---
title: "Stamford Select Board — March 20, 2025"
date: 2025-03-20
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, 12 of 14 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":73,"SPEAKER_01":1,"SPEAKER_02":5,"SPEAKER_03":4,"SPEAKER_04":7,"SPEAKER_05":33,"SPEAKER_06":8,"SPEAKER_07":2,"SPEAKER_08":10,"SPEAKER_09":75,"SPEAKER_10":6,"SPEAKER_11":12,"SPEAKER_13":3,"SPEAKER_14":74}
duration_min: 122
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ26NrCPlCc
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%203-20-25.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Douglas Wright, Michael G. Denault, John Dunn, 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 — March 20, 2025

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 122 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ26NrCPlCc) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%203-20-25.pdf)

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

---
**Speaker 1:** Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

**Speaker 2:** Continue to acknowledge the religious stance of one nation, under God,

invisible, with liberty and justice for all.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's call the meeting to order. Welcome to a 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 will 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 3:** Douglas Wright. John Dunn. Kurt DeMar.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will there be any adding of items? Or removing items from tonight's agenda? Yeah, I think we've got to review the dog guidelines too. Yeah. Will there be any adjustments to the agenda, such as changing the order of items? I don't think so. Pete is recording tonight's meeting. This is for Jeb's YouTube. Okay. So we've got a lot on the agenda tonight, a lot to discuss and talk about. But first, we'll be hearing of visitors. Tammy. Yes.

**Speaker 4:** Tammy Elias. Suzanne Drive. And in case you aren't aware, Sportsman Road overflowed again Sunday night, wrecking the road all the way down to my house. I really wouldn't care so much if the road got washed away, if every single piece of dirt, mud, pebble, rock didn't all make it in our yard. So I paid $4,500 to the town of Stamford for taxes. I paid $2,000 a year to Albemarle. We talked about this last July 4th when it flooded. We need to find some sort of solution instead of just, like, Tammy and Tom put the bill, probably clean up the after now too. Might have to mess. It is totally a mess. Both of our driveways have to be all sure-capped again. There's much mud.

**Speaker 5:** And the mud came up to the basement.

**Speaker 4:** Oh, what's your name?

**Speaker 5:** Tom. Oh, Tom.

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

**Speaker 5:** The mud came up to the basement into our well. So I am concerned about a drink of water now. Mm-hm. The mud is packed up against the foundation, and the water came into our basement.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So it was running down Suzanne Drive from? From the top of Sportsville.

**Speaker 4:** So when you look at Sports, uh, Suzanne, there's culverts all the way down the right side of the road. But where the water goes is all the way down the left side of the road. So we need to put in culverts. On Suzanne Drive? Yes. Next meeting will be. Next meeting will be more affluent people here to discuss what a solution can be. I know you both just kind of blame it on the other, but this needs to be some sort of 50-50 split of whatever this repair is going to be.

**Speaker 3:** Where are we going? Through a survey? Yeah, I had, um. Yeah, pick a place for that.

**Speaker 6:** I had John, uh, Josh Carball come up to me and actually wrote, sent this email to the town. And they never actually came up with the size of anything yet. But. It's actually a really big project. It's not just changing a culvert at the intersection. It's to realign some of the brook. It's a possible 50 per minute. It's, you know. This isn't potentially going to the Murphy property, too, because he was here worried about his son's property at one point. Yeah, it's across the brook. They really want to realign the brook where it used to go before. Is this the brook, Dave, that's coming down? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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

**Speaker 6:** I guess this is the only day that's coming down from the mountain. Yeah. It's coming out of, I would guess it's the Murphy property, or. There's a bunch of water there. Yeah, I've seen it come down from the mountain, and there's a ditch, too.

**Speaker 7:** Changing a culvert at that intersection doesn't guarantee anything, because if you're not

**Speaker 6:** there when all the sticks and everything run out of the woods and those types of events.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's not even getting to the outside of the road, is it?

**Speaker 8:** registry inaudible

**Speaker 4:** The right side never gets to the right side of the road.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's not, where that culvert is.

**Speaker 6:** It's not even getting to that road. Yeah, it's just kind of floods over the road there and viys down the next哦 there and goes down the like you see the left side the ditch line of suzanne drive it kind of just a lot of spam you know fans out runs down through there and i mean the structure hasn't failed it's unfortunately seems to be happening more often than it did there's no really easy solution to it because nothing has changed it was real quick and easy i was just a study has to be done yeah it's pretty easy to be doing it works why can't we just change that culvert for now because that's up to the state of the water waterway agency of natural resources we control that we don't have any jurisdiction because anything that's going to be um 36 inch or above they decide what goes on and in this case they're talking about realigning the brook he doesn't even want to come down do anything there he wants to go up the road and put a new culvert crossing in the middle of the road and put a new culvert crossing in the middle of the road and put a new culvert crossing in the middle of the road and put a new culvert crossing in the middle and come down through it might actually be your property probably we're going to go more of an

**Speaker 9:** angle it's almost a 90 degree turn didn't we see years ago and then you're going to have to put a

**Speaker 6:** crossing in on suzanne drive and it's going to be a pretty substantial cost so you know this isn't

**Speaker 10:** just uh you know elastic culvers for every year every year and a half who pays for our maintenance

**Speaker 6:** i don't know on your row this would be alcohol and they say well it's stamford's water but it's not i mean it's very in a way the water the water is universal yeah right that's like water water we're not correcting it in that way it's just an act of god and we have a flood

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** dave didn't we see something that they have to go through a field or something on an angle

**Speaker 7:** yeah i think that drawing okay they want to realign and have it yeah

**Speaker 11:** because it's so it's a 90 degree turn yeah right turns from so what happens is that culvert on

**Speaker 10:** suzanne i'm sorry that culvert on sportsman's road seems like it's not deep enough well it

**Speaker 6:** just doesn't handle the flow i mean in these extreme events it's yeah i don't know about extreme at least a foot of snow and then probably had an inch of rain in a matter of hours it seemed like that's how it works

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** notoriously undersized yeah so now we have a study this is i know it's frustrating we did this on lincoln road it took you know like four years four years thousand ten fifties yeah we spent yeah with the grant you know so it's a big issue

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so if we do put that culvert in higher up on sportsman's road what's to what's going to handle the water coming down from the mountain into the current culvert that's there isn't there a little stream i say tricolored but it's quite a it's quite a stream there

**Speaker 12:** but you're you're talking about brook is over for them yeah that's basically a brook

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so this study that they they're doing when will we hear about this i don't know i mean

**Speaker 9:** we put a fire under this kind of like yeah it's like everything else you know the more

**Speaker 6:** You get out in the morning, you might come up with something, but then you've got to fund it. And it's going to be equally as expensive to Elton Wall, and this is the town. I mean, if I said you had to put $50,000 in, do you think Elton Wall would even entertain that?

**Speaker 4:** They say they spend most of their road budgets fixing Suzanne Drive.

**Speaker 6:** I doubt $50,000.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, if they did, and if they helped fix it, then that would go down. That's kind of an incentive.

**Speaker 6:** And that's the same problem, because you put all the water, you come down through there, a big stick could have jammed with a bunch of leaves in the wall, and now instead of dealing with a little bit of water, because some of the water goes down the right track, you might have all of that. Because they've seen that plenty, too. The game and I are going to tell you, it's not 100% foolproof. It's not necessarily going to work.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The big thing is, again, the state's going to come down. They do the study. They tell us what can be done. Not necessarily the right thing to be done, but what can be done. Then we have to get bids. So I have no problem with us putting fire under them, because I agree, the state likes to kick the can a lot. So if we can at least see where we're at, I agree. If we can go to Apple Wall and say, okay, here's our numbers, what do you want to do? Then we'll go from there. We'll at least get to that point.

**Speaker 3:** Is there anything we can do temporarily? Can we fix it with hay bales, silt fences?

**Speaker 6:** This is one of those things that doesn't happen. I mean, the whole time I've been here, 16 years, this is probably the fourth time I saw it. It's just the second time within a year. Yeah. Yeah. Four times 5,000.

**Speaker 10:** That's what I spent. Every time.

**Speaker 6:** It cost you 5,000 dollars? Every time. With a collar on your driveway? Or is there something else? Wait. Wait. Is there something there? No, just to clean up. No, but I mean the water flowing. Because the water is just going down the ditch on the left-hand side. Where does that ditch line go? I guess I've never been down there.

**Speaker 4:** It goes all the way up to my property.

**Speaker 10:** Whether sportsman Suzanne Drive got tipped, graded.

**Speaker 5:** That's why.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, I'm just curious. If it's running down the ditch line, where does it go down the ditch line? Because it just should stay there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Was Suzanne a dead end down there? Yes. So if this, you're looking. If it's going down, you're saying it's going on the left-hand. I've been up at the top. I've never been all the way down. But if this water's coming down, what Dave's saying is that going all the way past the dead end? Of course not. It must be going across.

**Speaker 4:** Most of it lands in our second driveway, close to our house. Okay. And you're on the left or right? We're on the left.

**Speaker 13:** You're on the left. So is there something, is there a ditch that could keep going down to the dead end?

**Speaker 14:** Well, I need to make one.

**Speaker 13:** You know, like John said.

**Speaker 15:** We'll keep going to water from our first ditch.

**Speaker 10:** First driveway, do you want to fill in the property with a ditch?

**Speaker 13:** Like a temporary.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, if Alvin Wall put a ditch deeper on your side.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Let's just say he can't dig a ditch on it. Well, I don't know how Alvin Wall is, but dig a ditch in your own property and say, there's a water going for, like an emergency type situation.

**Speaker 16:** It's not jumping onto your.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I know when we went through all the flood stuff, there's a difference between an emergency fix and then a, well, we'll find out. We'll fix it down the road. I mean, I would just ditch it.

**Speaker 17:** Okay.

**Speaker 18:** If the, okay, say we go through with this, say we go through with this project, put the

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** culvert through the field and down, and it's going to cross lower on Suzanne drive. Where's that culvert going to empty into? Somebody's backyard or where does it go now?

**Speaker 6:** No, it's going to go where the water goes now, but it could plug too. This is what I'm saying. It's not. It's not a cure-all.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, no, no.

**Speaker 9:** We're saying.

**Speaker 6:** They could still plug that culvert that crosses Suzanne drive lower where they, where he kind of had drawn it up, could potentially plug and make it end up with more water. That's what I see happening. If it does plug, they're going to end up with more water. With that, with that plant? With this design. Yeah. They could potentially end up with more water if that culvert.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Do you have any influence on telling them that the plant could be worse?

**Speaker 9:** This is the way they work.

**Speaker 6:** They want to go about it. That part of it isn't really their concern. It shouldn't happen, but it will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what happens in every flood. The stuff runs out of the woods, the sticks, the leaves, you know, all of a sudden you've got little rivers where there isn't rivers, you know, everything overflows. It grabs everything from the woods, comes down, close the culverts and unless you're standing right there, and even if you were, you might not be able to stop it, it happens so fast, you know, and we had, there was a culvert down the road by the cost. We had a 15 property that couldn't handle the flow and I had to fix that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh yeah, this is not, this is not the only part, place in town that there's problems like that.

**Speaker 6:** Right, exactly.

**Speaker 9:** We've been through this.

**Speaker 6:** So we just, you know, what we do is it's cheaper just to throw a couple yards of material in the hole and, you know, next time we do the same thing. Yeah. You know, it's just unfortunate that it's yards getting, you know, destroyed.

**Speaker 4:** I would be perfectly content if you guys didn't want to spend all that money doing that when this does happen and I submit a $1,000 bill for fixing it. Yeah. Yeah. Fixing my driveways, if you went out the wall and splitted it, and I don't have to pay this every time it floods, I'd be fine. No, that's... I can't pay this over and over again.

**Speaker 10:** So we'll get a barter to come out and surefire both driveways.

**Speaker 5:** No. And excavate all the mud.

**Speaker 6:** Right. Mm-hmm. I would suggest just running the ditch line and, do you have culverts now under your driveways or no? No.

No.

**Speaker 6:** So there probably should be.

**Speaker 4:** I mean, bark is put in a culvert at least in the driveway.

Yeah, all the time. It doesn't get a freaking drop of rain. No. It does nothing.

**Speaker 4:** Why is it there? Where was that? On our side. Oh, all the time. Lisa's driveway. Oh, okay. She lives right across the street from St. Jeff. Yeah. They put a big culvert there and nothing ever goes in if there's no water.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because the top culvert should have taken it over.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, it goes down on the right-hand side. The water goes through the culvert down on the right-hand side and there on the left.

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

**Speaker 6:** So it should be going over more on that side. You know, water does go to the right side, but some's going down the left side. There is a ditch line there. Yeah. But apparently it just... Doesn't go there.

**Speaker 19:** So we didn't call that a ditch line.

**Speaker 6:** A ditch line. Yeah. It just deadheads and unfortunately runs on another property. So you said... But that's kind of... It could alleviate that with, you know, continuing to ditch down through and... Well, I mean, I don't know. I haven't been down there.

**Speaker 17:** What does that one lot do when they come out and repair a section of the road?

**Speaker 20:** What do they do?

**Speaker 4:** Like this afternoon, they brought five or six loads of gravel and whatnot. They don't ditch it?

**Speaker 21:** They don't ditch the road? Nope.

**Speaker 22:** They just pull it all up.

**Speaker 10:** Nope. And then they just point fingers at the top of the road and say, Yeah, all right.

**Speaker 23:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Hmm. So you said more Alpenwald people will be here next meeting? Yes.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The question is, can you do anything to fix it? Not at this point. Right. If I'm not mistaken, we went through this...

**Speaker 3:** So now we have to say, okay, we... What's that? We went through the same thing this time last year as well.

**Speaker 6:** It was in mid-summer, I think. Right. July 4th.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. So the question is now is we have to... Follow up with... Go back to the state. Yeah. Play the game.

**Speaker 24:** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, he said right here, he still, he didn't see anything from the hydraulic study. This stuff is really out of the hands of the town, unfortunately. It's not like years ago. If they decide what goes on, then we have to comply. And it's not... It's definitely not going to be cheap.

**Speaker 17:** The rest of all, they're inventorying like every culvert in the state. Well...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** How many culverts you have in town, you said last time? There's 300.

**Speaker 24:** 300, and we need to fix many more.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, I've gone probably 80 since I've been here. Yeah. Most culverts fail now just because of the size of them. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of undersized culverts. I mean, we have some major ones. I put in for a Grand East Road for one that's, you know, a quarter of a million. That's, you know... You'd probably be surprised in the size of the one they'd want to put in. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. If it was 50,000, they probably wouldn't want to go for that. Of course. It might go for anywhere in front of them. Right.

**Speaker 25:** Yeah.

**Speaker 17:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 50,000. 50,000. Yeah. That whole job could be half a million dollars. Yeah. Especially when you get it realigned, building a brook down through some property. Yeah. Welcome to the future of a bunch of dirt roads. Yeah. So, what we're going to... Well... What we can do is follow up on the state. See if we can get an answer for next meeting. Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All right. Let's see what's going to happen. I'm certainly not going to have the right figures... No. No. ...put in for some kind of project by the next meeting.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. No. No.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No.

**Speaker 6:** No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I'm lucky to have your apologize for any Anti! No. No. Josh is really good. What just happens is that, you know, his hands are tied too. He has to follow... Yeah. He's a big territory. He's really good. He is. Yeah, he is. I followed him for two time over there.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Maybe we'll have a bit of an answer for next week. Okay, thank you for listening. Jhon, you had a question...

**Speaker 26:** Something? Yeah. paperwork I need to fill out for the gravel pit and basically it comes down to I would just like some support from the selectmen for the gravel pit when I send all this paperwork back to them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I guess I, what's the paperwork? Is it F-250?

**Speaker 26:** No, it's like a review.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Are they asking something from the town?

**Speaker 26:** No, nothing from the town, I just, it's just me saying that, you know, that, yeah, kind

**Speaker 27:** of, I supply gravel to them, I try to help them out in emergencies, and just, yeah, he's

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** an asset to our town, we have no complaints about what he's up to.

**Speaker 26:** That's all, that's all, yeah, that's all.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because we can't, I don't think we can reach out to them.

**Speaker 26:** No, I don't want that, no, I didn't, no, you don't have to, no, I don't want that, no, I, I, just, just, something, something.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What are they asking, what is the state asking of you that, that we need to?

**Speaker 26:** The state's, the state, nothing that you need to do, basically, it, it, it's like a review of the, of the pit is what they're doing, and I just thought that if I, yeah. A good word is always a good thing, I guess is all I can say, it's, it's, it's that simple, you know, I'll fill it out, and, I mean.

**Speaker 17:** Yeah, I would say that, you know, the nation, that explains the value of the, you know, the value of the town.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep, the value of the whole town, because we can't just. Yeah, absolutely.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's right. We haven't had any issues with it, you know, no complaints.

**Speaker 6:** Almost as much of a public service, I mean, I don't think people realize that. Yeah. When we have an issue, I call John. Oh, I know. John drops everything that's worth the orders of the town. Maybe. Maybe we can answer the. There are roads in a nutshell there, and so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe we can answer the same questions that were asked of the Act 250, one on the previous.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know, you talk about the state, with the water, and all the problems. If you go all the way up Main Road, just, just Main Road, and you, you go up through here, and you look at the drainage ditches, I guess you would call them, does none of them have been cleaned out? No, the state has neglected. From the line all the way up through, I mean, you look at. Oh, I know. Between Dart, Alex.

**Speaker 17:** From the flooding here in the, in the Valley, Florida.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Tegin. I mean, the water is bad enough, because it's not even drained.

**Speaker 26:** The runoff.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's horrible. You know, he's having problems on Lincoln Road. They're not taking care of their stuff. You go all the way up this road. Oh, it's the truth. We were saying, by Sportsman's Road, the water's. You look at the. Watch the road right out.

**Speaker 26:** They're, they're. The water's backed up halfway. I mean, they need to be dug out.

**Speaker 28:** We have a ditch right here that needs to be dug out.

**Speaker 29:** Yeah, I saw that in the 60s and never touched it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. Pretty much. So, you know, they talk about. Sir. Their rules of us not fixing things, and they're not fixing it, you know. And it's almost like this. You want to just say to our townspeople, do it. Fix it, like you just said. Put a ditch in there. Yeah, like up there. Don't call the state ditch on the side of the road. Talk to your neighbors. Don't call anybody. Don't ask no questions, and I won't tell you no lies. Right. Talk to your neighbors. Get it done.

**Speaker 23:** Sometimes when you're on the public road, though, you don't have that. No, that's true. It's like security. Right.

**Speaker 17:** It's a shame that neighbors. Not on anybody's radar.

**Speaker 2:** Yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All right. We'll see what we can write on something. We'll look at the 250 questions and see what they said and kind of go along with that. Yeah, that's definitely supportive.

**Speaker 30:** All right.

**Speaker 6:** Thank you.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You don't want to stay for the rest of the night? No. Oh, come on.

**Speaker 31:** We'll see you.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Take care, Dad.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors or questions? Reading and approval of records and orders.

**Speaker 32:** Motion to approve.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I have a second. Okay. Second?

**Speaker 32:** Second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? Aye. Okay. There's a lot of, you need your signature on the back sheet, and there's a lot of stuff to sign in there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's stuff in the middle. You fool. You don't need. Yeah. There's a dozen on the tag.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I like the bank account. Berkshire Bank. Before you paid the school. Yeah.

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

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** This is what we had end of January. Oh, wow. Then she paid the school. So that's what we have. Yeah. They like their money. Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, and they're still on loan. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Still on loan. Yeah. Still on loan. Dave, you want to start on road conditions? Sure.

**Speaker 6:** It's about season. It's muddy.

**Speaker 7:** Been out dealing with some muddy spots.

**Speaker 6:** Nothing that's really blown out where we couldn't get through. I tried to stay on top of most of the spots that were starting to break up, and I'm sure we already put a pretty good hurtin' on my summer budget. I mean, I had to go over the stone with gravel in the next couple of weeks, but I think I think I'm pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's awful. It really is. Not a pie dough. I kind of can't really see it happening, and just really haven't really seen – Yeah. Yeah. I'll say it again, John really is like a lifeline to the town, especially in emergency situations. I follow him in whatever he's doing when he comes, especially in the flight events. I mean, without his kit in town, you people are stranded. The people in the back row are going to be stranded because he shows up immediately and brings in the material. And we don't have room to stockpile that kind of material or the money, usually.

**Speaker 33:** In the event we're not able to get stuff from him, where would the next option be?

**Speaker 6:** Well, I mean, you'd have to go to Shaftsbury, really.

**Speaker 3:** And then that would be you trucking it yourself?

**Speaker 6:** We'd have to find somebody to truck it. In most situations, when there's flooding events, other people are doing the same thing. So you're probably not going to find someone. You've got to be willing to do it, so you're waiting.

**Speaker 23:** In the summers, you've got all the trucks tied up with paving projects and everything. They've got their contracts going on.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, there's not a guy with an empty truck waiting for someone to call.

**Speaker 6:** They're all, you know, it's the same reason why we have our own town group, because otherwise you'd never get anything done. Find someone to do the work for you. Dirt roads and climate events. Welcome to the city. Definitely.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, one of the things that Dave said a long time ago, if you move up here, get yourself a generator, a four-wheel drive, and a gun. Where's that T-shirt?

**Speaker 23:** It rose up this year.

**Speaker 34:** Propane?

**Speaker 23:** No, it was all the snowpack.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, yeah. Wow. You've got to be kidding me.

**Speaker 23:** What was that? I missed it. Our generator. It literally seized up because the snowpack with that horrible wind we had during that event. Oh, yeah. Where's the T-shirt?

**Speaker 17:** It's a lifestyle. I'm working on it.

**Speaker 29:** Oh, okay.

**Speaker 24:** It definitely is a lifestyle.

**Speaker 6:** We need to be prepared that, you know, we can't. I had to spend money on a campaign. Oh. You know, when you think about it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We know you're semi-retired. Well, there's two of us.

**Speaker 6:** We can't be everywhere at once. Right, right, right. So, something's waiting, you know. You know, I've had a couple complaints that the dirt roads are muddy. Whoa. Okay. Seriously. That's, you know, they're muddy. Really?

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

**Speaker 13:** Yeah.

**Speaker 35:** Yeah.

**Speaker 31:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Yeah. They're not, you know. They're, you know, they're muddy. Yeah. When you bought the house, you see that it's muddy. You know.

**Speaker 34:** Yeah.

**Speaker 12:** They're like new.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That sounds like they're new.

**Speaker 12:** They're new.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. They're new. Like an old guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That happens. That happens.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I bought a house on Sportsman Road and I hear guns going off at a sportsman's club. I didn't know that was gonna happen.

Anything else, Dave? I don't believe so. Okay. Um. I don't worry.

**Speaker 6:** I have to get together with my wife. So, I'm not sure. I'm going to work on a bid for each drill so that can happen this summer. And I did get a hold of a maintenance man for the sweeping, and they're going to show up sometime in April.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, it would be good if they could do it because he didn't do it last year. Right. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** It doesn't want to show up.

**Speaker 23:** I have a question. I know I bring this up often. And has there ever been any talk about putting money aside for eventually paving roads so that we can get beyond a lot of these trouble spots when Dave's gone and we are, I don't know, seven years isn't a long time.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** When we talked about that last time, Dave went and got a quote. I thought it was a very good number. I would be willing to do that like we do with all the other projects to put money aside. And every time we do that. The money's going up. You know, that bid's going to go up. I would like to look into trying to get a 20-year loan to take care of something like that. And that's against your road, but Jepson Road's got blacktop and blacktop.

**Speaker 34:** And I'm like, why aren't we connecting that?

**Speaker 23:** You know? And then the other thing is I've lived on a paved road and I've lived on dirt. So I've seen both. I. I think it's unfair that a lot of money is put into chip sealing right now for not even a third of our people.

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

**Speaker 23:** Exactly. And we all pay the same taxes and we don't have the same budget for the roads. So something has to change. Taxes or roads.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. Your evaluation should take into consideration. That you're on a dirt road versus.

**Speaker 23:** We know we live on a dirt road.

**Speaker 34:** I'm not saying.

**Speaker 23:** I'm not saying on a forest road.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, I mean, I live on a main road and I'm paying taxes and I'm not giving any of the budget to me. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I agree with the blacktop and I think we all do.

**Speaker 23:** And sweeping it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know. Why?

**Speaker 23:** I think it's crazy. Yeah. You know, that's what Mother Nature does. Those streets and things are quite crazy.

**Speaker 6:** Sometimes it pays off. Um, and sometimes it doesn't last very long and you get a rainstorm and.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, we have a lot of problems. We didn't talk about our trees on the back roads. Yeah, they're that's a rabbit hole. You don't even want to go down. We have water problems. We have blacked out, you know, mud brown. We have, there's a lot of issues. The more people build houses up there, the worse it's going to get, you know, whether there's more water, less water. I mean, I mean, you look at the, the river's got less water, right? So the water's got to be going somewhere.

**Speaker 17:** You know, I mean, that was the way cause the ground doesn't hold it anymore. Right, right. We made the rivers like canals.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And you, you showed me the old maps. I mean, with all the fields and everything, you know, now we're, we're not drying it out anymore. It's all wetlands, you know, turned into wetlands, you know, so it's not drying, you know, but there's a lot of problems. I do think that the town can't afford everything just simple to have. We're going to go bankrupt. But if we could go, this is one project. We set money aside. I agree with you. It's nice to at least plan. You know, we did it with other projects. We can do it with that.

**Speaker 17:** Next year. Set it aside so it's, we got to set it aside so it's generationally right. So not one, not any one generation has to bear the whole, you know, burden of the expense. Right. It's got to be spread out over time.

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

**Speaker 6:** Next year is a paving year, or should be a paving year for us to do another project. And we've been spending $200,000 every year, every five years since I started working here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** On the chip ceiling or on the paving?

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, on the chip ceiling. Okay. Yep. Eventually, that number is going to have to climb. I juggled it for years to try to make it all work between that and grants. Having East Road done this year is going to be huge, you know, because that's a couple hundred thousand dollars in the city. Yeah. We can easily, I'm sure they'd be happy to give us an estimate on paving some of these other roads while they're here. It would be time to do it. It would be the cheapest. Yeah. Because the more. Yeah. They can do, the cheaper you can get it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So you had an estimate on Mill Road, County Road, Mill Road. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** It was $600,000.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All the way to Doug's house, right?

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. I know that was very cheap. I believe you should just pull the trigger on that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's what I'm saying. I mean, we're talking, it's not a million dollars. No.

**Speaker 6:** That's extremely cheap.

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

**Speaker 23:** Yeah. I thought it was like a million dollars on the paving.

**Speaker 6:** That would be.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's what they tell you in the city, but they got a lot of other stuff.

**Speaker 6:** You know, you're going to get two inches one year, two inches the next year.

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

**Speaker 6:** You know, and typically, and I can, people can argue this all day long, like, well, the road's not built for it. Well, the main road was built for it at one point, and drive up that, and you tell me it's all full of frosty. Right. So it doesn't really matter if you.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** They paved it, what, a year ago, two years ago?

**Speaker 6:** A few years back. It doesn't really matter. It's the northeast.

**Speaker 9:** Sure.

**Speaker 6:** You're never going to get rid of the frosty control. Well, they're just trying to get the best. So. Now, if you pave. A bad paved road is better than a good gravel road. Yeah. Any day.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If you paved no road, then you would go with a chip seal, and later on, down the road. Yeah, later on, you need a chip seal. So that's what you, you take, your maintenance on the paved roads is chip seal, which is a lot. A lot easier.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Once, once you have it, the maintenance is, you know, plus it doesn't, you do it every, you know, 10 years or something like that. In that bid. It's done every 10 years, and you're going to get to the point where the skill level of the employees doesn't have to be the same. Right. You know, if we could pave, think about this, our grader's almost 30 years old. You know, I'm constantly trying to keep that thing tight enough to make the road good. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's going to beat to death, but now these roads are almost 30 years. Yep. Do you want to buy a new one? I mean, that's going to cost a lot of money right there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's going to be a third, at least, of the blacktop.

**Speaker 6:** It's a few hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. Where, if you pave some of these roads that I'm constantly grading, now the grader doesn't have to come out a couple of times a week. You know, maybe it comes out once or twice a year, and you, and you do what you have to do, and you can keep it around for another 20 years, you know, a lot of things to look at.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did you get an estimate on paving Jepson Road from one blacktop to the other blacktop?

**Speaker 6:** I've never had an estimate on that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But the one we have gives us a ballpark figure what this one costs. So we take miles and say, okay, what's that, two miles?

**Speaker 23:** No, it's probably a little more.

**Speaker 36:** It's right around two miles.

**Speaker 23:** Is it?

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

**Speaker 10:** Oh, it's from the garage.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** From the garage, yeah. So two miles compared to this one over here is probably a mile. So, you know, I'm not saying it's cut in half, you know how that is, but still.

**Speaker 6:** That would be good. If they're here and they're doing all that, you're going to get a lot.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And when they do it, they have to do it right. They make the road wide enough and all that kind of stuff.

**Speaker 6:** It's going to be a 20-foot wide road.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. And if we get a mudslide, we get a mudslide.

**Speaker 24:** And you just clean it up off the pavement instead of the dirt.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. It doesn't wash the dirt away.

**Speaker 6:** But that also, like, with the hydronically connected road segments where I'm constantly having to put all the stone line ditching, but then the gravel road fills over the stone. Right. I mean, the state would be ahead of the game to start putting more money in the paving. Let's just pave Vermont and be done with it. Because the way their regulations are going, they don't really want a dirt road because it's working again. Right. They're trying to hold on to some kind of nostalgia. Yeah. But, I mean, these chip seal roads are, I mean, that's a bad road. It sure is. And it's in your head. I mean, you're going to love it. Your quality of life is going to improve so much. You're not going to, yeah, I'm really going to get sick of all the potholes and the. Yeah, ask anybody on the road. And the mud and, yeah, they may fight it. But you're, believe me, you're not going to be sick of dealing with it. Yeah. You know, we don't need to be driving all the way around. Yeah. The road. It's just being logistic. It's going to increase. We're going fast now.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 70-something miles an hour is probably.

**Speaker 6:** I would say that they're going to go as fast, but it'll be safer because, you know, it might be able to stop instead of slide off the road and the potholes, you know. Is that what you said? I don't know. I could argue it all day. I think we should pave every road in town and be done with it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, the thing is with this, we got a bid for Mill Road. Yeah. If that, that's the same company that does up, it's going to do this? Yeah. We ought to talk to them and say, if you're in town, what's your bid? I don't know how the process goes because that's a lot of money to be paid to have to have a town vote or something, but, I mean, we should look at that and say, I agree with Kurt. Generation after generation, this is not going to go away. This is always going to be here if it works.

**Speaker 6:** The wintertime is so much easier on the blacktop road.

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

**Speaker 6:** Especially when you get these trees and thaw and the rain in the wintertime. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you go around and throw a little salt down, there's no worries. You get up on the gravel road and the rain just keep going around and around and sand and hoping for the best. Please stop raining. Sure. This year, this winter, correct me if I'm wrong, was fairly decent as far as free stuff. Yeah. Just staying cold. In the middle of February, that's even worse. Yeah. I mean, we got, we locked out and didn't have much rain this winter because the rain is a nightmare in the winter. Gravel roads, it just. Can't do anything about it. Yeah. You just have to babysit them until it's done. You know, it's a nightmare for me. I can't just go throw salt down and go home and go to bed. I have to stay up and babysit these things to make sure that, you know, people can get in and out and the ambulances can get there. And I don't know if you quite understand how much dedication it takes to deal with these roads. It's a multi-layer.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Jim, how was your road this year, mud-wise? Because you always have a muddy spot up top there.

**Speaker 37:** Not bad.

**Speaker 32:** You just put a bunch of stuff on it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. I know some years you just couldn't get through there.

**Speaker 32:** Some years it's horrible.

**Speaker 17:** Right. You don't want a four-lane car.

**Speaker 32:** You don't want a four-lane car. Don't buy your house. Don't live at the end. You know, it's cool. Take me right over to County Road.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Anything else, Dave, on roads? And we've got to think about that when they come here.

**Speaker 6:** I know it's a hard build to swallow.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I don't think it really. In the business world. It's not a bad thing. It's an investment. Your labor goes down. You're talking about Johnny not being there someday. Even if the gravel pit doesn't get shut down or anything. Johnny's not going to be here forever either. Right. So the future is we're going to be chucking stuff in.

**Speaker 38:** Thank you for taking me. For how much? The same as black-topping? Taking what?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's the thing.

**Speaker 38:** Thank you for entertaining this conversation.

**Speaker 17:** I think it was on our radar.

**Speaker 38:** We didn't have to talk about it.

**Speaker 23:** I just want to make sure that you're talking about it.

You know, employees are going to cost you, too.

**Speaker 31:** Everything.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, sir. Mike. Mike, right?

**Speaker 31:** Thank you very much. My name is Mike Murphy. I'm a former resident of this town, 1984 to 1994. So I'm a little late for the meeting.

**Speaker 39:** Are you in the roads?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Are you doing the roads here?

**Speaker 31:** Sorry, I have a question. A road question. You're representing my son, Aaron Murphy, who lives up on Sportsman's Road. And so he just had a question. He just had a question about what's going on with the project at the corner. His property is right on that corner there where there's some talk about doing some work on that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, the Eliases were just here. And the Eliases were just here. And they're coming two weeks. Dave is going to look into the study that we had done. But we haven't solved anything tonight.

**Speaker 31:** So will there be a meeting at that time after that?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** There'll be a selectman's meeting. Dave will present his findings. But it's not. It's not going to be done next, in two weeks. If the state's involved, it's going to take a while.

**Speaker 40:** What do you mean by a while?

**Speaker 31:** Do you mean months, years? Years.

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

**Speaker 31:** Okay, good. So he just wants to know. His well is right there on the corner, as a matter of fact. So it's his thing.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And it involves culverts, study.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, I mean. JVNR. Yeah. I don't know what he did there. He could cause him a lot of issues.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And then they also have the apple wall. It's involved. They have rules. Right. Yes. So you have. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So at the next meeting, Dave, hopefully we'll have a few answers. And we'll see where we go from there.

**Speaker 31:** So he'll be notified about that meeting and all that?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, it'll be on the, just come in, uh, early conditions.

**Speaker 31:** Okay.

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

**Speaker 31:** Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** I just think they would notify the, the surrounding property workers before they start doing any kind of work. Oh, yeah.

**Speaker 6:** I wouldn't be able to participate in any kind of, like, ground work. I wouldn't be able to participate in any kind of, like, ground work. I wouldn't be able to participate in any kind of, like, ground work. It wouldn't be like groundbreaking on this for years.

**Speaker 24:** Right.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If anything, you know. Yeah, we've been down these roads before with projects that it takes, would have been a time to the state involved. Yeah.

**Speaker 41:** And if it were, I live in Poundville now.

**Speaker 31:** So same thing.

**Speaker 41:** Yeah.

**Speaker 31:** It's a good place.

**Speaker 6:** I don't think that, I think the quick, you know, fix of what people are looking for would cause Aaron more trouble than.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Which side of the road's he on looking down on the right? Yes.

**Speaker 31:** If he's on the right. Instead, there's a stream on his property which he really values, and I'm sure that would be affected by this whole thing probably. Yeah, well, that's where the water's coming from.

**Speaker 6:** You know, if that structure could take all that water, he probably would get flooded out. The fact that it overflows the road now and on the other side is probably saving him from that. The water's always looking for equilibrium. Yeah, so he'll find it somewhere.

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

**Speaker 6:** But the project that the state's kind of looking at is just realigning the brook off the road more and not even going anywhere near his place.

**Speaker 42:** Although he would still get, you know, some water down through there.

**Speaker 23:** I mean, look what I went through. They didn't even consider realigning the brook. Yeah. And they're okay with it. Diverting or realigning.

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

**Speaker 23:** Yeah. No. That's why I'm surprised they're even going there. Yeah. Because they're going to have to go on private property. Right. And that was the big deal. They. Couldn't get our neighbor to. Consent to it. Go back there and. Yeah. Yeah. So.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But even the stream that's coming down from the woods, I don't know whose stream that. How are you going to stop that? That's still going to flow down there.

**Speaker 6:** And it comes through a stone wall, which at one time was kind of odd. Like maybe the water didn't even come down through there. Yeah. And there was a river there. It's going to change over the course of.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that new culvert up the road is going to. Well, it takes some of the water, but how is it going to. Nothing's going to change down by that little stream and culvert. It's still going to come down there. It wouldn't be problem free. No.

**Speaker 6:** I don't think so.

**Speaker 9:** No.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No structured problem. So we could pay. Upward to five, $600,000 on a project that doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 24:** You're talking that 250.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Property. Creating a stream bed. I had no idea what that would cost. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not cheap. Okay. Way more than we budget for. I can tell you that. Yeah. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. So next meeting, there might be some answers. Yeah.

**Speaker 31:** Some answers meaning some. But then plans would have to be done. Definitely. All that stuff. Yep. It should take a long time. Yep. Yep. Okay.

**Speaker 40:** Thank you all.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Dave, anything else on roads? Recycling?

**Speaker 6:** No. That's about okay there. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I have some stuff on recycling. I attended an alliance meeting yesterday by Zoom. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Absolutely. All right. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. And you. No. Yeah. You're welcome. Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Hi. Yeah. Yeah. I want to let one just about be right there. Yeah. Yeah. 60 pages long if anybody wants to read it. We are required to renew that every five years and the state does check and see if we go to the school, what our outreach program is to schools, businesses, what we're doing for recycling, do we have a place to put textiles and there's just a lot in paint care and so there's a lot into it that we have to follow and every town does need a solid waste implementation plan. This is the state. So Bennington County Regional Commission, we have the alliance of 13 towns got together hired Bennington County Regional Commission to oversee all this for us. There's no way all these little towns could do this. New state laws coming, something about extended user, we don't know exactly how that's going to work because they haven't finished tweaking the bill but there is a bill in the legislature that might come through and affect the household hazardous waste. We don't know what it is but they're giving us heads up. On the solid waste implementation plan, like I said it's on the web, it will be on the website after March 26. So there will be a public meeting in Manchester, public meeting in Bennington, the board of our alliance board has to approve it and then it goes to all 13 towns for the select board to approve the plan. If we're interested, two representatives could come down to our select board meeting and answer questions if you're interested in having them down and this would be in May or June and the SWPP plan is due back to the state June 30th. So what's your thoughts on having someone come down to explain it or read it on your own?

**Speaker 17:** Not really going to change anything.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, it's good. Explain something that's mandated.

**Speaker 43:** Yep, yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I can read it. Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We got too much on the agenda for me to go into recycling.

**Speaker 44:** Yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The haulers, all our known haulers and standards. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep five and I'm going to step back from that if anyone on the board is

**Speaker 44:** interested raise your hand I'm a lame duck I'm lamer than you so if anybody

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** wants to attend the alliance meeting we need a representative okay just giving heads up that's all in recycling anything else any questions okay discussion ethics Commission update on the ethics Commission Doug has done a lot of work on this he's given us a great outline of how we do the investigation and enforcement but one of the things is we have to appoint a designated compliant complaint right to investigate say there's a complaint went to the state yeah state sends it back to us who is going to receive this I thought that was

**Speaker 38:** what Doug was doing yeah well I'm doing it yeah and like I mentioned I did

**Speaker 45:** mention another name I thought might be yeah right so Doug is the we appointed

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you as liaison yeah so when there is a complaint do we appoint somebody at that time and then we appoint somebody at that time and then we appoint somebody at time do we appoint three people right now to Doug and two other people to be on this committee to investigate the complaint do we appoint them for a year

**Speaker 44:** we appoint one as needed can you explain to me the process so I know we talked

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** about it in length last meeting so we we decided let the state decide okay so goes up to the state from a complaint state says yes we agree we believe there's a violation sends it back down to let's say they send it back down to you and

**Speaker 46:** you go and you're gonna investigate what well I would think that the state would

**Speaker 38:** say you know okay this is what we have deemed you know what you said in the case say they find somebody in violation and they would let us know or make recommendations what we should we should do I think I mean just a basic outline of would be whoever is doing the investigation talk to people involved obviously read over review the complaint that was made you know just touch all the bases and then bring it back to the the board and the board would make the select board you know make recommendations this is what you know as Nancy said there's different recommendations things that you can do if something's in violation and talk about what they think would be

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** appropriate so they will guide us yeah with recommendations and the reason I'm asking this is you know when we talked about it last time if you and I'm gonna call it common sense yeah we see there's we know there's a violation of dogs it's almost there's some violations that are iffy but other ones are black and white I think and we see it but we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go to the state state goes back gives to the state state goes back gives to the state state goes back gives us says that they agree that it's a us says that they agree that it's a us says that they agree that it's a violation then to give us violation then to give us violation then to give us recommendations I guess my question is recommendations I guess my question is recommendations I guess my question is how long do you know how long this how long do you know how long this how long do you know how long this process is gonna take it's gonna be I

**Speaker 38:** process is gonna take it's gonna be I process is gonna take it's gonna be I don't think they know there this is don't think they know there this is don't think they know there this is this is just getting just getting start for this is just getting just getting start for

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** conversations I mean I want to play through I'm not saying I don't want to let it play through I'm just thinking there's there's difference between perceived violations and outright you know that there's a violation and if it takes six months for that to get fixed and while that violations happening is continuing to happen whatever it is it kind of and I'm not talking about like the ones we were talking about while there's a conflict of interest I'm talking about blatantly knowing that the treasurer stealing money well then

**Speaker 46:** that would be a law enforcement but we don't that's what I'm saying we just

**Speaker 38:** don't that says you couldn't call in law enforcement I mean that's an extreme

**Speaker 46:** violation it's a violation of what if there's what if there's a violation like

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I mentioned last week a sexual harassment charge he said she said you know and that's continuing while we wait that's it bothers me that I wish I knew the timeline and I know you don't I'm not it's not against you at all I just wish this whole subject it's coming up now letting the state guide us embodies me a little bit and I just wish there was a better way I'm not saying I

**Speaker 44:** have a better way there is no timeline we've never seen the timeline I'm not

**Speaker 46:** trying to argue about it it just bothers me something I want to explain here I

**Speaker 38:** don't like having the state involved any more than you or anybody else does I don't like having the state involved any more than you or anybody else does I don't like having the state involved any more than you or anybody else does I don't like having the federal government but there are times where we need to and my big recommendation for sending it through the state is objectivity because we get it here you know we try to get too involved before there's some kind of an outline to follow oh geez you know Mike's a friend with this guy or Doug's a friend with this guy but up in Montpelier nobody knows likely who you are or what you are you're gonna get an objective statement yeah and that's why I want to go through and I think if we follow follow that and as far as how much time

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it takes and when it comes back I hope that there's a guideline from the state because if it comes back to Doug and Doug and just like you were saying yeah we didn't want Doug to decide because he's a friend of this person and I come back to Doug to make that activation we're back right where we started in

**Speaker 38:** that case if there was situation like that that

**Speaker 46:** would say give it give it maybe we should have a three-man committee well i don't know about

**Speaker 38:** a committee like i said have a couple of people that could be that's what i was thinking because

**Speaker 47:** that's just the same pete i think you're just you jump the gun just a smidgen

**Speaker 2:** so i agree with everything that you're saying in terms of if there has been deemed a conflict of interest that the state will come down with some recommendations but you're leaving out the fact that the state is going to receive a complaint and then they're going to come to you and say investigate and they're going to hand it to you and then somebody else needs to

**Speaker 48:** investigate that complaint that's again that's what we're trying to do that's what we're trying to do we're trying to figure out who's going to investigate my point is is that if you if you

**Speaker 2:** start having people on the board and get i think the three a committee and we have talked about this i think in the initial time and i don't know if you want to call it a committee or whatever you want to call it but if you have something let's say that goes against there's something from the board somebody's made a complaint against you guys now neither one of you can even talk about it and have a conversation about it so that well well okay first of all what

**Speaker 38:** i am is the liaison i'm a contact point right so that's what they're going to do well pretty much but i've taken on a lot of the seller stuff but no i'm a liaison so they're going to contact me and this is what we found this is what we i'm going to ask them what do you think we need to do

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** where do we go from here yours you're saying that the state might not deem any make a decision they're going to ask for an investigation before the discussion because it may just be

**Speaker 2:** some someone someone's worse yeah right well it could happen every day so they're going to pass it down and say listen doug we received this complaint now here you go okay you got to have an investigation right and again they they frown upon the liaison actually i haven't heard that yet well i was sent in the email i mean she was clear as that and said that it's actually frowned upon that the liaison is the actual person doing the investigation well i have to talk about that because it was never said to me the email i think there's a couple of people in here and i do like it either way i'm not saying that you shouldn't

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but i do like the idea of having someone not on the board just in case the board is involved

**Speaker 2:** these people that can you know actually do an independent you know kind of investigation and then though they don't necessarily have to be a position of authority they can just respond and say here you go here's the information that we came across or if it involves you guys they can go right back to the statement and say here you go know we've done this investigation then the state would come in and say well you know maybe we need to dig a little bit and go and then they might give the recommendation well what

**Speaker 38:** my understanding is that like when i said send that up to the state uh they may just say that's what i'm hoping in some cases they're just going to say and they're better able to say it than we are i don't see a problem here because like you said you may have the perception of something but they may look at it for whatever reason say no we don't have a problem and then if they say send it down you know for an investigation we can adjust as we need to as i said the select board can pick anybody they want or sign anybody they want so obviously if it comes down against me obviously i hope you know me well enough i'm not going to investigate myself then in this case here then the board gets together i'll refuse myself and they can investigator. And the other thing about the investigator, you need to have somebody, it's not just, well, I'm going to look into it, you know. You should have somebody that has some kind of a background. It doesn't have to be a law enforcement investigator. It doesn't have to be some kind of a criminal investigator. Well, we're talking athletes, not law, right? No, but, well, no, the other thing I'm saying, though, people that understand a procedure about an investigation, you know, you get the basic information, you talk to the people, which you need to collect to make your point, is what I'm saying.

**Speaker 2:** I think if they've been through an academy or some kind of actual training, you know,

**Speaker 49:** they've dealt with investigations, really, for sure.

**Speaker 17:** I thought Jim Stimson raised his hand. Me and Jim.

**Speaker 2:** And both of us, well, Jim was an actual police officer, and I was a reporter. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking ethics. And I was also, I worked in the corrections for some time as well, so I'm definitely interested. I said at the first meeting, I'll say it again, and Jim said it too, he's interested, and I'm interested if you're going to make a committee, throw my hand, my hand in the ring.

**Speaker 50:** I think, so, go ahead, Deb.

**Speaker 23:** It doesn't, I agree with Doug, I agree with Pete. I think if it's going to be some sort of investigation that a law has been broken.

**Speaker 38:** Well, it's something else.

**Speaker 23:** It's ethics, I mean, I have to take ethics twice a year. I have to take my training. Lots of people know procedures for ethics. You don't have to be a trained law enforcement officer to know how to conduct an ethical investigation.

**Speaker 38:** Well, if I can answer or respond to that, like I said, there's a certain, certain things anybody that does an investigation is. And you need somebody that knows how to put the facts together and present them.

**Speaker 23:** I don't, I don't disagree, I don't disagree, and I think you're selling short a lot of people who might want to, who are removed enough from the select board to be able to go in and do a pretty good job. I mean, you don't, I had a problem with choosing a select board person. I think it should have been totally removed from it, but that wasn't my decision, and I saw just issues with it, whether it was any of you. I really didn't think that was a good decision, but it's not my decision. You have many other quote-unquote employees that you could have pulled from, committees, people that are paid the stipends, just like you, that could have. Because a lot of times, the violations, and look, please do your research, but a lot of the violations are going to come from the core, you know, here. I doubt, maybe, but, you know, Lori's not going to be accused of sexual harassment or something.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I would never accuse her of that. I know that.

But do you know what I'm saying?

**Speaker 23:** I'm confused at this whole process.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, we all are. Because this is so new.

**Speaker 17:** That's more like a law. I mean, sexual harassment would be a law. Right. Law and ethics. Employee policy.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, we're just talking ethics.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. So, law and ethics are not the same.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, let's go back to a designated complaint recipient. Who is going to receive the complaint? No, he's the liaison. I'm the liaison. He's the liaison.

**Speaker 38:** Why couldn't I receive the complaint? Because I'm a contact point.

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

**Speaker 38:** Even if I don't do another thing, I am a liaison.

**Speaker 51:** So, we have to.

**Speaker 17:** So, we have to. So, we have to. He should be the contact point, but I think we should probably have a committee.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's what I'm thinking.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, we should appoint. The investigative part of that. Like, I'm the liaison for law enforcement. When the state troopers are coming to town, they contact me and say, Hey, we're going to be coming to town for traffic.

**Speaker 17:** I mean, if they're comfortable.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Or if the sheriff wants to say, Hey, look, we want to throw another bid into your town. Or if we have a problem, we need a sheriff for elections. Or something. I can contact them. I have that contact information. That's all I am is a contact guy. That's it. I don't say, well, I want you to patrol on Mill Road. You know, that's not up to me. They come down, they patrol. You know, I could give them. There's been problems on Mill Road if you're down here. But I can't tell them what to do.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, I'm hearing that we want a committee of three. Okay. And do we enter? So, do we appoint? Do we appoint people right now for a year, or do we, six months, three months, or do we wait until we have a complaint and then appoint?

**Speaker 52:** I would, I would, no.

**Speaker 38:** Well, you can do that at any time. That's what they say. So, yeah. If we're going to have a committee, though, I would like to be included on that committee. Okay. Because I feel I have the investigative background. I don't just feel it. I can show pretty much anybody. All right. Well, sorry, Pete.

**Speaker 2:** You know. It's just opinion. I get it. I'm not saying that you don't. So. I have the background to do it. I just think that somebody on the board, it should be separate from the board because you're the contact person. So, you've got to have that separation for when the investigation is done so that you can give the information.

**Speaker 38:** I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't understand what you're saying. And the other thing I'm going to say is unless somebody wants to tell me they don't think I have the ethics, but that I'm not honest enough, then tell me now.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, no. I don't think anybody here questions you. No. I think you're perfect for. I don't think anybody questions your background. I'm just going by what the woman from the ethics committee, the supervisor, sent back an email that says it is frowned upon to have the liaison conducting the investigation. That is solely what I'm basing my conversation. Okay. Yeah. But if we appoint three, we're okay.

**Speaker 17:** I just want to say, I just want to say, I think Doug's perfect for it. But the point I was trying to make last meeting that I think people are missing is that if you think you can move yourself into the situation, that's fine, but you're putting yourself at risk for a situation. Right. So anything I was trying to say about SHIELD last week, you're putting yourself in line for a potential ethics violation. So here's the other. Just by staying, just by staying involved.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Here's the other part of this. Just remove yourself. I think at least. The other part of the equation is, so I taught ethics in the hunter safety course. That was my forte on hunter safety for 21 years. I have to go and refresh. My software, the state level ethics in a nutshell, ethics is a opinionated thing. Okay. Subjective. So what your code of ethics are might be different than my code of ethics. We might have some common ground, but there could be, this is where law is written down. It's black and white. It's against the law to do this. Ethically. You might agree that it's okay. To shoot a guy, break it into your home, right? The law says in the state of Vermont, we don't know. There's no castle law in the state of Vermont, nothing. They have, they have case studies, but that's it. I might say, well, you had a chance to get out the back door. Why would you kill someone? Or can you just shoot them in the leg, right? So my, my code of ethics is different. And that's just an example. I'm not trying to get it, but what I'm trying to say is the other half of this equation. If you look at the, the title of this is conflict of interest, that's up those things. The state has come down and showed us that there are certain things that are black and white, not everything, but certain things like a slight board member can not have her job. We can't have it stay says no. So when you investigate, that's an easy one, is there a conflict of interest? Mike's running for town clerk or treasurer. Nope. Can't do it. Okay. So that. And that goes to where you were saying, well, you're on this committee, you're on this board, this board and this board. If you look at it, the state telling us, can you do it? The answer is yes. Now you go to the ethics part of it. Is it ethically right? You don't think it is okay. And say, Sheila, when she was here, said, I think it is. And neither one of us, neither Sheila, or you are saying that you're not calling out their integrity. Next one thing was done is no one. I I'll tell you. When it is, I think you're one of the most honest guys ever.

**Speaker 12:** We're also not making these laws for perception.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, is what you guys are talking about. And that goes back to the conflict of interest part of that. Is there a perception that Doug sitting on the board of select and Doug doing an investigation? Is there a perception of a conflict? And if people decide there is. Then there could be a problem. I'm not questioning his integrity or his honesty or anything. I would have no problem. Go ahead and investigate me about that. Right. And that's the problem we're having though, is, is not everyone in this town are sitting at this meeting right now. Not everyone in this town is interested in it until it hits them. And then they're going to come down and say, oh, what the hell might, then all it's two daughters and his son are on the committee. You know, we're investigating, they're investigating Mike. That's not fair. You know? There's going to be conflict and we got to make sure we can kind of nip it in the bud. And that's why I like more than one person. And I do agree. You could be on it, but you can also say, I recuse myself anything to do with the board. You're going to have to.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So let's go back to the first question. We want to appoint three people. Yes. Right.

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

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And you want three cops on board?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. Uh, I. Somebody from, I was thinking somebody from the public that has no connection with the town at all. Not on any boards, anything, and then maybe someone from a board. So that's my opinion.

**Speaker 53:** Should we ask for, I say we take whatever three show up with all Jim's not here on her own.

**Speaker 3:** If he did or not say, yeah, maybe we should reach out to him and get him in black and white.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we should put something in the minutes. Anyone interested? Let's give everybody a chance.

**Speaker 54:** We know Jim has expressed interest.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We know we've got a couple of people that are interested, but I want to be fair to the whole town. Maybe, maybe we've got a lot of people that want to be on this bedlock.

**Speaker 16:** Then we appoint three.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I hate to beat this up forever, but well, I don't know everything about it yet because it's new. So I do have the questions when the investigation comes on and say you deem the investigation. The three people on it go, yup, there's a problem. Ethically, there's a problem. Then what? Then what do we do? Do we spank them? Do we punish them?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** There's some stuff in there. It's coming.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's some stuff in there.

**Speaker 2:** It's coming. But I think the purpose of the investigation is not to deter them. The purpose of the investigation is to gather facts and present them back to the state. No, no, no, no. Well, why don't we? Why? We can do it. We can do it. We can do it. We can come through and say this is what we found. We have found a perceived conflict of interest, but here you go. Because we can't, we're not the judgment. You're not the judgment. The state ultimately will make the decision if there's a conflict of interest.

**Speaker 38:** No, no, that's definitely not the way it works.

**Speaker 2:** Nope.

**Speaker 38:** Well, like I said, I'm going to have to have a talk with her because apparently she told us a couple different things. I haven't been in contact with her as much as you appear to have. But, no, the idea is ultimately. Ultimately, it comes back to the select board. But the point is, the point is that gathering the facts, putting in some sort of a logical framework that they can be understood, and then present them to the board. All's I'm saying as far as sending it up to the state, they may say, we don't see anything here. Okay, that's fine. Or they may say, yeah, there's a violation, and then that's where the investigation goes.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, Doug, if they say they don't see anything. Then it's over? I would think so. But if they say they see something, then we're ultimately the judge. Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep. Yep. It goes to the investigating committee and then presented to the select board.

**Speaker 17:** That's what I was saying too last week. I think that, I think we do have some level of ability to change these things preemptively. If we think it's a violation out there, we can sit here and change it.

**Speaker 38:** No, but, see, this is what I'm saying, Kurt, is that if we have a process here, you know, here we are talking about making a process, okay, we've got the process, now let's make some exceptions. And that in itself raises questions or ethics.

**Speaker 51:** That's what I'm trying to say.

**Speaker 17:** But I do think some things are black and white.

**Speaker 38:** Yeah, but again, like Mike said, what you think is black and white may not be what somebody else thinks. This is why I'm so much on the process, is that, okay, here's the guidelines we follow, and as long as we stick by those guidelines, we've done due diligence. Nobody can. Okay. Accuse us otherwise. That's all my thought.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, so if Laurie puts in the minutes, we're looking for someone to serve on this committee, get your resume in to us next meeting.

**Speaker 38:** Is it really a committee, or is it just investigators? And then when that comes there, we hand it out to whoever.

**Speaker 55:** You really want a pool of potential investigators.

**Speaker 32:** Yeah, yes. And there's no need for you to assign them until you have a problem.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. That's what we could do. Okay, that's good. Jury pick.

**Speaker 45:** That's a good way of doing it, yeah.

**Speaker 56:** They can be different ones every time.

**Speaker 16:** Right, because why would we appoint somebody that is friends with me?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If it's a violation against me, then you're going to pick somebody else.

**Speaker 32:** At the time that it might happen, you may know that there are some of those people who have offered to be an investigator who shouldn't be involved in that. The long-term thing that's even worse is, I don't know who's going to make the decision, but there's legal ramifications once you make the decision. If somebody's not happy with it, if they're going to appeal it.

**Speaker 38:** Does somebody have someone? Somebody that's in here. If they claim that they've got financial loss or civil loss of causing the decision.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, that's crazy.

Somebody that is in here. One of the things is... I'm sorry. Oh, those are our tax dollars in there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I think I've seen a couple verbal complaints in the last ten years, but they kind of just, yeah, all right, well. It is what it is. But it almost sounds like this is going to open up a whole bunch of them.

**Speaker 17:** Oh, yeah. You know? We're so polarized now, I'd be surprised if it didn't open up. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, so we'll wait and see what happens there. And we... Doug did the outline. He's got a great outline based on an ordinance, which we have to figure out and adopt. But it should be ready by next meeting.

**Speaker 38:** And this is what we're going to post on the... There's a couple things we have to post online.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. Yep. Yep. We've still got the list of those. I think the ordinance was from VLCT, right? That's where you got it from, yeah. Ethics, Investigation, and Enforcement. And it went along all with your outline. Okay. We'll work on that. See who we get for the pool. Ethics, Investigation, Pool. Yeah. That sounds good. All right. Now... I don't think so. I don't think so. Now we want to review the Conflict of Interest Policy. We've had this policy for years based on VLCT's model.

**Speaker 17:** And this is just a newer model to...

**Speaker 18:** Okay.

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

**Speaker 17:** Okay. Okay.

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

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

**Speaker 17:** Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** when the email came in I read the subject that's all I've talked about tonight

**Speaker 38:** I did Frank

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** thank you Doug read it very close

**Speaker 3:** I don't know what we got to say what should we say

**Speaker 31:** with

**Speaker 3:** the correction

**Speaker 38:** with the correction I have a question

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Doug maybe you can answer there's a difference between boards appointed boards versus elected positions what do you do when there's an elected official who does something wrong and they're elected by the public how do you discipline them

**Speaker 38:** that's in here it can be an individual it can be a member of the board can volunteer to take that person aside and try to talk with them about it resolve it that way there can be like I said a public or private censure depending on what the person who's accused wants and ultimately I guess you would have to it's not in here but the only way to remove an elected official is it's like an election you've got to get a certain number of people I forget what the percentage is something like 30%

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 66%

**Speaker 38:** it's a pretty high percentage you have to get like that signed by the people I'm not positive it's up there it's high and then we have a special election with whether the people it's like an impeachment almost right yeah vote them out vote them out but that's the only way it can be all but there's a bunch of less less strenuous things here yeah and hopefully we can sign it and I'm not even sure we're going to get that many of them I mean maybe I mean as far as complaints we've gotten one so far

**Speaker 3:** and this wasn't even okay so we didn't place yet

**Speaker 57:** you um

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** John made a motion to sign it right yep

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do I have a second second all in favor aye So we'll get this signed for next meeting, and it will be in effect as of tonight. Oh, wait, we better wait until we sign it.

**Speaker 1:** Update it two weeks from now when you sign it, and then it will be official then.

**Speaker 50:** Yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And like you said, it came right off the VLCT website, so hopefully they know what the law is. Okay. Review transfer station monitor job description. We saw the old one that said they have to check for stickers on the car, so that's been out for quite a while. They're required to wear the protective equipment such as face shield and gloves, and don't need that anymore. Dave, Lori, and I went over this the other day. Dave's suggestions, Lori's suggestions. This transfer station is open to the public every Saturday from 8 to 12 noon, summer hours beginning. Ending last Wednesday in October are from 3 to 6. Okay. Principal duties of the transfer station monitor arrive 15 minutes early to set up the compost and aluminum, glass, et cetera, disposal barrels. Was there another barrel there?

**Speaker 6:** No, we're looking for an old barrel.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Just say aluminum, glass, et cetera. In winter months, check for icy areas, sand and salt is needed. I'm not sure. I'm sure we need number three. Monitor the operation of the transfer station in Stamford, Vermont. Well.

**Speaker 17:** Isn't that the job? Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Take it out.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You've got to renumber all it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's a computer. It doesn't use it. It's a transfer station monitor.

**Speaker 17:** You probably would assume that you'd have to monitor the transfer station. You think?

**Speaker 58:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Provide guidance for proper separation and disposal of a variety of materials. Collect appropriate fees for all demolition material. Applying. We'll talk about that later. I want to be very careful about the fact that this is a question. Look at the Mayfield area. It's a very complicated area. Every property in the state has a ley. What was it? Maybe the last time we settled. I'm not sure. Say again. of townspeople not complying with the recycling regulations and report same to the select board

**Speaker 59:** or town office because should we call them all patrons or townspeople can we pick one

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** patrons because we have patrons up there right punch card yeah yeah because some are uh

**Speaker 60:** second homeowners that have buy the punch cards can you get a uh punch card if you're not a

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** resident of stamford yes the second homeowner so what about if you don't have them no do they need a house if you have a man absolutely you can't just come from north

**Speaker 6:** adams you have to be a taxpayer right well taxpayers land but it's partially funded by

**Speaker 24:** taxpayers right this isn't fully fun it should be you're right if you just don't land then

**Speaker 23:** you're paying taxes yeah right right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** right land and you're bringing your trash up from north adams there's not much you can do about it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i don't remember what the recycling rules say if you have to have a well i just don't like

**Speaker 3:** a north adams you can buy it yeah you can buy an out of state or yeah you can buy a permit there's an extra fee correct yeah i don't think we do though i don't think so yeah we shouldn't

**Speaker 17:** no i think we had this discussion back as it related to contractors working in town right well that was cheaper to really allow their position

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah other sites it had to be resident right you know you you don't yeah that's what i mean you don't want to the tires getting rid of the tires up here is cheaper than going anywhere else you know all of a sudden i'm going hey i would take all your tires for six bucks bring them up here and sell them for five bucks you know or get rid of them for five making a dollar

**Speaker 61:** people will do that stuff that's called you don't want to so it could happen though so is it townspeople or patrons

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Patrons, because we do, second home owners up in Alkenwald buy tickets, right?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I think a person that owns a camp or a piece of land and they want to bring a bag of, you know, leaves or junk, well, I mean, we have people picking up stuff up there at the camps, I mean, it's good that they're doing it, don't tell them no. Right.

**Speaker 24:** You know, they could just leave it up there.

**Speaker 6:** So it should be a resident or a property owner? Yeah, property owner, yeah.

**Speaker 9:** Do you ever have old people that use it too?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sure. So change it to patrons.

**Speaker 44:** You've never had any big problems, I know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Keep recycling yard neat and orderly. Another spelling? Oh, Doug did it.

**Speaker 38:** Oh, no, no, no, no.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Responsible to the select board and road commissioner for supervision and guidance. I'd like to switch that around, do road commissioner first and then select board, because Dave is probably there. They're there. They probably see Dave more than us. Might catch you on a Wednesday or a Saturday morning. Stay 15 minutes after closing to put away barrels and close up the transfer station. And 13, perform other related duties as determined by the road commissioner and select board. Anything else we want to add to this that we can think of? Okay, so date it and sign it. We'll all sign it. Next meeting. Can I have a motion to approve as corrected?

**Speaker 38:** Motion to move. Second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? Aye. Then we'll give a copy to the...

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, maybe hang it up in a little shed too.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, good idea. Good idea. FEMA update. Lori.

**Speaker 1:** I state the remaining $60,000 of road damages that we've been working for for, what, two years now? So I'm really happy about that. The only thing that they still owe is the Category Z, which is mine and David's time administering the grants, taking them around, measuring the road and different pieces of information that we put together. And so Matt taking pictures, the guardrail problems he was involved in a lot. So all of that administrative time was added. So they did another $4,800. So that is the only thing at this point we're waiting for. They probably dragged the fee. Hope you dropped the call. Yep. Well, think about it. If you drag your fee on every single piece of property in this country, this is national, for two years and put that in the bank, that's pretty good money. We've been fighting and arguing. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Yep. It's just so ridiculous. I mean, there's better things to do.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although, some of the other projects have been way over two years. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, they want to go to the tack and try to measure the holes that have been filled in for. Yeah. How you supposed to do that?

**Speaker 3:** How much dirt is in the hole? Dig a hole measure it and put it back in.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. How much dirt is in the hole? Three feet by two feet. We dug a hole. He had to spring all of it in. We dug a hole. There's don't dirt in it.

**Speaker 1:** But we bought this much dirt. It all went on this roll.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Beth, figure out the hole.

**Speaker 1:** Sub-base and the top-base and the rock-base. I mean, it's crazy.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Laura, you can go out and work on the red one. Okay, that's good. We'll watch for Category Z. What else do we have under discussion? Dog or mowing bed?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't see those on here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But we added them under new business.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh. The mowing bed, did anybody contact you today about the mowing bed? Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Why, did we have somebody new that wants to do it?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's a Chad Lawrence, maybe?

**Speaker 44:** Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Something like that. That was talking about it. I just sent an email or a message to his father. And I said, just give love. And he said, you already called and put it on the list. I didn't know if he, I don't have his contact, so I figured if he could call, he would put it himself on the list. But if he didn't and you want him, I guess he's just started up, he's new.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's look at the mowing bid then while we're talking about it. When do we want to accept the mowing bid? The mid-April one?

**Speaker 6:** We need it soon. It's on the cleanup calendar.

**Speaker 3:** Yes. Yeah, I would say that's tough for repeating the cloud damage. Yeah. Before things start growing and.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can we do it by next meeting? Kind of tight.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You didn't even send it out yet, right?

**Speaker 44:** No.

**Speaker 1:** No, once you guys approve it, it can be sent out.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I'd say get it sent out two weeks and see what we get. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Have it here by April 3rd?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yes. Oh, Christ.

**Speaker 3:** Not to step on your toes, Dave, but is that something you and Mike could potentially do? Probably not. He was just saying.

**Speaker 6:** Probably not. I mean, you've got to realize that. It's going to look terrible. I'm going to go right back. Right now, I'm fixing them up. I've got to go spread the gravel over all the stuff we've fixed. I've got to create every single road in town.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I personally, I don't understand why the janitor that does the lawn, or the snow removal can't pick up the front yard. Rich did.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Speaker 61:** Rich did.

**Speaker 3:** Rich did. Yeah, simply just putting the sod backwards has got to go.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, listen, if you guys want to direct me to do it, I'll come down and do it. I'm not going to fight you. I just know that I'm not going to be. I'm doing the stuff I need to be doing. And then you're going to have roads start washing away because the rains start, and I didn't get around the green, you know. It's a matter of priorities. The front lawn is not on my head list.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I mean, it just looks kind of sloppy.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, no doubt about it. So isn't there your own town?

**Speaker 62:** Yeah, it's not the only one in town, man.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** Okay. You need to have a sooner site visit. Enough time to get these out for the site visit, and then have them have time to get their bed back. Right.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** How long do you figure it takes to get through the mail nowadays to the people?

**Speaker 1:** Oh, God.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So Monday.

**Speaker 12:** They'll probably get it Monday.

**Speaker 17:** If it's the same one bedder every year, do we have to have a site visit?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, if it is, then I'll probably have four or five of them this year. Yeah. So why don't we make the site visit?

**Speaker 3:** So if they sent it out to four or five last year, it was like him and myself were doing one that was part of the deck.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Next Thursday is the 27th. 3-27? Yep. Yep. And 3-28?

**Speaker 3:** I have a question about the ditch that runs along this fence line here. There's a ditch to where Nancy's parked currently, and then it's just like the ditch to nowhere, and it just runs into the parking lot. So when you're talking about cleaning out the ditchway, are we just cleaning out that short portion of the ditch, or are we trying to fix the ditch problem?

**Speaker 6:** I mean, it really kind of just runs into the fence. You can clean it out, but it slowly does drain. I mean, at one point, I did have it draining, and it's just not perfect. I mean, unless you're going to run a ditch all the way down on the road. The ditch is just like cleaning out the ditch.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, so the ditch is just like that. Pick it up with the sticks.

**Speaker 6:** You're not coming up to ask me anything like that. If the bees were raked out of it every year, it would still be functioning fairly well, but I think they kind of dropped the ball on it for a few years. They really weren't dealing with it, and I don't think Sheila wanted to deal with it at all.

**Speaker 30:** I don't.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did Rich deal with it, you think? I don't know.

**Speaker 6:** I think Rich did a lot of things that he didn't just even mention. Right, right. He probably saw the water wasn't flowing, so he went over it with a shovel, and the artist was dedicated to the job.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Going back to what we talked about a million times. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It says, remove debris from ditch along fence on northern line of property. So the fence goes down pretty far. So if they remove the debris from there.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. There's really no ditch over there. It's just the edge of the parking lot. Is that a state ditch?

**Speaker 6:** Is that a highway ditch? Well, yeah.

**Speaker 3:** I was told the highway, the state water. It's always up there. Then there's like a 50-foot ditch, but then it just stops.

**Speaker 6:** So they should, I mean, they actually did dig that out with our excavator at one point, probably, you know, seven, eight years ago, something like that. It just leaves and sticks and everything builds up. And it's not. It's basically collecting all the flow from seven, seven, right? Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And there's, there's branches in there now, a couple of big, big branches.

**Speaker 6:** The leaves are big time, you know, once the leaves get in there and then they start rotting and the sticks, it's just, it's something that should be probably raked out and cleaned out and every spring, you know, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So site visit 27th or 28th, I will not be here either day.

**Speaker 1:** I'll do Wednesday. Wednesday, I mean, that doesn't have to be stuff for a meeting right there, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, any select board member could come that's familiar with the lawn and where it's got to be mowed.

**Speaker 17:** I mean, I can try to be here, when was it?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's Thursday or Friday next week at five o'clock, or whatever time you choose.

**Speaker 6:** I think a big part of the issue down here is we really haven't paid the lawyer a lot to have it done.

**Speaker 24:** I think John said it's the first place we've been paying.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, that's what I mean. You're lucky you're getting anything. Yeah. You're lucky for everything that you really want to have done here, you're going to have to pay more.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. I know we put a line item in the select board report budget, but I know we're going to go over that, because we have no idea, and we can't hold them to that. What do we charge, $3,000 or whatever it is?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, but one, you know, we were, last year we said let's do this. Now, if you start adding stuff, of course it's going to go over, you know. Yeah. Well, they didn't do the deck. Well, it didn't say that before, now it does. That's right. You know, we'd eat around the thing, you know, there's more to it. Yeah. And we keep complaining about the guy, he's just going to, you know, I would complain if he was doing a bad job, but when we complain that the guy's not doing things that weren't on his list, and we're only paying him that much money, pretty soon it's going to go, I don't need this job. Here's the price figure. Yeah, there's really. Oh. There's no money in mowing Stamford's lawn, you know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. So, Kurt, you want to be here on the.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 27th at what time?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What time? You pick.

**Speaker 17:** 5?

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

**Speaker 7:** 6?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 5.30.

**Speaker 6:** Say 5.30. 5.30. Okay. Really, it should be part of the janitor's job. Yeah. That should be part of the summer job. I said that. Billings and Brown, Billings and Brown. You know.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Every other school. Clarksboro used to be. I don't know if it still is, but when I was there. Yeah, you'd have to get them a lawnmower. Yeah. And a place to park it.

**Speaker 6:** Sure. So, it just seems like. Yeah. Some of these things down here that we really. Should be done, but they haven't been done. Oh, I look at it like this. You got a janitor in the wintertime, shoveling snow, snow blowing. And in the summertime, what's he doing?

**Speaker 24:** But then you're going to have another janitor.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You're going to put one guy. Right. We need a Forrest Gump. That's what we need. Yeah. Yeah. We're here 40 hours a week, all year long. Is that, does he 40 hours a week? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 12:** Yeah.

**Speaker 17:** Yeah.

**Speaker 29:** Yeah.

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

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems.

**Speaker 62:** You know the things.

**Speaker 3:** He says.

**Speaker 25:** Say, he's hard to do.

**Speaker 18:** I don't do a janitor.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** A janitor's a strict reminder thanks to the law. They got to stay in a summertime. I'm not getting a janitor class.

**Speaker 18:** They strip and wax all the floor.

**Speaker 17:** He doesn't do it, though. No.

**Speaker 12:** They hire somebody to strip and wax all the.

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

**Speaker 17:** The strip and wax the floor? It's. Does he clean? Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, it's our. The furniture. Tell me.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Loves furniture. What's a janitorial contract? NPA? It's not a contract. That's the problem. Okay. So, we're okay with the job description and specifications. Okay for Laurie to send this out. ASAP April 3rd if we'll get it back hopefully and currently we'll meet with

**Speaker 58:** them yes

**Speaker 6:** when you haven't done off come right down yeah I mean you go all the way back

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** to your principal when Leo there was things that he just did you had a principal doing janitorial job you know so he did before we had time teaching the kids gym class y'all taking them on the hikes you know like Kurt said before

**Speaker 44:** that's gone we don't have that dedication okay did you were you able to

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** find out anything about the shrubs or have a school board meeting today okay

**Speaker 17:** so you'll ask about I think I think it's the fourth or Tuesday they switched it so I don't think they've had a meeting yet since the election right school board this will be the first one since so they haven't even like

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** structured it mentions in here about tennis court so I have a question for Dave how's the tennis court cleanup coming

**Speaker 39:** on can you work on it this summer let's get it clean up and out of there yeah

**Speaker 9:** there's third me and again you know give a third man third man yeah okay I told

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you go ahead okay okay guidelines for you dispersing the dog fund so Laurie we voted to add five dollars to each dog registration and it would be for funding unexpected and unanticipated dog and wolf hybrid cost it's a reserve fund so it stays there all the time bills up until the select board releases it

**Speaker 54:** is there

**Speaker 3:** a cap on it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** no

**Speaker 3:** say that we get five thousand dollars in there do we have to continue to collect the extra five dollars from the townspeople or

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know we probably could change it I don't

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** change things anytime in the wild

**Speaker 1:** I think you voted the five dollars they voted to set up the fund but now if you voted the five dollars you could always drop it down to the board

**Speaker 3:** so like Luke had forty three thousand dollars in his cemetery thing and they were like no we don't want to give you any money we want you to use that money right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** mm-hmm I mean good point I can see down the road that you're gonna need another dog kennel I mean that dog's only last so long and he's gonna say hey this is rotten sitting up in his yard right now you know but I can see that that money will get spent I don't think it's gonna get way up there

**Speaker 29:** how much money did we end up spending last year

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** all together

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** probably none last year but the year before was what almost a thousand almost a thousand dollars

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we went over budget the year before because that one case mm-hmm one dog

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** one dog okay um so the third line down this fund may be used if the owner is unknown and the injured dog wolf hybrid is in need of a veterinary consultation for example treatment or euthanasia because Luke does not want to make that call for putting down the dog and we shouldn't either

**Speaker 1:** so we had a dog that was kept and wasn't eating or acting on the dog right and he had to take it to the vet and the diagnosis was that it was lonely so I don't even know if you want to say injured because we incurred vet bills for a non-injured dog that

**Speaker 17:** mental health

**Speaker 1:** yeah that wasn't acting quite right

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and for injured um lonely uh wolf hybrid this fund may be used

**Speaker 38:** what anticipated uh or unanticipated veterinary costs or something along those lines mm-hmm treatment you know just some kind of treatment

**Speaker 1:** I mean definitely injured but it was just in our care it wasn't injured but it required a wellness visit and it was not well

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** how can we word that

**Speaker 38:** just maybe take out the specifics about injured or uh and just maybe somehow refer to treatment

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** in need of veterinary consultation yeah yeah

yep

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I wonder what they would think how your dad and my grandfather took care of them

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll say it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yep the old rabid dogs

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll say it yep it's old and not hunting

**Speaker 17:** I felt it coming last week when I mentioned about the caddigan run over

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

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this fund may be used if the owner is unknown I'm not sure

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we don't want to say it again later later

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and then toward the bottom this fund may be used if the owner is unknown and it is necessary to keep the dog wolf hybrid more than the allowed days because he had problems last year finding a kennel or

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah we're talking

**Speaker 1:** how about if he if it is within the allowed days but we can't find the owner I mean there's still a third day

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

**Speaker 44:** cost

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know why we can't just say spend it on any needs for the dog yeah you know too specific

**Speaker 44:** too specific here yeah

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** well I just think if he needs the money to spend on the dog he deems it hey I gotta spend I gotta go buy something for this dog I gotta take him to the vet I gotta spend it I mean how many dogs do we register

**Speaker 1:** two hundred and seventy five

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** three hundred times five yep fifteen hundred bucks first year right that's not right if it's three hundred dogs times five that's fifteen hundred dollars right if everybody pays on time on time well fees or penalties yeah that goes up but I'm just saying we got the money and he and he deems that it needs it why handcuff him that any number of things just go ahead and spend it why are we I just I just don't understand this is not you know a hundred and fifty thousand dollars we're talking fifteen hundred dollars and if he and I agree if we start getting upwards quite a bit of money we can say okay we have it and we're gonna keep it we could say, okay, we have a project that we can take some of that money and buy a kennel or we can buy new equipment. Because this equipment that he has is very little and probably some of it he paid on his own. You know, so we can do, we can get things, you know. I mean, there's fuel costs that are going up and everything.

**Speaker 1:** Will it be used at the discretion of the dog officer or at the swag bar?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I think that we give Dave so much discretion, you can say, okay, up to $500. You need more than that, you come to the board.

**Speaker 44:** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, put a cap on that, put a cap on the spending.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, if it starts building up where you get tens of thousands of dollars in there, you don't say, go ahead and just spend that. He has to come to the board.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What's the cap? What do you want to say?

**Speaker 16:** 200?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** What's the average bet with a $500?

**Speaker 23:** It's expensive.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, so I mean, 500, I would say easily. We don't want him to have to say, oh jeez, I gotta wait two weeks for the board to make a decision. We gotta be able to say to him, look, you gotta bring this dog to the vet, go do it, right? This, when we start, and I'm calling you, 500, I agree with that, $500 doesn't go anywhere anymore. I mean, you guys, you go down and buy groceries, what's it cost the average family of four for groceries now? No, $300, $200, something like that? I don't know, $400? Yeah, I don't know. I don't have a family of four anymore.

**Speaker 34:** Mm-hmm.

**Speaker 23:** Yep. Yeah. Yep.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, so that, you know what I'm saying? These doctors, the vets, I mean, now they're charging for mental illness. Dog is lonely. Yeah. I'm not trying to make fun of it, but the dog's lonely. Are you gonna get a second opinion now? You know, the guy, he's getting paid to tell you that.

**Speaker 13:** You know? Who are you responsible for the therapy, the cure to the dog?

**Speaker 63:** Well, I, you know, I, like I said,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't wanna, you know, downplay people that love their dogs. But it gets to the point where the doctor himself goes, jeez, we gotta treat him. Well he knows you love your dog. We have regular doctors to treat people and they keep you comin' back, comin' back. They never cure ya.

**Speaker 17:** The doctor knows you love your dog. Right, exactly. I'm sure that's the way you've been through the bill. Yeah. He really loves this guy.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So and then what we do if there's a cost and send it back to the townsperson Do we they have to pay it and when you have like we had that case I can't afford it What do you do now? Keep the dog That's what happened

I

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Can't afford it. I don't want the dog

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It was a dog bite first

**Speaker 16:** Right, but then so he had it quarantined

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then they didn't want it back because they couldn't afford it right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So we had we had to count on the dog until we could find a home for the dog Because owner didn't want the dog anymore because I couldn't afford it, and it was already too many violations It was for the festic defense. That's over the air. It was a big. It was a big issue, but there was a financial burden donor

**Speaker 3:** So do you place in North Adams now would that be a potential to bring the dog?

**Speaker 64:** According to Luke a lot of Massachusetts places won't take an out of state dog

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And there's and then it was rain shots Involved in it so there was more to it But he was told no by a couple places, and then he was told yes by a place when he then they changed their minds

**Speaker 34:** They changed their mind So does he still have the dog?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, no it's fine But if do we take a owner And say okay it cost the town a thousand dollars to you Send that bill to the owner and you we got to lean on your house to you pay for it I mean, I don't know how far you go on this stuff I mean, I don't see why you couldn't Why should the taxpayers have to pay?

**Speaker 6:** It seems like when I mean we've had to take matters in our own hands about culverts before when it's causing a high I mean we've you know done it ourself and billed them and they didn't even pay or it goes in the records of the state or something I mean we've done it ourself and billed them and they didn't even pay or it goes in the records of the state or something They go sell their house they have to pay They owe us up, yeah So I wouldn't see why a dog couldn't be the same way

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah we can take that case by case you don't have to put that in the policy

**Speaker 3:** It seems to me like if you come to the town and you're registering a dog as the owner you're responsible for that dog Right Right Whether you want it or not

**Speaker 1:** So is the recourse in our dog ordinance the ticketing system with the judicial bureau? Which is pretty much useless Right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And what happened with this case was Right The dog had violations we deemed that you can't have your dog back now because you didn't put the fence up And you're not doing what we told you to do the first time So we took the dog

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right Who got the dog back?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know Second chance

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Second chance Yeah Finally took it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know and then you get the emotional part of it Oh I feel bad

**Speaker 16:** I wanted to say goodbye to my dog

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh gee So there's a lot to it But we shouldn't as tax payers or other dog owners have to pay that It's just like you said you live here and they're paying all the money over here It should be a little bit more equal anyways

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So what are we keeping?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Pete's looking at his clock over there

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Keeping guidelines, keeping the reserve fund, keeping the fund is to be used only for dogs with hybrids Other domestic animals are not covered This fund may be used if owner is unknown and in need of that consultation etc And then take out this fund may be used if the owner is unknown Are we taking that out or keeping it in?

**Speaker 3:** I would say only if it's unknown If you know who the owner is they're responsible for

**Speaker 60:** Right

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** This fund may be used if the owner is unknown and is missing

**Speaker 1:** But I would say if we're keeping the dog even up to the allowed days we should be able to use it Not just more than that Not just more than the allowed days

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

**Speaker 60:** We don't want to keep it more than the allowed days

**Speaker 3:** So what if we don't know who the owner is and then all of a sudden we find out Oh it's John's dog And in the meantime we've incurred $500 in expenses Can we give John a $500 bill? We should

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You're supposed to pay before Luke releases the dog to you You have to pay it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sounds good to me I mean Luke does a good job on very little money I know When I came on this board we had a different dog officer We're lucky that Tom didn't get sued Big time Guy went out in the woods and shot a dog So we're lucky we didn't get in big trouble So I mean we could get We're doing it the right way We should have the owners of their dogs They should be responsible

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That was the problem

**Speaker 3:** So did we figure out what the cap was on the amount for Luke?

**Speaker 60:** Kind of

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we said $500 cap

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It kind of was all a set up too

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh it should be in here somewhere

**Speaker 17:** That's right

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** He was recording it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $500 cap Yeah he set them up Okay So what do we decide? This fund may be used if the owner is unknown And is necessary to keep the dog more than the allowed days

**Speaker 1:** Can we just say it's necessary to keep the dog period? Yeah

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** This fund may be used if the owner is unknown And is necessary to keep the dog more than the allowed days And This fund may be used if the owner is unknown And this fund may be used if the owner is unknown Yeah, because we would feed the dog

**Speaker 1:** Feed the baby If he comes into our house

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And he is necessary to keep the dog

**Speaker 6:** If he's pregnant somewhere else

**Speaker 17:** Well thanks guys, I appreciate that Yep

**Speaker 18:** And then do..

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because this fund was set up up as a rabies control program that gave us the authority to uh put this five dollar surcharge on should we say something it could be used for a rabies clinic sometime or i think we should be

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** able to use it for whatever feels we can use it for that's right and if we want to do a rabies

**Speaker 64:** clinic we get up we start making good money on it we can there's enough places around where you don't

**Speaker 3:** think you need to do a clinic anymore you can go on the tractor supply and right get your dog and it takes time i'll bring my dog right in here let her pick out a toy it's like

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** come on in they don't care take the last one out okay these are the guidelines to be um dated signed and to be modified as needed or however you usually write that make a motion motion motion of silence second all in favor aye what else do we have um speaking of ordinances

**Speaker 1:** the 60 days has passed on your highway ordinance this past monday so now that's in both force and effect the municipal energy resilience program the um grant that we received to purchase new insulated doors to a highway garage and a new entry door um i had to attend a seminar it was a zoom so i guess the time isn't that right but um i had to submit a request to have the property reviewed for the state historic list of the national historic list makes the archaeological list make sure there's no dead people under there

**Speaker 6:** circa 1980. they have 30 days to decide if they want to come down and do a rabies clinic or not

**Speaker 1:** they have 30 days to decide if they want to come down and do a rabies clinic or not they have 30 days to decide if they want to come down and do a rabies clinic or not down and do a site visit or if they'll just approve the project as is

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the state won't come down here they don't really know this i don't know why i mean there's

**Speaker 6:** nothing there that's uh an ancient artifact native american girl maybe there's a lizard or it is it's too late you know you're not moving the building we're just changing some doors

**Speaker 1:** just changing the door oh god they won't even let you replace windows windows without historic yes historic preservation yep you can't dig more than a 10 foot square about historic preservation

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so this grant do they pay you for attending and administrating administering the uh interesting i doubt it yeah not like fema okay so what's the next step in that

**Speaker 1:** once um we get over this hurdle then we need to do the bid package and send it out to people who will install the overhead doors how much money did they give us 33 000. i'm going to have to buy three doors in the room door and install what they're saying what else lori well if you want to move into the sure correspondence yep i have two take their weight permits can't recast concrete and west oil we're getting more now than now santa refueled

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** santa fuel santa fuel yeah there's enough make a motion to approve them or sign them thank you any uh word from bcrc on returning our payment didn't we have to pay them the thousand

**Speaker 1:** dollars first and then they've already paid the one thousand dollars so um they submitted a new bill which was maybe four hundred and fifty dollars yeah so we just got to get a new bill that's what we just got to get to that's the plan and that's what we're in the process of getting to my son's. just wanted to say thank you jimmy and michelle thank you and we will see you next time So we've submitted that to the state and the VCRC has already refunded us the $650 we overpaid that is not included in the grant.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That was very nice of them. What else do you have, Lori? Any old business guys? Have we heard anything back from State of Vermont, Department of Taxes?

**Speaker 1:** A week or so ago I received a letter saying they're still working on it and they need more time.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** They just sent a letter saying they were working on it.

**Speaker 1:** This is my second letter that they're working on.

**Speaker 65:** That's nice of them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They're still working on it. How about new business? You usually have some new business, Mike.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, I'm trying to be quiet about some things tonight. I don't want to get frustrated.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm keeping my blood pressure down. Next Monday the Planning Commission will be reviewing the draft of the Zoning Bylaws. What time? 7. Is there a hearing?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Nothing on any of the executive session stuff. That's just the only account. I thought it was supposed to be a new law here.

**Speaker 23:** Are you going to be an attorney for an update?

**Speaker 66:** Yes.

**Speaker 16:** Drop them an email.

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

**Speaker 16:** What's going on?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Things are supposed to not sit in limbo forever.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Any other new business, guys? Nope. Next meeting we could start reviewing policy again. We have some more policies. And maybe Dave, Lori, and I will be able to have job descriptions for the road commissioner and the laborer. Oh this is an old policy. A lot of old policies.

**Speaker 54:** We're going to add a lot more duties on it.

**Speaker 3:** We're going to add lawn care to it. Tennis court, man. Tennis court. Tennis court.

**Speaker 54:** Tennis court, lawn care.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You have about a half-day.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, whatever the next court says. Motion to adjourn.

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

**Speaker 17:** I for the purpose of this meeting, I'm now adjourn.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I do want to acknowledge the members of the committee, to their special attention,

**Speaker 17:** the people who supported me throughout this meeting. I want to thank all of you. Thanks.

Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Mr. Law, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Law. Thank you. Thank you, sir.