---
title: "Stamford Select Board — October 2, 2025 (Part 1 of 2)"
date: 2025-10-02
session: regular
part: 1 of 2
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 1 named from roster attendance, 10 of 12 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":38,"SPEAKER_01":1,"SPEAKER_02":4,"SPEAKER_03":9,"SPEAKER_04":2,"SPEAKER_05":13,"SPEAKER_06":22,"SPEAKER_07":91,"SPEAKER_08":6,"SPEAKER_09":7,"SPEAKER_10":3,"SPEAKER_11":5}
duration_min: 122
audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S4h7fdPBHoiGfLan3Xjzs8ovPS6UD2Py/view?usp=sharing
audio_source: town drive
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%2010-2-25.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Douglas Wright, Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari, John Dunn]
absent: []
transcribed: 2026-09-04 (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 — October 2, 2025 (Part 1 of 2)

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 122 min · [Audio](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S4h7fdPBHoiGfLan3Xjzs8ovPS6UD2Py/view?usp=sharing) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%2010-2-25.pdf)

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

---
**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Welcome to the meeting of the Stamford Select Board. If you have a matter to discuss that is not included on the agenda, you may do so by addressing the chairperson and stating your name and address. You will notice that all our meetings are recorded, and this is to aid with the summarization of the minutes. Visitors are welcome, and we allow five minutes of comments per visitor and 15 minutes per topic. Discussions will be held in a common, civilized manner and respectful of others. Select board members present are. Michael G. Denault. Nancy Bushika.

**Speaker 1:** Douglas Wright. John Dunn. Kurt Gamari.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will there be any adding of items or removing items from tonight's agenda?

**Speaker 2:** Correspondence and .

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I've got docs and about the emergency meeting at the firehouse, just to see if anybody's going to that. Okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Can we change here to visitors to the end, right after new business, so they can all stay?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Vocali's going on first anyway.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh, definitely, yeah, it's important.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will there be any adjustments to the agenda? Yes, such as changing the order of the items. And this meeting is being recorded for Jeb's YouTube video, and the camera's up in back. Okay. Hearing of visitors, Callie Fishburn from Bennington County Regional Commission is here to bring us up to date on the planning commission grant. Okay, Callie? You want me to stand here? Wherever you want. Okay. Wherever you're comfortable there. Okay.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, you don't .

Maybe I'll . So I can see people, and hopefully the camera can see me, too, or this thing. Yeah, that's okay. Put it back in.

**Speaker 3:** We're safe. No, we don't. It's okay. Yeah. So, hello, my name is Callie Fishburn, like Nancy said, I work at the Bennington County Regional Commission, and I am coming here tonight to talk to you about the municipal planning grant program. I had previously met with the planning commission last month. Okay. And we had a pretty in-depth, pretty thorough discussion about this municipal planning grant for Stamford. Basically, this is a state grant program that is operated by the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. It's a regular annual grant program that towns can apply to to do a variety of planning projects, from town plan updates to land use and zoning regulation updates, other, like, special planning projects, and things like that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the plan itself, shell planning studies that might be of interest to a town, and I have been talking to the Planning Commission about Stamford applying for a grant to update Stamford's municipal plan, which expires in June of 2027, which feels like a long stay away, but it's really not when you think about the time that goes into updating a town plan, and generally, also, you want to allow for ample time to hear from residents get their input on the plan as as you're developing it and so i had again talked with the planning commission about helping them prepare a grant application to this municipal planning grant program to help uh fund an update of the town plan this program the max funding request i believe is thirty thousand dollars and there is a ten percent uh local match requirement with 30 per town uh yeah 30 per town is a maximum you could apply for um and then ten percent planning commission meeting last month we had talked about uh a draft uh work planning budget that i had put together uh i have copies of that with me tonight and i'm happy to hand you each a copy if you would like um i think what i had uh modified it slightly from what i shared with the planning commission and trained a couple of the tasks and uh i had a total project budget of uh twenty eight thousand dollars which would if the town were to pursue this application and were to be awarded the local match would be twenty eight hundred so i'm happy to pause there i can hand i can do like copies okay and you will be working

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** with the planning commission to update the specifics in the town plan yes uh you said this was a regular annual is this something that they

**Speaker 3:** could apply for yearly yes so um typically the grant is open in the application period in the fall and so it will open again in the fall of next year as well um you know given that the plan expires in june of 2027 um you would probably you would want to start the plan update before the next great application cycle so for this application applications are due in early november award notices will go out there's same december but you know with holidays sometimes that could get pushed back into the new year and then project work would probably start in earnest uh if you were awarded sometime in like january february last question where's the money come from um it's a allocation from the legislature i believe every year yeah every year um the legislature i believe makes an allocation to this um municipal planning and grants fund uh which is basically what funds this municipal planning grant program and the money

**Speaker 4:** goes to buddington regional or it goes to the towns that receive it so uh yeah this bill comes from where when you say when you said it you got 20 000 where did it go yeah so uh so that's a i

**Speaker 3:** skipped over that um so for a rural town which is a town of less than 2500 residents which stamford is one of those uh you can directly work with your regional planning commission which is us we can prepare the application on your behalf and then if you are awarded you can just work with us on the table plan update without having to put out an rfp and go through a competitive process you could still go that route if you wanted to but for example a larger town that is more than 2500 people can't have their regional planning commission do the application on their behalf and if they are awarded a grant they have to go out and apply to the commission for those applications for example out to to bid for a consultant um to work on whatever project that historically when we go

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** out to bed we don't get good response yeah so it's good that we already know we can have someone yeah so this this quote came from you you and the bennington yeah yeah that if we went and got it it could be higher you know it could be lower could be higher yeah but we don't i don't know

**Speaker 5:** why maybe because we have a tough time yeah so if you as a rural town with this specific

**Speaker 3:** application you don't need to again i've started working on the application and i'll also just say like my work on the application on the town's behalf does it is like i'm not charging for that that's as part of our regular plans you know stamford pays uh leave due to the regional plan and we're not charging for that we're not charging for that we're not charging for that planning commission and so like things like helping with grant assistance and other like small projects are included in that so whether or not you get the if you get the grant or not like my work on preparing this application there's no additional expense to the town beyond

**Speaker 6:** like the art the um at the point you discussed this i've been shocked out we've gotten to the

**Speaker 7:** final pretty much the final yeah this is what it is yeah she's been working with me so and then through the planning commission we went through with callie the the things to cut out at our meeting and keep in mind this happened eight years ago as well with jim sullivan sat in the meeting for almost two years so

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** because i know jim sat for two years with the bylaws also so i was i was reading in the

**Speaker 7:** legislature where where this money comes from and that is still listed in there for bylaws grants

**Speaker 3:** you can certainly use this planning grant for bylaws um i had talked to the planning commission that just bylaws don't expire they don't have an expiration date plans do uh and generally if you're if you're planning for if you want to do some comprehensive updates to your bylaws it's good to have uh clear up-to-date policies in your town plan because your bylaws should step from and enforce the policies that towards in your town plan so you want to make sure that the policy language and you know all of the surrounding narrative and data is up to date in your town plan to then set you up with a strong foundation from my loss so

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** um i was wondering when when would this start data collection when will we know if we're getting this grant and when do you start the data collection in any country so what time Приinn Lipratie, oberhildi and siam, March적 at Shire ass Nejoi West Los Angeles Stony performed from 1 and 12 he brains about a set cattle farm right from 복 thats why she wrote copies of her story the stonem Mount Rainston was nothing special and she's not

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, there's no dates because, again, first of all, it's not a guarantee that you'll get the grant. Right. Grant applications are due Monday, November 3rd. Okay. I'm just trying to not procrastinate on things. And also there are processes and multiple approvals that are needed, so we start the process early. And then, again, award decisions are expected in December. They didn't really give a specific timeline. And, again, just because, like, people travel for holidays and stuff like that, it could end up, again, not being awards not being announced until, you know, early in the new year. And then, of course, if you are awarded a grant, there's, like, the administrative, you have to, you know, sign and execute the grant agreement. You know, so actual work probably wouldn't start until, I'm going to say, like, February.

**Speaker 8:** Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And how long do you think this will take if we start in February?

**Speaker 3:** So the full planning grant period is a two-week period. I would expect that this would take less than that and that we would have the idea would be to have a plan adopted before it expires in June. It's a long process, again, because you want to take the time to also do input. Like, that's noted on the work plan there.

**Speaker 5:** Just like Jim's saying, it took two years the last time.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We're talking start of February. Are we going to revamp this thing 100%? We've got a killer planning commission. All right. So I understand that. Reappointments are up. Maybe not. A lot of it.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. It seems like we already got something in place and we just could not. Yeah. I mean, if you were really backed up against the wall, you could just. The reason why I'm asking.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If we expired or lapses, we didn't get it done.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Penalty. You just couldn't make any changes to your zoning regulations if you wanted to during that lapse period of your plan. Your zoning isn't, like, canceled out. You just couldn't go and make any updates until you had a current plan in place. And then, like, certain grants, like this municipal planning grant, you wouldn't, you know, be eligible for. But there's no, like, there's no financial penalty for your plan lapsing. Or, like, legal penalties. Just.

**Speaker 7:** We overlapped last time.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Did we? Okay. Yeah. I just don't know the process of it was if we had to wait a full year. Say we don't do it by that date. Do we wait a full year to go back to that date? Okay.

**Speaker 9:** To make changes?

**Speaker 6:** No. Last time we had different. I mean, we added to it last time because we had to add, like, an energy chapter. And it was a longer process because we had to, you know, write a whole new chapter.

Yeah. And the energy chapter is girthy. It requires a lot. And we didn't have one.

**Speaker 10:** That's the reason why they didn't come back and say, hey.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Now you have one. And so, I guess it would, you know, it would also depend on, like, are there some structural, like, formatting changes that, you know, the planning commission wants to be made just in terms of, you know, is there a way to make the document more readable? Or is there even concern or feeling that it needs to be more, like, easier to read? You know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, like, you know, a year and half or a little less than a year and a half is a reasonable timeframe especially, you know, for, you know, a smaller community.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So... When you do make these changes, currently we have a town plan. Right. And you're going to update it, change several spots. Mm-hmm. Is there a way that you could do that and strike out what's going and add in a color or all of that kind of stuff? highlight or underline what's coming in, because I know with the zoning bylaws, it was very hard to follow what was stricken and what was put in. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** That's usually what I do, like, is when I'm changing something, um, is, yeah, striking it out and adding it, you know, usually in red text, what the new content is, um, that, that's typically how I work, um, and that's usually what we do, unless we are, like, completely building a new plan from scratch for a town, which we just did with, like, the town of Bennington, we, like, basically from the ground up built them a new plan, but I don't necessarily think that's what we'd be doing here, unless there's, like, real ambitious appetite from the planning commission. Again, this is, this effort would be led by the planning commission if the grant were awarded and if you, you know, decided to work with us, like, BCRC, probably myself and a few other coworkers would be the ones actually doing the work, but we would be accountable to the planning commission, um, in checking in with them and, you know, to make sure that we're, we would, we're essentially just hiring. Um, the formal steps of the planning commission, uh, resolution form that goes along with this grant and the planning commission chair first has to sign it, which Peter, uh, did sign, and then, um, the select board, uh, also has to, uh, if, if the select board is in agreement to move forward with applying for the, for the grant, um, there is a resolution. There is a resolution that needs to be, um, adopted and signed by a majority of select

**Speaker 11:** board members.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Does that have to be warned at, in our agenda or can we do it tonight? Because it was not warned on our agenda.

**Speaker 3:** I, I believe you can do it tonight, yeah. Okay. Um, if not, send it back.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, I, I think we can. I didn't. Do you have any ambitious appetite? You? No.

**Speaker 12:** We have. We, um.

**Speaker 7:** According to this. According to this. According to that. We had to vote on it. We passed it. Yes. Pete signed it. You guys have to vote on it. And we'll go from there. But as far as ambitious? No, we're going to. I mean, is your. We want to update photographs, you know, because a lot of that stuff has been in there for 50 years or more. So, we want to get a picture of our new signs and stuff and. The infrastructure will. Don't get me going. I haven't seen them out there. Oh, that's right. Oh, I forgot. The infrastructure will always curtail some of the ambition. I mean, we only have so much we've been working on. Well, no.

**Speaker 13:** And that's not.

**Speaker 6:** You know, I'm not saying that I would not vote for it by any means. I'm just saying is there a lot of problems with the plan or is it certain items like you said? And we want.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sorry. I think the. The thing that I keep hearing is it's almost as if that VCRC is going to write the plan without our input and without the town's input. And I think the important thing is they literally are just helping the town. I mean, we're going to. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to.

**Speaker 12:** We're going to.

**Speaker 14:** We're going to.

**Speaker 15:** We're going to.

We're going to.

**Speaker 15:** We're going to. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to. So I think what I'm saying is that if the town is going to, if the town is going to create a plan and there's no way it can go forward unless the town says that's a great

**Speaker 3:** plan. So I think keeping that in mind and if the town doesn't have an ambitious appetite, then that's what I'm understanding. I hear it. I think that's a great point, because a lot of the tasks on that work plan. You'll see are like about hearing from people like putting out a survey, having public meetings, maybe even like we've had some really good success in some other small communities of having like a walking tour. Getting people involved. together and walking around is just like having people identify the like important areas that are important to the identity of the town and you know doing doing things like that and so yeah I think it does depend to some degree on like the types of comments we're hearing from folks who live here in Stamford about like if they tried to use the plan before and found it to be difficult to go through you know so I think what Stephanie said is like right on for I'm understanding it too like we do have a you know time limit but it will also depend on like how much feedback we receive from people about what you know how the plans should look and what should be in it, keeping in mind you know there's some state requirements, latitude.

**Speaker 12:** Also we were discussing in our meeting on Monday that it's important that the town plans situation because we want to work on the bylaws, and we want to really work from the town plan to create the changes in the bylaws.

**Speaker 16:** It's important to get the legal stuff out.

**Speaker 6:** That's what the state made us do.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's about the employee handbook. You just, other boards filled in this sentence here, but they didn't read the front page. A lot of the conflict is just things over time that you didn't anticipate that would change, right?

**Speaker 6:** Not everyone has four 40-foot trailers parked in their yard.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So it's good that they're taking the whole plan and looking at the whole thing all at once because it hasn't been done in a while.

**Speaker 3:** So assuming that the select board would want to pass this resolution, I just wanted to note, like, when you actually see it, the first part of the resolution asks for the town to identify a municipal authorizing official, which is basically the person who, if Stamford has awarded a grant there, the ones who can execute the grant agreement on behalf of the town and I think can also like make the official request for fun for the grant funds from from the state so that has to be somebody with an official role with town so it has to be either well in your case it has to be a select board member because the other option is town manager which we don't have so it asks the resolution asks for the against municipal authorizing official to be identified an alternate so someone else in the select board in case something you know happens with the primary person and then to designate a grant administrator which in this case would be me it's the person who's actually

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** working on and then there's no problem that it's not on the agenda to sign the resolution I know there's certain steps

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** money in let's be done with it let's get it done

**Speaker 3:** that begins where do I sign and so first you're going to use first it's like your your name and title here and then the alternates name and title that I can

**Speaker 1:** fill myself and on the back it needs to be motion make Kurt second I gave you

**Speaker 4:** time you didn't say yeah yeah you can fill out because in the back you'll all

**Speaker 5:** sign

**Speaker 3:** this is you yep I'm quick with motion

**Speaker 1:** that's experience right there so if we are the money we apply again next year

**Speaker 3:** mm-hmm that's if we're given the money yeah I've found we can apply it every year even if we get this year yeah you can apply for either like another phase

**Speaker 1:** why not try it every year right yeah what happens to the money if you don't use it all in the ground I think it's a plan you got to give it back you gotta give it back yeah

you're not print around please reprint and read this yeah at least they're all like estimated hours I think that you're

**Speaker 3:** there I don't know yeah and then you'll the other thing I don't know too much about this form I think it's basically just something it's a legal thing that says you're in good standing with agency of natural resources that you're not in any kind of lawsuit or judicial thing with A&R I can leave this laughing that's all right bye bye

**Speaker 17:** No, they don't mean individuals.

**Speaker 3:** You know, as far as we know. Yeah. I mean, nothing with A&R. Yeah. I mean, if you're, you know. Yeah, this doesn't require a motion to do. It's just like if you know, you know. And I think if you're this top one, I certify that we are currently in good standing.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I imagine if you were, you would probably know.

I would imagine it would be like a, an issue that would be known if you were, if you were not.

**Speaker 2:** Copies of these when I, like, yeah, tomorrow I'll scan them and I'll get them to you soon. Thanks.

Sorry, I think I took more than 15 minutes. You're fine. That's never happened before. Thank you, Kelly, for coming down and explaining this to us. Thanks, Kelly. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All right. Moving on. Any other hearing or visitors? I want to just ask one question. I'm sorry.

**Speaker 7:** You do that first. I'm sorry. Yes. We got you in here. My name's Jeffney Huck.

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

**Speaker 18:** I'm referring to a problem I have on my house on 61 Volta Road. The water runoff from the Sher Road is going in my basement and has done considerable damage to my foundation. And I'm just asking if you could tell me what the problem is. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

**Speaker 19:** There could be sinaو

**Speaker 18:** Right here, is our son,ню of the water poles minds. Listen up. Day before the last storm, I believe, and that, I had a lot of water in the basement from that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can you check it out and see what's going on there? Is there colors there?

**Speaker 20:** Like Mr. Enoch said, it's not something new. You know, I've looked at it. It's a concern. The house itself probably sits in the right of way, if not, or it sheets off the roads. This is the bottom? Yeah, there's nothing ditched into his property, you know, short of him putting in some kind of foundation drain. I believe he's going to have water regardless. There's a well within 20 feet of his foundation, which would just be dry all the time if there wasn't groundwater. There is a natural spring in the middle of Leisure Road right on the corner. You can see it, you know, at times pop up there, and then there's a ledge all through there. I mean, he could put in a foundation drain of some sort. We could put a ditch along the side of the road there, but that would reduce it. We could require him to put a driveway culvert in after, and that probably still isn't going to solve the groundwater issue that is, you know, probably, I don't know what the condition of the foundation was, but it's a pretty old house that's probably been deteriorating, you know, for decades, I'd say.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is there, coming off Leisure Road and heading towards Clarksburg, is there a culvert or drainage ditch on the right-hand side?

**Speaker 20:** On the house side?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, the other side.

**Speaker 20:** The other side of the road, there is a ditch, yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So where's the water coming, just?

**Speaker 20:** I mean, it sheets off, you've got two roads there. I mean, there's two roads, it's an intersection. The road's going down. You know, it's really close to the road. The water just naturally sheeting action. If you get a large rainstorm, just that large surface area, if it was all grass instead of the road, it would still have water. I mean, it's at the bottom of the hill, it just naturally kind of sheets off. Right. So you're saying how are your driveways?

**Speaker 18:** I honestly disagree with what he's saying. So I'd like for somebody to go up and actually look at it. When the two, at the Y, when you have Leisure Road and then you've got Boulder Road, the water could be diverted coming down Leisure Road to stay up on the bank and come down into the ditch at the bottom. But the ditch at the bottom is, like, leveled off and the water runs across it.

**Speaker 1:** What's your address, Chuck? What's your address where your house is?

**Speaker 18:** That house?

**Speaker 1:** Don't want to do the issue.

**Speaker 18:** 61 Boulder Road. It's the first house, right?

**Speaker 21:** First house on the left.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, not your home. Not where you live. It's the corner one. Oh, okay. Oh, all right.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That's probably the first house ever built right there, isn't it?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, it's pretty old.

**Speaker 18:** Well, at one point they had so much water coming across the street, I had to dig approximately a 600-foot ditch. To drain it down to the river so the land was dry enough to use it for anything. Mm-hmm. It's not an issue of discussion right now, but I've done what I can on stuff. But this, I can't do anything. I can't dig anything on the side of the road because liability. Not my property.

**Speaker 20:** We could issue him a permit if he wanted to put something in there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So I'm trying to get to Dave mentioned a ditch, but you would have to have— that's why I was going to ask where the driveway is now. If you cut a ditch in there, but—. If you cut a ditch in there, it would go through the driveway, I assume. Yeah, it has to have a driveway. And then you would have to purchase a culvert. Is there a compromise to give that a shot, I'm asking?

**Speaker 18:** That's kind of a big problem. If you could down 15 inches, is it, for a culvert? It's got to be a 15-inch, yeah. You'd have to dig everything at 15 inches of culvert, I don't know what you think. The grade is even with the road.

**Speaker 20:** You'd have to dig it down to 3 feet.

**Speaker 22:** It'd have to be a 3-foot ditch.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Um—

**Speaker 1:** Is there any kind of check dams you could put in to slow the water from going there?

**Speaker 20:** It's not really—I mean, I think when you look at it, we're more than happy to go there. If we can come up with some simple solution, I'm happy to do it. Exactly. Any chance— In reality, it's—I mean, we also have to follow Colvin's standard. I can't— Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know if you see it, but it's really— Any chance Jim Sullivan could come—Henderson could come down and—

**Speaker 20:** Like I said, you can have whatever you want and come look at it. It's in compliance. I mean, it's— Other than we could put a ditch in, then you've got to put a driveway cover in it. So— Yeah. I mean, I'd be happy to dig a ditch through there. And where's the water go from the ditch? Then it's going to go through the ditch and then the other drainage ditch below his house where the rest of the water runs. Down on Jefferson? Down through his property. Yeah. Okay. I mean, years ago, that—all that property that I think that was filled in, right, Chuck, that probably didn't have issues when that whole yard was just lower.

**Speaker 23:** What's that now?

**Speaker 20:** The property was filled in years ago, right?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. It probably drained right off of it.

**Speaker 20:** Yeah. So it probably ran, you know, the groundwater ran away from the place and now it just sits in the ground, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** If anybody wants to go up with Dave, look at it, see what you think.

**Speaker 18:** I'd like to be there if somebody goes up when they go. Well, I mean, I'm good at walking. I'm pretty flexible.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Do you want to set a time?

**Speaker 20:** I mean, I'll go up any time. Do you want to walk?

**Speaker 24:** I mean, I don't know when I can go up tomorrow, but I could probably go up tomorrow.

**Speaker 6:** I could probably go up tomorrow.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You guys want to set a time to go up and look at it? Set a time, and you tell them. I'm going to go look at it, Chuck, and I know zero about roads where that—Dave knows a lot more about roads.

**Speaker 18:** We all know about water running downhill, though.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, we do, right? But we'll go—like, we have to be in compliance, as Dave's saying, so we'll go out and look at it, see if there's anything we can come up with. Yeah. Can you go from there? And again, I can go from 8 o'clock in the morning until 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, 61 Boulder Road, 8 o'clock, okay.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** That'll be done.

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

**Speaker 7:** I had something, but as soon as that time comes—

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, you know, understandable. And you said you've got a Cracker Jack planet board, and you can't even remember what you were going to say five minutes ago. What planet board? Oh, I didn't have one. I forgot what it was.

**Speaker 7:** No, I sit between these two over here, and they just elbow me, so— That's good, that's good. A loss of memory.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You know your place.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Reading and approval of records and orders, the all-board meeting minutes of September 11th.

**Speaker 1:** Motion approved.

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

**Speaker 1:** Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Same with last select board meeting of September 18th.

**Speaker 25:** Motion approved.

Second. All in favor?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We update.

**Speaker 20:** It's not bad, and I can cut the trees.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, yeah. What's—are you taking the logs, or are the abutters taking them?

**Speaker 20:** So the wood, one of the property owners has gotten his. If we wanted, there's some other residents up there that showed him.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** My trailer came back empty, so thanks a lot.

**Speaker 20:** Yeah. So we're still working on that.

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

**Speaker 1:** If there's a chance where you could take it, would you use it for the town garage?

**Speaker 20:** We—yeah, I mean, we can. We could. We've been buying it cut and split the last few years because the board at the time felt it was not something we should really be doing, but if you want that to be, we can.

**Speaker 1:** I think at one time they used to do it like that, right? They used to do it like that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, yeah, they used to do it, but the abutters usually get first choice.

**Speaker 20:** So the state law says that if the property owner wants the wood—unless I can prove that I'm using it to build a grove.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, yeah, Sportsman's looks pretty good. It comes out of the car.

**Speaker 1:** Okay. How did that water issue—did that ever get resolved? Where's that just at? Where Lisa lives, and there was another woman that had a problem here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, we're getting a grant for it, right?

**Speaker 22:** Well, yeah, we're going to apply for a grant for that.

**Speaker 1:** Any kind of temporary resolution? No? Pay bills or something?

**Speaker 20:** That happens in a fairly large, like, flooding event. You know, there's measures they could take.

**Speaker 1:** I would just hate to see her come in again this year with the same issue and so on.

**Speaker 20:** Some of that issue had to do with some of the drainage on Suzanne Drive. But they had them working on that, correct? Suzanne? No. Really? I thought they had some of the water— They had something clean. The water could be turned. The water, if you look at—I can— When they built that grove, they had it turned. Chunks over a pound. So you said that—it's unfortunate that the water's coming out of the road and over into that ditch. But there's measures they could take. Okay. They could take to prevent the issue they're having.

**Speaker 1:** And that's on Alpenwald?

**Speaker 26:** Yeah.

**Speaker 12:** No, it's on the homeowner, isn't it? I don't think Alpenwald covers culverts for driveways.

**Speaker 1:** Right. Let's do some of the ditching, though, huh?

**Speaker 12:** On the sides of the road. But that—what he's talking about, that house needs—really needs a driveway culvert. Yeah. That would be on the homeowner.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Maybe if we've got time tomorrow, we'll run up there and look at that.

I'd be more than happy to do that. Right now, somebody's a culvert. Yeah, I'll help. Yeah, you go ahead. Can you drive this over? Yeah, we're driving. I've got it cleaned right now. It's probably plugged up. In your spare time. You guys didn't really answer John's question about the fire. Oh, we— Oh, you answered it for me. You said if the homeowners wants it, they can get it. Yeah. Right. If you— It comes down to it, where you've got wood, I'd bring it back to the town garage. Why not? I mean, I look at it like this. You've got a third guy. If you have time, and you think that it's feasible to do it, go ahead. Okay. I mean, I don't see why we have to say yes or no. I mean, you've got the machine, you don't have to— Yeah. Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got the pump in the truck, and— Right.

**Speaker 27:** We all—

**Speaker 1:** You can split is the thing. We don't have a splitter or anything. Right, but that's a— Yeah.

**Speaker 20:** Yeah. Maybe we put on the—

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If you're hand-splitting, I don't know, you know, if that's feasible, you know? I mean, I wouldn't— Bring the knife or the day. I mean, I'd draw my hand, that's pretty— Yeah, I mean, that's— Yeah. I mean, you can— There's plenty of splitters. The thing is, you've got to look at it and say, just like you've been telling us before,

**Speaker 27:** we're going to bring this—

**Speaker 1:** We're going to have it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We're going to bring this. Yeah. Right. Okay. I can do this or this. I can't do both.

**Speaker 20:** It used to be when we had it years ago we had a different stove. When we weren't plowing snow in the wintertime we could burn pretty much green wood in there. We would go out and cut it and split it in the winter in between plowing and stuff and just bring it in the garage. With the new efficient stove you can't do that. You have to have dry wood. So it has to be all done ahead of time.

**Speaker 1:** Well you seem to have a good pile down here anyways now. Yeah there's logs I think behind the garage still. There is. So we had enough wood for this year.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well if you don't use it and you want to drop it off for a landfill or something you know where to drop it.

**Speaker 20:** They said I had no problem doing the firewood it was just the board decided that we shouldn't be doing it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah I don't think it matters. I don't think it should matter to the board at this point. If you think you've got time to do it and you want to do it I don't have a problem with it. If you don't I don't have a problem with that either. Use your best discretion. Yeah use your time wisely. You know just like I did. No disrespect at all but I'm going to go as a board member. I'm a machinist. I'm not a road guy. I'm going to go and ask you what do you think we're going to do? We can go out and look at anything. What are we going to do about this? You're going to say everything's in compliance. There's nothing we can do. If that's the case that's the case. Well that's what brought up the other one on the sportsman club road.

It's like how can we go fix this one for this guy when we haven't installed the other one yet.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. You only can do what we can do. I get it. But I'm not going to sit down and say. I'm not going to sit there and argue with someone who's done it all his life. And say well we've got to put a coffer in. He goes Mike it's not going to work. That doesn't make sense to argue about it.

**Speaker 28:** I mean you can't just throw a culvert in a cannon.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It doesn't seem to be.

Don't you have a guy that's got to come and do a hydraulic study?

**Speaker 20:** Up on sportsman? Oh like on the shirt if you're going to put a culvert in. No I don't need a hydraulic study done for that. I can do the field study there. For a smaller myself. Smaller.

**Speaker 6:** About 15 inch. Well that's why I asked him about changing. The conditions up there. Because it could be changing in a row. The water. It blows down.

**Speaker 20:** I would say that nothing really. Nothing major has changed. Like he said water falls. Right. Water has to go off the road. If there's no ditch to catch the water. Then it's going to just keep going in the direction it's going. I probably care but it's about. I mean it sounded like you had some variables working against it already. You said there was a shallow well. Yeah. Also foundation. Right. Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** Foundation. And it looks like it was filled in a lot too. Herd grass. Herd grass. Herd grass. Herd grass. Herd grass. Herd grass.

**Speaker 29:** Herd grass.

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

**Speaker 30:** So there's a lot of stuff.

**Speaker 20:** In the middle of the road. Yeah. In the middle of a road. Yeah. Oh. That's right. Yeah. The road is the most dangerous area. There are walls. Walls. Walls. There's forest. It's not. You know. I mean Mr. Neahawk is probably not still here. So I don't want to keep talking about it. Yeah. I don't feel the town is in violation there. I don't feel like we unjustly put any water on anybody's property. It's just it comes out of the sky and it has to go somewhere.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. Okay. What else on a highway update? Trucks ready for snow?

**Speaker 30:** No.

**Speaker 20:** Actually the 2019 freight line. What's up. The 2019 Freightliner is in Westminster. It had a bunch of issues at the moment. I'm waiting to see if they can source parts. There's some backward parts for the spindle on the front that they can't seem to get. I went there for a DEF light, which is, you know, it's wiring, it's computer stuff, stuff that is mechanical that we really can't fix, unfortunately. And while I was there, they noticed some other things, so we had to address that. And in the process, they found more digging into it, and now we're waiting on parts. So I'm not sure when I'm going to get that truck back.

**Speaker 1:** While we're on truck maintenance, how often... Would you say, like, the trucks get cleaned, you know, regularly maintained by you guys?

**Speaker 20:** So we do... So I would say the 5500 size truck gets oil changes due.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, no... Weekly schedule or something, you got to try to break that dirt cycle.

**Speaker 20:** Yeah. Unfortunately, when you work on dirt roads every day... Oh, I get it. It's going to be dirty every day, especially if it rains. I mean, I could wash that truck almost every day if it's raining.

**Speaker 1:** I don't know if your time is used widely elsewhere, but... Those are, like, a big expense to the town, and it would be nice to see them presented a little bit better. I drive by there, and I know my... I got to do it to my vehicle. I won't go great. I got to do it to my vehicle, and I'm like, oh, I got to give it a bath.

**Speaker 31:** I won't work on any of that stuff, and I'll wash the truck.

**Speaker 22:** Well, I know we got a third guy now. Maybe we could utilize him to do something like that.

**Speaker 20:** James was power washing the big truck today, so you can truck that for a pain. But, I mean, I...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, my daughter lives up there. We wash her car at the shop, and she goes there, and the next day, it doesn't even look like we touched it. Yeah.

**Speaker 32:** Well, I understand there's some dust up there, that's for sure.

**Speaker 20:** I park the truck in the yard that gets dirty. I mean, the truck's parked there all summer, and the dust going by gets dirty. I mean, I don't... We do it when we can. That's all I can tell you. Yeah. It's not my top priority, because... Here's your best description. Dust in there really isn't rotting. It really isn't rotting the truck. I mean, it's all... If you guys are really concerned about it, let's put a wash bay in the garage. Let's put it... Let's put some real heat in the garage with a wash bay.

**Speaker 1:** That would be my other concern, too, is washing stuff, because you're right in the flood corridor there. Yeah. I mean...

**Speaker 22:** But, at the same time...

**Speaker 20:** Put it in a tank that catches all the waste water, and have it pumped out, and let's start spending some real money.

**Speaker 1:** Because you were talking about buying a new truck at some point, and if we're going to spend money like that... You're going to anyway, even if you don't...

**Speaker 31:** See a new paint.

**Speaker 20:** Even if you wash it every day. And look sharp. That's not what's wrecking these trucks. They're not fire trucks. They don't sit in the garage 99% of their life.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I think down the road, John, I think we're going to have to really seriously think about a new facility. You know, that spot where it is, I think down the road, the states could tell us we got to move that. You know, we can buy a piece of land next door. You could already go up there. Yeah. Huh? No. No. And there is a problem if we do go to... Say the state comes in and says, okay, this is what... You know, you will spend a lot of money. We should start looking... And I've said this years ago. There's been properties that came up. Properties weren't by us. And we keep doing that. And we talk about $100,000. Oh, that's too much. $200,000. Oh, that's too much. And these trucks... You're right, John. They're expensive. These trucks are expensive. These trucks are expensive. That freight liner bothers me to no end that you can't... You're having a problem getting parts. And I remember signing the damn paper on that, 2019. I mean, that's just ridiculous. But that's the life we live. But you're going to find... And I'm telling this sweatboard right now. If I'm not here, I hope it keeps going. Someone does it. If a piece of property comes up, we need to start looking at getting a piece of property. We really need it. And I don't know what's going to happen here. I know that's beautiful land out there. But this would be a perfect spot for a town garage. I know we got a school here. But that town garage, if we ever decide to grow, Dave, in any direction, there's no room up there.

**Speaker 20:** Yeah, I think, unfortunately, I see the whole picture. And sometimes people just see a small portion of it. I think if you really want to save money in some way, shape, or form, when it comes to equipment, pave the damn roads. These trucks get beat to death on these dirt roads all summer long. Two meetings ago, I said, let's do it. I got a guy coming this month. Yeah, let's do it. Let's start looking at it. But if you really want to get serious about not wasting money, you're going to have to spend some serious money. And, you know, washing some dust off the truck ain't going to save you anything.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Just like the fire department. It got done. It can be done. You say, all right, $600,000 you got to quote to pave two miles. Right. That's like, to me, that's a steal. Yeah. What do you think it's going to be five years from now? Do you think it's going to be more or less? Way more. And then you're probably not going to have to get gravel. Right. Oh, that's coming. I know. It's coming. But I'd love to see us put away money. And during budget time, I'm going to bring this up. Just set up something just like we did the fire department. Put away money, whether you do it today or next year. Put some money away. It has to get done.

**Speaker 1:** It also brings up the question of development in town. You guys got to encourage more development. I agree. Bring in people to pay taxes. Well, smart development. It'll help the budget out.

**Speaker 6:** You don't want just straight up development. It'll change the whole character of the town. I understand. But it wouldn't be bad to have a nice little town that you can walk up to. You got to bring people in.

**Speaker 33:** You can walk up and down and have someone to walk with you.

**Speaker 7:** Sure. There's some food to thought. Bring the garage down here. The town needs to start thinking about because doing the plan, all of that, part of doing the plan, we have to designate a certain area for the village. Right? That's part of the plan. Also, just keep in mind that there is grants out there, municipal grants for the village. It may not be. You may not be able to get the grant. Or have to get a grant or someplace like that.

**Speaker 13:** So, I don't know.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm just saying. I'm just saying for that discussion. But the village is set now. Doubt why you're shaking your head no. It is set now.

**Speaker 16:** We can regulate the lines right now.

**Speaker 7:** Isn't that what Callie said?

**Speaker 12:** Right now, what we're doing is we got a recommendation from ECRC where they want to change the lines for the village center. We are talking about this at our next planning commission meeting where we're going to recommend them. And ultimately, they'll go with what we say.

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

**Speaker 34:** So, that's where my question was confused.

**Speaker 12:** Yes. So, we're talking about putting the town garage, including that, into the .

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Okay. So, we can.

That's what my question actually is.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We can expand this. Say the village is here to here.

**Speaker 35:** We can make it different if we want to. We're doing that this month, though.

**Speaker 6:** The problem with the location of the town garage is we've got to be careful how much

**Speaker 36:** money we're investing into that structure.

**Speaker 37:** Oh, I understand that.

**Speaker 6:** There's very rarely deposits there. And I'm very surprised the river hasn't already taken the whole building away. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. To be quite honest with you. So, it's only a matter of time. There's no water in the building. And the river now would occur. It's coming. I know. I know.

Stan? I think the other thing to keep in mind, we talked about this in the planning commission meeting is instead of like sort of willy nilly trying to meet symptoms of why we would change designation of the village center, it's like to understand what is the vision of the town.

**Speaker 6:** What is the vision of growth?

What is the vision of the city? And what are the things that we should be thinking about? I mean, you're right. I mean, you're right. I mean, you're right.

**Speaker 15:** I mean, you're right. I mean, you're right. I mean, you're right. I mean, you're right. And so, when you say we should be thinking of why we would change designation of the village center, it's like to understand what is the vision of the town. What is the vision of growth? What is the vision of slow or fast development? Whatever. Like, again, understand what people, the people who live here really want. And then, you begin to create your village center ideas. And the rest expand in categories around that. Because that's when you can start to go after grants and different funding to help that come alive. And so, I think that's what we have. I mean, we have. So. be a reality but without if you go after its symptom it's symptomatically instead of going to like the root desire the root mission it will just not ever

**Speaker 38:** really work exactly if you start doing something right now you will find out

**Speaker 35:** what people don't want it right away so the village center lines are important

**Speaker 6:** for the fact that what the state is really after is the quarter-mile circumference that that encircles the village center district that's really what they're kicking around to because that's where they want to develop so based on how far you want potential development to extend out in this town it's important for those lines start and stop for example there's a 300 acre golf course down there I don't know what the families our intentions are in the future with that parcel but that's 300 acres of land that can be parceled out at two acre lots with a lot of accessibility so be very careful what you're trying to encourage and what you're trying to do development is not the answer it depends on what kind of development you get you know just straight out development doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get more tax revenue you could have more kids in high school there's a lot of things around that so we've talked about

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that can we go back to the highway and because we're on planning now can we go back to highway so recycling can we get that dumpster back that the dumpster up there says New

**Speaker 30:** Ashford only and that's the small give me the number give me the number tried and

**Speaker 20:** tried and tried whatever dumpsters in the yard when they get there that's what you get yep I've called and complained all the way up the ladder doesn't matter yep but good luck I'll give you that give me a number I go twice a week to the junkyard and I don't get the same thing back I talked to Denalino's about a price on the dumpsters and it's going to be a bunch more money that they can sell so it's not even worth it not even a thought of that right number from Dave

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay and I noticed on the school door we still have the recycling attendant job posted for a substitute can we pull that and then we can get that back difference for every until yesterday okay is it that hard no it's undue

**Speaker 39:** 30

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we can't leave here 15 years now. Whether or not I'm going to hire someone tomorrow, he gives me an opportunity. Say a guy comes in tomorrow and says, we want this guy. So we can say we're not hiring and then he'll

**Speaker 39:** say, well, why is the notice still up? Well, we don't have to say we're not hiring. We can just say, okay,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we'll put your application in and we chose not to hire that person. We don't have to give a reason why we don't hire. We can say we're not hiring at this time, the application's up. We're deciding whether or not we want to do it. We're just looking for applications. I'm just saying, there's places that keep help on the signs forever. Because the right person comes along, it's nice to know. Just like Dave said, although we have a third man, this third man is... That's right. This third man has qualifications. And I actually think that we have to have a rule about cell phones. I did. Exactly what Dave said. We don't need to... We don't want a skilled man doing that work if we have... Not saying he wouldn't, but just like me taking my best machinist and having him run a saw. I'd rather have the saw guy run a saw and hire another guy. Well, just because we have it up

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and you feel we don't have to hire someone if they come in and say, I want to work there. I don't think so, at least. You feel the same?

**Speaker 1:** We could take him for all the positions that we hired for, not just for... Sure. We could take them all, in case something happened. You apply for this job, back in whenever...

**Speaker 27:** We have a history of having a problem finding people. We have a history of that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Put it on the website. Yeah. I mean, that's a great idea to put it up.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It is on there.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. We're always looking for people.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Okay. Anything else on recycling? New cards ready?

**Speaker 40:** I've already sold a good...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything on discussion? Correspondence? Errors and omissions certificate? You want to give us background on that?

**Speaker 2:** One, we purchased the lot behind him. It changed and he had two separate grant list entries and two separate tax bills. And he had called and asked that the town combine them into one. They're under the same name. They're contiguous. So, when you do that, by itself, it resulted in a small reduction. Once they lodge the grant list with me, and especially after tax bills are sent out, any change to the grant list needs to be approved by you. So, our assessor has made the change and signed the errors and omissions certificate, and would like you guys to sign it. We'll sign it as well.

Make it anyway and...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Motion. Motion to sign it. Second.

**Speaker 25:** All in favor? Aye. Aye.

**Speaker 1:** Nobody's going to challenge it, whether it was a motion or... Right. Yes, sir. You can't read it. You're a doctor.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You should see former slot board member that we had here. She would have signed her name here as knowing how he would know what it said. And she said it took her years of practice to get it just like that.

Remember that? Yep.

**Speaker 2:** Mark. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. We realize the error that we had in the employee policy handbook. I sent you all just that one change, that one paragraph. So, if it seemed okay to you, then this is revised. That was for the requirement, I think. Yeah. I'd like to keep this down the road for two more weeks. You should just sign. Thanks. Done yet? We're going to cross phone. That's a call. Then I'll have to go find it.

**Speaker 41:** Oh, you hear that?

**Speaker 1:** No. I didn't hear that.

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

**Speaker 1:** No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. I had a phone call.

**Speaker 2:** You have a phone call, huh? You're right here.

Yeah. Right here. I didn't know. Tommy can check it in, though. Yep. Tommy, behind your house. This is where I come to, call Tommy up.

**Speaker 7:** Hey, can you come help me find this beer?

These days are FOREVER today. A MUNDI 실 sü sustrnitzendeł alright? Yeah.

**Speaker 25:** On Monday nothtkjours we had four in the yard.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, cheers. I drive up there all times. There's deer up by your place, there's deer up by his place, there's always deer up there. Go over to Turnaround, Senecals.

**Speaker 42:** Except Dirt and Deer Season.

**Speaker 43:** Dirt and Deer Season, yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Speaker 25:** Well, since they were building next door, I thought I would push them away.

**Speaker 1:** You got some nice old stuff. Caught in the grass here one day, they were up there.

**Speaker 25:** Yeah, they're starting to come down, they're starting to have mast on the edge of the road. Yeah, I used to hunt.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What else do we have, Lori?

Just that we wanted to discuss Halloween. Oh yeah, Halloween. Yep.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All right. On Halloween. 9-1-1 numbering update. Any correspondence on that? Emergency management?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** What are we waiting for on that?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We're waiting for a list because they said there's a lot of buildings that don't have 9-1-1 numbers. Exactly. I have one.

**Speaker 44:** So they were going around to find out.

**Speaker 42:** You asked Bob to identify them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we asked the emergency management if they would go around and give us numbers because you said you and Joan are done.

**Speaker 25:** We're not going to do it again.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep. You're done. You've done it before. Yep. A couple of times. I don't know how your group is, your emergency management group is doing any of that, getting numbers.

**Speaker 6:** We're waiting for everyone to comply. If they don't, I guess they'll get it.

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

**Speaker 45:** There's a lot of buildings that don't have the 9-1-1 numbers on them.

**Speaker 44:** We can't send them a letter if we don't know.

**Speaker 6:** That's the button right there. There you go.

**Speaker 25:** Whatever. We're going to send you a fine and we're not going to come get you.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, exactly.

**Speaker 46:** We don't know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Anything on town sign update for the sign, update on the sign out front? I noticed the flowers and grasses were cut down.

**Speaker 7:** So Pam, I've been trying to reach Pam back and forth. As you requested and left her a message so that we can meet as far as the flowers go and stuff. But she texted me back a couple of days ago and said, I just went up and got all the flowers and stuff out of there. I think you should just let it go back to grass. Oh, okay. So I went up and I was kicking around with the holes where she took the plants out, flattened it out a little bit. And I was thinking, oh, it's probably not a bad idea. You know, maybe put a couple of pots or something on each side of the sign. So I suppose they'll come up tomorrow and dig. I think it's tomorrow. You're going to dig the holes. Okay. Let them set up and then put the finishing touches.

**Speaker 1:** There's two concrete blocks, I think, in the ground now from the old sign. Yeah, we're going to break them up. Yeah, we're going to get them out of there. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I did email Pam back because she did talk about the flowers. Yeah. And she said it's probably not a good time to put anything in. And I said that if in the spring we decide to put something, we'll think about it then.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, I have to agree with her as far as that goes. I think kind of like just spreading the dirt. There's plenty of soil there to do that and just kind of spread it out and then you guys

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** figure out who's going to plant them and who's going to take care of them.

**Speaker 7:** We can plant on either end. We don't want anything underneath the sign to, you know, to do anything. But I think that's . . . Yeah. Potato is always good. I got good potato field. Okay.

**Speaker 47:** Any other old business?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, I do have one. The Bob Riggs is planning to participate in the Vermont Emergency Management Exercise on October 22nd at the Town Garage. And I guess he was making Dave . . . getting in touch with you, Dave, about some kind of input. And I can't be there on the 22nd, so if any other select board members could be there on the 22nd at . . . don't know what time. Saturday, I assume.

**Speaker 43:** The 22nd.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The EOC at the firehouse. I will make contact with Dave Tatro to get his, not just Stamford, it's Vermont Emergency Management Exercise. Do you know about it? What time or anything? I don't know what time. We'll find out. Yes, we'll be meeting before the 22nd. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be meeting before the 22nd. Let the board know and see if we can make it. It's like a tabletop exercise from what I understand that, say, there's an oil tanker that turned over up there and it blocked the road and then something happened down at

**Speaker 18:** this end and . . . what are you going to do?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Call the state. Well, they're already taking care of that, so who's going to take care of this? And then somebody's house is on fire and . . . Right. Why? Everything happening at once. The importance. We're in charge of the money. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

**Speaker 47:** Thank you.

**Speaker 7:** Thank you.

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

**Speaker 30:** Thank you.

**Speaker 20:** Thank you.

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

**Speaker 20:** . .

. . Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I think there's Bob, Stephanie, some Stewart. Their new business, Halloween Hours. We forgot to put them on the agenda but we should set the Halloween Hours.

**Speaker 45:** It's going to be here before we know it.

Will you send . . . 7.30 is last year and . . . All Four in favor?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** . . . Aye. Do you think the firemen will be out for safety reasons?

**Speaker 46:** I imagine they will if they're asked.

**Speaker 25:** Yeah, let's ask them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Would you ask them? Your trustee? Thanks. Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, another old business I had.

**Speaker 25:** There used to be a time when there was a kid's parade. It started at the firehouse, but...

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

**Speaker 48:** Old business.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Dogs. There's one dog left to register. I called today. He talked to the owner, and the owner said he would be in 8 o'clock tomorrow morning to register the dog.

**Speaker 29:** I had a...

**Speaker 1:** Wait, wait.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sorry. I said, Luke, if he's not there, Lori's going to call you tomorrow, and you're going to ticket him.

**Speaker 1:** Is there any way we could... I know the hours of the office are kind of weird for some people. Is there any way we could implement the registration on the website somehow? Is there any way to do that? Just fill it out? Like, go on the website, push it in, and go through that instead of having to physically

come down?

**Speaker 2:** I don't think they have to physically come down here as long as I have the rabies certificate or spay-neuter certificate and the funds. And some people can mail me a check. They can drop it off in the box behind you. They can call and pay with a credit card if they email me the forms. And I just fill out the license and mail it back to them. It really doesn't have to be in person. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

**Speaker 49:** Thank you.

**Speaker 1:** Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And I don't know, I just had a couple people asking, like, why don't they have

**Speaker 28:** it on the website?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm like, I don't know. Just bring it up. Well, you can look at it, Ed. You can look at it. Jason does my website. My employee applications are on there. Just fill it out. But once they do it on the website, it goes right to me.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, you can just partner up with a credit card company, too. I've done that before. Yes. We have. We just don't have the web capability of the credit card that they do.

**Speaker 2:** Right. Okay. That's fine. The web capability of the credit card.

**Speaker 1:** Yes, the world we live in today, everything's going to be boop-boop. Yeah, yeah. We can drive around here. Cash in a Venmo. I don't know, it's like, swipe me a check.

No one writes a check anymore. I feel like I'm too old. I like cash. It's like, what's a check? You don't write a check. I don't like checks, I like cash. That's my answer. What's that?

**Speaker 25:** Magazine. There's a news update. Okay. We're going to stop and send those duplicates. Oh, see you soon.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And last week, I think it was last week, Pete Greenbush brought up about the sidewalk. And so Dave got in touch with the state and the state said it's back to the town if we want to do anything with the sidewalk. Now I know that sidewalk hasn't been touched probably in 50 years. And I like the suggestion you gave last week, or you and somebody gave last week.

**Speaker 1:** Once you ain't going to see it. Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And there's not much sidewalk. Most of it's grass anyway. So like a little shallow dip, a couple shovelfuls.

**Speaker 1:** Put it on the city list next year. It's not up to the state.

**Speaker 20:** It is what it is. Do you want to know what the rules and laws were at the time? Sure. Oh, yeah. The rules and laws change over time. It could have reverted right back to them. It was abandoned a long time ago.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. Maybe the state will write us one. It's yours now. But they still have, they're still saying, well, we have a right of way to go take it out.

Yeah. Come and get it.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, exactly. Maybe you can make an argument with the guy. Bulldoze it up with the loader and go over there or something. Nancy, if you're about done, I have, I do have a question.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Or hit it with. I would like to have.

You've been talking about evasion. No. I would like to have a little town hall. Anywhere. Yeah. And have some little stops along the way.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I would like that. Yeah. That would look nice. Yeah. Kind of like a Wilmington, but, you know, not as busy. What do you want? So, a sidewalk going all the way with some stores on the way, you know. Wow. I would love that. Yeah. You can see it in that little picture up there where it actually used to be. Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Right above the water. Yeah. What about a cart and buggy path? Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And then there was another email I sent to everybody just for your information from Peter Greenbush after the planning commission meeting on Monday night. Peter asked, during last night's planning commission meeting, I brought up the question regarding the alternates, Natalie O'Neil, alternate roles and responsibilities. I spent some time with Lisa trying to locate Vermont statues and laws that relate to an alternate with some feeling that their role is a more permanent role following a current incumbent's inability to be able to continue a permanent role. Since the planning commission is a select board appointed, I am looking for the board to write down and make those specific roles and responsibilities official on paper so that if there is any confusion moving forward, we have documentation. If this needs full board approval, can this please be added to the select board meeting Thursday night? Thank you, Peter. So, then I reached out to the LCT with Peter's question. And I said, okay. And the LCT did get back promptly. And I understand, Lisa, why it's hard to find because those laws aren't easy to find stuff. But here's the entirety of state law regarding alternates to local land use boards. The municipal legislative body may appoint alternates to a planning commission, a board of adjustment or development review board for a term to be determined by the legislative body. Alternates may be assigned by the legislative body to serve on the planning commission, the board of adjustment or the DRB in situations when one or more members of the board are disqualified or otherwise unable to serve. And the above language comes from 24117, chapter 10. And it's entitled appropriate municipal panels. However, in there, it just says, may be a board of adjustment or development review board. The alternate serves on the board when performing development review. They don't sit in on your regular meetings. Just when the planning commission has to review a site plan or any of that. Or they have to cross, it's like a quasi-judicial board with the planning commission. I don't think you've ever had any. Yeah. We've had one. You've had one? Okay. That's where the alternate would sit in. But at a regular meeting, no. Would the alternate, so the question sent to VLT, would the alternate step in just to make a quorum for a meeting or would the alternate step in the meeting just to make up the nine member board? No. An alternate would only step in to fill in for a permanent member when a hearing application for development review. For example. Okay. For example, zoning hearings, site plans, subdivision, whenever you have any of those. Can you clarify the duties, responsibilities of an alternate? Same thing. Just when there's a judicial hearing. Would they have the same voting ability as an absent member? Yes, they would. And like Jim said, if they're sitting in on a hearing, they sit in on the whole hearing. Your regular board member comes back. No, they don't. They come back in there. No, I meant that. Yes. Can the alternate participate in discussions and vote if there's a quorum present? Yes. Same rights and responsibilities as a permanent member when they're filling in for on this hearing. Not at a meeting. Okay. Are the responsibilities of an alternate specified in statute? Yes. That one I just gave you there. They are in the sense that the responsibility of permanent members who are alternate is not specified in statute. Yes. That one I just gave you there. They are in the sense that the responsibility of permanent members who are alternate is filling in for are specified in statute. And then if there is a vacancy in the planning commission, the alternate does not automatically step up. We would go through the process of saying there's a vacancy and then we would appoint them to the planning commission. So I guess that answered his questions I hope.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know if you can answer this, but if there is not a vacancy, then it's a permanent member. This is not a...

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You don't have a meeting.

**Speaker 16:** This is different than what I read.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So if it's a hearing.

**Speaker 47:** If it's a hearing, they can.

Right. But not an average meeting.

**Speaker 1:** But not an average meeting. Is Natalie the only alternate?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Or is there more than one alternate? Just Natalie.

**Speaker 1:** Just Natalie. And it did say... If you want to serve on the board, I'll step down on the alternate.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And it just said too that if a hearing is coming up, you know your permanent member won't be there for the hearing, the alternate's not going to be there for the hearing.

**Speaker 30:** Okay.

**Speaker 20:** Okay. Okay. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. At a hearing, too, it should be passed. So let it go? Out, out of theille. Okay. Do we have a doctor? That'll lighten up the situation for the hearing. Okay. Okay. Okay.

**Speaker 30:** Are you choosing the intra Hudders?

**Speaker 20:** Uh, no. Okay. So, Mark, maybe this should be picked by alphabetical order or their name drawn out of a hat... Don't just pick Dave Teacher because you know he's going to vote yes on this or...

Oh, you're not an alternate?

**Speaker 2:** that would be a large time... I could be an alternate. If you want. but is it only if a quorum is needed, or if you've got 7 out of 9, can she still serve up to 9? How does it work? Does it only work if a quorum is needed, or any?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think it's only if the quorum is needed. I don't think it's like that. Because if you have a quorum, why do you need an alternate?

**Speaker 7:** What you were just reading is... I read it too, and it's like, that's not the way I interpret it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did we send you this? We didn't send it out.

**Speaker 7:** No, I looked it up on... there's this funny thing I got Google, and I can look at the Vermont laws and made it myself. You're a smartass. No!

**Speaker 50:** But the laws are all over the place.

**Speaker 7:** I didn't read that. I read something totally different.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, this is from Garrett, the Senior Staff Attorney with VLCT. Can I get a comment? Got it.

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

I'd like one, too.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I sent it to you.

You guys all know. I didn't see it. Open your email.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Huh?

**Speaker 47:** So how do we...

**Speaker 7:** Oh, you're giving it right back now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** ... send it to Lisa?

**Speaker 7:** You and I sent a letter to them at the same time. I didn't know you were doing it.

**Speaker 12:** I'm sorry. How, if Dave wants to be the alternate, would you go about doing that?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We would have to post the position.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He'd have to resign, because you're a full board member, right? You'd have to resign. Unless there's an issue.

Usually, in the history of what we've done, it's first come, first served.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So I don't see you wasting our time. But, nevertheless, if we have to do it the right way, I don't have a problem with that. And if there's some person that wants to come up and challenge that, that's fine. But it seems to me that every board we've ever had, we get it open, we get letters. Say we get three letters, there's one open in the first letter. We usually say, okay, we're going to try that one. And then if that doesn't work out, we move on. But, I mean, I... It seems like it was just procedure other than that. It sounds like a great idea. Dave's saying, wait, I have time anyways. And she's interested in getting that. She wants to get involved. I don't see the problem.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We did appoint her alternate. She could still come to the meeting and make her opinion known. But it's just like a visit. She's just in the audience. Just like a visitor, yeah.

**Speaker 7:** We have a pretty much open forum. I just have a question.

Obviously, that's my question. Oh, another...

**Speaker 15:** Okay, so we just had the conversation about collecting job applications, like a pool of applicants. Wouldn't this kind of be a similar thing? So wouldn't her application... Or if someone else goes in, would you then have a pool of applicants? Or do you list new and disregard the plan? I think that... I understand what you're saying.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And I also know that there is not... Well, maybe there is on the website, asking for people to join boards. It's in the minutes. So there is. That is posted also. And she's got a point that we... Not...

But again, same thing with the employment. We might not take that one person that applies. For any reason. We don't know why. It could be that person... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It could be that a person isn't fit for the position. You know? Some reason. But yeah, I think that every... We appointed anyone. That first letter, Jessica, that this is going to happen.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, she's a letterman.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Immediately. And I'm not sure... Yeah. Once itみたい to just trigger... Did we have anybody else apply for jobs? Did we keep some applications or interests? Is that all we wanted to know?

**Speaker 6:** I mean, I don't think they'd be willing to do that if we need to cover some kind of .

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's what I'm saying. Personally, if that's the way we have to go, that's fine. If it isn't, and I don't know the answer, also, I don't know. I didn't know any of this. No, but I'm saying. Other issues. I always thought that the slut board could appoint anybody anytime you want. I didn't think we had to post it. Well, if we do have to.

**Speaker 39:** Well, I don't know if we have to, but we've always had just to give it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I didn't read anything in there that said we have to post it. This isn't a new position now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, it just said post as you want.

**Speaker 39:** Just be switching positions.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Point as you would, or something.

**Speaker 47:** I don't even think you have to post it.

**Speaker 7:** You just switch it.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah, she's just gonna fill the board

**Speaker 24:** on the day it's gonna create it.

**Speaker 20:** I think it's in the best interest to make sure somebody's there to switch positions. What else I'm saying?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If we don't have to go through the process.

I don't think we do,

**Speaker 20:** because there's only one.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** To me, there would be only one reason why this becomes an issue,

and I'm not gonna bring that up. You resigned. You appointed her. I've never been the alternate. You resigned? I'm not. Sure. What's the point of an alternate? They just resigned, and so I make a motion to appoint Natalie

**Speaker 6:** to the open seat. She's already the alternate.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If we go back to when my son was on the planning board, we had Dan Patton's daughter as an alternate. That's exactly what we said.

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The alternate is so. There's a point. There's a position. They move right in. Yeah. Got a motion.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The sweat board would need to change their status from alternate to permanent member through their appointment process. How do we appoint people? So Dave is resigning. Yeah. Can you give Laurie a letter? I resigned.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Sure, yeah. Todd, it's on our.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's on our, yeah.

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

**Speaker 35:** Do you guys need it?

**Speaker 6:** Do you need somebody for the meeting that's coming up next week?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** This is what, I don't wanna make it sound like we're pulling a fast one here. We have an alternate, and we have a person that's already on. All we're doing is this person worked for the town, said snow season's gonna be tough. All we're doing is this, we're not pulling a fast one. These people were already appointed by us. It's not someone that we just pulled in the door here today.

**Speaker 6:** So I make a motion to accept Dave's resignation and appoint Natalie to the open seat that she's already an alternate. And make Dave the alternate. And make Dave the alternate. Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** If there's a hearing, you'll serve.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah.

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

**Speaker 51:** Second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll still come to the plane.

Second. All in favor? Aye. As long as we follow the process, I mean. Yeah, maybe she's already the alternate.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, we learned that.

**Speaker 12:** I mean, didn't know how that worked.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did you know how it worked, Lisa, or?

**Speaker 12:** I thought that was how it worked, but not what you read about the alternate. I read, like Jim, I read something different also online. What was it? That the alternate, if we didn't have a forum, she would sit in at a meeting. And have all the same rights as a board member. And they know the quasi-judicial part, so that's- It didn't even mention that. Right, it just, I've never heard that before.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't understand it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's- That's why- Concerns- That's all we- We look something up and then the VLTC comes up with something else. Right. And that's happened before, so it's concerning.

**Speaker 12:** But I'm on the Alkmaul board, and the alternate sits in if we need a quorum.

And it's not part of- To fill it in. Exactly. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. Yeah. I feel like she should. To waste your time.

**Speaker 15:** The one thing that I, the one thing that I've realized by looking, like, trying to get really savvy on the different, the state statutes and the different, you know, is that you have to almost know exactly what it is you're looking for. Because the thing that you're asking about, like, so, in essence, he could have assumed you simply meant quasi-judicial, and then that's what comes. And there could be this whole other set of, you know, guidelines that is just for, oh, an open meeting. Because that's what I was looking at. We're talking about looking at an open meeting. Open meeting has different guidelines. Right. For alternates and quorums. So, I think that's the other piece, is, like, what is the question you're actually asking, and then that specific answer will be in a different statute, is what I found.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So, we have a second. Did we go all the way? We did.

Good. I didn't hear it. Go on. Question in a second.

**Speaker 40:** I'm a yes, if rule's here.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Just a meeting.

**Speaker 7:** Our last. Commission, because we created our own little sidebar meeting, if you remember. There was three of us, me and Lisa and Marvin. And we met a few times outside this forum. And you had mentioned to me once that that was technically an open meeting violation. I couldn't find anywhere where that was, because no decisions were made. It was just the same thing. It was just the same thing as, like, the you and Mike and somebody else meet here, and you're signing checks or something like that. I mean, it's not a work session. So, can I have some sort of, we're planning on doing this again with a group of at least four of us to do, to start the bylaws again. And I don't want to do anything to where it creates any kind of friction.

**Speaker 25:** Or they give notices to the meeting. Just can't have a quorum.

**Speaker 2:** I think you have to post it. And allow a public to attend.

**Speaker 52:** Maybe.

**Speaker 6:** And you have a meeting. Even for a work session? I always thought it was like a work session.

**Speaker 18:** Did we work?

**Speaker 19:** Yeah, I think we posted our work.

**Speaker 18:** One week. We're supposed to put out in the office saying there's a session going on.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We didn't make any decisions, Adam, because we brought them back to the board.

There's a difference between a work session and actual, like, something that's actually a meeting.

**Speaker 15:** You can get together and brainstorm and draft a plan, but then if you take it to the next step and actually create something and say, this is the thing, that's a different story.

**Speaker 7:** I was just trying to keep away from 5G and being there. No, we would never do a quorum because that's an open meeting violation. But as far as a work session down at the bar.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't even believe that is an open meeting violation. It's no different than when Lori says to. Hey, we have to meet the lawyer. What time is good for you guys? 8 o'clock, 2 o'clock, whatever it is, and we say, hey, look, the best we can do is 1 o'clock on Tuesday. Everybody get up. All in favor? Yeah, we do that all by email. That's not a meeting. The minute we say, OK, we look at we by email, we vote that we're going to appoint Dave to do something. That's a meeting. That's a no-no. Right. In the same. Thing we you all go over my house tomorrow for beer, by the way, I drink course right now and you come on. That was a little funny. So, but you come over, we all talk and we're having a good time. We can't say, hey, listen, next meeting, this is what we're going to do. We're going to all get up on the gym and we're going to get rid of them. Even like group talks.

**Speaker 7:** Do you want to talk about that again?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But can all wards meeting out there that we didn't even warn that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, it's a we've had work sessions with all of us. You can sit down and you can talk, you know, I don't, if you, I believe they look up over me and law, it's not a meeting. There's no, there's no, you can not make any decision. You can have no votes, you can have no motions. You sit down and say, this is what we all found.

**Speaker 15:** Finding out, you cannot exclude if someone from the public hears that you're gathering and says, wait, I want to be there too. You have to allow that like public. You don't have to post it. You don't. No, that's what I'm reading right now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** If they find out, they can show up, which, which is uncomfortable when, you know, somebody didn't want to go and it was at Jim's house. And I don't feel comfortable going to Jim's house.

They don't have to go. It's not a meeting.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There won't be, and you don't necessarily have to listen to him. So I just show up and say, hold my hand up all day. And you don't have to even acknowledge.

**Speaker 48:** I mean, you could write, but you're not making any motions or any decisions here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You're just saying this might work. That might work.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You could ask them, Hey, you're here. What do you think? But you don't have to, that's what I'm saying.

**Speaker 7:** I know it eliminated, I mean, it eliminated a lot of issues doing it that way. It worked out really well.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It would be much easier than having nine members here. I've attended your meetings before last year or when they had the zoning bylaws and everybody's. Talking every which way and nothing's getting done.

**Speaker 7:** It's a little different now. Well, it's a lot different now.

**Speaker 12:** But yeah, it did help. It facilitated things right along when there were three of us that were just researching stuff. And then we brought it to the whole board and said, this is what we found.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So didn't we make committees that didn't post stuff? So we would have a committee, they would go and they would talk. Like the four-wheeler committee, they didn't post their meetings all the time. They did minutes.

Right?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** They did minutes, but they don't have to, they didn't actually work.

Right.

**Speaker 6:** They don't have to post. Yep. Don't they need a quorum? A meeting.

**Speaker 35:** Yes, but why wouldn't they, but why wouldn't they want a fifth person if the fifth person wants to sit in?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Like I'm saying, if you have four people and one person finds, another board member says, Hey, I got some information I want, but instead of writing it down, I want to come and explain to you what I found.

Sure.

**Speaker 7:** They're not making decisions or anything.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No, I don't see a problem with that. Does it break, I stop in and say, here, I found all this stuff. This is why I found it. See you later.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Lisa, I'll see if I can find the open meeting law we, what we attended just last year about the open meeting law and who meets and. Yeah. It's called an exploratory committee.

**Speaker 15:** Yeah. You have an exploratory committee. Yep.

**Speaker 7:** I read through it and it's, it's, it's a lot, but do you want to make sure that we're all on the same page?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I went to an open meeting in person. I didn't see that happening. But I'm just saying that one person in the state of Vermont. Yeah. They said that there have been instances where there have been complaints and tell them exactly what we're doing. We're volunteers. They don't do that again because it didn't result in any problem afterwards. You know, they didn't make it hurting someone.

**Speaker 7:** Well, I've found since I've been here is that the more you publicize what you're doing, the better off you are. Oh yeah. You can come for your buck. Yeah. I get it.

**Speaker 20:** So.

Yep. Like we all met with the school superintendent.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All three of us. You didn't yell that by the.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** By the school board? You didn't. Well. But we didn't post that and that was their meeting and.

**Speaker 39:** You know what?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We were invited. She, she was just yelling at the wrong person, but I understand why she was upset when you hit, when you invite the select board to go to this powwow and you don't invite your own board and then your own board sitting in the school going, hey, what's going on out there? They're all the same night as a meeting and the board wasn't invited. Well, I would be concerned too. Why is my superintendent. Just the last.

**Speaker 53:** That's not where we're meeting again?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** No. This is a.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, I brought the building permit. If the no building permit is needed, there's supposed to be something at the bottom of the current building permit that says no permit needed. When I worked on it last year or two years ago, I sent it to Deb. She agreed, but nothing has ever been done with that. So I'm thinking that we need to revise that system because we got in trouble with the sign. No permit needed. I think it's still happening. So how, what are we going to do? How are we going to do? She put a box that she can check off or something on the sheet.

**Speaker 54:** There is a box there.

**Speaker 6:** No permit needed. I don't know if this is the right meeting to talk about it.

**Speaker 54:** Maybe the planning board is the right place to look at it, but I have a big problem with

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the way this is going.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** This, no permit. So I asked the question, do I need this? No, there's no permit. I just want to know what I need a permit for and don't need a permit for. Right. So should we revise? When I start to review this, I'm going to go back to the beginning. I'm going to go back to the beginning. I'm going to go back to the beginning. I'm going to ask a thousand questions. She's going to be going, nope. Nope. Yup. Yup. Nope. I mean, this is craziness. There should be a list of stuff that says, here's what you need a permit for. Should this be in our zoning bylaws?

**Speaker 48:** Well, Jesus.

**Speaker 39:** It is.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It is. There is.

There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is.

**Speaker 6:** There is.

There is.

**Speaker 6:** There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is. There is.

There is.

**Speaker 15:** We've been having situations right it's like I know how to read the state statutes, I know how to read the guidelines, I know how to read the bylaws and so if I've read it all and Deb and I, she's on speed dial, hey we're gonna do this, what do you think? I don't find anything, what do you think? No I don't know of anything either you're good. To have to then come in and fill out a form feels

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's not working. And the other thing is if it's wrong, then it goes back on the form.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We don't want it to end up like the sign that verbally said we don't need a permit.

**Speaker 46:** You want to put it on the AO to document it. Well that's what we're trying to do.

**Speaker 25:** But that doesn't require the homeowner to write it down. to create a form.

**Speaker 44:** Then it should be just a form that...

**Speaker 25:** The AO has to create a form.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If she's contacted...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm saying is... Okay, so if she's got notes, where? In her house? They should be here, filed, recorded here, or...

**Speaker 35:** She's supposed to document every conversation and all that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Documentation and that's one thing, but I'm saying is there's so many questions that are asked of her that she has to document every conversation now that... And I agree. It's just too much. There should be a place where I can go and say, what do I need? The way we present it is different, but do I need a permit to build a house? Yes, you do. Do I need a permit to put a swimming pool in? I was told no. Okay? So, do I? Do I need a permit to put it in grounds?

Is that a problem? Yes, you do.

**Speaker 6:** But above, you've done this. You've done it. You've done it inside my house. Yeah, you do need a permit for an above-ground pool. No, you don't. They had a wording actually that says... Well, I don't want to get nobody in trouble

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but I was told not.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, you don't. If there's pools up there...

**Speaker 7:** So, you've got to understand something. There's a former AO here. You guys are talking about subjects, you are, subjects prior to the new version. The new version has, on the swimming pool part of it, is that if the swimming pool can be taken down or they don't need a permit. If it gets taken down in the wintertime, they don't need a permit. If it's impermanently, it needs a permit.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Okay, so I'm going to tell you, the bylaws were passed, what, a year or...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Two, three years ago.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Two years ago. And this question was asked last summer.

All right, well, I can't... I'm just saying,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** and it is done, kind of has documentation because it was asked at a meeting. Yeah. But, and then again, I'm not making trouble, I'm just saying that every single question we ask, do I need a permit to put a dog coop up? Do I? No, no wording at all. Okay, is it a structure? And I was told that you don't need a permit, but you need to file. You can have 300 square foot of shed. Can you build a shed? Without a permit.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But you need a permit. If you need a permit, make sure it's not on your neighbor's property line. You just need a note. It's a notification.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, so you need a notification which you have to go through DEP. So dog coop, where does that end? That's where I want to know. So there's a lot of...

**Speaker 7:** No, so this is one of the main topics that we've all had with the BRC about our bylaws. We're not specific enough for a lot of stuff that's going on in today's world. Right. One thing that everybody in this room knows is that we're not specific enough for a lot of stuff that's going on in today's world. One thing that everybody in this room knows is that we're not specific enough for a lot of stuff that's going on in today's world. One thing that everybody in here and anybody who's listening on Jed's YouTube thing, they just need to understand if they're going to expand the footprint of anything in their house, garage, anything, expand up, down, sideways, you got to have a permit, period. Right. If you're building a house, you got to have a permit. If you're building a shed, you have to have a notification if it's under 300 square feet. Right. There's just... It's a simple thing. It's a simple thing. It's a simple little... That should be on the application, I believe, or a form here that's just the basic knowledge.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't want... I don't want... I think we can go all night on it, but I'm just saying is when you say under 300, where does it end? Does it end in a shed, a dog coop, a chicken coop, or a birdhouse? Well, if I put a chain link fence up with a dog coop, no.

**Speaker 15:** That's not what you're using it for.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** All right. That wouldn't get one. Because you have to come down and ask for a... It's not a permit, but... But you have to file it that says that you're not off. Look, do I have to do that for a small... How small a structure do I need? Is that... According to what you're saying, zero, right? So a birdhouse that's on my property line, I have to... Well, I'm just being a smartass now. What I'm saying is, is do you need one?

**Speaker 7:** Well, what you're saying and the way you're talking, that's exactly what's been going on for the last 400 years. Exactly.

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

**Speaker 15:** Stephanie? I guess, so what I'm kind of hearing, and this is... And I'm only saying this also because, like I said, Deb is on speed dial for me because I just feel like I'm constantly checking in. But I also know that it takes a lot of her time or anyone who was in that position. So it's not even just her. Like, that position, if you're going to have that level of oversight and you need to have them available for every little question because it's not... And then they have to document every little question. Then it seems like it has to be an actual paid position. Like, it has to be a different position.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, then, but going to Mike, too, if we had more specific checklists... Right. Yeah. That would... They wouldn't even have to go to the AO and they would know.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. And I agree with you. The reason why I'm doing that is because it is... Right. And I'm showing that. There are questions.

And I agree with you. Deb is paid by permit. So she gets... But every time she does the one that is... But every time she does the one that is not a permit, she doesn't get paid, right? She says no. Yes. Yes, no.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But she has to check and see if it's off almost the same process.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But she doesn't know. She doesn't have a checklist there either. So if there was something... But we need to...

I guess. I guess. That's all. How can we do that?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't want to do that. I trust in the fact that she's doing her job. Well, I don't want to beat her up or beat the subject up. I'm just saying is I agree with you. It's not perfect and it should be better. It should...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, I don't think it's working how it is now or how it was before. And we've got to...

**Speaker 48:** We have a lot of building going on.

**Speaker 7:** I think it just... That position has evolved over the past 10 years. It sure has. Majorly. Even when I was doing it, it's different now. I mean, it's... It's completely different.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It sure has.

**Speaker 53:** But there's some things that when...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Look, I'm going to be honest. There's people that are upset, addictive, whatever you want to call it, that drive this main road. They look for everything they can pick out and then they do that talk about. It doesn't come here most of the time. It's just talk about. But everybody hears it eventually. If I say one thing, tomorrow everybody in town is going to hear it. Okay? And that happens all the time. We need, as a town, because this fight and all times, not getting that plan that we talked about, what the vision is, it's never going to... What do you want? Well, I want a nice town to live in. Dave. I'm going to quote you. We all got to live here. Right? He said that 13 years ago to me. No matter what we agree or disagree on, and we've disagreed, we got to live here, man. You know? I'll drink a beer with anybody in here. Anybody. As long as you're buying. But I will drink it. There's no reason why we can kind of argue or drive up and down the road and go, hey, he didn't get a permit. Don't go call the state. You're not going to... Just stop at the guy and say, hey, you know, you just moved into town. And, you know, we have to get permits for all this stuff. So I'm just letting you know, I'm not the permit police. Instead of... I want the state to go on, hey, the guy just, you know, he just put a new... Because you don't need a permit for a fire. The state goes, well, I'm just saying we should get along a little bit. I'm not saying don't follow the rules because Deb said that. Do you want to do my job?

**Speaker 15:** Yeah, but I also want it to be... Well, Milo, one something. Just for a few minutes on the agenda. At this level, we're meeting where you just take one thing and you just educate. And so anybody reading the minutes or watching the videos or whatever, they're like, oh, there's one thing in the bylaws. Maybe I didn't know that. Now I know it. And then you can kind of start to get everybody on the same page. Just like one, you know, just...

**Speaker 6:** Who gets started by a lot? Bylaws in a website.

**Speaker 7:** Maybe at the annual meeting. Maybe we... You're right. Maybe at the annual meeting, we have like maybe 15 minutes for each maybe department head. You know, when Nancy... used to say something about what's going on in the town. Deb gets up and that could be a spot for her to, hey, this is what's going on. How can we make it better for everybody in this room?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We do at the end of the meeting say for anybody, anything that you want to say, you can say. I don't mind.

**Speaker 42:** For everything, all...

**Speaker 25:** For some of the meetings, it would stretch a lot about... Yeah. It would create spots for a lot of conversations.

**Speaker 55:** Right.

**Speaker 6:** It would be helpful if people were willing to partake more, right? You're going to go through two years of rewriting these things and you're going to have the same two people in the audience. No one ever wants to address boring issues with language.

**Speaker 13:** I can tell you my huge frustration

**Speaker 7:** when I started and for the whole time I was here was having to deal with the people that had been here for a long time because it wasn't... It wasn't a frustration to them. It was the system. They were used to doing... They were used to doing things a certain way. And it was in the... There was nothing new in the bylaws I inherited. I inherited the bylaws that should have been there for years. But it wasn't enforced. People were doing whatever they... It was a free-for-all.

**Speaker 6:** And when I started enforcing them... If anybody reads them, it's usually after the fact. They voted it all in, right? And then they got a whole series of complaints. Right. We're going to rewrite these things in the next five years. Come on down. Sure. But no one comes down. I mean, we literally, at the end, the last session, I remember clearly, only two people showed up were Bill and Nancy. Right? Then we had a whole town meeting, open meeting, and then Bill and Nancy and only three other people showed up.

And this was for the whole town bylaws,

**Speaker 6:** which goes right to the grand list, which goes right to our taxes. So yeah,

**Speaker 15:** it matters. But do people understand that? See, that's the other thing is I think what I'm seeing is new people coming in. One of the... And so sometimes people are busy. They don't know how to... They don't know how to get educated about, well, what is it that I need to pay attention to? You know, there... And I think that maybe finding a fun way to get people to understand how to be involved and how to know where to even find this stuff, that there is even bylaws, that there is, you know, come to a town meeting. Like, to... Is there a way to kind of just open that up so that people... You know, like, I pay attention and I see, how many people show up and vote on things and I'm like, okay, there's like 800 people, give or take, in the town, but there's only like 170 who ever vote or show up for anything or do anything. Like, where are those other six, seven hundred people? How do you engage them? How do we get them to... How do you make them to come? How do you know if you've come or not?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Take away...

Free beer.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Outlaw chainsaws and they'll show up.

Take away four-wheelers.

**Speaker 48:** I don't think there's...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** A dry town,

**Speaker 9:** they'll show up.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They came up for that gun meeting like, wow. Yeah. There was a little bit

**Speaker 6:** of a mentality too that people that decide to move to a rural town like this don't necessarily want... They move here in part to not partake

in any of this.

**Speaker 6:** Right. No, you're right. They don't want to deal with any of it.

Yeah, but to make it available. Yeah. I mean,

**Speaker 6:** we suggested for those who want it. We suggested like mentioning it in mail outs and stuff like that before.

**Speaker 15:** Or maybe even have a luncheon, you know, gather like a run some little... Come on, have a chat about the bylaws. Like, I don't know. Just something so if people are curious, they want to know. They want to get to know who, you know, that they... There's a way to learn that's right.

**Speaker 56:** When you're going

**Speaker 6:** through that process, you could... I mean, maybe you can post that on the website or something and just let people know that, hey, we're going through an all rewrite process here and now's the time to, you know, not invoice your opinion. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** The other thing is the planning commission is kind of like the oversight of the AO. I mean, we're... responsible for actually interviewing them and making our recommendations to the board. What I was thinking is maybe we get together with Deb and she's at most of the meetings anyways and we come up with an informational guide.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Handout. Exactly. A building permit.

**Speaker 50:** Exactly.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Or just put it on the website.

**Speaker 6:** On a window or something. We did have kind of a rough draft at one time. We were going to break it down cost-wise but that just got too... like complicated to figure out the prices for everything I guess. So there was kind of a general list of things that you would need permits for and you could just like eliminate the price section off of that because we want one set price and that'd kind of be your go-to checklist.

**Speaker 7:** I know she spends a lot of time and without doing permits and so she don't get paid for the phone calls and you know all that stuff. I mean, it's more

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** if it's written out

**Speaker 7:** and it's... That's why we raised all our rates so... Wouldn't have to call. Or even if they did call or... Every single permit. If there is no issues it takes about six hours. Nothing. Executive session.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You may go.

So... No, that goes right back to the conversation we had earlier about development too. If we're going to go willy-nilly and crazy with development we're going to need a full-time you know, like inspector. A full-time person that we've paid and they're just going to have so many permits

**Speaker 6:** and construction going on as we open it up. And we don't want

**Speaker 33:** to over-regulate it.

**Speaker 6:** Then we'd be paying someone. Right. I don't want to turn into a... Any game we get property tax we're going to turn into, you know, salary for administrative... Yeah, there you go.

**Speaker 57:** That's what all

**Speaker 20:** comes down to money. Yeah. It's always money. So you also pay attention or try to follow the rules because you've got to have somebody enforce it and you've got to pay them money.

**Speaker 57:** Yep.

**Speaker 6:** Unless you're just going to turn it down straight over and you know a month later...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But yours really didn't. Nobody does. That's the difference. Kurt talked about that years ago. That was... Years ago you had people that volunteered that got involved and they didn't care about the money. Well, they don't even think you're engaging in this type of community. They're all online. Nothing against the AO. They don't... You know, we talk about paying AO or the Listers or anything, you know, and the select board and the planning board sit there and the planning board does it for 25 hours a year and the select board does it for $30 a meeting and we have to go meet up and... Wilmington about two weeks from now or a week from now and we have to go to this thing

and go to that. We're not going to pay for anything like that. I don't care. It doesn't matter. I mean, it doesn't matter.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I donate back

to the town more than I get paid

**Speaker 6:** so I don't care. Well, for one, they haven't taught civics in high school in like 30 years. So the kids don't even understand the government function.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Well, how do we continue with this? Continue talking about it? Well, I'm sorry. This is under

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** new business. Planning commission.

**Speaker 48:** Work on it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** or just let it go and...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's a conversation that we can move on. You know, move the meeting. You know, we'll talk about we'll think about all this and go on.

**Speaker 39:** How can we do this?

**Speaker 48:** How can we work on this?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's too much to make a decision anyways. A lot of the

**Speaker 6:** complaints about the whole no permit needed

thing comes from like the wrong spot.

**Speaker 6:** It's really about disgruntledness

and hatred of other people and various things like that.

**Speaker 6:** You know, it's a... It's a... It's really got nothing to do with the no permit needed thing. It's just hatred for certain people.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. That's it. Under new business, Lori received a resignation yesterday to the select board. The time has come that I must step down as assessor clerk. My last day will be November 7th of Sally Wohl. So she's resigning as assessor clerk. So we need to advertise for something for that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, first thing is Sally's been doing this for a long time. So we need to write a very nice letter to whoever to take this over. I hope to...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we'll put in the minutes if anyone's interested. And I think we still have the list of duties.

**Speaker 1:** Who's in charge of...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We are.

Raise your hand. She works for us. She works for us.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other new business? I make a motion to go into executive... Personnel matter and pending or probable ... civil litigation.

**Speaker 25:** Joanie sent you this. They messed up and sent a duplicate copy this month.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Ooh, nice chestnuts.

We're on gibberish. You got it? Chestnuts. Oh, they take... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What's she got you signing now? A blank check? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm walking one day. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm going to have to sign it. I saw that. I saw that. It's like... Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You want to kill it? You like it. Yeah. You want to kill it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lisa. Lisa. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No worries. Oh, I'll get you some. See ya. I wish I had a ring. Chop it. I got a transaction. Let's have these. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's take care. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. No, you're fine. All right. All right. Okay. I was just waiting to buy. I was just waiting to buy. We were going to... I was going to ask you to come in and check it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Just to see if...