---
title: "Stamford Select Board — April 17, 2025"
date: 2025-04-17
session: regular
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 0 named from roster attendance, 12 of 13 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":80,"SPEAKER_01":36,"SPEAKER_02":23,"SPEAKER_04":4,"SPEAKER_05":5,"SPEAKER_06":9,"SPEAKER_07":14,"SPEAKER_09":11,"SPEAKER_10":21,"SPEAKER_11":10,"SPEAKER_12":1,"SPEAKER_13":2,"SPEAKER_14":8}
duration_min: 127
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOTO0XJCS-8
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-17-25.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Douglas Wright, John Dunn, Kurt Gamari]
absent: [Michael G. Denault]
transcribed: 2026-10-12 (faster-whisper large-v3, CUDA; names corrected per data/name_fixes.json)
diarization: pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 (automated; cluster labels may over-split a single voice; unattributed paragraphs have no reliable speaker)
---

# Stamford Select Board — April 17, 2025

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 127 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOTO0XJCS-8) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-17-25.pdf)

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

---
**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'd like to take this session to the personnel at 6 o'clock. And just a correction on the agenda, it's open the door bids for the garage, not paving it. It really is paving. Oh, it is?

**Speaker 1:** Order of next meeting. Oh, yeah, sorry. I was with you, but today is our time for that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Invitation to bid. Completely fine. Bids will be submitted on April 17th. Paving.

Door. Oh, but we changed it tonight. That's a draft. Oh, I think it is. During the meeting, we actually changed it. Oh, okay. All right. Diane. For the moment, we'd love to meet you. I'm sure we'll hear it from one of us. Let's see. I'll break it. Get it on. And make sure that it's a good one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything else we need to do?

**Speaker 2:** Yeah. How are you doing?

Good. Can I just ask you to go into executive session for a person?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, Ms. McGee.

All in favor? Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We have a motion to go into executive session. There we go.

**Speaker 3:** See you later. See you later.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sheila, we would like you to stay. All right. We'll go finish our ride. We'll go to the next one. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

**Speaker 4:** Sheila. She's coming at 6.

Can I get my tour at, say, 615? Oh, yeah. Okay. Because I figured you got it. Good. Thank you. You can go to here. You'll visit her. She'll come to there. Okay. I would like to reconvene the meeting at until 20 after. Did everybody sign all their paperwork here? Yes.

**Speaker 5:** Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting.

**Speaker 5:** I'm going to go to the next meeting.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm going to go to the next meeting.

I'm going to go to the next meeting. I'm going to go to the next meeting. So. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you. That's all right. Thank you,OUGH. You've worked very, very hard in this course. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And you did an excellent job. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

**Speaker 3:** Watch it.

**Speaker 5:** That's turning in. 351 00R Sham liebe.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** 36B Да, tschüss, vocês bem, tschüss. X WordMap

**Speaker 6:** Right there.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** First order of business, we have bids to open. And then we can table that until later on in the meeting. We said we're opening at 6 o'clock. Open the paving bed for the day.

Maybe not. Really steal them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We have one bid from Allstate Construction. Oh, I don't want to hold him up either. It's for one-inch hot mix asphalt shim. How many roads are we doing?

**Speaker 7:** Just east road.

**Speaker 8:** We have a grant.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We have a grant for that. $150,000. And single chip seal at $81,000. Are these two separate?

**Speaker 7:** It's one job. It's just you shim it first and then chip seal it. That's what our grant's for.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So it's about $232,000. It seems we only have one bid.

**Speaker 7:** Is the grant covered?

**Speaker 8:** No.

**Speaker 7:** No.

**Speaker 8:** No, we were... $85,000?

**Speaker 7:** So we were... I don't remember. Because you guys went up to that emergency meeting, if you recall, for the ARPA funds. Yeah. So some of it is covered by the ARPA funds. Some of it's covered by the grant. And then some of it's...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we covered most of it by ARPA. And we had money.

**Speaker 7:** You did. Saved for. Yeah. And you spent ARPA on other things, but those things are going to cover the rest of that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. So I don't think there's any town money, any tax money that we have to raise for this. No. You want to look it over today first, or are you good?

**Speaker 7:** That's pretty simple. Is there tonnage on that at all, Rob? Yes, there is.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. $1,250 ton for the one-inch hop mix, asphalt shim, and 22 estrus. 22 sy? Square yards.

**Speaker 4:** Single chip seal.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And we have it in there for whoever does the job has to do the traffic control. Correct. Is that in there?

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. Okay. Town will supply sweeping. Yep. Traffic control, all material. One-year warranty completed by September 15th, 2025. That sounds like everything that we have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Liability insurance. Liability insurance. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that. All of that.

**Speaker 7:** All of that. All of that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All of that. All of that. All of that. Ny liability insurance here? Yes. Oh, yeah.

**Speaker 7:** I got.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Dave are you comfortable with this?

**Speaker 8:** That's what we figured.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can I have a motion?

**Speaker 9:** Second?

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

**Speaker 10:** All in favor?

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

**Speaker 3:** Next, hearing with condensed care?

Aye. Sign明 app pela escape Not here. Sorry to keep you waiting. No, no. Thank you for having us.

**Speaker 11:** Hello Anna. How are you everyone? . . Nobody here since we've been here. give an update on us forest service activities in stamford and near stamford as well um i've got um some martina barnes i'm the district ranger in manchester and i've got stacy stratton who's our timber program manager and steve ketlick who's uh working on our rec projects part of the time and worthwhile projects also um so yeah we just wanted we brought a map again which will leave with you we have um yeah so we're just going to kind of talk about primarily the timber activities happening and the recreation projects um ongoing uh both in both cases and i did want to mention uh a um that the dutch hill timber sale which is in greensboro but you probably you know saw a lot of the activity and um made me notice that we had posted a closure order in that area for due to safety concerns around public safety with the very large equipment um driving in and around that area over the winter months and that logging is currently has ended and we have rescinded the closure order so the area is now open for use again to the public so and stacy can talk more specifically with questions about that um the future plans there but um so that's positive news and um the um roaring branch uh timber sale uh not timber sale land acquisition uh which is um in well also partially in reedsboro partially in stamford is still still in the works um but it is due to staffing shortages um on the forest we're going to be losing our fourth surveyor um so it's it's going to still be a while until that that causes that that property closes um i i don't want to venture a guess but not probably not within the next year for sure it's not longer so um

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** excuse me you said heart reads where that's that little piece right that little piece up the top

**Speaker 12:** though well yeah well this is all a big piece that's right yes yes but oh that's right oh i thought

**Speaker 11:** Is that, it's a donation from Park Forestry, Mr., yeah.

**Speaker 2:** Is that the one with the land of public trust?

**Speaker 11:** That is the one with the trust for public safety. So who owns the land, still the land of public trust? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

**Speaker 2:** Did you realize when you pursued that that that is a water resource for Stamford that's being taken away, Broadbrook? Does not Broadbrook. It's part of that land that goes through there. And it used to feed the city of North Adams for about 150 years.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I thought the city of North Adams was further west end.

**Speaker 13:** Was it further up?

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, it comes down, it just all comes down.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because this is like a roaring brookway, isn't it?

**Speaker 2:** Yes, this is which way does the brook travel? To which way does the brook travel? Where is Broadbrook?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Broadbrook's on the other side. That's over to the west. This is going up by Tim Meshika.

**Speaker 2:** Forrest has owned a lot over there. Forrest has it now. So that was part of the acquisition of North Adams?

**Speaker 13:** Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. About 10, 12 years ago, I think.

**Speaker 2:** 2007, 2008? I think, yeah.

**Speaker 9:** How many acres is that?

**Speaker 11:** That is 14, 20, 1,000 acres.

**Speaker 9:** Well, that's all national forestry.

**Speaker 11:** Well, right now it's owned by this non-profit called the Trust for Public Safety. Right. It's also owned by the Forest Service. So that's, they're basically holding it until the Forest Service fires it.

**Speaker 2:** So if we wanted to query about a water source that we used to own with the national forest, how would we do that?

**Speaker 14:** What kind of question would you be asking us? Could we have water rights that the land is still there? I don't know exactly the process of it.

**Speaker 11:** Mark, you would probably want to use a pipe.

**Speaker 2:** uh going from there to north adams right now that they use right up to right i'd have to

**Speaker 11:** read our our lands staff on the forest would have to look in the records for one that like

**Speaker 2:** i have one other question we take a reduced fee from the national forest on taxes we obviously pay very very low taxes on the amount of land that you have i think it's 20 or 30 000. is there any way that we can get that scaled up because we can't do anything with it anymore we can't our town can't grow because of all these sales that people in the past let go so is there a way to query the government to get this raised up a little bit for the thousands of acres like

**Speaker 11:** the payment in lieu of taxes yes yeah that's a i that's a way above my pay grade of being able to make those that's probably a political answer have you ever heard of anybody going after it i mean yeah i think that's more speak to your elected officials to where that's not our i mean we're

**Speaker 14:** no okay i'm just asking there used to be several different ways you know the pilt you know payment lure taxes is something we use now but we used to have secure rural schools and so like when we sold a timber sale the town got 25 of all the proceeds and i think that's gone away and they decided to go with pills because it's easier you know if a town said we don't want any logging they didn't get any money from any of their land then you know that's what happened with that but i think it's that there's a that it's a political answer i hate to say that but that's that's fine i just thought while you're

**Speaker 15:** here oh it's been a good question though okay thank you i mean to go back on the first question about like water systems there are other towns that have water systems on the floor some of them require a special use permit it depends what's located if it's a well a pump house but i know of like some municipal systems that feed like a dozen homes in a community or something and we have like south rolling group has a collection facility

**Speaker 16:** it's on the forest so there are ways to get like you're talking specifically the broadbrook

**Speaker 17:** that's essentially what broadbrook broadbrook did yeah a couple houses over in lamestown and

**Speaker 9:** parts of our battles but yeah it's all they're i mean they're talking about working dams off there you know right it's that it's not going to be a functional water source look around at the dome trailhead right there right now

**Speaker 2:** so you're saying none of the water comes from stamford

**Speaker 9:** all the water comes from stamford i mean so why does it come from stamford that goes into the deer field there's water that comes from stamford that goes over towards bennington stamford's a

**Speaker 2:** source of water so north adams took the time to spend a lot of money to pipe in right up into

**Speaker 18:** stamford i've seen the pipes mark they're not going to do it anymore they're going to dismantle

**Speaker 2:** yeah but i'm saying it's there and it's a possibility for us because there's no way we can dig wells here because of contamination stuff but if we could pipe in water right then they don't have to live on the same thing so it's just the bottom we've given away a couple a sucker pond i think you've what does it mean

**Speaker 9:** hydrological studies

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah before you purchase

**Speaker 14:** okay

**Speaker 19:** stamford

**Speaker 14:** i don't know why it was before i got here but i would assume that you know we did some type of research see what we were getting and how it was being managed before because we're gonna like you know we're gonna acquire a piece of land that we need to know who's got access to it you know you listen to the or something like that and because

**Speaker 20:** you have to manage for that right who keeps track of all the railways to their properties

**Speaker 11:** that's our link so the the lands staff and if it's a well yeah the yeah the land staff and uh we have all the files each acquisition each you guys hold on to that yeah we hold on to that and there's public access that you bet you don't look at it i think you have to

**Speaker 21:** ask those schedule it so we can get back and that's how where would you keep all that uh those

**Speaker 11:** are kept with our lands up in the men well we have some on the district some as well as some are in the mendon office they're more about the stuff in mind yeah but we do have some if we don't have a don't have it then we i usually refer them people to our headquarters office since we yeah we have files we have a lot of files though um from a lot of small acquisitions over the years but we don't want to take it we'll probably only wait a couple more minutes so we can quickly go over the sure

**Speaker 14:** like martina's they've got her information any questions you have if you come up with afterwards let her know and we can pass it along you know so um so my name is stacy stratton i'm the manager and i probably have met a lot of you here already over the years or someplace in other woods or something but uh so the camp casino timber sales off for pro 73 or i guess that's the i just can't just you know when you get the other end of it it's the pecos bill you know that area so that's almost all been harvested up there so there's a little bit left probably one winter hunter excavation just didn't get to it this winter they harvested the dutch hill sale instead so the logging is done the hauling is all left to do because the mills weren't taking when it was a glut so it's all sitting on the landings but there's a ton of service work you know there was a lot of soil damage from past you know atvs off-road vehicles on that thin soil but we've got contracts with hunter to do water bars and we're trying to slow the water down try to repair some of the damage put up some rock barricades um you know do some site preparation to prepare for the next generation and we're able to make that happen so that's a lot of stuff to do we're making sure we're getting the right quality and the right quality of development and so we're not only getting the right quality but also the right size so we're not having to put up with the much but they've improved that road quite a bit if you've been over there broadbrook timber sale there hasn't been any operations on that that's another hunter excavation owns that one the main access for that is off of risky ranch road you know there's a an oval road that goes in that way plus you know we're trying to get some access in town the maltese timber sale you know a lot of the units are off the maltese road off the county road and then off risky ranch that that can operate on a little bit uh this one here again um you know uh i think uh mr cynical you know i wrote mike cynical that i think he bought that this is stewardship there's a lot of service work to go with that too but i don't think we have any more sales down here planned but we do we're going to be in reedsboro for some more sales over there and um hoosick ridge and then another one over off the huddle palm room so that's kind of you know what you'll see us you know over there

**Speaker 2:** what is uh the position of windmills the national forest today what is it what is your position on windmills

**Speaker 14:** again we we have them on public land but i i don't know exactly what the position is and we're waiting for that so they're not a policy issue you know for the windmills we're not there's no

**Speaker 16:** so

**Speaker 15:** right planner been working down here a couple different projects but recreation in general the program priorities in stamford include public access um offering dispersed recreation opportunities and managing trails for a variety of user groups but first i'll talk a little bit about the appalachian trail and corridor management so we're focused on protecting the corridor that runs through stamford over the past few years there's a set warner shelter and a shelter that was just south of county road back in like the 80s it was moved once from like user conflicts which was dragged with a skidder but we continue to see user conflicts at that site with you know motorized vehicles and kids partying and things like that so we dismantled that shelter and there's a new set of shelter it's two miles up from county road on the appalachian trail so that's completed with a new backcountry privy brand new shelter this summer we're going to bring a bear box up there we have a food closure order basically so you don't attract bears to your site you need to get a bear box installed up there where you have to hang your food in a tree so you don't create like a problem with nuisance bears in the neighborhood but during the field season a couple other things going on with the appalachian trail we partner with the green mountain club they're going to relocate the appalachian trail just at the power line where it hits massachusetts because it's on private land so it doesn't really offer much protection permanently for that trail corridor so they're going to move it on a national forest to provide that permanent protection and then green mountain club is also going to have a trail crew working in stamford from about that area up to risky ranch just over time the traffic we see about 15 000 through hikers on that trail each year so it's just washed out and muddy needs some attention so i'll switch gears to atb and off-highway vehicle management so we've got two trails in town the sucker pond trail and then the risky ranch trail so over the past few years in partnership with the stamford group riders cleaned up the risky ranch trail that party spot the sickle hole to refer to i was just out there this past week there's still some tire burning going on but the big pit with all the like fire pit the furniture has been pretty cleaned up the club helped block off some around it that were getting torn up with some logs and rock barriers and the club also worked on a section of County Road leading down from the power line to the intersection so I feel like it's looking better. We've had some law enforcement presence last year. Patrols will continue this year a little bit as well. The sucker pond trail itself is now closed for summer OHV use for a few reasons but it's still open for snowmobile use. We just installed a gate last fall at the County Road intersection. It did get damaged on the back and when the gate was closed it got rammed, bent, broke the pin off so we just repaired it and closed it since snowmobile season ended but we're still trying to work with the clubs on the Bennington side to get support from the town. So basically when the sucker pond trail runs north it hits a right-of-way that the town of Bennington has those water rights and all those camps and that's what we're trying to do. So they can access from the Woodford side all those camp owners but multiple times when we've gone to talk to the town of Bennington they say there's a lot of issues and they would prefer just to keep it permission only to the camp owners at the moment. So until they're willing to open it to all public use or have it on like the VASA network we basically need both towns on each end to kind of support it in order to open it up to the general public. Then we would improve the trail. Now we're looking to move up to Bumper He disastrous trail. It's got a good section for the trail. There's a one section we need to have the location in. There's no trend which would be a lot of rock work. There is one wetland relocation that still needs to happen. We had some different folks look at it. There was a potential grant from the state it's the recreation trail program grant. They have a clause that basically the trail can't be located in a wetland so that one section needs about a 1,200 foot relocation. So there's a lot of money that we don't have to invest in the trail. We have a little bit of money from Bronco Wild a couple of years ago. And we've invested all of that into the Stagecoach Trail. Stamford Ridge Riders have done a lot of volunteer work. VASA had their excavator out there resurfacing it. So ideally, we would like, if we could get, basically, the towns to support it on both ends and we can comply with our forest management plan that says our trails have to connect basically multi-town summer motorized trail system or not have a trail termini on our land. So basically, right now, if you can't drive on county road as part of a VASA network, then that basically would be like a dead-end trail. You'd have to turn back if you're not a resident of Stamford. I believe you guys have it only open to Stamford right now, like the Pond Lake? Not on there, no. No? It got changed.

**Speaker 22:** So it's open, is it on the VASA network now?

**Speaker 23:** We were kinda waiting until we got 301 before we went back and had it. We're still working very close with law enforcement because there's still, there's still a lot of, we call them cowboys or whatever.

**Speaker 15:** So hopefully our patrols can help with that, but basically we would like to address these few issues on, complying with our forest management plan, having the support on the other end, and then investing in the tread and blocking off a lot of the muddy routes along it. Along the stagecoach trail, seems like it's respected, folks stay on the route. They don't bash into the VAS gates and go up on the Snowmobile network in the summer months.

**Speaker 23:** There's a little more patrol up in that area.

**Speaker 15:** Yeah, so that's what we're looking for down here. Well, we were gonna talk,

**Speaker 23:** what happened to that meeting on the 10th of April you guys were supposed to have? The round table?

**Speaker 11:** Oh, there was a forest-

**Speaker 23:** All the user groups were supposed to sit down and talk about a lot of this stuff?

**Speaker 11:** They got canceled. Yeah, that was like a forest-wide meeting, yeah, due to all the issues currently with- Yeah, we decided to cancel it. Our forest supervisor decided to cancel it, yeah, so we'll just have to work through it individually.

**Speaker 15:** So we're making a lot of progress in that general area. VAS is gonna be back out. We have $40,000 this summer through the Bronco Wild funding and then we have $15,000 from the Forest Service to keep investing in this OHP system, but we really need to convince the northern town to basically open it to folks besides just the camp. Well, we just worked with the town of Woodford.

**Speaker 22:** We have some paperwork,

**Speaker 23:** I don't know if they got given to you, yeah? No. There was another thing we were gonna talk about last week at that meeting.

**Speaker 15:** So the town of Woodford has it as a town road all the way up to that Bennington right-of-way, so with that, we don't really get into a legal battle over the authority of that. They have no gate. We just installed a new gate after the last camp access, so now- Yeah. Suck-a-pon on the National Forest outside of the Woodford Town Road and outside of the right-of-way for the access camps is gated, because it's not snowmobile season. It's a snowmobile peak camp, right? Yeah, so we'll see how those gates hold up, but long story short, we have to have a lot more funding to kind of improve that and get it around this wetland area. And to me, the state grant requirements, they don't wanna see it running through that wetland area, so in order to get the funding, we have to kind of comply with some of the wetlands. I think they're still waiting,

**Speaker 22:** federally funded, that RTP program.

**Speaker 23:** I don't know if they even did that yet. Yeah.

**Speaker 15:** They have to extend it to sign off or something like that. That's a lot of the funding we were supposed to get for trail bridges, but snowmobile bridges didn't come through this year, so VAST is kind of waiting for us. We have funding from past agreements, and some of our invoices are getting paid, but any new money we're expecting this year is now paused. Yeah, no, they don't hold. So anyways, I feel like we've made a lot of good progress down there, and Risky Ranch is looking a lot better. And we do have a new law enforcement officer, Jeff. We have a new patrol captain, Chris Denton. We haven't met them yet. So we've been cleaning up the Rose Barn, just like the Risky Ranch at the other end, with just complaints about partying, late night ATVs, going back into Bennington, on Burgess Road. So as we have this law enforcement presence and a few resources, I mean, $40,000 isn't enough, but it's a start. So I feel like we're finally getting a little bit of progress towards getting that back open. So I'd be happy to meet outside of like a big stakeholder meeting with Woodford, with VASA, with Bennington. I know Mike Smith was a big proponent trying to get that access. I know he was trying to convince the town of Bennington, but every time we called, they're like, eh, let's just keep it for camp owners for now. And they're kind of nervous with, even though there is no enforcement of that. Let's be honest.

**Speaker 23:** They don't really want to even go up there, because, I mean, there's more than just ATVs. You have Jeeps and trucks.

**Speaker 24:** Yeah, yeah.

**Speaker 15:** I mean, I barely got out there to close the gate. Why don't you go up there with multiple agencies? Well, let's set something up outside of this.

**Speaker 23:** We'll be talking to you guys, because they're going to be coming down, there's a small section up on Stagecoach from Ryder Clear, the old Ryder farm, out to the Stonebridge.

**Speaker 22:** I'm not going to finish that up.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah.

**Speaker 15:** So in a nutshell, if we can manage it and have partners that will help us manage it and come in force and respect staying on the trail, then I feel like we can get this back onto our system. That was our general intention with that Southwood Route 9 proposal, was to have that open with Stagecoach. And that trail and road was always there on Sucker Pond. And when we picked it up from the Trust for Public Land, it was a good thing. But we didn't really have the capacity to manage it. And we'll just let it go. And then it got to the point where it's pretty bad. Resource damage is nasty up there. Yeah. So if we could reel that in and have enough funding to address it, then we could get it back on our system. I'd like to see it back open, but we just need to meet those objectives that are already in our force.

**Speaker 22:** And law enforcement keeps on talking.

**Speaker 23:** It'd be easier for them to patrol. Instead of driving all the way down here with the trailers, and the wheeler is to unload down here, just to unload in one place, and Woodford, just drive along.

**Speaker 15:** Yeah, during the winter, I came out on a snowmobile. I parked at Prospect Mountain, came over to Stagecoach. And then there isn't a trail bridge on a stream. It's, I think it's the Stamford Stream. It's about halfway down, or no, it's actually Roaring Brook. Either way, without a bridge on that, it wasn't that great.

**Speaker 23:** Oh, on Stamford Stream? Well, you have to go up to Prospect Timbers, go over the Kelly Bridge, and that little 391

**Speaker 15:** loop down on Stamford Stream. But what I noticed, instead of snowmobile tracks, there was a lot of UTV tracks all winter long out there. So it doesn't help the snowmobiles when the razors are tearing it up. Anyways, I appreciate having a partner like Stamford Bridge Riders. And without them, I don't think we would have gotten the ground we've gotten over at Risky Ranch. So I'd just like to try to keep that partnership going. So thanks for having a little bit of time for us today.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you for the update. And I'm sure they could call you if they have any questions. I'll let them reach us. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Good night.

**Speaker 25:** Thank you.

**Speaker 4:** Have a great night. Is it they saying that the logging is done for the point in Camp Casino and Roaring Brook? No, we need that at the end of the day.

I'm Cardinal Brook. That's it. Pretty cool. Yeah. Very neat. Very neat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Bye-bye.

**Speaker 23:** Bye. Thank you. Bye. Yep. See you. for that.

we get another one. Yes. Please. All right. Thank you. A report. Thank you. . Back there.

**Speaker 26:** Any other visitor before we move on to the meeting? Yes, Maureen. Once again, I would like to just remind everyone of two excellent town events. On May 3rd, the first Saturday in May, is Green Up Day, which is a statewide program. It's from 8.30 to 11.30. Come to the school, get a donut, get some gloves, get a bag, and pick up trash on your street or someone else's. And then on May 10th is our second annual Resiliency Fair. It's here in the auditorium from 10 till 2. A number of speakers on resiliency efforts and ideas, as well as folks who are local vendors of locally produced goods. Plus, we're going to have a community lunch and a band.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is the band going to be there all day playing?

**Speaker 26:** Probably starting at lunch. We'll probably be around. And it's Dan Hawkins' band.

They're really good. Maybe we'll dance. I did. Every girl.

**Speaker 26:** Yeah.

**Speaker 27:** Yes, they're amazing.

**Speaker 28:** Thank you.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors? Dave?

**Speaker 2:** It looks like we have a discussion on the Planning Commission bylaw change or not.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We're going to get to that.

**Speaker 2:** Okay, so I'll say that. For them, I received a call from somebody asking me about what's going on in the center of town. And if a permit has been put in place for the renovation of the church. I guess something's been knocked down. I don't really know. So I should ask the AO. Has anybody filed a permit?

**Speaker 3:** To knock down a slab?

**Speaker 29:** Or knock down a slab?

**Speaker 2:** They've touched stuff in the church. They've ripped off the front. They've knocked down. Dave, we don't have a permit. Dave, we don't have a permit. Dave, we don't have a permit.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Dave, we don't have a permit. We don't have anything for inside.

**Speaker 2:** It doesn't matter. We don't have permits for inside. No. Any demolition to a building, inside or outside, needs a permit because?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Not for demolition. Not for inside, Dave.

**Speaker 13:** Well, let me tell you where I'm sorry.

**Speaker 2:** I've gone through this before.

Not for inside.

**Speaker 2:** The church on that side was . Because of lead and asbestos, anything before 1978 where you start to do renovation, especially on commercial property or a church, it needs a permit from the state of Vermont. So if there's lead and they've knocked anything on the outside with lead, it could contaminate the air, the children at the school. The state requires a permit. And now I know we've knocked down houses in this town before without it, but we should have had a permit. It was illegal. And I have the information here. You can call me. Call these people if you want at the state, and I'm just saying. Are we sure they didn't get a permit from the state? The AO should have been informed first. Yeah, maybe.

**Speaker 3:** I didn't need it. I mean, you are our main, right. You are our main contact. A building or a garage. Was it a garage? OK.

**Speaker 10:** Sure, it wasn't insulated.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And it kind of leaked a lot.

**Speaker 2:** Well, it's just that if we don't take hold of this and people just start knocking and burning stuff

**Speaker 13:** and come on.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do we have in our zoning bylaws anything that says demolition or removing?

**Speaker 30:** It's a state permit.

**Speaker 2:** It's a state permit.

**Speaker 3:** It's not a .

**Speaker 2:** But the AO generally would say, hey, you're in violation. But it looks like I left it at home. I do have the permit. Oh, here it is. Here you go.

I'm going to create a habit for anybody, for anyone.

**Speaker 2:** You get the calls, and if you don't do anything, everybody's out. Here's what's required for any renovation or demolition of any building before 1970 will come and say, look.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So I'm hoping it's whoever is doing the demolition. The contractors.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, the town is the first line of defense because we're the ones raising the pollutants. Yeah. We're the ones raising the pollutants of asbestos and lead going into the air.

**Speaker 3:** Well, then we should talk about the middle one as well.

**Speaker 2:** What about it?

**Speaker 3:** That burned and it's just infested with everything. You know, same thing. It's not knocked down no more.

**Speaker 2:** No.

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

**Speaker 2:** This is any time demolition takes place. You have to have a state permit.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Hopefully the contractor is following the asbestos if there is some there. Lead paint, if there is some there, we don't know.

**Speaker 2:** They just say it. It doesn't matter. You have to bring down the Vermont asbestos.

**Speaker 10:** It's not our responsibility. It's the contractor or the owner. And we have no right to enforce this.

**Speaker 2:** We do have a right. The town, it is the town's responsibility.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I believe there was an inspection report, 75 page inspection report that the owners probably have now. The town had it. And I'm sure the owner's got a copy of it.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah.

**Speaker 30:** Just like the sign.

**Speaker 13:** I mean, the state rules.

**Speaker 2:** It's great that we have bylaws in this town. You can't override the state. And the state says. And I don't know how to be fine for this. I mean, I can dig a little bit.

**Speaker 3:** If you want to put this to bed right now, I'll check into it. Thank you. Well, call Stephanie first and find out who her contractor is. Yeah.

**Speaker 31:** Thank you.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors? No. Questions? Reading and approval of records and orders. We signed all the orders. But I have motions to accept the minutes of March 27 and April 3. I think we were all here.

**Speaker 32:** I was not here with the 27th.

**Speaker 33:** I'll motion for the third. Second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor?

**Speaker 33:** Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And April 3.

**Speaker 33:** Motion for the third. Motion for the second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor?

Yes. Aye.

**Speaker 9:** Thank you. Thank you.

**Speaker 34:** Thank you.

**Speaker 35:** Thank you.

**Speaker 7:** $30. $30.

$30.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $30. $30.

**Speaker 36:** Day-grown conditions?

**Speaker 7:** We started our spring road grading this week. Hopefully the snow is not going to happen anymore. Dealing with that, I guess, in the last couple weeks, too. So we've done, on Monday we did some. We did some there. Today we've got Jackson Road. So I'm going to continue over on that side of town. And then we'll probably move to the Mill County Road section. And we'll see. And then we'll head north. And then finish up with a class four. But I mean, it takes weeks for us to get that done. And the one that's not cooperating for that will be doing some ditching on East Road. Trying to prep that road for the Chipsione project this summer. That's what we'll be doing. All our equipment's in service now. So we just got our ram back today.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** How much?

**Speaker 7:** $7,200.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And that's the one you're thinking of trading next year? Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** Well, it takes two years now to get a truck. And that one's already five years old. And it's starting to get to the point where the reliability factor. And then, you know, it's not going to be worth anything.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's going to be paid this June, right?

**Speaker 8:** I believe so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So maybe we should start looking into it. So wait until next year. Just start looking into it now. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** I mean, I'll have prices for, you know, March. Until the town can approve it. Until the town can approve that. Okay. I guess that's our next step. I also am going to be working on it this fall. Coming up with a project for the Chipsione for the every five-year project that we do. And get prices on maybe paving some of the other, you know, higher maintenance sections of the road. And I believe it's time. It's time we needed to reconsider some of that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any questions for me? Recycling?

**Speaker 7:** I don't know. I think our summer hours start here pretty quick.

We're open on Wednesday. Oh, yeah. That's Wednesday, right? Yeah. Yay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Look at the snow. I have a couple of things on recycling. I attended the alliance meeting yesterday. They talked about the SWPPP plan that two representatives from VCRC are willing to come down, talk to us about the SWPPP plan. That we are required to update every five years. And we have to submit that to the state by the end of June. And the household hazardous waste facility in Bennington will be open on May 19th. You go on to the VCR website and you can pick a date and time that you would like to visit. Okay. And we would like to bring your household hazardous materials to Bennington. And that's all I have. Unless somebody from the board would like to be the town rep to the alliance. Kurt, don't look away. Maybe we should nominate Mike. He's not here.

**Speaker 34:** There you go.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's the way. Think about it. It's only online. It's only one hour every three months. So. And hire VCRC to do all the leg work. Because there's no way we could do a 75 page SWPPP plan that the state requires.

**Speaker 8:** Dave.

**Speaker 7:** If I could just go back to road conditions really quick. I've also been working with Jim Henderson a little bit. He's going to come down next Tuesday. And we're going to come up with our project for the grant aid. And I've talked to him some about the Suzanne Drive intersection. For some reason he's not too thrilled about that for that grant. But he said possibly a better back roads grant. But he's also talking about working on Sportsman's Road. There's some undersized culverts as far as the hydronically connected road segments go. So we may end up doing that. We may end up up there anyways. I did get a price for 50 feet of the culvert we will need for that. For the Suzanne Drive intersection. And the price of the culvert is $5,500. Just the culvert. They suggested a concrete head wall. They haven't got a price on that yet. But so I am trying to make some progress there.

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

**Speaker 7:** But it's on a local level.

**Speaker 33:** That's why.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Discussion. Proposed by law public hearing.

**Speaker 33:** You've got a hand up over here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh. You're hiding.

**Speaker 37:** I am.

**Speaker 1:** Could you. Find out what we want to do about . There's rocks sticking up like that in the middle of the road. Gravel. Gravel.

So I don't know . Culvert. The metal culvert is sticking up. Half way over there. I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of metal products there. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** I mean I went up there the other day. I mean it was a classic.

I mean it was a class four road.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. So the priority level isn't as high. I'm not going to disagree with you. We use gravel in most of our class four roads. Definitely need gravel. I think when I grade it here this spring it will improve. But you know. Like I said it's a class four road. And most of our budget is just. Mud season just takes it all. So. Oh. Can we go check it out? The rocks. No. Yeah. We'll just check it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was locked on the right side. Yeah. Okay. So you are cutting it out. We would like to add. Is there. You're not working on the house at all.

**Speaker 2:** Right? Not yet. Any? During the. Uh. In regards to roles. During the last selectings meeting. I heard somebody talking about doing work on fights on walls, roles, and the thing that I'm confused about is that all models of private marks in the kinds of Use a transportation

**Speaker 38:** system shouldn't be involved in any of that.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. work on the town's not going to work on alcohol's roads there's a culver at the intersection which is a town culver between the crosses okay and the water runs along suzanne drive and the cover hasn't failed but in flooding events the water overtops the road and it runs down and

**Speaker 2:** causes the residents i noticed looking back in the town stuff that the town was plowing john peter had a list of the times to be plowed off the wall and of course that was before 25 years i've lived there no no i just i had the list from 2000. what was he plowing and helping them all he's got them listed now there's 20 of them i said why is he plowing these roads

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well we don't do that anymore if he did but no no i'm just saying i was confused you know

**Speaker 39:** trying to solve stuff no town work being we're not no no i'm not saying that

**Speaker 2:** you know i was just wondering when i heard the discussion that said that's a private you know that's one thing we were never going to take on is the roads at all along yeah that's private roads

**Speaker 7:** are definitely becoming more and more of an issue and oh yeah we got plenty of miracles at some point i think you know you'll see the state get involved more and more of that i agree i agree okay uh

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** moving on proposed bylaw public hearing so um the planning commission presented us with the proposed bylaws uh most of the all of the changes were for the sign uh we all had the opportunity to read over those sections so if there was any updates to the sign section or anything you wanted to talk to the planning commission about if we have any changes that we would send it back to the planning commission or go ahead and set a public hearing for the bylaws nothing else okay okay i think they are very detailed hopefully we covered everything on the sign so that we will set a date for the public hearing

**Speaker 2:** i have emailed some information to you that i received from the state yep i don't know if you had the time to read it isolated reasons that we can't put a sign out there. I just want to make it clear, I have nothing in this either way. I don't care if there's a billboard put out there, but what I do care about is us going through the process of changing the bylaws only to have it rescinded by the state. I did get in contact with John Kessler, who heads up the travel council. He's a lawyer and controls all signage on scenic highways. And what he's offered to do is he will get a hold of Ian DeGadis, who's the head civil engineer for the state of Vermont for the scenic highway. He'll get back with us on the information of what we're trying to do so that we're making sure we're doing it right. Because there is a conflict. He knows. He says, signs out for him.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** If he can have it for our public hearing, it would be great.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah. Oh, I've got it so he'll get in contact with me, but to you. So once that's done and we have the state sign off on this, we're good to go. So whatever we have and they say good, he's already questioning things that I couldn't answer. So I said, I sent them the information of what we've done and I just said, could you please check this and make sure so we're not going another two years on this. Yeah. And I sent it to the Planning Commission too. Everybody got it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We haven't discussed a date, but we should look at this. Lori, what is the lead time on this? We've got to give you enough time to publish. There are 60 days. Now, if you would think about June, sometime in June. Do you want to pick a date now so we can say we set the date instead of waiting two more weeks?

**Speaker 1:** Do you want to try and do it before a regular meeting with the 1st and 3rd, or do you want to do it on an off-share date?

**Speaker 7:** I don't know. Let's see.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think probably an off-share speaker. I mean, at the Planning Commission, there was hardly anyone there for your public hearing, right? There might be more, and then if we have to go into the select board meeting, it's going to make it a longer meeting for us.

**Speaker 1:** So June 12th or June 26th? June 26th.

It's actually on the 4th.

**Speaker 1:** June 26th.

I don't think there's June 12th, but you could do it? Maybe we should have a flag made on 4th. So there's no problems, put a flag up there. See if it's cool. So, 26th, you're thinking? I have a letter from TLCC . So our off-night is Sunday? Yeah, see if anyone on the statement side is up? Oh, I don't have anything. June 12th or 26th? I don't know. June 12th. Okay, wait a minute.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** June 12th.

Can you do 12th?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I can do 12th. Can you do 12th? 12th.

June 12th.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do you want the same 6 o'clock?

Yep. That's fine. Do you want to reserve the gym just in case? I think we'll have a little bit more people in here. What's that? I think we've already done that Thursday night. That's why it runs over. I don't think you're going to have that. I don't think so either. Let's go June 12th, 6 p.m.

**Speaker 3:** We'll snuggle in. Yep. If there are any, I know the Printing Commission is talking about, not necessarily revisions to the bylaws, but if there are any revisions to the bylaws, if there are any revisions to the bylaws, if there are any revisions to the bylaws, I'm just clarifying among the language. If that can come before you, before this, can it be included? No.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because you have to go through the process of meeting, public meeting. I think it would be too confusing if you had your public hearing first and clearing up.

That's my problem.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Why don't you just make the bylaws do it?

Well, I mean, how many years did we talk about it?

**Speaker 3:** The challenges with the bylaws. And nothing has ever really happened.

**Speaker 40:** Well, I'm looking at it.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, we have your changes. We have the old changes. Yeah.

I mean, it's really, I mean, we've talked about it for a couple of years.

**Speaker 9:** And then we'll go through the next district and modernization grant and all that nonsense. That expires due at some point. I'm not sure if it's the village. Oh, that already. Yeah, the station expires at some point.

I don't know. That's not a whole.

**Speaker 3:** Well, didn't we, well, aren't we designated now? We are at a certain point. We are, but we didn't get that extra. That's why we had to pay that.

**Speaker 41:** So you only told us we had to change the date.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They did. They did. They did tell us.

**Speaker 3:** I heard that. Come on. I was here. We just, we left. We had to go.

**Speaker 10:** Because when we go forward with the bylaws, when we're wanting to reference certain bylaws, we couldn't refer to this as a center. But even if you change it, even if we have that designation or not, it's still referred to as a village center, right? Nobody's utilizing that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And that is, the state determines what goes in the village center.

**Speaker 10:** Right. Well, yeah. What it does is it will allow us to vary our bylaws. Right. For growing frontage. And acreage on all the bylaws.

**Speaker 9:** Mostly what it does is, it's mostly for beneficial to nonprofit organizations that are, it's to maintain the visual aesthetics of all the villages in town without demoing all the houses and one another or something else, basically. Kind of like certain parts of Bennington is, where you see a dentist's office just a little bit behind the house or something. That's kind of the idea behind the house. But there's just not enough nonprofits here to really utilize it in any type of way. I've mentioned it several times to the school. I mean, I think there's money that the school could utilize from it, but they don't ever seem to take advantage of it. I'm not sure if it's even, if it's even . What the state really wants you to do is create the whole neighborhood district that encircles the village center district, and then you can get development, you know, within just certain radius from the center, wherever. I forget the numbers.

**Speaker 10:** I think you said, you said . So they can get development.

**Speaker 9:** Yeah, you have to build a center, and then there's a neighborhood development area which is a bigger area around that. It'll allow you to change the pylons, I said, .

Right.

**Speaker 9:** Yeah, I mean, but .

Not the money.

**Speaker 9:** All we had to do was change one thing. The date, right? It could have been as simple as the date, or we could have said whatever. Acre. Acre and the village, which was . Because they all are an acre. Because they all are an acre. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see. There's a few that .

**Speaker 10:** I will tell you this, that the planning commission spent hours and days. We've done our due diligence on . And we have contacted the LCP. We have contacted the benefit planning, everybody. We have contacted every person that has any way, shape, or form official to sign it. And we've done it. We've got the .

**Speaker 42:** For the sign section.

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

**Speaker 10:** For the sign section, the information that we have is . Most of the stuff we're referring to on the argumentative side is billboards. It started all there.

**Speaker 2:** I have disagreed with that. But if you can read the information that I sent to you, it clearly delineates what signs we're talking about. It's just not billboards. And for us, we have two lines. Oh, no. The person that heads up the state and from engineering and from a lawyer, he's going to tell us what we can do and what we can't do. So if the work we've done, the exam is done, the subcommittee is correct, then we can move forward. He'll say. If it's not correct, he's going to tell us. So what's wrong with that? Wait and see what happens.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Moving on to the ethics commission update. Doug, you had – oh, Laurie gave us one of the revisions.

The conflict revisions. That's a full-time dev balance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think those – Oh, the conflict revisions, that's the one you agreed last week. Yes. Yeah, we agreed on that. We have to sign it tonight, though. I will. Is it ready? Is it ready? Is it already here? How old are you?

**Speaker 3:** Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Jill.

**Speaker 28:** I know. Get out of the way. I'm going to swat your hands.

**Speaker 2:** Hang on a minute. I am sorry. Take your time. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

We're so organized. Something about level three. What is that? Signed and finished.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Employees of the municipality and anyone acting in an official capacity representing the town to be asked to sign.

Did you say it already? Yep. We've been never signed it. E. How they found me. How they signed it. Is it over? Well, we put it over. The wording. Thank you. We put the wording over under article three.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is that a wrong place? No, no. I think we wanted it. Yes. In both places or just one place? An employee.

**Speaker 41:** I can't remember.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Somebody policy. Employees and anyone else representing the town.

Do we want it over in E also? I'm not sure. Yes. Yes. Does it have anything to do with the person? I don't know. I don't need to. I don't want to make any board comments or anything. There's many other questions. Any more council questions? Play for me. I thought we wanted to get there quickly. E. E. Public size. Public by. No. No, I think you're good. And you got it. Oh. Anyone acting? Yeah. Plies to everybody. Oh.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah, so that anybody that's in the process of representing the town can sign it.

Can I have a copy of the sign on that, too?

**Speaker 5:** No?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Done. Now, that one will take effect, or does that

have to be published? No, that takes effect right away, because it's policy. I travel Route 100. Yeah. I don't know. I was having an idea today about that. All right. Now, we can go on to the Ethics Commission update.

**Speaker 33:** I mean, every sign in the state is a violation.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** OK. Can we talk about the Ethics Commission update? Doug, you had a couple of things there.

**Speaker 5:** Well, this was on that Court of Ethics Investigation Enforcement Ordinance.

**Speaker 43:** Yeah.

**Speaker 5:** And I think, for the most part, it's pretty good. But there was a couple of things that was a little concerning with wording. Now. Let's see.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, yeah. I don't.

**Speaker 44:** Well, it goes to where it's saying it is.

**Speaker 5:** And I get teary-eyed when I read these things. OK. If you go on to the second page, section four, Complaints. And let's see. One thing, if we already have it, I guess, but I just want to emphasize it, is that, so there's no misunderstanding, anybody that's got a complaint, you sign it. You start out by going, using the forms that are designated. This is not something that, oh, well, I'm going to take it to the select matter. I'm going to bring it to or something. That is the way it starts, without exception. OK. It goes to the state first. Yeah. It goes to the state. It says something here. All municipal ethics complaints that are received from the state for investigation must be directed to the designated complaint recipient. Well, again, this comes back to the liaison, which I have been. And I don't see why we need a designated complaint recipient. The liaison is supposed to be the bridge for everything coming from the town to the ethics commission or coming back the other way. So I think we ought to leave it at that. I don't see what the difference is why they have a designated complaint.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. Lauren? What if we added a definition of liaison and said it would be the liaison between the town and the commission and would be the one to receive the complaint? Right. Yes. Yeah.

**Speaker 45:** Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. Or we could just change the title here and say liaison. Yeah. Either one.

**Speaker 31:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Like a designated complaint recipient and like you said the first time, would the liaison? Is the liaison? Yeah. OK.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah. OK. You know, I don't think you could really either way is, you know. I'll see. Yeah.

**Speaker 46:** I mean

**Speaker 10:** by any chance, have you read the ordinances from other towns and stuff on that?

**Speaker 5:** I looked up a couple actually back when they were doing the research. I did look up I think was Middlebury and then there was a small town that only had something like 300 people.

**Speaker 44:** Yeah, we've got.

**Speaker 5:** So I did look through some others.

**Speaker 10:** use the template from the LCT. Right. I was just reading the name of the town. It was a pretty good-sized town, but they don't even go to the state. Their ordinance says that they have to file a complaint, and the complaint goes to the town manager or the select board, unless it's part of that problem. If that's a problem, then it goes to this other person.

**Speaker 5:** Okay, here's my feeling on this. We can do, if they give us a template, but we can do pretty much whatever we want. And like the Middlebury thing, for example, a lot of those things didn't apply to us because Middlebury is a lot bigger town. And the selectman or the select board has the right to set this up. And I think this is the way, what I'm trying to do is cut out as many middlemen and have it straight, understandable, comprehensive. So I guess what I'm saying is this, I think, is more appropriate for Stamford. And if we get into this, who do we send it to? I think everybody remembers my feelings on this. Okay, you know, why eat a dead horse? Make it simple. If we find there's a problem, we can tweak it later on. But for right now, let's get it done, keep it simple, and we'll go from there. I agree with you on the timing of that. Let's see, what's the other thing? Now, I notice here it says designated complaint used to the NRO liaison, along with two others selected by the select board from the ethics investigation pool on a case-by-case basis. Now, I'm wondering why we need three people to do that. And the other thing is that we're talking from the pool. I agree, I think Bill Levine had a great idea of having a pool for people to pick from. But I think something I want to emphasize, that pool is to give us some people that have expressed an interest, and that's who we can pick from. But I think we have to, what I would like to see, is that number one, I don't think the pool should be just for ethics complaints. I think we have a pool of people that, you know, if you want to investigate the ethics, since we have other investigations come up through that too, not restricted just to this. And then the other thing, I'm trying to think of the proper wording for it here, but the selectmen, ultimately, and I've seen this a lot, the selectmen can pick anybody they want at any time to investigate. And I don't want there to be any misunderstanding that if for some reason the select board decides to take somebody else, they're not, somebody come out and say, well, why'd you take it from the pool? You're violating your own rules. I think I want that to be understood, whether we have to put it in here or not, that the select board is not surrendering its right to pick somebody.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, that we would, you're saying that. That we don't have to take it from the pool.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah. Realistically, we're going to. And realistically, we're going to, these folks going forward said we're interested in doing it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But if somebody makes a complaint against Jim, Jack, and Peter, we're certainly not going to take them to investigate.

**Speaker 5:** Right. That's another consideration.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we would just find somebody else to invest, yeah. I think we would do it.

**Speaker 5:** But I think I want to, actually, go ahead and finish what you're saying.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What you mentioned about the three, I think we need three, and I have numbers. Yes. We don't want one person investigating, or two and three, and I think we need three.

**Speaker 44:** Well, this was another point I want to make.

**Speaker 5:** Investigations should be fact-finding. You're collecting. The decision comes back to the board. Right. This isn't something where, okay, we've got a couple of people investigating. We're going to sit down, and this is the decision we came to. No. We need the facts. And then when the facts come out, we're going to do it. When the facts come out, the board makes the decision. Right. So that's why I'm not sure that we need three. You know, it's not something that everybody has to sit down and make a decision on, collect the facts. Right, right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's all they're doing.

**Speaker 4:** I just thought, my thought, too, is that three, not everybody likes everybody. So that makes it kind of like more neutral people. Well, maybe somebody wants to talk to you, but not to Jim.

**Speaker 47:** Exactly.

**Speaker 10:** Yeah. This is not a criminal.

**Speaker 5:** This is not a criminal.

**Speaker 47:** I agree.

**Speaker 10:** I agree with you. I know. Because when we do a criminal investigation, I agree with you 100%. That's my case. Yeah. And I'm going to send my facts and my findings to the prosecutors who are sitting there with a team. Yeah. To decide what the charges are going to be.

**Speaker 46:** Yeah.

**Speaker 10:** Right?

**Speaker 47:** So.

**Speaker 5:** You're talking something else. Like you said, you're talking criminal investigation. I'm talking investigation, period. Okay. I guess where I'm taking some of my stuff from when I was with corrections, I did pre-sentence investigations for the court. Mm-hmm. And they used that. Basically, I wrote biographies of the person, the suspect or whatever, and gave it to the judge. And he made the decision. I didn't make any decisions. I got the information and they sent it to the deciding person. Right. And what you said about not everybody likes everybody, I see your point. But on the other hand, what if you got three people that don't like one person? You know? You can go nuts trying to . That's the important. Yeah. That's the important part about. About. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 10:** Yeah. Yeah. And here's the other thing about choosing an ethics team or an ethics committee. The important part is that you pick people that you know or the board knows has an ethical background of some sort, that has proven themselves to be supportive to everybody and reach out

**Speaker 5:** to everybody, and able to communicate with other people. But what I'm hearing now, you're saying in an ethics commission or an ethics board, so instead of being investigators. instead of being investigators. Now, you're gonna use the size of, you know.

**Speaker 10:** That's all the same thing, Doug. I'm just saying that an ethics board, ethics, you're an investigator. So, in a sense, what you've done is created an ethic board, basically, because it's you

**Speaker 5:** and a full-on investigator, select people. It's a big board. I think, ultimately, the board that makes the decision is the select board. Now, I'm just expressing my things. You can vote it down. Again, we can come back to what about this or what about this. I'm trying to keep it simple, and again, I feel that the select board should not surrender its decision-making to another board, nor do I think we need to have another element added to this. That's my feeling.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, I don't think so either. I think we're okay with how it is.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. So, we could add, maybe, the select board reserves the right to choose any investigator, whether from the pool or outside of the pool,

**Speaker 48:** on a case-by-case basis.

**Speaker 5:** Realistically, realistically, we're going to be using the pool. I mean, these are going to be exceptional circumstances. This is the big thing with me. I don't want to, I would just say, give up our responsibilities there. I think this is the final decision. Should we stay? Or should we remain with the board? And that the investigators be investigators and give us the information.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Here's the thing, like I was saying before, if the investigator does not give us all the facts or doesn't like the person or whatever, we're still going to get the person that he investigated to sit in front of us and give us the facts, too, even though the investigator gave us his facts. Right. And the guilty perp, or alleged, Right. the alleged person.

**Speaker 5:** I want to get more out of this. The court. Bring the guilty guest in.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm never going to serve on a jury. But we would still hear the facts from the alleged person.

**Speaker 5:** Uh-huh. You're right. You can't give them a chance.

**Speaker 49:** I think that's already in the ..

**Speaker 28:** Can I just ask then, what circumstance would you not want to take from the determination?

**Speaker 5:** Well, like we said, if we come up with a situation, where there would be a conflict of interest for, say, the people that are on the pool. If we have a bigger pool, then that would be less likely. Yeah, that's fine. I didn't say bigger pool sense. But yeah, no, I'm not opposed to a bigger pool. But I think the big thing, again, I want to emphasize it, is that the pool is investigative. It's not decision. Right. And then basically, we're not bound. If somebody on the pool says, well, I think we should take this person out and hang them in the front.

**Speaker 49:** No, we're not going to be held to that.

**Speaker 28:** All right. It just feels like if you're in Seattle, and then you don't pick from that pool, you just say, I'm going to pick Kurt. It's like, why are you picking Kurt?

**Speaker 49:** Well, if the situation comes up, and see,

**Speaker 5:** this is what I'm saying. I don't want to get us locked into that, where for some reason, we take from the pool, then we're going to get accused of going against the policy of, you're doing it because you favor this person.

**Speaker 28:** Do you see what I mean? Like, if you have a pool, and you say, I don't want to pick from the pool. I want to pick Michael G. Denault. People might say, why are you leaning towards Michael G. Denault? And I'm not even part of it. That might look the same to me.

**Speaker 5:** Well, that's a good answer. Go ahead. Go. Go. Go ahead. I've been talking too much.

**Speaker 43:** Go ahead.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, but what if the complaint is against you and Jeb's in the pool, and we don't want Jeb, or even get some?

**Speaker 26:** Well, that's clearly a conflict. Yeah. That's why there's enough people in the pool for some common sense.

**Speaker 10:** So the recourse, if what we're all talking about is crazy anyways, because at the end result, I don't like the results of what happens. I just call state, right? So that's the option. It goes to the state. If there's a violation, it comes back to them. They pick a person to go investigate it. If they don't like it, or if they do something that you don't like, because this is not the American way or whatever, you have a recourse to go back to state.

**Speaker 5:** Yeah. Right. Well, the recourse is in there. You can go up to an employee and go into court. Right. But the state board, and I spoke with the director there, Christine, just a couple weeks ago. And a big thing with them, they are an advisor. They are not going to make a decision for us. They're going to stay and use their expertise. Mm-hmm. And give us their best guess on it. And as far as an investigation, they may send. We may not even need an investigation. But there may be circumstances where they're going to say, well, we'd like to hear what this person has to say. So this is where somebody from the pool would go and interview them. Or what about this? They may want some records checked. That's all. But I mean, it's not going to be back and forth. They're going to give us their recommendation. Right. And if they think they need a little more to do this recommendation, that's where the investigation comes in. And then, ultimately, it comes back and it's the decision of the select board.

**Speaker 50:** Laura, you had your hand raised.

**Speaker 1:** Well, I guess my thought is, with us being a small town, it's nice to say we just need a bigger pool. But if people don't volunteer to be in the pool, you might be stuck with the same two or three people. And it may work fine. But there may be conflicts within it that make it difficult.

**Speaker 10:** I don't think the town is bound to the pool anyways. The way I read the language is they're not out in any of it.

**Speaker 5:** I'm just trying to clarify something. So that everybody kind of knows what their job is.

**Speaker 10:** Well, as we all know, it doesn't matter what you read in the laws or what Vermont is. Other people see it a whole different way.

**Speaker 3:** All the time.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What else? What else do you have, Doug?

**Speaker 10:** I think it was, let's see. Can you work with Laurie on this? Sure.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We'll get it right some day.

**Speaker 10:** We have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But we're not, you know, this is all new to us. We've never had this before.

**Speaker 5:** It's funny. I was saying, actually, I told Nancy the other day, I was going through that website that shows the current legislation that's being considered. And you've probably all been on that website. They've already got it. I think the Senate has already got some kind of modification they want to do to the Ethics Committee. So they're not already sure what they want. This is just kind of.

**Speaker 10:** There's a lot of new people on board with it right now.

**Speaker 5:** Right. And from what I understand, Nancy, you said that a lot of times you looked into having even gone as far as ..

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, no. I haven't seen it on any of the web pages. I asked just happened to talk to the town clerk. I said, what date is your conflict of interest? And he says, it's old. So yeah, they haven't done anything.

**Speaker 10:** Yeah. We're a small town. I think the newest term. I thought I saw some language about the newest town plan. It's got language in there. About the Ethics Committee? It's supposed to have it or whatever. I think it's part of it.

**Speaker 5:** Well, I know when I talked to Christine when we first started getting into this a little bit, and I said, is anybody going to come down and check? I mean, what are some of the things that we're going to do? And she said, no, we're not even close to that. And she says, even when we get to that point, it's probably going to be, it's not going to be one of those, we're going to come down. And the only answer is, well, no, we're going to come down. We may want to do this, or this, or that. It's not going to be some kind of big punitive exposition to the county. So I think it's really not that complicated. Let's just get it together and put it in motion. Work with Lori on the changes. Yeah.

The changes. That's it. That's it. Yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And you guys are OK with that, then? Yeah. OK. Sign the transfer station monitor job description. We went through this last meeting, and just need the signatures of the bottom. Copy that also when it's signed.

Thank you. I just want to give you the other two. Sign the road commissioner and the highway. Sign them up. That's something. Yes. .

**Speaker 10:** It's not yet. No. No.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. I usually see them. I usually see them.

**Speaker 51:** Here's your file.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, you want to call? There's a website. There's a website.

**Speaker 10:** I know.

I get it.

**Speaker 10:** I see what pond is out here .

**Speaker 5:** Oh, yeah.

**Speaker 10:** Sure? You'll know they stocked up in here. Red Mills. Yeah. It's a long year. It's Red Mills pond.

Yeah.

**Speaker 10:** Something like that. They stocked 2,500 . They were just trying to put something in. They usually don't do the broken things.

This one's really good. Right around there. They're all going to come in and scritch and stop. And then they'll come up and throw it. And then they'll drop it. And then they'll put it in.

**Speaker 3:** Oh, they had a new script. We had to. You ought to see it. Did you wait for it? Yeah, we got this amazing

We built a barrel. We built a barrel.

**Speaker 3:** So their body would work. And it's all permanent. Yeah, I know it is. We built a barrel so the water is diverted back where it used to go. So behind, the other way. So that he can work in that area without getting swamped. He's getting swamped anyway. Yeah. We've already run out of stone. We have no money. What are you saying?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Shasper. Okay. Review employee policy handbook. And I haven't had a chance to go through it. We just did it in a 2018 book. I want to put something in there. By all current town policies. So they would refer to the conflict of interest and the ethics policy. Can we just hold off on this until next time? We ran out of time. Review the social service agency policy. That one I did review because it was only one page. We put that in. Oh, no. Select board many, many years ago. Because we were getting requests for can you give us $50 for this organization. And if the board didn't let that organization, it didn't go on. Maybe you remember, right? And the, so we've got the social service agency policy that you have to get this on the ballot, let the townspeople vote if they want to contribute to this organization. And basically it's the same thing that if they once again we got the template from the LCT. And if they're changing the requested amount or they don't get their request in by the date that's on here so many days before publishing the town report, then they have to petition again. That's why the two of them were not on the ballot this year, on the town report this year. And they changed their amount and they wanted Lori to just put it in. So we're covering Lori too, that she's not picking and choosing. Was there any problems with this? Keep the same and just, we're going to do this in 2016. In April. 7th of April.

**Speaker 5:** So can I have a motion to approve it as written?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any other thing on the discussion

**Speaker 1:** that you feel we need to bring up? Correspondence, Lori. We have two municipalities

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** waiting for us.

**Speaker 3:** I can't believe that they're coming in like this. You said hunt them down, and then you said no more.

**Speaker 31:** Sheila,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** she'd love to do this. She would be after them. I'd go after the haulers. There's only a couple of them. But now the alliance is sending out notices so the haulers know that it doesn't just stay here. We've got to report to the state also. One is for Riggs-Disler Company. They're the ones that are doing the poles. I don't know if they're putting the poles in, but I know they do the swamp pads. And Structural Wood Corporation. I don't know what they do.

**Speaker 50:** Structure?

**Speaker 1:** Structural Wood Corporation. We don't get permits from them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you very much.

**Speaker 1:** Old business. Roof trusses.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe they're building a new house here. Anything else on correspondence, Lori? Old business. I'm requesting a website update. Lori, if you can look into that. We need to get some more space. We do. In the cloud or wherever we get space from. We need to put our recording, recording minutes. I'm sure people like that, but by law we have to have this on our website. What did we hear yesterday? Our training. Some towns don't have a website. So they're sending it to the newspaper or the TV who's editing it. The legislature's working on something like that too. That's dangerous. Old business. We're voting on May 14th. And that is also the day of school board and a webinar. VCA webinar. 9 to 2 30. It's free. So you can take it at home if you want. That's great.

**Speaker 37:** Board of civil authority.

**Speaker 1:** So it would be good for justice of the peace and select board members. And I'll have it running here for anybody who wants to come here and listen. Or you can sign up remotely. It's free.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That would be very good for any new JPs. And I think you sat in last year too. Yes.

**Speaker 1:** And while you're on that subject, with the election being May 14th, I would love to have all the justice of the peace and the select board members here to count. 7 o'clock. The vote will go from 10 to 7. It closes at 7 all day. And you'll have the two ballots. The town assessor or rooster ballot. And then the school's budget ballot. So we'll reveal the schools. I believe they have to have an informational meeting. I don't know when that is. And we're both doing a mailing to all registered voters to send the warrant, the warning out to everybody. And I don't know if they'll have information included in what they want to send out. And we'll probably just send

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the warrant out. Doug and Mary Lou and I and Laurie are going to be sent in on the webinar yesterday about the open meeting law and the new changes, Act 133. And the LCT suggested going to the Secretary of State website and they urged all board chairmen to attend this. Planning Commission, Conservation Commission, Cemetery, Library, School, Board of Abatement, Go to this open meeting law. Whatever it is. The Secretary of State? Yeah. It's got about agendas, executive sessions, the public to attend.

**Speaker 1:** Sounds like they have a frequently asked questions page and a video that you can just watch.

**Speaker 10:** Sure. If I may ask a question. I was told that our little ad hoc committee subcommittee were doing, the three of us, was actually a violation of the law.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, it should have been published or where you were going to meet. That's the way I understood it. That it should have been in a public place. Did you catch that yesterday? They said something about that subcommittee. You're still bound by the open meeting law. No more cheese. No more cheese.

**Speaker 52:** Right.

**Speaker 9:** Even if you're not a quorum. That's what happened.

**Speaker 53:** That's why I thought we were safe.

**Speaker 3:** It was not a quorum.

**Speaker 54:** But it was a committee

**Speaker 1:** appointed by the Planning Commission to do this. So committee of the committee was open to open calls.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And if you're not sure, just advertise air on the side

**Speaker 42:** of caution.

**Speaker 10:** And location being

a place where the public

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** could have access to it as well. My house. I know we've had a fire station before. If Lori's here, ask her if this room will be empty.

**Speaker 42:** So,

**Speaker 10:** I know this has been an issue in the past. And as Vice Chair of the Planning Commission, we have been put in a situation where we don't have a key to open this place up. So, like this week, he's not around. So we had to contact another person who wouldn't return any emails or accounts. But ended up showing up and we were good to go. Is there any way that another member, whether it be Lisa or myself, the Vice Chair, can get a key to open?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I know we have a key policy that we suggest to the chairmen of the board because Lori has only so many keys. So, perhaps, Peter, if you knew he was going to be out of town and you're having a meeting, can we have the key? So we can pass it out to someone? Yeah, because he's responsible for it. His signature is on Lori's key number. You have to sign for it. It's still in the liability of... So Pete would still be responsible

**Speaker 1:** for the monster?

Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. It's like, okay, well, alright.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I probably have a key. Do I need it? What's that? I could give up my key if I needed to.

**Speaker 31:** I guess you could give it to Jim.

**Speaker 3:** I never come here and don't want to go on the set. I don't want to be the one everybody's hearing the alarm.

**Speaker 55:** I was yesterday.

**Speaker 26:** It was just confusing because we had run into this once before where there was a planning commission meeting and people came and it got cancelled. So, when we were trying to head off the possibility of that, both Pete and Jim were sending email around and we just didn't get a response. So there was a little bit of a briskness about would we show up for the meeting and not be able to get in the building.

**Speaker 28:** That was a worry. But what I'm hearing is Pete can give the key to one of us.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Or say, I'm going to be gone and I'll leave it under my step

**Speaker 3:** or under the flower pot.

**Speaker 31:** Or come get it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** More likely.

**Speaker 56:** I don't think that's a responsible thing to do.

**Speaker 3:** To be honest with you.

**Speaker 26:** No flower pots.

**Speaker 3:** No flowers.

**Speaker 10:** So the only other thing I have to say is that we were talking about an ordinance some ordinances to write an ordinance or something about our continuous and possible in the future food trucks and blah blah blah and everything else. So I took it upon myself to do some research on an ordinance or ordinances involving food trucks ice cream trucks anything to help the situation because an up and coming problem might as well need to be done by now. So I've been having some conversation with that about this thing too. So whatever makes her job easier and basically allows you guys to have some control over that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So if we were having some event like say the resiliency fair and you wanted to have food trucks outside would it have to come before the board select board?

**Speaker 10:** Board of Health? So it depends on how you set it up. In this particular in Morristown this one that I chose the AO gives out permits for it. So they're registered. Right. And so Lonington also has a similar bylaw or ordinance and the way they do it is that they're not allowed if they have a private lot that they can park on the private lot and the owner has to get a permit for it. Not the food truck or the ice cream truck because they're holding they're holding yes well the food trucks can't get a permit unless they have a state permit. But this is an issue that we've always talked about and ran into and this is an ordinance so it doesn't have anything to do with land. So but it goes through it would go through an enforcement agent in AO or you know what I mean so you would just have to place a fee or and you can do temporary so if you were to have an event here in Stamford like a rodeo or

**Speaker 1:** a rodeo

**Speaker 10:** concert or anything like that and you have all these food trucks coming in it kind of gives us an opportunity to make a little bit of money too. So it used to be fair fair but but I got the ordinance and I was going to tweak it around and kind of play around with it and give it to Lori and see and

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I wonder would that cover it under the board of health? Would the board of health give the permits? I don't know.

**Speaker 10:** The food truck probably should have a state permit. Yeah. So the health officer would be the one to be able to enforce those kind of laws but it's a state and we don't enforce state laws No. It would be in charge of restaurants or whatever. Right. I mean this comes with a whole application but you said This would just be the permit process basically from the park So for instance let's lay it right out there Lion Farm wants to I guess open up the ice cream this isn't just word of mouth I'm not advertising this at all it's what I'm hearing and if that is the case then Stephanie could get a permit to accommodate that. Yeah. And they have their own state permits and they can park anywhere they want because we don't have any ordinances or any kind of laws that says they can't and this is not going to be to where they can't do certain things but Wilmington is a little different as far as I don't know I mean it's a different set up entirely Yeah. But they literally have their police throw food trucks I mean I think we should do everything

**Speaker 9:** we can do to make these things easier for people to do that It should be more difficult

**Speaker 57:** We shouldn't be trying to put up walls

**Speaker 10:** to stop whatever it is But I mean in this process it's probably not that reasonable

**Speaker 58:** Hey, you never know when

**Speaker 3:** And it's still in control It's still registering We know it's here

**Speaker 10:** We're not trying to make more regulations We're just trying to protect the homeowner

**Speaker 42:** that's living next door

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** or across the street

**Speaker 59:** We have control over it

**Speaker 33:** I think food trucks here at a certain time of day or year could do quite well

**Speaker 10:** Yeah And so like the Polish guy there was doing a food truck up on County Road or something

**Speaker 9:** Really?

**Speaker 44:** That's where he lives

**Speaker 5:** up there

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He wanted to feed the ATE hikers

**Speaker 10:** Right, the hikers and stuff up there He wanted to go in over He showed me exactly where he wanted to park the truck and it was right by the I said I mean, I wouldn't go over here Not bad Do you know if he ever did any business there?

**Speaker 33:** Yeah, I was curious how much business

I don't know

**Speaker 33:** I don't know It would be convenient for one of the hikers to come along There's a food truck in the middle of nowhere What?

I didn't like going to that kielbasa I know I know He was like I don't want to cook tonight and then he'd be close Anyways So if you have it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think we'd be willing to look at it

**Speaker 10:** I was doing some things extra things today Check into that I have it

**Speaker 60:** and I'll play around with it

**Speaker 10:** put some names here and there and put it on the agenda

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Does it say Does it give the definition of food trucks? Does Vermont have it?

**Speaker 10:** Yeah, there's an entire ice cream truck, fire truck Food trucks State license You know They'll get We could get this specific if you want I was

**Speaker 61:** I was

**Speaker 26:** Yeah

**Speaker 62:** Do you remember the David Vaughn truck?

**Speaker 9:** Yeah

My uncle was driving it up

**Speaker 41:** a year ago

**Speaker 3:** It was parked next to my house for years Oh yeah I can remember as a kid we lived in a neighborhood four or five streets and you could hear that thing coming in We would You just couldn't control yourself

**Speaker 63:** They took away the

**Speaker 57:** They took away the chocolate taco

**Speaker 10:** so those were the best So they referred to it as an itinerant vendor peddler's food sales That's what they had

Itinerant I used to list the full scale dairy bar we used to have back in the early 80s Oh that was nice That was the official name for food trucks and stuff like that Okay Oh what did that do?

**Speaker 9:** They had like hamburgers, hot dogs They had like hamburgers, hot dogs

**Speaker 52:** Plain rolls

**Speaker 9:** Plain rolls for some Yeah Right across from

**Speaker 52:** Rome's

**Speaker 9:** Rome's Place That little white place It's actually bigger than it used to be They put an addition on the top There was a window there

**Speaker 52:** Special meals

**Speaker 9:** Yep What do you mean that? My mother would throw me on the bike at ten speed with the classic thing

**Speaker 64:** Yeah that's long

**Speaker 3:** Don't count that No

**Speaker 10:** Probably 70 So they referred to this as lunch wagon ice cream truck mobile or temporary stand like a food stand on public property for the purpose of a food or craft sale

**Speaker 51:** on public

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What about private

**Speaker 42:** It's the same thing

**Speaker 10:** So they're talking about on public property The town wants to to do to give a license they give it to them on public property They give them a spot to do it

**Speaker 42:** So they don't need it for private property?

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

**Speaker 51:** Oh

**Speaker 1:** That particular one

**Speaker 65:** But you can say

**Speaker 60:** We can do whatever we want

**Speaker 10:** This is just their violence This is their Did VLCT have a template or no?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I didn't ask

**Speaker 10:** I didn't I've been contacted all week with that but I didn't go through that I just did this about five years ago until somebody asked me

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

**Speaker 41:** Any other new business?

**Speaker 3:** Well this I don't know if this is the time to bring it up Just pertaining to a conversation we had earlier I'm wondering if this thing with from the church is really something I should be involved in I think it's more of a health officer situation

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Why would it be health officer?

**Speaker 3:** Well they did show me the statute in Vermont It's not zoning It's the health officer because of asbestos or any contaminated materials

**Speaker 66:** Pardon?

**Speaker 33:** I mean Unless you currently are

**Speaker 3:** I'll say Lucas I mean I know in the past if people have come to me and had a complaint that's out of my jurisdiction I refer them So if this complaint has come to me do I refer it to Luke or do I just handle it and ask I'm happy to handle it but I'm asking you guys because it's I'm not the health officer from this building You can't tear down You can't tear down a building

**Speaker 10:** Trust me Just to give a little help there When Lincoln poured down the house Which? It was there one day and gone the next

**Speaker 58:** It was that quick

**Speaker 3:** Well this here

**Speaker 10:** I'm like ooh something's missing And it was a little hollow bar garage

**Speaker 51:** Am I right? Where's that?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The church?

**Speaker 3:** It was not part of the internal It was added on later It wasn't part of the original I mean Yes he should Because it is a law You know it's a lead based paint law Right That you have to disclose

**Speaker 10:** According to the state When I called on Lincoln Because I was basically told to go That's in my hat And I said Oh no Just before I left

**Speaker 3:** Is that Lincoln up on

**Speaker 10:** The new house Oh the new house The big red house that was out in front Should be sold off Should be sold off So which I stopped at the House That I was told That there was no state law About raising a house And I'm like it was okay But what about abatement And stuff like that I was told I was told that the contractor Whoever did it is responsible They have a state license to do that And I said okay So what's What is my goal I mean what am I In all of this There's no permit We don't have a bylaw That says that you need a permit To take down a house And so he said well if you don't have a bylaw There's nothing that you can do about it So it's the state's responsibility And that's the way I read it at that point It's the state's responsibility I don't know

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's kind of how I feel As a contractor But just like building There's state rules for Buildings And we used to have something out there If you're building The contractor must be registered with the state And billed according to the state laws I don't know if they do it But what if you want to build your own house Do you have to follow the state laws

**Speaker 52:** So if you want to repaint your house And scrape the paint off the outside

**Speaker 3:** I mean yeah This is the broader issue

**Speaker 9:** I mean you could really We could open up a major can of worms With all this I think just let her improve the building

**Speaker 3:** And let her do what she's doing You know I remember when the Burtons Were scraping the paint off their house

**Speaker 9:** That was probably there from You can scrape blood paint but you're supposed to have plastic off it

You're supposed to You're supposed to contain it I mean this could get really stupid

**Speaker 10:** If we wanted to I mean there's people who work all over the house You could create a new bylaw Basically saying just that You need a permit in order to raise a house So I I think there should be There should be a permit for that And the only reason why Is because then Like when somebody When somebody comes through the window Of the house Laurie hands them a building permit Well they can't submit a building permit To me or Irving or to Deb Now without Dirt well and bottled water And septic design You can't do You can't sign or approve a permit without that And If you were to make them get a permit to raise a house Then You have some control Over hey you need a Certificate from The contractor or the health officer So And that protects us

**Speaker 57:** It protects the neighbor

**Speaker 9:** What if you want to leave the house up But you're just going to Gunk the whole entire thing All the lead pipes

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's remodeling Well we have Wyatt's house

**Speaker 10:** You have no control over that But if somebody's knocking down a house Next to Doug's house Like one tree over And it's full of lead paint

**Speaker 41:** And all the dust is blowing towards your house

**Speaker 10:** I mean that's wrong

**Speaker 3:** It may trigger somebody to say Oh maybe I do need To move into this

**Speaker 1:** So should these people be directed to contact The state so the state can enforce Their laws or is it the town's Responsibility to show them They're going to deal with it Good question

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't think the state would be down here

**Speaker 9:** If they got a problem someone should call Markley if they have a problem They should call the board

**Speaker 67:** Environmental health or whatever it is

**Speaker 5:** Would this be something maybe the health officer Because of the health things Yeah and then If you see somebody doing something wrong Talk to them or whatever they think Or call the state and say this is going on Did Dave

**Speaker 3:** Make an issue when Pete Greenbush Took down Mr. Reynolds He did

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He said there should be a permit Or something Yeah I guess He did say help and he was He mentioned something about burning But I'm not sure

**Speaker 9:** I mean he

**Speaker 68:** I mean he's not wrong

**Speaker 10:** No he's not wrong about the Permit by no means I agree That there should be a permit I think we should have A bylaw that says that you have to get a Permit

**Speaker 3:** Should that go into our zoning bylaws

**Speaker 63:** Yeah

**Speaker 10:** And that would enable her to say okay I can't approve this Until I get a certificate from your Contractor that there's no Lead in asbestos Right

**Speaker 1:** So is there a clause in our bylaws now That says something about when you change the Footprint of the building That you need a permit And would that work or No That's it same footprint anymore

**Speaker 10:** In that case If the house burns down Then you are Allowed within a year I think To rebuild I don't think a bylaw said a year ago

**Speaker 63:** But rebuild into the same

**Speaker 3:** Footprint It does have a timeline

**Speaker 1:** It might be If it burns down you have the ability To rebuild in the same footprint But if you're going to change the footprint You need a permit So the footprint you could say

**Speaker 65:** Has been changed

**Speaker 10:** I mean it's a difference of a hundred

**Speaker 65:** Well what's the permit now

**Speaker 3:** The building permit It's a different Categories

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But okay so The church down there They took the garage down Looks like they're building on the same footprint Are they building a garage

**Speaker 3:** But we don't know that I'll look into that portion of it But as far as That's kind of Past tense at this point It's gone Is she even going to rebuild

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That little area I don't know But the other thing is Technically is there one side Still standing

**Speaker 3:** Does it say that in a bylaw

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well we've had Houses in town taken down But that one side is still standing

**Speaker 31:** I can't find that

**Speaker 1:** Anywhere It just makes it a renovation As opposed to a new structure

**Speaker 54:** Then you don't need the new structure

**Speaker 3:** If it burns down

**Speaker 10:** You're not going to have a side stand You don't have people that's going to Change space

**Speaker 3:** There is one side

**Speaker 9:** It's the building There is one side

**Speaker 3:** There's still one side standing

**Speaker 9:** We took three sides down Where is that building built The garage isn't even original

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No that's probably When the priest did You can see the little addition on the back Oh the garage was there He built that little addition On the back so he could Put his car in there

**Speaker 69:** No in the garage So he could fit his car in there

**Speaker 33:** It was a general store What's a pad out back for That was the bingo hall In the church It was a meat locker In the back Where you could just Put your money in

**Speaker 70:** It was a general store

**Speaker 9:** So it's a pretty old building

**Speaker 52:** But the bingo

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh there's the other thing Bingo hall I just took that down I could wash the floor in there And the water would go right out Between the wall and the floor Just take a bucket of water

**Speaker 71:** When did that come down

**Speaker 7:** Not that long ago 30 years ago It wasn't that long ago I think it was Was it 30 years ago

I don't remember I think it was About then

**Speaker 3:** I won't say So do you want me still to

**Speaker 10:** I would say I would say

**Speaker 3:** Pass that buck

**Speaker 10:** I passed the buck

**Speaker 9:** Or just make a phone call

**Speaker 64:** Or just help Salvation

**Speaker 9:** It's not gonna be a local I mean it's gonna be a state

**Speaker 53:** That would enforce it

**Speaker 3:** But the question is and i i go back to the wilds and everybody else who has torn down something did we enforce that

**Speaker 31:** did we make them give us no no so what are we doing why are we sending this to luke now is it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** because because they brought it up they took the garage down they took the garage down it's too late well i don't think we need to do anything down there because it's gone done we didn't do anything with wild or right but maybe in the future in the future i i think it would we don't

**Speaker 10:** have to right we don't have anywhere to do anything no we don't have a bylaw we don't have anything that that she didn't violate anything maybe maybe her contractor did yeah maybe and i mean it's like there's no permit needed no well so once we change our bylaws

**Speaker 3:** right i really don't want to poke no i think that's not necessary but should we do something for the future though yes i think to have that in because i'm trying to just a couple of years ago it was something else and i can't think of what it is but it had to do with taking you down or something

**Speaker 26:** well that helps on your own road now that's very

**Speaker 72:** near water so that's not about that carefully is there still an owner paying taxes on that

**Speaker 31:** well he's in jail he's in jail he's in jail for arson yeah

**Speaker 3:** really yeah yeah so and the mortgage company is one of these online mortgage companies so this is

**Speaker 63:** going to be years this blight is going to be there for years so we need a health officer to

**Speaker 10:** uh call the state yes and creative and just keep adding on and kept it keep adding on to where the town now has land suit you know you may end up having to spend a little money to do it but

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's just we're going to pay for it or i can keep bugging the bank and saying it's your responsibility to take this money you can't get anything true forever is more likely to take it

**Speaker 9:** before anything happens

**Speaker 3:** yeah i don't think there's anything they have to do in the garage

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's my opinion and indoor work if we want to remodel we have nothing in our bylaws to stop

**Speaker 41:** us from remodeling our house and that comes during assessment and you're allowed to go

**Speaker 53:** if you allow to go into a house who are you going to expect it all what's that she's going to come

**Speaker 9:** and inspect the house that you're going to go out it's not going to be anyone didn't they didn't they they don't want to go out

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** didn't they didn't they say they don't want to go out if they can go in the house they can go in the house if you're going to go out is that what they're going to expect

**Speaker 34:** need a permit because if we're taking asbestos out of the house the all state stuff the state's not

**Speaker 53:** going to i mean they're going to come out of stamford every week and say oh yes yeah i don't

**Speaker 9:** a lot of the sentiments sometimes i think kicks around is this that we just don't want anything to improve we don't want any you know stuff to be around that's some of the sentiment i get every time something pops up whether it's a bake shop choppy shop ice cream shop there's always this

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** sentiment that's just like no it's just like our signs i mean they brought it up to our attention that's a violation of our bylaws oh no we didn't have the permit right right we didn't have the

**Speaker 52:** permit so we took that down and a lot of us we should have just left us left to sign up with

**Speaker 9:** the statement i'll take it down if you want to take it down there's the sign here it is

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** come and get it hang the two plaques there are three plaques on there

**Speaker 9:** and it's about two years on the sign or more but is it that we should have never been able to take it down again we gotta stop trying to put up so many robots if somebody wants to run a pizza joint or sell ice cream or have a coffee shop or something like that if it's if it's if it's something that's suitable for the town why do we always try to stop

**Speaker 34:** it i mean everyone in the room likes ice cream yeah yeah if it's but if it's against our bylaws

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** then we've got to right

**Speaker 10:** right yeah there isn't right we should but it's not we have to start looking at the changing the bylaws and making ordinances and stuff not to to take it out of somebody's hand it's to help people right so that's what we need to do is we need to help each other even if it's making a little bit of money and stuff but you know well it's something for the common good right it's a blog if aaron and them guys are down there selling ice cream to say five or six other ice cream trucks come into town and just park on the side of the road

**Speaker 51:** it's perfectly legal or they can park they can park there yeah it's perfectly legal for them to

**Speaker 10:** do it right now under our burden now in life ordinances they have nothing but if they want to do it then they're going to have to pay a 150 seasonal fee from so on and so on over a hundred

**Speaker 28:** out we don't have any of them

of

**Speaker 10:** a constable i'm not talking about a police officer i'm talking about a real live vermont And years ago, that was a police officer. But now they have an administrative one that serves paperwork.

**Speaker 3:** In our county, Arizona.

**Speaker 10:** Right. And so a constable is nothing more than a service. Like down in Massachusetts, they have a service warrant. Not service warrants, but notices, court appearances,

**Speaker 5:** court, all that stuff. I even wonder, technically, I mean, I wouldn't want to do it. But aren't we authorized to issue, like, well, for example, Luke can write up a ticket to somebody. Technically, we could write speeding tickets. Because speeding tickets are not a. We have that warrant for it, though.

**Speaker 73:** If it's on our road, not on the main road.

**Speaker 5:** Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm just throwing that out there. I'm not suggesting we do that. I don't want to be the one to go out and start making car stuff.

No. I get it. No.

**Speaker 47:** I'm just saying that.

**Speaker 10:** The board can appoint. I think it's an appointment. It doesn't have to be elected. But I think it's an appointment. You can't appoint a court-elect. But a town council. To serve people. To serve people. I think that would be wonderful. And that's, you know, they do ordinances. They do. Once the years, as time progresses here, we're going to need to implement more ordinances, too. The hard thing is to enforce them.

Exactly.

**Speaker 10:** So you have ordinances now that you can't enforce.

Right.

**Speaker 10:** I know all of you guys are authorized to do it. I know I was authorized at the right site basis for land and stuff. But.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we addressed what Dave's concerned. So move on. Work on that.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for that. Sorry that .

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything else under new business? So I made the motion to go into executive session, regarding pending. Or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or may not be a party.

Sorry.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did he say party? Party. Party? With the food truck. Yeah. Fine. So we .