill was watching i'll make sure they're doing it right so i stand on the bridge you know what you were watching to make sure they were **Speaker 40:** doing that job up here right i was asking them if they were going to come and down and do it all the way down i saw you standing those days are gone sheila telling what to do well i wanted to know because it's getting wider down behind me **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** dave anything on recycling um laura you hear anything on emergency management discussion hard isn't it nope status of joint meeting with school directors i still have not heard anything from erica and i i emailed her this morning nothing and it's harder today if i know **Speaker 41:** not what i said hey can we do that yeah we had two dates the next date was well i think and **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i think it's in their best interest more than theirs **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah it all calls when you're ready yep okay um board civil authority training there was uh a little bit of a delay in the training because with the new appraisal we and new members on the board of civil authority it was nice to have this training at least heard something or how to do this i think it was very well laurie how you set up and everything right thank bill just to go back a step **Speaker 12:** did anybody get to sit on the ic402 training no no okay because somebody is just starting to query to bob for the local emergency plan are you close to doing it he **Speaker 2:** took it and had a lot of suggestions and we talked about it and i haven't heard back so i don't know if i'm supposed to be doing it or if he's taking over the i don't know he hasn't discussed it with **Speaker 12:** me but eventually he's got to come back and have it signed and may 1st is the submission date there's another one coming around well this is another one of those five percent people reimbursed oh yeah is there any way we could have that like you did today **Speaker 2:** they had an in-person one in bennington the one you just went **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that was in person right yeah yeah you can go online and take it no no no what i'm saying is i like the way we had it today where you set it up i mean i probably back to that stuff **Speaker 12:** but even if we got a couple of people yeah registered that way they would just have one and if you do it on an off day and steal the big screen in the library it makes an easy presentation bill what's the number again ic402 alternately ic100 ic100 you can definitely take by yourself online i'm pretty sure you can do 402 as well and you can go on to the female website or the emergency website either one will take you to it it's probably under a sub category that says **Speaker 2:** training i was able to do it here how many of you would want to do it here i'll do it one you know **Speaker 6:** i would do it here for everybody yeah i think they've done this we're all together or whatever **Speaker 12:** i don't know how qualified dara zinc is she might be able to run it but she might be able to recognize **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** on correspondence uniform municipal excess weight permits from casella and carnal logistics **Speaker 1:** is that another ten dollar thing yeah **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that's what i would call it if we said we don't need them and we're taking their money shouldn't we be taking the money yeah absolutely yeah and so okay i'm just i'm saying in this how do they know the pay who's coming on the pay because it's a long day a lot okay so we're just not chasing people enforce it right yeah how would you know you just said so what they could generally right that's exactly what i'm saying so if you know people just do it and do it it's not something we're just doing wrong then **Speaker 2:** in years in years past chair members have taken it upon themselves didn't apply who applied a year or two before and i have done it in the past and for ten dollars i **Speaker 42:** just don't have time to stay on top of it and okay most of what it does is if one of those haulers **Speaker 38:** damages a road or a building or a sign it gives you the information to go together right it's the **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** more information they're really recording their information each year and it's a permit that says **Speaker 2:** you know during mud season we don't want you on the roads unless they're frozen so that right you **Speaker 19:** don't get some heavy oil truck making a mess of something okay in these forests sorry ups truck so yes i mean the national forest **Speaker 12:** that's why westwell has a month season **Speaker 2:** but it's not something they do automatically in the past **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yes the jenny bump people yeah the national force oh maybe i'm thinking of powerline guys to sell our line people they put a bunch of money into that right i mean they definitely put a lot more wear and care on the rest of the road i would say but at least they did something nobody else typically does anything **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and um anything else laurie um you gave me a request for an appointment to the conservation commission yeah i got i do have of course um if you want to start with that yep um dear stamford select board i would like to put myself forward to serve with the conservation commission **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** one more that kind of complicated you know if you don't laugh once in a while if you didn't tell me him conservation commission i think is about to have their first meeting in around six years i thought it helped me learn well **Speaker 19:** opposed um may 20th to sheila and she said she'd get back to me but i haven't heard so i'm hoping it will be made i don't know isn't there a green day or something green up day is this saturday come on down get a donut get a plastic bag **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you don't have to take a battery you just take it don't you can just take a donut **Speaker 43:** and you serve the town in other ways everybody else everybody else take a bag **Speaker 33:** okay can i have a motion motion on this uh a motion motion to nominate **Speaker 6:** to appoint her to the conservation commission **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that expires in 2028. is there still other seats **Speaker 6:** history trash it's not just like environmental stuff any conservation of your historical stuff i don't know there's a there's a definition for it somewhere i mean i mean just based on your training and i was thinking god is there **Speaker 6:** anything any of us can do and like something accomplishable might be something like invasive it's not that you're going to get anything accomplished but you can make a bunch of money well if you don't get the state to change their mode patterns you'll probably go a long way on **Speaker 44:** our own side of the basis but they blow up right as it turns that's going to be my job one and **Speaker 6:** you got them all if they were doing like dune and then modern again before luck goes to steve i mean they're just perpetuating the domino side he gets into the mower and just um **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** kurt you asked if there was vacancy on god's messenger spirit yes there's a seven-man board like there's two vacancies let's look i amоже is still on conservation so i'm not conservative **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** an observation josh wăn yes **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** go **Speaker 19:** i think there was four amen 'm or if there's four so there's an assembly established yes i'm gonna move my keys **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yes it's still on date shegan Misman new york city one five seven eight seven eight now leaves on nine nas Крас same year and here's was mites signed and you're saying on a new board and and time i mean you have to there's one more time his term is up next year so that i hate to bring up stuff like that below **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** when i became a slackboard member there was a slackboard member **Speaker 6:** she was on this board a plan board and her own place that's been going on for a long time i think i was probably the first one just for my own personal reasons to say i wasn't gonna vote for the playing board i don't know that anyone's ever done that i just did it because i don't want anyone to perceive any type of conflict i'm not trying to have any type of personal gain out of anything you know it's not just a job it's like 800 bucks a year or a weekend so you know i'm not it's really just trying to do what i think is the best thing congratulations the other thing is like uh we appoint those positions as a board we appoint the planning is that something at some point you **Speaker 1:** want to have elected like people hey i want to be on the planning board and that's a combo isn't it set up in the wall i'm sorry is that set up in the laws like which your boards are **Speaker 33:** appointed that's what i was yeah that's what i was wondering yeah i mean i think i think you can **Speaker 6:** i think you can choose to have i'm not sure the process or whatever but you could choose to have **Speaker 45:** an elected board i mean is there any more weight than it already does my only intention is is that **Speaker 1:** it might stir some people up and get more people involved is everybody you know i want to run for **Speaker 46:** playing you know what you do about an elected official you lose control of what direction that **Speaker 12:** board goes right you can't those are elected people you get two or three of them to come on the board and say we're going this way yeah you're stuck here yeah all right that's a good point **Speaker 6:** not that they will but i mean it's it's it's worked pretty good we're back talking about the planning board they're chaotic they're chaotic and they're on our lives but um it was mentioned **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** about we were talking about the passes and it was i think it was yesterday it was mentioned something about listers and a while back i had actually made a motion on this board to bring listers from elected to appointed and it's probably been over the stage i've ever been on the board but it seems like it's not working um and i didn't know that i was talking to larry is the training for a lister when you appoint them is not covered by the state correct when you when you appoint **Speaker 2:** someone they must come with training already under their belt so that's why we're not hitting anyone **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** where if you're elected they train them to stay in training so we might want to consider listers are a lister is important and **Speaker 6:** it would save us money down the road it's like 26 000 a year or something that we paid for lister **Speaker 12:** hard side of that is that we went for years when nobody would take out papers to run for a **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** lister yeah that's what that does so i guess that's i i don't know i'd love to be able to appoint someone but we have not had one person since we made that so we changed that made that change we haven't had one person asked number one **Speaker 47:** but we didn't have any before well we did have someone get elected **Speaker 30:** that person when we changed it resigned it did seem like one of those things that kind of died **Speaker 6:** off or like back in the 80s it was like the lineup of a few people at least that always wanted to do **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it they were old and retired it's a hard job it's an important job i don't know but it's also empty and if we i don't know i'm just bringing it up i mean if we brought it back to elected **Speaker 48:** we would have to bring it up at a town meeting correct right yes if you guys when you're ready **Speaker 2:** to do your warrant do a warrant article asking if the town wanted to go back to elected and see if people will take out papers to run and if people are interested in it right and run then you're **Speaker 49:** upset if nobody runs then you'll have to continue with it how many how many seats would we have to **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i think some towns have elected listeners and they have the hired lister the higher association so they work together the local listers could do the deck and the easier ones and well it's just like and figuring out well what's that that could help you transition right and there's more than just figuring out the deck it's the sales studies and the training part is **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** what's catching you know buy the cards the money they want to get they're doing what they're doing I wish they would just like no matter which way it doesn't make sense that we appoint someone they won't train them No, doesn't make sense But like Carter was saying that the training that we just did when we have this board of abatement The board of abatement puts you that hometown personal look into it. We're not getting that now We're getting these people from out of town going hey, you know your house is assessed like this and you know I don't really care this way here. We have something that cares It's worth bringing up the company, okay **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything else into correspondence Okay, I have under all business dogs, however April 1st was the deadline. How are they coming in? **Speaker 2:** I Remind your letters have gone out. I'm good. Okay, so People I've had a lot of people actually come in this week good and then I'm sure the same ones are on just like I Talk Oh **Speaker 2:** 96 animals I **Speaker 12:** Need to know that those 96 are even so a lot **Speaker 2:** Well, they were alive last year and the owners have not contacted me to say different so **Speaker 6:** so pretty good chances **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so you know what we send the letters out if you do say they're not alive and we find out they are alive that you really need to find but yeah we've had people come in saying my dog died yeah but then the dog does show up when he bites somebody **Speaker 6:** we proceed from there **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** laura did you want to talk about the auditor at all or **Speaker 2:** i do okay but i was waiting till my time okay so the time sure it's all new whatever go ahead so the auditors came this week they were very nice um they were very happy with a lot of things that we were doing they would like to see some changes in what we are doing right now we have our general funding we have our money market we have our reappraisal fund in this account we have our fire truck replacement fund in this account and we have like 15 different accounts all over the place and he would like to see all of the accounts well all the money cut into one basket but tracked separately so there would be different numbers you know the cemetery 400 and the library 500 and reappraisal 600 so the money would still be individualized but kept in one account and he felt that every spring i have to apply for a tax anticipation note because i don't have enough money to carry me through until taxes came in but if we pull the hundreds of thousands of dollars from here and there and everywhere all into one account we wouldn't have to borrow anymore we could say or borrow from yourself money you're kind of yeah yeah yeah but you're still tracking on paper you're still everything would be still tracked separately on paper it just wouldn't be maintained in individual bank accounts in different places um like to see, like library and cemetery, handled the same way, like when Dave comes in, he codes out all of his bills, and I write the checks. Right now, the library has its own bank accounts. They spend the money. Tina Seneco, their treasurer, reconciles it, and she gives it to me. I have to re-reconcile it and re-enter everything in NEMRC so that my statements match hers. So we're doubling and tripling entries. He says, you're just wasting a lot of time and not really serving a purpose that suits us. So he would like to see as little money as possible handled at the transfer station. He doesn't want to see us selling transfer cars there. He'd like to keep as much money. Here in the office, he says, this is the safest and best way to do it. Not that you're really have to worry, but, you know, leave it to his recommendations. **Speaker 12:** For the convenience to the town people, how much money is at risk? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I'm not going to go rob this transfer station. Yeah, well, it's been done. I mean, I understand from a Boston founder. From his point of view, these are just his suggestions to benefit the town, and he doesn't expect that. He expects us to just implement everything, yeah. I like the first part, the transfer station. Agreed. Yeah. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I mean, there was other, he wanted to meet the select board chair, so I came down, and very nice, and of course he asks about fraud. Do we see any here? No. No, I don't see any. We show him how we track stuff and how we sign off. That's why you noticed your names tonight? Yeah, that's one of the changes. **Speaker 2:** Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. It's like anybody can chat. **Speaker 2:** That's right. I never thought about that. You should be making them sign it. Yeah. He would like to see Nancy see more of what I do, journal letter, ledger entries, for you guys to take a look at that, see why I'm making adjustments to the accounts. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** What about the new people coming off the ladder that can't move? Oh, okay, sorry. They can't sign their names. Yeah, so they're going to go back to the chat? We certify their exes. Just making sure. Yeah, just make your mark. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Just make your mark. Make your mark. **Speaker 2:** Another thing that he wants to do is move us. He wants to move us from our modified accrual base accounting to a pure cash system. Cash on January 1st and the cash on December 31st and not play games of bills that were paid in January that were early in December and bills that were paid in December that were January. I mean, I'm constantly having to split every year payroll that crosses years. And he's like, you know, you guys are just too small for all of that. It would really benefit a company that had a lot of inventory that you would depreciate. But we don't file taxes. We don't depreciate. We don't take advantage of the reasons that, you know, a modified system. Hold back your invoices and so on. Right. So he's like, you know, just let's go back to keeping it simple and go back to a cash system. The worst that could happen is that one day you're going to have to go back to a cash system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. **Speaker 50:** Yeah. **Speaker 2:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. **Speaker 51:** Yeah. **Speaker 12:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think what could happen is that one year, that very first year, you know, it might be not quite so even. **Speaker 42:** By the time you've done it for two years, it's all done with. **Speaker 2:** Perfect. That's what we said. **Speaker 48:** If you pay four quarterly payments, does it matter if it is from one year to the third? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Look at it and see exactly what, you don't have to know the game in that way. That's right. Right. This is what's been annoying me for a while. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. We're a small town, and we're not business people. We know if we have money in the bank, we pay the bill. And we just pay it like that. We're used to working that way in our own personal lives. We're not big finance people, and that's how it is. **Speaker 2:** You seem very pleasant, very knowledgeable. One of the big things he wanted to do was bring all of our accounts payable and all the accounts that I have running totals that have been there from last year and the year before and the year before. And he really wanted to work at zeroing everything else so we have a fresh start going forward. Sounds like a good move, then. Yeah. **Speaker 6:** Sounds like a nice move. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He's going to send recommendations, too. Yeah. Great moves. **Speaker 1:** So moving forward, are we going to go by his recommendation? Probably. I think so. Do we get a motion on that, or just do it? Wait till they come up. Well, wait. He's going to send a letter. OK. And his suggestion was not to just put all your eggs **Speaker 2:** in one basket overnight, but maybe close out the appraisal fund, and merge it, and see how that goes. And in another couple of months, close another account, and merge it. **Speaker 6:** Doesn't sound like a simpler process. **Speaker 2:** Yeah. For sure. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, we actually have different banks, **Speaker 50:** not just different accounts. **Speaker 2:** I have four different banks. Yeah. **Speaker 12:** That's crazy. Yeah. Besides, we have a bank. Accumulated money together, you can shop to whatever bank. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The bank can listen to you on the matter. **Speaker 51:** Yes. **Speaker 2:** Yes. Yeah. I think there's a thought of, do we want to stay at the bank, or do we find a bank that might be more accommodating? **Speaker 12:** And the bank that you are going to keep a couple hundred thousand dollars is probably going to be a lot more conducive to borrow. If you do need to borrow money in anticipation, they're going to give you better facility. **Speaker 15:** How much money do you plan to put in one bank? **Speaker 29:** You can probably get insured. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Both of them are double insured now. **Speaker 50:** Yeah. **Speaker 2:** How much? They would have to provide that over 200,000 FDIC, because it would definitely be over. We're required to have that, especially at tax time. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. There's a separate insurance company . **Speaker 34:** Besides the federal government. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sounds good. You've seen Kathy with all the paperwork and everything. I have a question for you. You mentioned the trees down in the . Are they in the mowing area, or? **Speaker 1:** Yeah, you'll probably come across them when you mow them. They must have came down at the last windstorm we had. But they're down at the soccer field area and by the town's court. **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, we'll have to see if he moves them, because he didn't come here to look for anything. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** See, in the past, we had trees. We had trees cut, but I don't know if we had to ask anybody to come and pick them up, I think. Right. **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Maybe once a minute, if you wanted to. I'm sure. I mean, why wouldn't you for $500 more? You shouldn't do it. **Speaker 2:** I'm thinking that our bid package just said, like, the stuff left from plowing, like, if the. Degree. And the degree from little twigs and stuff that's fallen. I don't know as it would. **Speaker 6:** Oh, I can see it. **Speaker 2:** It'd be so far off. It's up in ranges . . . . How big are those branches? **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** They're trees, right? Are there branches like? The ones behind the tennis court. . . **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Is something he could probably handle, is . . . . . . . . **Speaker 47:** . **Speaker 12:** . . **Speaker 19:** . . . . **Speaker 12:** . . . . . . . . **Speaker 12:** . . . . . . . . . . . . . **Speaker 1:** . . **Speaker 40:** . . **Speaker 12:** yeah well are they that size or this size **Speaker 1:** yeah the ones i saw were like right in the soccer field you can see it out in the field but some of them over the moment can be like i can't mold it hopefully it does something with it tennis courts eroded it's all the trees are just yeah that's a nice it's unfortunate the fields don't get used nearly right as much as they used to i think the tennis court **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** too even the seed savers are using it and it is a liability because the acid salt's all cracked and lifted and it's a big trick hazard we should look into doing something with that or making it look good or **Speaker 6:** the court was a grant of a recreation grant yeah in the 70s when people actually like played tennis **Speaker 12:** there were a number of people that used it in the lake through the late 70s but in the early 80s it used to be pretty popular back there well we came to a point where we weren't going to spend the money to maintain it and you know to do maintenance on it because nobody was using it certainly nobody from town **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i think i'm not sure if we even made a motion to just get rid of it but then the seat saver said this would be beautiful **Speaker 12:** right to have our gardens there don't forget **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** to look into it and see what we can do or it's worth taking down i think the fence is pretty well wrecked down there **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's all cut didn't they build a building or shed or something **Speaker 6:** yeah there's a garden shed and oh no i'd have to look better i haven't really **Speaker 37:** because my son was helping build it yeah and then **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** they said you know it's like class and things like going on down there for a little while but we can't give up they ran out of volunteers **Speaker 2:** yeah i might be interested in purchasing a raised bed yeah i might be interested in purchasing a raised bed raised beds if they're still worthy of moving i don't know what shape they're in **Speaker 6:** i don't i don't really know who even there's like blueberry bushes growing down there someone can dig them up i don't know where they are i suppose **Speaker 1:** i'm surprised the school doesn't have a program where the kids can learn how to **Speaker 37:** they work for a little while **Speaker 6:** it's mostly um mostly ellen's ellen's was the chief driver of all that yeah **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but i think if there's anything down there that's savable and someone wants it hey yeah i wouldn't sell it i just take it take it yeah well **Speaker 6:** part of the part of the concept we've been hiding through is some of what we were talking about the planning work the other day it's just self-sustainability teaching people how to garden but it just kind of **Speaker 25:** fell apart so that was stuck with a mess there now now it's a mess yeah **Speaker 12:** well it got to be where stephen green was doing almost all the work yeah by himself or with helen yeah and all those people that said yeah yeah and i want a garden plot and just never showed it **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so if anyone's interested looking get back to the select board and give us **Speaker 25:** your suggestions what to do with it i'll take a walk over there and look at it **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** earlier um the other thing i had on here was uh old business about the building permit form um i was hoping deb would be here tonight because i thought this permit was finalized and put to bed but um i believe she didn't want her phone number on here she wanted a town email or heather oh oh she wanted both **Speaker 6:** okay **Speaker 25:** building permit **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no for uh that we approved a few weeks ago um so to get a town email right now there's nine active emails that we are paying for and the cost per user depends on how many users and we figured if we it's going to be a little cost prohibited to do this because it might just blow up into everybody wants a town email address **Speaker 6:** oh not very different i don't i could care less whether i have one or not **Speaker 40:** but um **Speaker 12:** i don't know you know how much does one email address cost **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well that's not only one but then what if lisa wants one oh i don't know that particular one **Speaker 12:** you're putting it on a town forum that's different than handing it to everybody **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** but this would be just for her seven dollars just for the email how much do you have there **Speaker 1:** seven dollars per user **Speaker 4:** okay **Speaker 1:** per user per one seven dollars i think that's something **Speaker 2:** most of these are monthly she anticipates if we did want to have everyone have a town email it would be another 315 to 400 dollars on the email address but it's not a lot of money it's a month increase for what we're paying **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yes my question is what does everyone consist of yeah **Speaker 2:** is it town employees or town board members board members she's an appointment **Speaker 12:** well at lori's discretion is it a problem with giving her a talent your the talent email address on the forum **Speaker 2:** she doesn't want him coming to me she wants him to go directly to her but she doesn't want to use your personal email and i had thought she could create a stamfordza gmail.com for free and that way she would she could create her own email and make it without a cost without a cost **Speaker 42:** why don't we suggest that **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** is that agreeable **Speaker 1:** yeah i'm not sure on the logistics of the whole email thing but if we get away with it and i don't spend any money i'd fall for it **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well the thing too a dev did say email back and forth to say somebody calls or emails or dev do i need a permit for this garage or i'm thinking of doing this what what's the process see that's the email back and it'd be in writing so we'll never make it here to the town **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** office that's what my friend i like the writing i like it in writing because we probably should we should have never been through this but we know we've got space now we got to do it later yeah and the email that she made can be deleted you know so now it costs money to go and have someone dig it up you know so now he says you know she sent me an email because i didn't send an email **Speaker 5:** i want to see it **Speaker 52:** public knowledge too though i think any town **Speaker 2:** yes if it's an official web email it would be public well it would be under the public disposal **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** right and that's why they push us not to use our personal emails because they see your whole thing you know any conversation or any business that i did they don't want to you know i don't know **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well i so i'm thinking for the one okay but then what if somebody wants to correspond with planning commission or uh conservation commission cpa and i don't know how big this is going to get **Speaker 19:** well i don't know i'm trying to yeah **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's kind of a new thing so you know when laurie gets information sent to the town she can send it to us but i very rarely get anything to the town email from a public you know from a citizen right yeah i might get i don't know the sheriff sent me something the sweatboard of speak uh i don't ever remember i never even saw yours that's what i'm saying i don't but that's what it's probably better that people communicate through the office than to do us you know right **Speaker 38:** i don't know she may not want it to come through the office but maybe **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** well that's what i'm saying and the other thing is if i have a private email that he's sending me and he sends me a private email we we discuss something that's a board discussion and then i send it to kurt and i said now it's a meeting so you gotta be careful of that i don't know i i i don't want to make a big deal out of it i'm just saying we've never had it before and now i don't know some can of worms that we're opening **Speaker 2:** so would there ever be a necessity that the town would want the access to it that's what i'm saying if she creates a gmail.com we would you know **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** my thing with with those type of things is once we it's nothing about it it's not a personal thing with that at all she might never now always be in that position and the next person and i go back to and i think nancy's only one that was on the board when um we had the dog officer incident i mean this guy was doing things that you wouldn't believe ended up shooting a town resident dog and we're so lucky we didn't get sued but the guy just kind of did his own thing and then you know then he didn't take the select remember because you don't have to tell him so you know he made it it was pretty bad you know we were out of it was out of our control you know i think we should have control a little bit yeah what's the **Speaker 19:** especially something like permitting yeah that's kind of important **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** really what's the difference having if you have for good questions contact the zoning administrator and her phone number's a **Speaker 34:** here what's the difference between that **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if you want to get a hold of her through email you send it to the clerk and she **Speaker 48:** will correspond with it you know then you can so if you put the **Speaker 2:** contact at standardbt.net and anything that's zoning i forward **Speaker 48:** right you can forward **Speaker 2:** yeah and forth you've still lost your control **Speaker 52:** that's true **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i don't know either **Speaker 34:** well i just want to make sure that we're covered let's think about it **Speaker 41:** like that **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah maybe she's got a good reason for it **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** um that's all i have oh i can't wait in your busy schedule lori could you give us the first quarter report that's all right that's all right next time you could leave it in our box we can look it over and just have it on the agenda for next meeting yeah any other new business oldest i'd like to make a motion to go into executive session for personnel matter and a possible litigation two separate **Speaker 43:** second **Speaker 19:** oh i just i have a question in general um **Speaker 19:** um i have a good like question that we just got um one of the permit things like am i allowed to subscribe here like ask her or somebody else with any question about that like what's the protocol that am i allowed to like you can ask questions **Speaker 53:** yeah i can't make any decisions i'm not supposed to discuss **Speaker 54:** and come to a conclusion about the board but if i want to like understand make **Speaker 19:** sure i'm understanding correctly am i allowed to just ask absolutely **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** and you can get information and you can get education but i mean all of the board members yes as long as they're not there that's probably actually you guys have seven **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** asking because i'm not i'm new to this **Speaker 6:** and they're all there you just don't make them stay away from that at all yeah but yeah you could ask us i mean it's one of the reasons i felt like i'd be a good chair because i've got a pretty good grasp on all these bylaws and i've got a pretty good grasp on all these bylaws and i think i can help people understand yeah just understand what's going on **Speaker 30:** lisa wants more knowledge **Speaker 55:** i had to read the things like 10 or 12 times **Speaker 19:** to each other after the last meeting that had to do with the reading thing but i'm afraid to ask you because i'm afraid i'm going to get my head **Speaker 6:** so i'm still a little confused on that myself up there i need some more clarification from devon what's going on **Speaker 19:** okay **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** what do you think what what is the i'm not sure where where it was at vlpc or if it's just a vermont general vermont board with the open meeting loss okay because you're all allowed right we didn't do that of course but after that question i'm just **Speaker 19:** kind of maybe rethink about who i can talk to **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** stick to what they tell you in the meeting in that open meeting log training and that's what someone else does a lot of times **Speaker 6:** always always always make sure anything you're documenting is up to date and **Speaker 37:** it's not right yeah so i actually came here one **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** time with a swatch board uh handbook thing and i said this is what it says right here nancy and she knows because she makes sure there's a period at the end of that that says uh it was 2004 mike here's the new 2016 one yeah they got they updated them all the time but that open meeting law no one has ever according to the training lifehook they just tell you don't do it again **Speaker 56:** it's not like you get sued or anything **Speaker 6:** there's even statements in there like if you feel like you can remove yourself from from the conflict then it's not necessarily even a conflict right right if you can feel like you can make a partial judgment based on the information it's **Speaker 30:** not a conflict like time i refuse myself **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** from the mowing bid because my cousin but i don't have to do that **Speaker 5:** i just do it because i want if there was other bidders i would have definitely **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you know then i could do it but it's only one bidder anyways but it just makes it calm but like you said i don't have to get him any business you know it doesn't matter i mean **Speaker 6:** not everything we do is a conflict not everything we do has to go to a town vote i mean we can't have a town vote every month that's why they elect boards that's why that's why the five and a bus are sitting up here and if you don't like it there's an election again one **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** thing i like that training today that we took it tells you this is a meeting in the public not for the month it's not a public meeting right it's in the public same thing with sweat work this is our meeting we allow a time for people to talk this board allows people to talk just like we are now but we don't have to you've been to school meetings school meetings two minutes they don't need a **Speaker 37:** talk to you that's it you know it's just for town business **Speaker 6:** and all the laws it really has to do is to the public for people to hear you don't have to have at least the other thing i feel you can research anything you want that's my opinion because and i know when i first started here i was reading **Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** a lot and learning a lot and somebody says well don't read it i said well i want to be caught up and i'm current and not just because it's all going on that way i **Speaker 6:** mean if you're over here if you're over here preaching conflict that uh situation got set up in a certain way like how did three people know to go here **Speaker 6:** well how did three people know to vote over here you must have been doing the same thing right you're having the same conversations all over look at the town of 800 people we've all met right we all know each other i love you all like a lot of people don't think i want to be able to ask a real person and i can't **Speaker 19:** initially find it and look at this you know things which maybe try to ask **Speaker 6:** how am i supposed to be seeing this all right they're hard to understand yeah i mean they're not they're not a lot of **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** mumble and humble they're talking there yeah just remember it takes a whole a unanimous board to review **Speaker 57:** both **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i'm sorry when i heard you say that and we're lucky to have people want to get involved and get educated and do the job for this time because the top that's the ultimate is doing the best you feel you're going for the town not for ourselves yeah you know uh it's crazy but i've been here for a month five **Speaker 34:** months yeah i'm thinking about it yeah yeah **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i got to see things going on **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you made a motion i seconded it **Speaker 6:** sorry **Michael G. Denault (inferred):** are we out that's right he's gonna say the meetings are going by a little bit or we'll see about it **Speaker 6:** oh yeah have a good day thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you