---
title: "Stamford Select Board — January 16, 2025"
date: 2025-01-16
session: regular
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 1 named from roster attendance, 8 of 10 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":11,"SPEAKER_01":6,"SPEAKER_02":10,"SPEAKER_03":9,"SPEAKER_04":8,"SPEAKER_06":1,"SPEAKER_07":2,"SPEAKER_08":12,"SPEAKER_09":5,"SPEAKER_10":3}
duration_min: 94
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI3lprWcjgA
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%201-16-25.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, John Dunn, Douglas Wright, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari]
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 — January 16, 2025

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 94 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI3lprWcjgA) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%201-16-25.pdf)

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

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

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Welcome to a meeting with 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 will notice that all our meetings are recorded. This is created as a summarization of the conference. Visitors are welcome, and we allow five minutes of comments per visitor and 15 minutes for topic. Discussions will be held in a common, civilized manner and respectful of others. Select Board members present are... Mike DeLong. Nancy L. Bushika.

**Speaker 1:** Douglas Wright. John Dunn. Eric Amaro.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will there be any adding of items or removing items from tonight's agenda? There may be another executive session for personnel. I'm not sure yet. Depends if... Executive.com. Yeah. Yes, there will be one. Yes. Yes. Whether or not... Yes. Will there be any adjustments to the agenda, such as changing the order of items? Hearing the visitors. Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** I am... I feel it would... It's a position that would be better served by somebody from the Planning Commission now, and it's my... It's my understanding that Dan's kind of up in the air, whether he's actually a liaison along with me. So, I know that Lisa Fairland has always gone to the meetings via Zoom or even in person, and I thought it may be a good idea to get her on board with more of an authoritative position where she could actually... Yeah. ...vote with the Commission on behalf of the town. So, I didn't know if that's something we could talk about now.

Do you want to stay on or step down?

**Speaker 2:** I would like to be replaced by Lisa. Yes. That would be fine with me for the liaison. I don't know if we have to wait until March. March.

Or...

**Speaker 2:** Because, like, tonight I wanted to come to the meeting. They also have... They also have a meeting. So, Lisa ended up going to the meeting tonight, or at least via Zoom. I could have sat here with my headphones on, too, but, yeah, it's kind of tacky. So, just a thought, if you could give it some consideration. I'm sorry. Whether, you know, if it's something you guys would support, I'd be happy to submit my resignation in favor of Lisa doing that.

**Speaker 3:** Okay. I think she'd be great at it. She's helped us, you know.

**Speaker 2:** She's up to speed. She's really much more so than I am at this point, because I'm not on the planning commission. I'm just...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Is Ned... We don't know what the answer is, but I'm checking her now.

**Speaker 4:** Well, it's a vacant position.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I guess he wasn't interested in going anymore or something. The reason why I'm asking, I'm a little hesitant.

I haven't... You got down if you wanted to kind of... Oh, do it. I didn't... I'm just saying maybe you could help her out a little bit. Maybe... Maybe you don't have to get a position, but he's still... Well, if you don't think... That's what I'm saying.

**Speaker 2:** Maybe you would want to stay on. And have her... Yeah. And you take Dan's position until March and then have her just... Do we have a point now or just wait until March?

Well, it wouldn't be bad to have her in an official capacity right now.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah. If Dan's not... There's a lot going on. There's a lot. So I'm happy to stay on, but could we...

**Speaker 5:** You guys sent out letters this past March saying, would you like to be reappointed or not? And if you didn't hear back from the person, you did not make the appointment. Right. So I believe Dan is under the impression that he is it and has been going to the A's. But he hasn't been officially appointed.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Maybe we should reach out to Dan and just ask him that. I don't want to step on his toes, but I'm just saying that if it is open and we can appoint Lisa, we can do that. If not, then we have to wait until March and then... Okay. If you want to step in. No, I'm just saying it would be nice to have the two of you.

**Speaker 6:** If you want to give your time, you can appoint Lisa.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you resign right away, I guess we could appoint Lisa. Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** Well, should we... I know...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Let's reach out to Dan. I don't know. There's a meeting tonight. When's the next meeting?

**Speaker 3:** Oh.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We have more than two weeks.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Just tell them what's going on. They may very well say, let her have it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, let her have it. That's what I'm saying. If there's more than two weeks for that, our next meeting, we can do it.

**Speaker 2:** But she's there to... She's there tonight because I wanted to be here, so she's kind of a...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But she can't vote?

**Speaker 2:** No, and there really wasn't anything important to be voting on right now.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** She can still have her say, though, right?

**Speaker 2:** Mm-hmm.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I think we should reach out to Dan. If he doesn't want it, that's fine. If not... That way, you wouldn't have to resign. Okay. If Dan says, I don't want it, we can appoint Lisa next meeting. Okay. Or you don't resign next meeting. And then we can appoint her in your position as DMICC.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then the term expires, VCRC. Well, that's all right. Then we have to send the letter again, go through the process.

**Speaker 3:** There's a lot going on. I don't know if we should leave it vacant, even if it's just a couple months. There seems to be a lot going on.

**Speaker 7:** Should we leave it vacant?

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, like, Janet Hurley right now has now been appointed to... Once I heard her have an appointment for a month or two.

**Speaker 3:** Okay.

**Speaker 8:** Her whole regional plan and stuff right now, they're going through...

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, they're going through changes and...

**Speaker 9:** She's going in anyways.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Might as well have someone to represent the town just in case, you know?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So when your liaisons go to the regional meeting, do they know what our planning commission wants? I mean, the planning commission will say, vote this way or vote that way or... That's just it. Are they voting their own opinion? Yeah. Or are they voting... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're voting what the board tells them to vote.

**Speaker 10:** She brings back information from those meetings that she goes to. Yeah. So she'll go to the VCRs meeting. She'll come up and she'll give us, you know, sort of a rundown of what they're contemplating and what they're redoing and what they're changing from sort of what we've always thought. And then that instigates conversation amongst... So the next meeting she feels what the board wants. Yeah. Right. You know, anybody can go to those VCRs.

I mean, you don't have to be on the planning committee or select board.

**Speaker 10:** Any citizen has had to go because, you know, like the whole windmill thing is up again now and they're changing the distance and they're, you know, it's all... And they're like, well, it's just, it's not mandatory, but we're thinking it should be this. But, you know, they're voting for it. And so that is a slippery slope to all of a sudden it's like, no, we're doing it. Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** And it's really... She's just so educated. She's so educated on everything that's been going on region-wide. I just think it would be much more valuable for the board, for the planning commission, and everybody. I agree.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we'll reach out to Dana.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** At my next meeting we should know.

**Speaker 11:** Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Any other visitors? Yes.

**Speaker 1:** I was wondering if the board, after sitting through the evasion hearing, the board was going to consider putting a warrant out for... For accepting taxes with a stamp, a date stamp that we don't now, since nobody can at this point, because I think the app had to be in today. If I'm not correct, I could be wrong either today or tomorrow, nevertheless. But you guys have the ability, I guess, to put it on as a warrant. I was wondering if you were... We haven't discussed it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I'm just... I was going to bring up... I'm just going to... Yeah. Under new business, I was going to bring... I was going to bring the same thing up. Yeah. But I think it's a valid idea. There's just a little bit of negativity saying that people couldn't... Yeah. This... I guess we've got to make sure we can do it. Yeah, I just wanted to bring it up. Yeah, I don't know how long we have to put the warrant on, but I'm not sure if... I wasn't really paying attention to that after meeting, meaning that was... They were kind of like saying that the proof wouldn't be there anyways, because... You know what I mean? Your postmarketing can still show up two, three weeks later. Right. How long does it take? Yeah, so your postmarketing needs to hold on to the damn thing. Then Sally doesn't get the list. Or it's just lost all the time. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then there's only a week or something, just like it used to be.

**Speaker 4:** I don't know.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm just... I want to look into it a little bit more.

**Speaker 1:** Like I said, that was something that I had been considering doing personally myself to put it on as a warrant. I just ran out of time doing it. It just seems like everywhere that I've talked to that collects taxes accepts a postmark. Yeah. I'm just wondering how they... It'd be interesting to know how they navigate it, I guess, to see what their process is. I guess I didn't ask that. I just asked if they actually accept the postmark date.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can you put it out on your muni net, Lori, or ask the treasurers? Do they save the envelopes? How long do they save them? How long do you wait? Does it get stuck in the mail person's car?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It could be some fraud here, that's all. But it's... What's happening now in the post office is definitely not... It seems like there might be a job opening for me just to say, hey, anybody who wants their mail, I'll get it while I'm up there. Give me five bucks or two dollars.

**Speaker 9:** How do you still do that?

**Speaker 2:** Didn't we talk about that?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If you... Notify them as well. Oh, okay. Because I pick up... Well, I don't. My wife picks up all our family. Everybody. Wow. And then if someone, one of our friends, a neighbor or someone wants it, we can get there. But you gotta notify them. But Tammy's pretty good about saying, yeah, I agree. Your son's up. I don't know. You don't have to know. But you gotta notify them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** She may lose her job.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Maybe, Mike?

**Speaker 11:** You don't know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Teresa. Oh, Teresa? I'm sad you're next to that thing. Oh, yeah, yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, well, that's all right. She's not getting paid anymore. It's costing me money right now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors or any questions? Reading and approval of records and orders January 2nd in the emergency meeting of December 31st. May I have a motion?

**Speaker 3:** Aye. Was I here on the 2nd?

No. 2nd. I thought you were here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Was that two weeks ago?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Two weeks ago. I was here two weeks ago. I wasn't here a week. Two weeks ago. Yeah. I was here last week. No, you didn't. No, I was here on the budget. Yeah. You were here.

**Speaker 12:** Last week I was here. December 31st.

**Speaker 13:** Emergency meeting.

**Speaker 12:** I can't make you a motion. It was about an ARPA fund.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Emergency meeting. I was here. You were here. But I wasn't on the 2nd, so I can't do it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Emergency meeting. You were here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We had a budget meeting last week.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You signed.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You weren't here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I. You just told me to sign all of them on this guy. It's for raising. It's for over.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The 2nd you weren't here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'll donate my money back when the government Trump does. The 2nd.

**Speaker 14:** You weren't here. Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You have no line in my heart right now.

**Speaker 14:** It was over.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You'll set motions and seconds. I don't think anyone.

**Speaker 12:** I made a motion to approve and nobody. I wasn't here for either one. I'm going to be the 2nd now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You were here for. Oh. Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I was. John. John. Doug was here for 2nd. Doug was here for 2nd.

Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Kurt, you need to sign for 2nd.

Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. I forgot. I forgot. I'll be back.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Road conditions.

**Speaker 3:** Same every day.

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

**Speaker 3:** If it snowed every day for the last 2 months.

I don't know.

**Speaker 3:** Rice. Thanks, Mike. Yeah.

Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** We're just going to the weather 1 inch at a time here. I guess we got plenty of equipment issues and breakdowns but the rest are going to work. Nothing extremely major. I had a cloud come off the truck yesterday morning.

**Speaker 7:** no kidding right in front of my house it was like just came off well the pin the pin that

**Speaker 3:** holds the front on the top of it broke off and come out and blew up the front tire it's just a little bit of drama i just went down and got the other truck and finished the job

**Speaker 10:** all right come out and give you some coffee you know i you know it was like by the time i realized that something was really going on he'd already gotten the wrong back but i felt bad i was like anytime that happens just come in let's come in my house you know come in and make coffee

**Speaker 3:** those pre-op instructions are uh yeah it's important you look over the stuff but it's not

**Speaker 15:** some holes break you know the vibration and bang and i had a uh like drag sound but i thought i

**Speaker 12:** had a u-joint going bad in my truck i looked the joints are all good and i started looking around and all of a sudden the once on the night coolies are falling off and the wheels falling so yeah oh yeah we're taking a walk

**Speaker 16:** around making sure no doubt that's i mean we do a lot of that to do it you know it's typical of the

**Speaker 3:** bolts and the ball frames falling out and speaking things like that happen this is just yeah usable at the moment so let's get all back together and the control box in the other truck and the ram the electronic control there's always the lower we could go had a sensor in the df tank for the emissions that went that was saying that the df tank was already in the ground just lining up the load and it's all straight

**Speaker 12:** so your maintenance man road guy truck jack vultures pretty much operator

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** on call in the winter 24 7

**Speaker 3:** worth your weight in gold pretty much every day i don't know pretty much the same every day

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

**Speaker 3:** yeah i finally got rid of the chipper i thought we inherited it's been there since before

**Speaker 2:** what are your number rent

**Speaker 3:** yeah i threatened to tow it and they finally come and moved it right by our gravel pile it was kind of in the way there they left a message before thanksgiving saying i was going to be there two days and the number it was lewis tree service

**Speaker 2:** oh and then they took it today and didn't change it down

**Speaker 3:** yeah yeah they didn't bring any change to find it down they were feeling bad about leaving it there for a couple months they should have used it yeah i saw them they could have left but i was afraid they had gps on it so

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you were just keeping

**Speaker 17:** it safe for them

**Speaker 3:** yeah i finally finally called their corporate office and told them i was calling but they got somebody there but the number that the guy had left on the phone i tried calling many of those times got no response just one day he goes by and now that it's almost a joke it's still there it's the family

**Speaker 12:** keep up the good work yeah

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's it lori review and adopt stamford town highway ordinance yes

**Speaker 5:** if you guys want to take a look at this um a small typo was pointed out to me but the main reason you're doing this is because i would stick over christmas and miss the deadline to publish and it's all in a time you know in a time frame it has to be done timely is that this

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah we've looked at this

**Speaker 18:** the highway ordinance

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** um ocean design just look at it

**Speaker 5:** i think part of the problem was i had it on the agenda for many of you there were a few revisions made and you accepted it and we're going to sign it at the next meeting but then two weeks later when you sign it now the publication is to me chapter of the adoption but i didn't have a sign copy

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and everything just happened so well thank you for picking up on it and keeping us straight following the law

**Speaker 14:** and lori does have a chapter for all these adoptions that she's got published by signed by keep all that

**Speaker 12:** i don't know how you keep it all together lori i have a hard enough time doing stuff like that

you put sickness in there and family sickness and christmas and i don't know how you that's not how you do it we do that at christmas everybody that's lori's checklist

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah thank you any requests for 2024 grant and aid grant

**Speaker 5:** okay this this is a ten thousand dollar grant that dave worked out with jim henderson they just paid it to cost twelve thousand six hundred dollars what was it for this was work that you did this past summer and we're submitting for reimbursement so the cost for a grant for 2024 we're not going to get reimbursed until 2025 the jepson road culvert replacement and rip wrapping and ditch stone does that be clean water

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah six hundred is that the blanket so watch for the report

**Speaker 3:** was that the final number twelve thousand six hundred twenty seven dollars yeah our budget twenty six did you use to

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** add gravel and stone line the ditches just on jepson road

**Speaker 3:** there's two culverts some gravel

**Speaker 19:** were you allowed to use a match

**Speaker 3:** like we've done before well well really that is our match our time is included in that i just want to people to understand that the match comes from your work not the money what we actually spent on that we took money in

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it didn't cost the county we got money back i just want people to understand that because it seems like people think that we're spending money even on matches that we're not because a good investment in the future

**Speaker 3:** i mean years ago you would have been paying the match

right when we operate now so look at the first page so we're charging fringe benefit rates for our guys and we're also charging the cost of our equipment

**Speaker 5:** this thirty nine eighty nine is what we really spent so that's an actual out of pocket cost

**Speaker 3:** and i don't sign a lot of things

and a little bit for the guys but this isn't their rates

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

**Speaker 3:** so i have to do that motion to sign i just want

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** people to be aware it seems like people aren't hearing that those grants it seems like almost every month we're getting grants here and there the matches are because we invested in equipment that we can use

**Speaker 4:** in that hiring

**Speaker 12:** these are all grants that dave's chasing right dave and i are both working

**Speaker 3:** the linked rope yeah there's a five hundred thousand dollar job we save between probably a half million dollars right now if you waited to do it now those are the things that nobody really ever sees that's it under road commission can i say something i want the board to think

we can't really decide anything

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** tonight but we ought to look at a common employee policy for the road crew i've already mentioned that we would go through the handbook look at things maybe have a common employee policy for the road crew maybe have a policy for incentives down in the future down the road to you know each year the town is under the gun of whatever board sits here and that board can change things a drop of a hat that puts stress on people that are on call 24 hours a day 24 hours a day and that's what we're looking at and anybody understands maybe if you're a volunteer or a fireman you understand what it means to be called in cause I don't know where they don't understand what these guys are thanksgiving i know for a fact you were out thanksgiving day i was sitting with my family drinking wine you were out clubbing tonight your benefits are locked in place after 10 years so you have benefits you have a benefit of say insurance or you have a benefit of time off just like I do at my own company I sit down and say if you've been here 10 years you get x amount of days off versus if you've been here one year cause if you've been here one year you don't even know if they're any good or not we've talked about this in the past with other employees elected officials so an elected official when they get hired you've got a year whether they can do it or not you pay them that's kind of nerve wracking when you've got a guy that's dedicated I think we talked about it about 15 years right around that time look at that side of it too I think that the board should start thinking about our employees because I think if we were to take a poll in town to people in town do you think they're overpaid or underpaid not that you're paying for taxes look at the job cause everybody thinks their taxes are too high everybody's taxes are too high but look at what they're doing with their job and wonder geez you just mentioned I think John just said I'm a grant writer I'm a CDL license, OSHA license I'm doing safety I'm running the crew I'm a mechanic I'm doing things doing your paperwork and your payroll with her all I know is that I wouldn't do it for that much wouldn't do it for double that much and I'm not trying to say I don't want taxpayers thinking I want to give Dave a million dollars all I want is appreciation to say look maybe there's a little bit of taking off the stress not worrying about my future another board should come in and go I don't want to pay the insurance let them pay their own or we're going to back the money now I would like to see us look at a policy and not just for him 20 years from now what are you going to do when you've got to hire another person you've got to hire someone else in one of these positions is it going to be lucrative for those people to take that position or are we going to go without someone and we've gone without positions in town we've gone without dog catchers in town I mean or dog officers we've gone without a lot in this town since I've been a board member it's been 10 years since I've been a board member and I've seen no water in the sewer at town hall no water in the sewer at the town garage that's amazing the past board members didn't address that so I think that we should address this as a board and look into it and say alright what can we do legally I know in the state of Massachusetts if I give her insurance and my policy says one year I've got to give her insurance it doesn't matter how good she is it doesn't matter if she's been here 30 years if she's been here one year you're locked in look at it and try to give some sort of I use the word incentive but I'm also using the word almost like a stress relief you know what I mean instead of just saying thank you here is your thank you that's how I feel I've been looking at it

**Speaker 20:** and I think it's important

**Speaker 12:** I think it's a good idea and also Dave's not going to be around forever what do you got 8 years left Dave around here so it might be an incentive for somebody new that's coming on to stay for the 10 years and put in the dedication

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you know that a lot of people use these town jobs like stepping stones I know in law enforcement part time law enforcement uses stepping stones nobody goes and works in Stamford as the police officer when they can step up to Bennington and then say troopers the money isn't there you're doing all the same work with no money you want a good qualified person to do these jobs and it takes time it's not something you can just quit your job and come down here they're in the same boat as we are so that's not who you're going to get what you're going to get is someone coming up the ladder that says I care about the town Kurt says that all the time do the people that work here and run for office and do the things that you care about the town of course they do they're not going to work for these salaries if they didn't care there's not enough money in there it's not to say I want to raise taxes and pay you guys a ton of money it's to say thanks we're going to hold on to what we have and not go backwards

**Speaker 19:** and not go backwards

**Speaker 3:** it would be nice to build some stability and knowing that hey just because the board changes this board knows the history and everything that's going on a new board would be starting to crash

**Speaker 19:** it's not really appreciated

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'd like that please get a copy of any of the highway employee policies handbooks

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** anything like that

**Speaker 21:** do you guys have an earn time what's that

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** do you have an earn time program

**Speaker 3:** no the only thing we do have is something that says if I don't show up they take time away

**Speaker 21:** no what I'm saying is in the law enforcement anyways we have an option if we get called in for service the city don't like to pay time and a half or overtime but we do we get time and a half or overtime or we can elect for earn time so we can take instead of overtime pay we can take time so if we get called in it's comp time if we get called in we get a 4 hour minimum but we can turn that 4 hours into 6 hours so I was just thinking that's a pretty good incentive with somebody that's working 15 hours a day or 16 hours a day or getting called in he has an option to take the overtime or has an option of taking time off I'm just saying hunting season these guys are in the woods hunting

**Speaker 22:** they take their time for hunting

**Speaker 3:** it gives them more hunting time we do get to after I don't know 10 years or whatever

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if I'm not mistaken

**Speaker 19:** you got more than 2 weeks at one time

**Speaker 3:** well before I started here it was I think after 15 years but then they started the whole if you worked here after this date this is what it was going to be yeah so that went backwards not forwards

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you got the 4 weeks maybe were you grandfathered into that I don't remember I don't think I do well I'd like to look into it soon at least dig into it a little bit maybe we can come up with a time off is always appreciated but I don't know if it's practical

**Speaker 3:** my work doesn't go away I take the time off

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** like I said I'm not trying to spend a whole bunch of money and throw money at people because that to me is not even how much can I spend it's like giving a guy a quarter raise alright thanks for the quarter you get 21 cents because the government took some off more perks I'd rather have you say like you said I'm going to get 3 weeks vacation you can stagger it even if you use it for sick days whatever or you know you got this insurance in place and insurance is just an awful thing it's an awful thing you're working for insurance I mean it's awful how much they charge but what that does is give pounds of incentive to want to chop it but yeah you're going to save $10,000 $20,000 on a insurance but now you just told the guy you took away his money that's what you get it's like coming up and saying you made $30 an hour I'm going to give you

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $27 an hour I think if we get the employee policy look it over and maybe we can schedule a work session with the employees

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'd like not to have this get kicked under the rug

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** with a work session

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** what were you doing you're not even working how was I working oh you did work I'm in Clarksburg oh you're in Clarksburg

**Speaker 4:** I'm in Clarksburg anything else under rotation

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I was sitting with that state trooper that followed me the other day

**Speaker 23:** he is in there a lot

**Speaker 3:** well that's how Clarksburg

**Speaker 19:** you come right out behind me

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** the other day it was dark in the morning he had me

**Speaker 21:** the other day

he's right in your works

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** anything else under rotation how about recycling discussion appointment of ethics liaison officer and I want to talk about our training so

**Speaker 3:** for

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the you

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** the

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the ethics liaison officer

**Speaker 11:** Paul

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** all in favor

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

**Speaker 2:** I I thought there was discussion so according to the parameters of the ethics person it can be an employee or a board member so my only question is should it be a board member should it maybe be an employee to because most ethics violations come from the board so i i you know shame on vermont for kind of steering this whole thing the way they did you really want somebody more outside that's going to filter

**Speaker 11:** well i'm thinking too that all right run into that no matter even if it was an employee wouldn't we

**Speaker 9:** run into it no matter what if that employee was unethical i mean you know a lot of different

**Speaker 2:** employees really you know you don't think anyone on the planning commission is technically an employee because i don't know about that i am because you are but i don't think well they get a little stipend yeah anyway um it's like it's just an observation yeah

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i think that no matter who it was that's working for the town whether it's a board member or an employee it'll always run into that point where that one person could potentially have

**Speaker 2:** right but the bulk of ethics violations are mutually living towards the boards well the other

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** thing is dunks could do a lot of reading on it and i mean i took the training he took training i don't know anybody else but we really need to take the training and uh it seems to me that first the complaint would go to the ethics commission and then he would come back to us right and then we all would i don't know how it's going to work i i don't know who hears it

**Speaker 24:** i haven't seen that yet my way of thinking that what would happen first of all it goes that there's a complaint you send it to the ethics board you don't you know i'll come down and send it to the ethics board then they'll look it over they'll send it down to the liaison and then we investigate

**Speaker 2:** well we know we already understood it i thought it went to the municipality no there you could

**Speaker 25:** do it both ways i think it goes first it goes to the ethics board okay you read a lot on this too

**Speaker 21:** jim yeah um i had me and doug had conversation yesterday at length and i've been doing a lot of research in this as well and so um doug is absolutely correct when you the complaint you print out from the website you fill out the complaint it goes to the ethics commission and the ethnic commission if they feel like that if there is a perception or reasonable a reasonable thing they send it back to the select board committee ethics committee um and at that time you guys are you have to investigate you have to figure it out so what most places are doing i'm talking larger towns though this is not unfortunately we're in we're in an era where it's very prominent in small town usa and so in that sense theuez has valuable data uh we've done of course one first right here it's property management decision making and public relations is natural i'm getting fields almost every where we go some a few directives where some people don't do their BMC Ms or other services in our state but it's really part and parcel for those folks so we uh the state says it's not an ethics issue or not there's going to be a time where that the perception is there right so and if you read the 13 reasons of ethics with the state of Vermont one of them is a perception is the same thing as an ethics right violation so we and I don't want to beat a dead horse here we have a perception that there's a ethics issue here but there's also ways that you guys can talk about or we can all talk about how to fix the perception and that's what a committee would do that Doug would sit and then chair as the liaison but you have two or three people with him and I told Doug that I would be more than happy to to do that with them and so you figure out if there is a perception or whatever and so our current situation we would come up with some reason to rectify it now we don't think and i don't think right now with that current situation is that anything or anybody did anything uh blatant it wasn't we know that right we know that and it's just so happened that okay so this never came up before but now it has i learned it when i started being the ao here we always did something this way but it may not have been the right way right and and i proved it over and over and over again that hence we've got new bylaws everything is running somewhat smooth um with that end of it and things are changing again more and more but to the good and this way i think it's going to be a good thing but i also think that the board needs to figure out a way of taking that perception away and i made a suggestion to doug and if he wants to to bring it up i'm good with it or if he wants me to but i know i know that the tax collector gets a percentage of the rebate right or whatever it is they get a percentage their pay is based on a percentage of taxes right delinquent taxes so a simple fix of that if it's legal i think it is everything i'm reading it's perfectly legal is it the pay the difference of pay come up with a hourly rate come up with a salary it takes that perception away there's no change if she's sitting on all them boards making those decisions it doesn't matter because she's still going to get the 15 cents you know or whatever that extra bonus would be okay i did discuss this

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we've had this many years ago we did pay a salary but the delinquent tax collector did not bring in money but still got paid because that's what was voted on and that was her salary but did not collect did not send out bills they should go out at least i got a question so that's why the board way back i think it was in the

**Speaker 21:** so you're what you're saying is is that because you take away the percentage and you make them give them a salary or an hourly rate they decide to hell with this i mean i do it all the way back

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** to elected positions versus appointed positions an elected position which that is they're in for a year they don't do a thing they sit there and take the salary i'm not sending wood right there's nothing you can do right an appointed position hey you're not doing your job guess what

**Speaker 1:** well maybe going where you guys come in maybe that's where you guys come in probably create some kind of verbiage or something that says if you're in an elected position and you don't do your job you're not able to get reelected i mean there's got to be something to hold somebody accountable because the unwillingness to take away the perception

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** even that Bibbie 냉 ил I'm saying that he can do, but I don't know if that's a warrant article. We did that with the Lister, and we had anybody fill the Lister draft.

**Speaker 24:** This is where the election process would come in. You know, somebody wants to run for it, hey, this person played a good part here. And they didn't do anything. Who's going to vote for them?

**Speaker 21:** So I guess my question now is that I hear the unwillingness to take care of this perception. How are we going to fix the perception?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm going to tell you, as myself, not the board, but myself as a board member, I'm not unwilling to fix it. I want to fix it. And I'm telling you, I think that exactly what you said, because we, if there's an ethical problem and they don't do their job, it's not a reason to continue the ethical problem. That make sense? Makes sense. Okay? So if we have an ethical problem, someone's doing something unethical, and then we say, well, if we change it to this and they don't do their job, then we've got another problem. It's a different problem. We can't keep the, if there, if we all agree, and I say we do, if we all agree that there's a perception of an ethical problem, if we all agree on that, then we need to fix it. If that way of changing the rates or the way we pay doesn't fix it, then we need to fix it. And I'm not saying it will or won't. And I, we've talked about this before, guys, almost, what, two, a month ago. This, if we change this, this rate or this way of paying to, because I don't believe the person that's in charge now would not do their job. This, let's just say, the person collected $10,000 last year. Well, we make our salary that's $12,000, boom, there's the money. The person, I think, is still going to do their job. You're right, we have an elected, you got one year, they mess up, they get voted out. But now the ethical problem has been fixed. Whether they do their job or not, it doesn't matter to fix the ethical problem. That make sense to everybody or do they disagree? So that's what I'm saying, and I'm not saying that that's the answer, that we change the rate. I'm saying that's one option that someone brought up. Right, right. That we should be looking into. The only problem, think about it, there is a, if there is a perception, and I keep trying to say this is not a personal issue, everybody agrees there's no intention at all, but if there is a perception of unethical behavior, I'm collecting money, if my say matters, if that is the case, then we need to look at that and fix it. If this goes, if one of these taxpayers out there sends a, and they just get 10 of their friends to send it, do you see how much we got to do now? We still have a big problem with 10 letters coming back.

**Speaker 21:** Can I, can I also, I can also add this, so it's in the law, you guys can all go and read it. If you do decide to do what you're doing now, and that's, I know you're, you're looking into things and you're working on it, I get it, but if you decide not to do anything, that in itself is an ethical issue. That's another violation that gets sent to the state, so we've, I'm, no, I'm just.

**Speaker 24:** Go ahead, what I'm hearing here, I'm getting the vibe that, well, there's a problem and nobody's doing anything.

**Speaker 21:** No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't, no, I'm just, I want to, I know that's not, we talked about that, right? So that's why I just said, I know things are going on, I understand that, I'm just bringing it to your attention, further down the paragraphs in the laws, you will read that if the select board understands and everybody sees that there is a perception and do nothing, that in itself is an ethical violation. That's all, I just wanted to, you know, I don't want the snowball to get any bigger, right?

**Speaker 24:** No, like I said, I just want to make it clear without anybody misunderstanding that this is not being ignored. Right, right, you don't have to tell me that, because you and I talked, so. Maybe we can't do it like that, it's not being ignored. Oh, yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You have to take into account both sides of every, you know, every issue has both sides. You have to take into account everything. You got to make sure it's legal, you got to make sure what we can and cannot do. Right. It's like we were talking with Dave earlier, can we do this or not? If the state comes in and says, no, you can't do that. If Deb wants to give a permit to someone digging in the middle of the river and putting the house up, the state says, you can't do it, sorry, you can't do it. No, so we can't, we can't do that. And I know what I'm saying. I love to give an extreme example so nobody gets it. I've had a few really good examples. Exactly. I want to build a tree house on the river. Yeah. But I'm just saying is we, I believe, I agree with Doug, we are looking into and we are moving forward. And it was a great conversation that was going on for years and years and years. And I believe, I agree with Jim. Jim, how many times have we said, that's the way it's always been. And I'm like, but we're not even. Right. We're not even enforcing it. Right. We got the ticket book. You know what a slap board is? Ticket books. Yes, we do. How many tickets have you ever written? I was one of the signers. Anybody?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, Luke has written tickets for the dogs, but that's.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** How many slap board members have written illegal trash stuff? Anybody? No. Of course not. Nobody. I got a camp on one of the main illegal roads in town. You know what we do? We get, you get there to license plate, we go have a conversation with a guy. Guess what? Because stuff gets picked up. You write him a ticket. It goes to the state. Guess who gets the money? The state. The state. So, you can't force something. How good is it? Yeah. Yeah. What was your question?

**Speaker 2:** Yeah. Well, it wasn't a question, and I'm sure you guys, you have lots of options, and I'm sure you, just like you said, you're discussing the options, but a simple one would have an ordinance saying that if you hold this position, you cannot hold that position. Correct.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, you weren't here though, I don't think, when we. If the positions are elected, we can't say that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But if they're appointed, you can say.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Anybody can run for that office.

**Speaker 2:** But I thought you could have, okay, then maybe I missed that part of the discussion, but I thought you can be more restrictive sometimes than state policies and have your own internal.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe elections are different. I don't know, but I do. I actually like the pace.

**Speaker 12:** Yeah. I think it's better than that.

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

**Speaker 12:** Is it a possibility to put the job out to bid to the outside contractor, like a company to do it? Well, if it's an elected position. No, like just get away from the electives, or appointed, and just hire a company that I don't know, take care of it. I mean, it might be.

**Speaker 20:** Like a collection service?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm not saying, I don't want to be negative, but, you know, we need to hire a member of the company to do all this work, and it's $110 or $105 an hour, and we're worried about giving someone $16 an hour. So, you know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The other thing.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But who writes good emails, though? Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Who writes good emails? Jim asked about percentage was added in 2005, whenever the board was there. Yeah. Before that, it was a salary like $1,000 or $1,500.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I would like to look at the past, you know, five years. Let's just say the past five years that the tax collector brought in, you know, or we paid the tax collector X amount of dollars, whatever it is. Do a basic per hour thing. Yeah. And see where it's going to be. And say, okay, look. This is what.

This is, this job pays. I mean, Laurie's elected. She gets paid per hour. All right? So, she doesn't take advantage of it, right? Salary. Oh, you want her salary.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All right. The town clerk. I'm out of here.

**Speaker 18:** I'm sorry. You're out here for us, and you do a good job.

**Speaker 5:** See? So, I'm just saying that there's, I think the people that take these positions most

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** of the time really care about their jobs. They're not going to come in here and say, I'm just not doing it. You know?

Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 26:** And they're not going to come in here and say, I'm just not doing it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But things progress through time too. So, things change. This might not. And you know the thing, gets paid per hour. We can see if they're putting the time in. You didn't put the time in. You didn't write the, or do the paperwork. You didn't go follow through. No. We didn't do the job. We're not paying you. Take us to court. No. I mean, like with Deb. Deb, she gets paid by permits. Right. If you don't write the permit, you don't get paid. Right? I mean, go do your job, and you get paid. Right? That's what she's going to do. You know. I don't. You know, I personally might get better than the elected, well, I don't think the candidate elected, but to look at the people and say, hey, who do you want? When they vote, there you go. You know, these are, the other way that the townspeople can change is vote against them, right? And we'll run against them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The other thing, too, is if the same person holds both positions, they, and it comes to the situation we have where they're voting on their assessment or abatement, they could just recuse themselves from that part there. But they're not forced to. They're not forced to.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's the thing. So if you're asked if you want to recuse yourself, and they say no.

**Speaker 21:** But that's an ethical violation. In writing, you can, that's an ethical problem.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And you get a violation. It goes in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

**Speaker 21:** But then you guys got to deal with it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. Which, you know, which I don't think this, well, I'm not saying this board, but the Slack board, I don't think we've ever had an ethical violation that was an actual or formal violation against us.

**Speaker 21:** So every time she, I don't want to say she, every time the tax collector, the delinquent tax collector votes as a JP, she'd be committing a violation. Yeah, that might be her. If it's her. Right.

**Speaker 27:** If it's a delinquent tax.

**Speaker 1:** A delinquent tax. Right. That's, with the delinquent, it doesn't matter. Right. It matters if you're paying. Delinquent tax. So that's where the, so if they didn't, if they paid, and they're just coming in for a payment, then it's a problem. Right. She can vote all she wants.

**Speaker 28:** Well, because it doesn't affect her.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They could have their taxes evaded before it goes delinquent.

**Speaker 1:** Well, that's what I'm saying. Wait, you could actually. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying if they're not delinquent, and she can vote all she wants. If they're not delinquent. Right. If they, let's say I paid my taxes already, but I want to file for an abatement. Which usually doesn't, it usually goes the other way. They don't pay their taxes, and they want to get an abatement first. But I'm just saying, let's say it's before the deadline, and I've paid my taxes, and I file for an abatement. We have a hearing, even though it's past the deadline, but I've paid my taxes, and let's say it has to deal with the school tax. Okay. Now you have to abate me. My hat, let's say, in my case. And my house was gone six months, so now they've got to abate my taxes for that. If I've already paid my taxes, she can vote all she wants. It doesn't matter. Okay, because it doesn't affect her. Right, right. Because there's no possibility for financial. So it's only the people that have to abate. That's what I'm saying.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's many other duties that the JP can perform, and if we change the way we pair, case closed. On this, that's go brown. That's the way I look at it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Doug, I have a question for you. I haven't seen this. So if you're the liaison, and something comes back to the town that we have to investigate, do we have an ethics board that we have to appoint?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's what I was going to ask.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm going to get up. I'm not sure. I don't think they signed.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know how it works. That's what I was going to ask. So we just voted Doug as the liaison, but Deb mentioned outside. So there's always the possibility now. So the committee.

**Speaker 26:** You guys all are the board.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, what if it's the slot board? Yeah.

**Speaker 21:** That's what I'm saying.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And it's all the way. So if, no, but I'm saying the slot board as a whole committed a violation. We all had a, it was a meeting on the side, and we voted to, you know. Give ourselves a service. Yeah, or fire someone, or whatever. We don't have a meeting on the telephone. We don't let someone tell us, fire, and you don't let that move, done. And someone finds out that we were in violation. The whole board.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Or we met at my house or something.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. So I like the idea of having. And him as liaison, but a, maybe a three person or a four person committee that is comprised of other people, other than slot board members. That way they're that, like we were talking, you know, plan board could be on, and then they would, if they had a violation, right? And we could be on.

**Speaker 29:** Are you considering having that as an appointed position?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I think it would be nice. I don't know. I just think it would be nice to have an ethics committee.

**Speaker 1:** For the minute record, I'd love to be a part of that board if you just saw the side. No, no, no.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, but, so, would that committee change all the time? Because what if it's a committee member?

**Speaker 21:** I think that we could do a. Well, you guys are the oversight, so that overcame it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The slot board would have to appoint, I mean, appoint someone for a year, like we appointed plan board members.

**Speaker 30:** I think we'd have to find out how that works.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We really could say to the plan board, every year we could say, okay, we want, you know, are you on the plan board? We could say, you know, you were on last year, but we don't feel you did a good job. We're going to replace you. And we have to, we're going to replace members, you know, we could, you know, so why not do a committee and say, let's do it, you know?

**Speaker 21:** So you'd do it the same way as Kurt, like Kurt being ad hoc for a plan.

**Speaker 24:** Yeah, or like a term.

**Speaker 31:** But again, we have to look into this and how it's done.

**Speaker 24:** Well, you know, the reason, something we just brought up here. My understanding is that the, okay, there's a complaint, somebody has a complaint, send it up to the commission. Then they get contacted with me, and I do the investigation, and then I send my findings back up to them. So I'll check on it, but that's what I understand, and then they'll say, yeah, there is, yeah, there isn't, but it still might not hurt to have some other people involved. Yeah. I just, I just like the idea of having more of one person, but I think that's the way, they're, they're.

**Speaker 21:** Well, if it, if it's an ethical issue for the select board, that's why I'm saying. Yeah. When you read the laws and all the ethics stuff and like that, most of, most of the things you're reading is the commission, the commission. Yeah. So it's not just the state ethics commission, it's also the municipality's ethics commission. So there are, it's just like Kurt being on the planning commission, right? So he's in the liaison to the select board on the planning commission. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Or John being their liaison or you're the liaison to the law enforcement. And so. This year was pretty easy. This would be the same thing, would be Doug on the, yeah, this year we released him.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Dave, you had a question?

**Speaker 3:** Were you, we used to, there used to be a position. Dave Salvo, I think your number was. I don't know if he said it was George or. Yeah, it was, no, it was, kind of like if you were going to ask a lawyer some . Oh yeah.

**Speaker 32:** Oh, he was.

**Speaker 3:** I'm a lawyer.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, a while ago, didn't we make a decision that I could call the attorney, not you, not Lori, we'd make a decision, yes, call the attorney, because we didn't want everybody calling the attorney.

**Speaker 3:** Well, yeah, there was like a town, I think, what was it, a town agent, years ago, we used to have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, we did away with that. Well, the town agent would act as the attorney or something.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, but that person wouldn't have any kind of .

**Speaker 21:** You do have DLCT, too, I mean, email that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I mean, let's say we aren't talking two separate subjects here, you know, I mean, I think the committee, you know, we're talking about the ethics issue that we presume or perceive that we're talking two different things.

I truly believe that we should, I think that in, let someone can change my mind.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That changing the way we pay the common tax collector is the simplest, easiest way we can get rid of the way people, yeah, it's just, like I said, no one's doing anything, you know, intentionally wrong. It's that perception that we can just get rid of perception, I think that's easy, it shouldn't hurt anyone's egos, because it's just a perception, no one's going. That, oh, you did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that we've talked about it, which has been years and years, now that it's come up, let's address it. Mm-hmm. What's the problem? That's what I'm looking at. So.

**Speaker 21:** So this percentage was changed in 2005, you said? Mm-hmm. I bet you at that point, that same point, is when they became an elected, or an elected position.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It was always elected.

**Speaker 21:** Oh, was it always? Yeah. I thought you said it was appointed.

**Speaker 12:** No, the listeners were. Oh. Elected went to a . Well, couldn't you change it? to where if she collected a percentage of the town's like tax bill that was out she gives a bonus it's x amount of dollars i mean if it doesn't that's if she's coming let's just say

**Speaker 20:** like she's like collecting delinquent tax money then that's always going to be perfect yeah she

**Speaker 12:** saved like uh 80 or 90 of the taxes in town if she was able to collect that amount

**Speaker 1:** prior to delinquency is that what you're saying yeah i mean that changes the pay so it benefits her but it still gets her inside of two to get the job done so i understand what you're saying it makes a ton of sense like the benefit maybe should be on the other side so rather than have the five percent beyond yeah not based on which what plus

**Speaker 2:** taxes are due oh there's a list of people

**Speaker 33:** that haven't paid i'm going to call them all yeah if you get and then if you get 90 percent

**Speaker 34:** or less complete then you can't do it you get i get probably 250 000 within three days of the

**Speaker 5:** tax due date my mortgage is overnight mail packages i don't think you could go by that list

**Speaker 7:** the hourly rate is the simplest

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so if you don't know you should see it however long we say if she if she made x amount of dollars it worked out to be fifteen dollars an hour i shouldn't see it up make it so it's a decent pay i mean we we are paying and i'm going to mention it again we're paying numerous way too much money

**Speaker 2:** we want people which brings me to so you all voted against having the position for the uh assessor clerk assistant assessor clerk yes okay which i thought was going to eventually

**Speaker 25:** eliminate the need for the numerous something called no license we the assessor clerk

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** does not have the qualifications to be an assessor or lister right but they would be able to take courses and i think it was to relieve some of the i think uh from the reappraisal and stuff and

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i think i did mention though and i admitted this it was a mistake i was believed select were remembered which to have the lister change from elected to appointed that was i made that motion i admitted it numerous times that i feel it was a mistake now the reason why i did it is because Because there was a new person that came in, we didn't know the qualifications, and they asked for a raise. How do you give a raise to someone that's going to be there a year and you don't even know if they can do the job? So I was very wary. I didn't act as a businessman then. It was probably, out of the 10 years I've been a select board member, it was one of those times where I probably should have thought a little bit more. Because, and I wasn't understanding, it was the educational part of it. So if they're elected, they get the education free, is that how I...

**Speaker 11:** That was kind of a brain area.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It is, it's a bunch of bull. So if they're appointed, they don't get the education. We've got to pay for it. So now no one wants the appointment because they don't want to go and do all this. The elected, the state takes care of you. So I have no problem changing that back. Put it on a warrant, bring it back to an elected position. I personally don't think we're going to fine anybody for the pay we give. Not many people are going to want that job anyways. But it's the problem where it is, we had a tough time fining even elected positions. But at the time, I was looking and saying, it doesn't make sense to give people raises that you don't know what they're doing. And that person quit. So what was that? We appointed her. And they quit. So I feel that because of the training part of it, it hindered what was happening. If we want to put that on, that would help our NIMRT bill, if we have a list.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because you would pay the listers.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah.

**Speaker 4:** So now we're paying $100 an hour, paying her $30 an hour.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You could still have the NIMRT assessor here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, but the hours come down here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, that the local listers do stuff. A lot more, right. The more they do, the less NIMRT they do. We do have a district advisor that we haven't seen very much of in the last five, six years.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, I mean, if you want to, as a board, put the lister back on his elected position, I don't think that they can run this year, correct? Right. You would have to put a warrant out. Next year, if the people vote on changing it back to elected, it would be on the ballot next year. People would run for it. If they want to write in someone, I don't know, maybe they could. For 2026. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I don't care. It doesn't matter either way to me. If we've tried it this way, not one person has come up and said, I'll take that job. So we want to do it as elected, and they want to come in and see if they can do the job. That's up to you guys. It's the problem. The problem is if they can't do the job, they're going to need to get trained, and I guess the training's easier if you're elected.

**Speaker 5:** Well, Lori's thinking. Well, you could have a transition year where you start with elected people who come in and don't really know, and still have memory. Right. While they're getting time under their belt, while they're learning, and while they're beginning to take classes. And the thing is, like, what we used to have was a three-year. It was a three-year transition, so it was constantly revolving, so the plan would be somebody would at least have the three years to pass on knowledge to the others, and you would just constantly flow with that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** This is for the future. It's not going to solve the problem tomorrow or anything. No. But in the future, I guarantee, if they work with us, they can say no. That's another thing. Yeah. If Nimerick works with us, I guarantee the price is going to go up, not down. Right? We actually sent out. What was it, $76,000 request for proposals, and we got one that was Nimerick. Yeah, it wasn't like we went with Nimerick because we went, ooh, it's Nimerick. That was the one that we fought. They're the only one.

**Speaker 1:** So you're talking about the position that we currently have now, the assessors, the assistant assessor. You're talking about moving that to an elected position so that that individual could be trained? No, it's called a Lister. So you're talking about adding another person.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We have it now, just nobody has taken the appointment. If you want to do that, we can appoint you. For what? For Lister? Yeah. No, I'm kidding. No, I don't.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't have the qualifications to be a Lister. Yeah, we can appoint you, but you're training them. You're training them to do the training.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah. So an appointed person has to come with the training. Yes. And that's where the appointment becomes a problem. Yeah.

**Speaker 21:** It's a considerable amount of training, too. Sure it is. Yeah, I think you've got to have your appraisal.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The other thing to think about is the way the state is training or changing the appraisal and how they're talking about districts and combining districts and having maybe if you have a bigger district, then you might get some other firms to come in and bid on it. Because they know nobody wants to come to Stamford or wants to go through the course. More often. Right. More often? More school tests. More school tests. Your taxes are going to go off.

**Speaker 1:** It's just going to keep going. They have no idea what they're creating. Have we ever tried to pursue a person with an appraiser's license to do it for us full time? I don't think the pay was ever there. No, I'm just saying. It was a small group of people. But if you had a bigger group of people, you know, you could have done it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It was a small group of people.

**Speaker 1:** But if you had a bigger group of people, you know, you could have done it.

**Speaker 21:** You could have done it. You could have done it. If you had a bigger group of people, you could have done it. person with a appraiser's license to do it for us? Full time? I don't think the pay was ever there. No, I'm just saying, you're paying

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** how much money? No, no, this is before NIMRT came in. Which, people don't understand is the reassessment was not our idea. No. Okay? So, when that came up, it was the same time period that the listener was not here anymore. Right. So this added job came in that even that listener that we had wondered about.

**Speaker 21:** I'm just saying, if we put something in a paper, even in Berkshire County or something, for a licensed appraiser looking to do you know, whatever our listeners does here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, isn't that in the information?

**Speaker 1:** Well, I mean, I used to have somebody that actually knew the town bylaws prior to actually committing the assessment. Because I can tell you right now, that wasn't the case.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The problem is now, and that's just now. Until there's a reassessment, town-wide reassessment, there's not enough to do for a full-time. Yeah, I'm just

**Speaker 21:** saying, we have some people here in town I know that are appraisers. I know one of them, right? Two doors

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** down. Yeah. I mean, I would, I don't care if you guys want to do it one way or the other, but I personally think we should go back to the elected position. I think you, I think people want to be elected and I think this training, part of it's going to help. It's not going to be an overnight success by any means.

**Speaker 5:** We sent out those 76 appraisers because we had to use the state-certified list. The guys you're talking about are not on the list. We're limited.

**Speaker 21:** But if we had our own personal person, right? Can we do that? Well, they can do the list

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** for part of that. No, elected. Have a special one.

Right, so, I mean, I was at the foot of the walk and I don't want it, but I didn't refer to that. I mean, if it was the state, let's fix it. You know, like I said, I'm taking a rap for a mistake, although everybody on the phone thought it was a mistake. No, I think I was on that more than that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, I thought it was a mistake. Oh, it did work. I'm not saying it was a mistake. I thought it would work. So, it was the Listers. But what we eliminated is the Listers.

**Speaker 21:** So, we still haven't had a Lister that's wanted this. It was the right thing back then.

**Speaker 35:** Can we move on to the next topic?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Second. Second? Is this important? Aye. Alright, so we appointed Doug. I just want to bring up the board, municipal office, and they advise everybody that's on the board, advisory committees, auditors, cemetery commissioners, planning commission, town clerk, treasurer, mayors, department head, just about everybody. Take the training. It's only 45 minutes online. You can bring your knitting or whatever, eat your lunch while you're watching it, and then there's a test at the end.

**Speaker 24:** It's actually kind of interesting. It is.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then I flunk the test.

**Speaker 11:** I was going to say,

**Speaker 36:** do you have the answers to the test?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, no, they won't let you go on until you make sure you get the right answers on it. Did I get it wrong? Right. So I changed that one on. No, I can't go on. What did I miss? Isn't that an awesome task? What did I miss there? I guess I must have been wrong. Wrong. Try it again. Try it again. Good job. Yes. So, it's an easy thing to listen to, and it wasn't that boring either. I mean. No, no, that's pretty good.

**Speaker 24:** And actually, we probably should request that anybody that takes that, there's like a little thing that says you've completed it, that you bring a copy and we can keep a file of who did it. Because anybody that is already on a board or something has until, I think, September. But anybody that's newly comes on to boards, like if somebody gets elected in the next election, I'd predict offhand, but you don't have as much time to do it. So, just say some foundations.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And maybe that's, if you're the ethics liaison, maybe you can keep track of all this. Who's supposed to take it? Do they give? And the test is not, I think it just says you pass. It doesn't say you've got a mark or a percent that you won't pass bail.

**Speaker 2:** How many times do you have to take it?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** How many times do you have to take it? Pass. Pass the bail 88 times. Yeah. That's all it says. This is an online thing. Pass 88. Online ethics commission.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Is this ethical?

Here, Doug. Here's $25.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Take the pass for me.

**Speaker 31:** Vermont Ethics Commission.

**Speaker 21:** Little flag.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** OK, moving on. Can we review the first draft of the select board report and the first draft of the warrant at the end and just go on to correspondence? So sign memorandum of, can we move that? OK, to the end. All right. Sign memorandum of agreement for a road erosion inventory grant.

**Speaker 5:** So the Bradenton County Regional Commission has submitted a memorandum of agreement for them to work with Dave and go through the inventory and the public determinations.

Is that every five years? Five years.

**Speaker 5:** Right. They would do it for $4040, which is the amount of the grant that we obtained. So that would take care of paying them in the 20% match,

which is our responsibility of paying full pay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sign it. Motion.

Mm-hm. All right.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sign it. You have to .

**Speaker 3:** I'll read the . I don't mind about it. Because they wanted us to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, I just . So are the matches for all these grants, are they in our budget somewhere in your grants? Or we're just?

**Speaker 3:** They would just come out of Iowa .

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** If we get them, fine. If we don't?

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Speaker 32:** If we get them, if we don't.

**Speaker 3:** This one, I'm guessing, we'll probably get. It's just the way it's.

**Speaker 5:** We were awarded it.

**Speaker 3:** The state wants it done so they give you a line to have something to do with it. Because probably that wasn't the only one that said it. You're out of your mind. Right. This is $4,000 worth of work, and I'm supposed to just think about it. All of a sudden, just drop everything else I'm doing and do your study. And then you know what, I can write down whatever I want. Just think about it. Right. I said, wouldn't it be better if you people did it? And then, you know, exactly, you kind of like to take it past it and say try again, right? Right. Try again. It's worse than that. I could just write a hundred and say, hey, y'all. Yes.

All right.

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

**Speaker 5:** Anything else under correspondence, Laurie? I do have your 2025 certificate of highway mileage. When I took a look at it, all they had was previous mileage and any changes that we've made during the year, we have to say. So I made a note that the legal trail has increased by 0.3 mileage. And the class 4 number is decreasing by 0.3 with the new totals over here. I changed their wording. They had put in 0.03 miles, but it's 0.3. So if this looks OK to you guys, there's lines right here for you guys to sign.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** $5,000. $5,000. $480. 0.03.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 0.03.

Maybe I'm walking. We got it. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. 0.03.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 0.03.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We didn't want that needs to be right at 0.03. 0.03. 0.03. I just wanted to see if it is 0.03 miles. Yeah. How many feet that was.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 1,500 feet. But I know it's not 150 because I've been out there. 0.03 is definitely 1,500. 1,600 if it was only 1.03 that would be one.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That wouldn't be very much out there. i was wondering how many feet it was if i walked that far that's what that one 150 how much 158. old business any old business new business peter i don't care i just want one thing one thing

**Speaker 21:** um monday night the planning commission is having another meeting to finish up the bylaws um for the new sign or for the sign the sign itch is being redone so if you guys want to come over to the meeting and uh if you have any input you'd like to try to install would be then and then

**Speaker 37:** you guys are going to end up with it here anyway so are you planning a public meeting planning commission public meeting yeah that's the idea we're going to we have to do a public

**Speaker 21:** meeting too and i um we got to warrant that yeah we're not going to be able to put it on the board for this year of course but um i don't think we need to answer it i don't think so

**Speaker 38:** because you guys are going to do a public meeting you do a public meeting we do a public meeting

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and then that's it and then if if there's so many people that want to have a town meeting then they

**Speaker 38:** can get a petition signed right right go through that stuff i think what it is is the planning

**Speaker 21:** commission wanted to get as much input as possible so that we don't have to ever visit the issue

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** again so if we we eventually will sign it uh and pass it if we didn't we just send it back to you guys like say we did like uh one thing right we don't have to say you know say i want all of it

**Speaker 21:** done just that yeah we were going to act on uh this last meeting but we were missing some key people you know input and stuff like that dave didn't show up so we canceled the meeting well i was yeah he was sitting on the parking lot drinking coffee

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** throwing his wing off

**Speaker 3:** okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay uh new business we're good all right we review first draft a warrant or

**Speaker 11:** select board report either one so i just got it so i think wait can i wait the warrant

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** or the first draft of the select board report yeah i'd like your input on it because it's really really rough but that's what i'm saying i didn't get a chance to do another job

when does lori need this

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i mean i'd rather take my home and read it oh

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's all i'm saying dave can you read your part on highway

**Speaker 3:** yeah you need to add taller installation to the

**Speaker 17:** clean water okay i'm going to meet you monday why for some reason here

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we could work on your part monday um well thank you for writing it out oh this is really bad it's just quick notes and you're too hard on yourself oh this is terrible terrible so so please feel free to edit anything add anything take it out because it's bad but it's some ideas it's something to start with

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** well i would like to i hate to bring it up again because we haven't talked about it a long time but i would like to look into any type of communication that you want for for that text though so what even if it's as simple as what i said about what i'm doing i'm gonna keep when we were talking in the our last meeting that um did we tell everybody that there's a you can pay by credit card you know at least something that would help out i'm not saying anything's going to solve all the problems would be perfect but if someone knows and i think my bank county said uh you know a lot of people eat a fine outer you know credit card uh service fee over eight percent of your taxes hit you know because you you can now they get there you know so i i just think we should look into that and put that in there well that was

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** something that we could put in the select board report well that's what i'm thinking maybe there and maybe in the tax bill insert that you can pay your taxes by credit card

**Speaker 1:** um you probably get a hell of a lot more pain if you have the option to go on pay

**Speaker 5:** extra i don't you know put something in here about the state increasing all of the dog fees i'm going to have a lot of people who want to be new right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** the one thing that i want the people at the town meeting to understand too is is

**Speaker 18:** we were going to increase more than we increased the state increased by two and you guys had talked

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** about ten and dropped it and dropped it down to five we were going to increase in ten and we didn't the state came in and increased at five so we didn't increase our ten dollars so we lost money as a town but we we felt like it was too much of an increase for the dog

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i'd pay 15. it's for you you got tons of money if lou takes the dog that needs to go to the vet yeah and we don't know who the owner is you don't leave the dog they are suffering so this money that we're taking in it will be for the dog going to the vets make sure the dog's got rabies shots or i don't know how that would determine or maybe it'll give them a shot right

**Speaker 39:** there or i don't know they do right well if you notice explain why we're creating a dog fund

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** people have to understand when people don't register their dog for at what was it 9 and 11 that cost and we think up a dog and no one does anything that costs us a ton of money yeah i mean just seriously i'll pay the damn 11 dollars and register your dog it's go get your rabies shot but 11 come on you know and it cost the town and that's why i think someone said we actually put a list of people's names and they're like oh you shouldn't do that i'm like oh wait a minute we do that with the tax bankers you know you're costing the pound money stop it you know it makes sense public and i know there might be someone that was out of town there's mistakes but what do you have to say yeah that's just not right and you're right the state that's another thing the state

**Speaker 21:** says we have to do this we've always started mike's dog phone mike's dog phone put it in there as long as anybody comes in and can't afford it there you go there you go i'll pay 11 for you

**Speaker 40:** jim i promise i'll give you 20 bucks times four you're gonna pay for his babies i mean for you right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know what you have to bring.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, so first draft of warrant, can that wait, Laurie?

**Speaker 5:** It's going to have to. I don't have library, I don't have fire department, I don't have cemetery numbers, so we have to hold it in our warrant.

**Speaker 6:** So next, we're going to have to meet next week? Again?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Do we want to have a warrant with the listener? Bring that back?

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Not against us. So we should put that on.

**Speaker 4:** And then we should put something in the select board report about why.

**Speaker 21:** Mr. Vice Chair.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, we're not trying to.

We're going to do this to read positions, stack them up.

**Speaker 5:** We have to. We have to. And that won't be on this year anyway, so it's up to one.

Next year. Nobody runs or nothing happens.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But then we can still, if it's an elected position, we can still appoint. All right. So if we appoint a lister into an elected position, are they covered for? Education. Education. Okay.

**Speaker 2:** So if nobody runs and you appoint somebody, then they're covered.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Into an elected position.

**Speaker 40:** Into an elected position.

**Speaker 2:** Into an elected position. Ah.

Okay. So they would only work until the next turn. Right. And then they have to run and they're out. Oh, yeah. Football. Football. Football. Football. Football. Football. Football. Football. Football.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Football. Football. It is really.

It is.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. That could go in the select board report.

**Speaker 4:** Because that will be a warrant article.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Mm-hmm. Once you do get them, if you want to write them off e-mail so you can read them before the next meeting. Mm-hmm.

**Speaker 11:** So do we want to meet next week at earlier than 6, 5?

**Speaker 3:** Next week. 5 is better.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We got it.

**Speaker 3:** 5 is better than 4. 4.30 is probably.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is next week our deadline, right, for the select board to get this in? Yeah, we got it. Who says it's deadline? You. Yeah. We have a long time.

**Speaker 37:** Who are you sure?

**Speaker 21:** Hey, she was pretty quick at the planning commission the other day. Real quick. Like, boom, no one can.

**Speaker 5:** And I gave you the wrong deadline. Right at the top of my head. You're allowed. You're allowed.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I see.

**Speaker 3:** Next Thursday.

**Speaker 5:** Stop the petition in the office. What time? Next Thursday.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The follow-up Thursday. 4.30 or 5. Whatever. Better for me.

**Speaker 4:** 4.30? Fair.

I will not.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 4.30 or 1.30 to finish. We're on work session.

Uh-oh. Oh, is that full? Yeah. All that. All that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 1.23? We can't do a work session. We've got to do a regular select board meeting because we're going to have to make a motion to approve these, right?

**Speaker 5:** We'll do a regular meeting and have work session in the beginning and then approve work. Yeah. Work. Yes. Yep.

**Speaker 24:** So 4.30? 4.30?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 4.30? 4.30 for?

**Speaker 24:** Yes. 4.30.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Executive session. For personnel and for the probable civil litigation. I think a motion to go in. Second. Executive session for those two reasons.

So this.