---
title: "Stamford Select Board — April 16, 2026"
date: 2026-04-16
session: regular
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 0 named from roster attendance, 7 of 8 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_00":6,"SPEAKER_01":4,"SPEAKER_04":16,"SPEAKER_05":2,"SPEAKER_06":1,"SPEAKER_07":19,"SPEAKER_08":11,"SPEAKER_09":9}
duration_min: 60
audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10MY4CQ4US0WPDYs-wSX40RThJmWlJfAu/view?usp=sharing
audio_source: town drive
minutes: http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-16-26.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Kurt Gamari, John Dunn, Jedidiah Gramlin]
absent: [Michael G. Denault]
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 — April 16, 2026

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 60 min · [Audio](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10MY4CQ4US0WPDYs-wSX40RThJmWlJfAu/view?usp=sharing) · [Minutes](http://www.stamfordvt.net/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%204-16-26.pdf)

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

---
**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Addressing your chairperson and stating your name and address. You will notice that all our meetings are recorded and this is to aid in the summarization of the minutes. Visitors are welcome and we allow five minutes of comments per visitor and 15 minutes per topic. Discussions will be held in a calm and civilized manner in respect for all others. Select board members present are Nancy Bushika, John Dunn, Jed Gramlin, Kurt Gamari. Will there be any adding of items or removing items from tonight's agenda? Um, new paperwork that's come in since the agenda. Information. Will there be any adjustment to the agenda such as changing the order of items? Jed is recording tonight's meeting for his YouTube video. Hearing of visitors, Bradney Howland is not coming tonight. He asked to wait until, do you know?

**Speaker 1:** He asked to wait until your next May meeting so that he can talk to the school board. And the superintendent. And, um, get them on board, explain what's going on and then he would come here.

**Speaker 2:** After it's already done. The water. The water testing.

**Speaker 3:** It's about the well. The well is a leak, right?

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

**Speaker 3:** There's nothing wrong with that. He thought it was run off from the roof and the rope.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Did Mike want to talk to him or something? Is that why we asked him to come or was he?

**Speaker 3:** Uh, we just asked him to come down. I guess we wanted to talk to him in more detail.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, we wanted something on, um.

**Speaker 3:** Check my email.

You didn't email me that he wasn't coming.

**Speaker 3:** I thought he was just going to come and repeat that, but he's not here and, I don't know, now the whole board is involved, so.

I had to send him off the agenda and that's when he responded and asked to wait. Well, we'll see what he says and. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Special meeting of March 30th, 2026. Oh, I'm sorry. Any other visitors? Comments? Lori, did you have anything? Or you're good?

**Speaker 1:** Um, I did receive an anonymous complaint about the restructuring of the Planning Commission membership. Anonymous? No, sorry. Anonymous complaint, really? About how the Planning Commission was restructured at one of your, I don't know if it's.

**Speaker 4:** They didn't want to put their name in it?

**Speaker 5:** They didn't want to put their name in it. I don't know, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, we don't usually handle if it's not signed or people come here and say what's going on.

**Speaker 3:** I mean, what was the nature of the complaint that there's only a number of people?

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, they just didn't like the way it was, well, the way it was done.

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

**Speaker 3:** And now we're getting 100%.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, we, it's not signed, anonymous, and. Worthless. We've done that before with other unsigned letters. Okay. Any other visitors? Anything else? A special meeting of March 30th. That was when we met with the library trustees. Can I have a motion to accept them as written? Motion. We have to wait?

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, we've got to wait.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** John, here.

**Speaker 3:** All right, the mic's not here, so we've got to wait. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And regular minutes of April 2nd, to accept them as written?

Motion. All in favor? Highway update. Dave did mention to me that he's been out grading.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Laurie, he gave you some more information, too?

**Speaker 1:** Um, yes. It's time to sign the letter of. The letter of intent for the fiscal year 2027 grant and aid program. Um, we just have to let them know now we're interested in doing it, and then, um, Jim Henderson will come out and drive around with Dave and decide what project is next on the list. So, at this point, we don't know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can I have a motion to sign the letter of intent? It's not holding us to anything.

**Speaker 2:** All in favor?

**Speaker 1:** I spoke with Dara Zink this week from BC. She wanted to know if we could. She wanted to know if we had any, um, projects that would fit a FEMA mitigation grant. It's a 75-25% town match. Um, and I talked to Dave about it, and what he thought was we had tried to put in for the Sportsman Road culvert through the Better Back Roads program, and the funding is just tied up. They don't know when they might be able to issue the grants and if we would even get any. That's an 80-20 split. So, there's no obligation to begin moving forward with the FEMA grant at this time, and if the Better Back Roads does come through, we can just stop the FEMA, and if that fails, we could consider getting the project done.

**Speaker 5:** So, it won't hurt us to sign the paperwork for FEMA and start proceeding with that, right?

**Speaker 1:** Exactly. That's what Dara suggested, was at this point, it's a letter of intent, and then the application would be at the end of May. And we could still at that point not accept the award when it's awarded later in the summer, but it's another opportunity.

**Speaker 5:** They won't let us do both, I don't believe.

Right, they won't. No.

**Speaker 3:** We would at some point have to pick one. Yes, go ahead with that, Lori.

**Speaker 1:** And then, um, I don't know if you remember, a few years ago, they did, um, Dave to pick a list that they offered, and it paid a good portion of it. Thank you. Thank you. That's what he got was a compactor, and so that's coming up again. Dave hasn't had a chance to take a look at what we need to file. So, that's how we lock, lock the door?

**Speaker 6:** Plate compactor. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

**Speaker 6:** That vibrates.

Jack.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Jack Wack, or Wacky Jack, or something, I think. John Taylor.

**Speaker 6:** Jumping Jack Howard.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. John used to call it something like that.

**Speaker 6:** You don't have to write it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Plate. You don't have to write it.

Right. So, there's a whole list of things that you can buy. Yeah. Oh my gosh. All right, Jack. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's it for Dave? That's it for Dave. Okay. Anything on recycling? Oh, at least starting to be open? Okay. Yeah, what is it? The last Wednesday in April? The summer hours start? Yeah. The Household Hazardous Building in Bennington, I believe, will be open toward the end of May. You can go onto the website and see the dates. I'm pretty sure that's it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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

**Speaker 8:** Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I thought they were going to be open towards the end of May. I think it might be May 18th, just because I was talking to Mary Lou Wright, and she

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** was like, oh, but they're not open yet, and I need to go up. So, he told me May 18th today. Okay. Okay. Anything else on recycling? Mowing quote. We asked John to give us a quote. Spring cleanup, around the sign, remove clumps of sod and top soil and seed where needed, including old flowerbed, dispose of any debris. Okay. What do you mean the old flower bed? Oh, up there?

**Speaker 2:** Oh, yes. Right now there's just a flower bed with dirt, no grass seed. So I seed that whole area and put it back to grass.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Then clean out the ditch. Is that the one along the fence?

**Speaker 2:** The ditch all the way to like right here on this area. Clean that all out.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Remove any unwanted dirt along the fence line ending at the playground area. Dispose of any debris.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, that's covering that fence to that black fence there. Anything that's over here. And if you look over here, there's that communication box. The fence is actually like tipped over and engulfed in some kind of vines. So I'm going to try to clean that up and try to stand the fence back up if possible. Okay.

**Speaker 9:** To the $800.

**Speaker 2:** That covers all of that, yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. And then lawn mowing and trim per cut determined by lawn. $250 a make a motion to accept this quote for mowing and the cleanup. The mowing season, we can't say it's going to start April 1st. We never know. So you just have to play it by ear and see when it mows.

**Speaker 2:** I'm in town, so I kind of go by it and just look out and eat it. So whenever it needs it.

**Speaker 10:** Do you want to have a set amount of times that we're allowing in the park? No, because we never know. Oh, because we always had 19.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, average is around 20 I'd say, but I guess it depends on how much rain, how much sun.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I know one year it was so long out front they had to do it twice. Like within the same week it was so long. That was before. Some years you didn't mow in the summer. It depends on the weather. I've mowed in probably at least 15. It's been a while.

**Speaker 11:** I have a second.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, I'm going to abstain from the vote. Next on discussion is lister position. As you know, we have just one lister. Nobody else applied to work as a lister here in Stamford. We do have the NMRT, which we've had five, six years anyway. And Deb sent a letter to us that there's only one lister. There's only one lister so far. And she can't really do anything, but she's Beth Miller from State of Vermont Property Evaluation and Review. We talked and said maybe Deb could work with the NMRT. She boots on the ground here and saved NMRT from coming down here all the time. So if you think it might work, I'd like to talk to NMRT and see if they want to hire her. Because she really can't do anything alone for us. That's my feeling.

**Speaker 3:** $47.

$47.

**Speaker 3:** No.

**Speaker 2:** Yes, she has taken some training, yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know which ones, but I know she has signed up for a couple.

**Speaker 6:** Probably get a lot more out of the NMRT guy with her backing up.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, I'm just not sure who would verify her figures and stand behind her figures. If NMRT's willing to do this. Have them come down. What's that? Maybe have them come down so you can talk with them. Well, we can do a phone conversation.

**Speaker 12:** Well, you need two to be a lister, right? If two, you wouldn't need NMRT at all.

**Speaker 13:** Well, not right today. Right, no, I'm just saying we had two experienced listers.

**Speaker 12:** Yes. You wouldn't need them. So if you have one experienced lister working with NMRT.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. Gain some background, gain some training, see how it's done. Right. Yep. Yeah. So board of grades, should we explore this option?

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, that's a good idea, yeah.

**Speaker 8:** Because isn't the $47 or $45 the travel thing, and then isn't it like $95 and they're going

**Speaker 14:** up and down?

**Speaker 8:** Yeah.

**Speaker 15:** I'd like to know, but it might save some money for the town.

**Speaker 16:** Yeah, so if anyone is being a lister.

**Speaker 8:** I see you looking right at me. I know, I know, I know.

**Speaker 4:** And you get to know the town intimately.

**Speaker 17:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. And you see all the nice back roads and see all the nice houses. Yeah. It's all about training.

**Speaker 8:** That's the hard part. That's the hard part. Yeah. Driving around and looking at people's houses. Sounds like school.

I love that. I do that already.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Without having to go to school all day long. Right, right.

**Speaker 8:** I'll talk to Deb and see if she can explain how complicated the schooling is.

**Speaker 18:** Put your feelers out there.

**Speaker 2:** Maybe you can coax somebody into a .

**Speaker 8:** Yeah. As much as possible. You can go online and look at the courses yourself.

**Speaker 18:** I know.

**Speaker 19:** We've been advertising and nobody's been interested.

**Speaker 8:** Because you can do the schooling on your own time, right? There are online courses. Most of them are online. Yeah. We did come up with a set wage with options to grow.

I know the last one Deb took. She said, this is boring. It's a growth opportunity. Yeah. It's not a dead end job.

**Speaker 2:** But she knows, you know. Yeah. She knows a lot of stuff just from already.

Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Her, you know, more experience. Yeah.

Yeah.

**Speaker 8:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 15:** Yeah.

**Speaker 8:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She knows more than I do. Yep. But. Yep. I can learn some tricks I guess. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you for coming tonight. I'll think about it. I'll think about it. . It brings a smile to their face.

**Speaker 12:** . Next on the agenda is endless mountain adventure race.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. I received an email from them. They're doing a 350 mile course.

**Speaker 1:** Over a five day period. Yeah. So, they're doing a 50 mile course. Did they pass? period. They're going to come down Sucker Pond Road, cut across a little bit of Klondike or county and then down Klondike and into Massachusetts. They wanted permission to be able to hike, bike through our town and use our roads, but they're public roads anyway.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's nice of them to ask. They expect about 35 teams of two to four participants and they will be dispersed by as much as 24 to 36 hours. Seems about as close as we get to bringing

**Speaker 16:** that type of outdoor recreation to town. Should we put some kind of signage out so people

**Speaker 3:** are aware? They'll probably have some kind of signage. When does this happen? They didn't

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** say, did they? Oh, June 2026. Okay. They mountain bike, hike, paddle, navigate using maps and compass skills. We are a proud member of the Adventure Race World Series. Most of it will take place on public land, National Forest. Might be a busy weekend for the fire

**Speaker 20:** department. It's a quick job. Yeah, and the ambulance service. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they

**Speaker 6:** might want to move the ice cream.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's frailer. Yeah. Put it up there. That's a good thought. Yes. Put it out at the intersection.

**Speaker 21:** Right at the intersection. Have it end right there. You know, instead of grabbing a bottle

**Speaker 7:** of water, you grab an ice cream cone as you go. That's my kind of marathon. No problem

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** with that. They're out of public roads and stuff. I think it's great. Okay. Thanks for

**Speaker 3:** their... Sounds like fun. Wish I could ride my bike farther than the building. Thanks

**Speaker 2:** for asking. Thanks for the update. Correspondent.

**Speaker 22:** Resignation from Planning Commission. Yeah. I should have also said from Emergency Management

**Speaker 5:** Coordinator. Okay. Received a letter from Dr. Stephanie Shelburne that she is resigning

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** from Chairman and Member of Planning Commission as well as Emergency Coordinator for the Town of Stamford. Effective immediate release April 9th due to personal circumstances. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we have a letter of interest for someone to serve on the Planning Commission because we have a vacancy. Did anybody go to the Planning Committee other night? Are they recommending anybody either? No. Did he...

**Speaker 12:** Papers in before, when they reduced the... Report go there. board when you guys produced the board he had his paperwork did he send us a paper of interest or

did it was it just from the planning commission no he sent a letter he sent the letter directly to lauren i didn't get a letter like that was peter greenberg suggesting that he made it he

**Speaker 23:** said that he sent a letter to the planner to the we have uh errands and we have one from sheila

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that would be interested in going back on so um let's check that out and never got an email we've got two people interested yep we'll see if we can find aaron's letter yep yeah and she was interested

**Speaker 3:** yep consider me and it's one i've been doing sheila and aaron and more paperwork on that too

you guys have a chair yet we'll restructure

**Speaker 8:** we decided we should have the full

**Speaker 24:** board before we restructure right we we are then you're waiting for us to appoint somebody

**Speaker 12:** correct we are doing two a month now because of the bylaws the town plan we have bcrc at our meetings almost every almost every meeting so there's not really a lot of time to work on the bylaws as well yeah so we started doing two a month starting this month so i know

**Speaker 8:** a function because he could be chair he's vice chair so he's just acting as chair in the meantime i do know that that um

**Speaker 12:** past practice first first person that had their letter in right right and um both of these people have been on the planning commission so we're lucky there aaron has been the chair for quite some time going through the town plan and the bylaws and so we highly recommend aaron meltz

**Speaker 10:** that's okay sheila i'd like to say something about that for the many years that i was on there i was chairman and when all of you came aboard i wasn't allowed to do anything other than just a person sitting there and going through the stuff and that so i really would appreciate you guys understand

**Speaker 25:** that i did do some a lot more respect in the world and i and i respect what you've done for this time

**Speaker 12:** absolutely you deserve it you've been uh you know one of the founding fathers here if you ask me i mean it goes way back i know you do and i know people that have told me that don't live in stamford that knows the lawrence family and you and everybody else your what you bring to to stamford i thank you and i'm only here 11 years and you've been a part of it all the way but i'm just i'm just talking now i'm just talking right now as what was what we think is best for the plan commission as it is it's not it's not perfect so like i said any time any time we go

**Speaker 3:** positions that are contentious or more than one person going for the position especially something like the planning board or the zba um we should probably at least sit down talk to these individuals and see what's up right and get a whole errand to see you is interested in just coming in and next meeting or wherever we can do it and have a quick interview and i'm sure she'll already is accepting that it's just a fair way to do it i would think right and that's the logical way to do it especially not just for these two but going forward well i don't have to get knocked off it was just like i was over and everybody was down to seven people i understand never know that you are we should go through a process and oh

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and also too if anybody else is interested maybe we have more people than sheila and aaron that might

**Speaker 26:** want to step up into the planning commission we got to get a set pattern on what we're doing i

**Speaker 3:** mean sometimes we're advertising it sometimes we're just um appointing somebody on the spot

**Speaker 6:** you know sometimes well you know we got this resignation stephanie's resignation will be in the

**Speaker 7:** minutes and make some people aware that there's we need if there's an opening if anyone else wants to

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** send in their

**Speaker 3:** in letter of interest that's i think any time we get like a resignation from the important boards that i've mentioned we should at least give it the two weeks to the next meeting one else i'll do that might be we just got to get away from blindly you know appointing people maybe you could ask

**Speaker 6:** those people to be here a half an hour before your next select board meeting and then you can

**Speaker 27:** put it on the agenda if you want it on the agenda for the next meeting this board that the wars when

**Speaker 12:** they did have an opening that they could interview the people the candidates and make a recommendation

**Speaker 13:** to the board and everybody agreed on that i think you guys did that the planning commission right

**Speaker 12:** we did that for the a.o we do it for the a.o that's a state law but um i'm just thinking going forward is uh i mean you guys know the work we do is extremely important she'll know that as well

**Speaker 23:** you've got a lot on your plate and we got a lot on a plate and we need

**Speaker 12:** aggressive go-getters that know exactly what they're doing all right i'm not saying that sheila doesn't know or aaron doesn't know they've both been involved in doing exactly what we need to be done but keep in mind creating a new system should be done outside of having to appoint somebody now we need somebody as soon as possible so if you're creating a new system and by interviewing people i wholeheartedly commend you for doing that that's what needs to be done interview us and all of that stuff for for these important positions but you know up until today you have chosen the person the basically the first person that put in their

**Speaker 3:** paperwork yes well at some point we got to change whether that's today tomorrow or or whenever i got full faith that the six you can handle it yeah so i think it'll be all right the uh i'd like to

**Speaker 2:** table anyways until we have a full board i think it'd be okay good to hear what mike may or may not have an option if they want to start the table anyways until we have a full board i think it'd be okay good to hear what mike may or may not have an option for someone who's not in their position

**Speaker 9:** hear what Mike may or may not have to say on the matter and we'll see if we can find a letter from

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Aaron I I remember one from the planning commission recommending Aaron but I don't

**Speaker 10:** remember one from Aaron Sheila a lot some of it but um I hate that yeah I know you got me when you said something more um the thing is is I did not put in you know to say that I wouldn't be here normally you get a letter from the selectmen saying congratulations we reappointed you and if you decide not to do it let us know right I never received that letter right but when you you did discuss with Laurie to go around and ask certain people that were going to be coming up if they were interested still and I did tell her yes I am and I was asked I asked around and then she did bring my name up told you that I wanted to stay on all of them right so I just don't understand why to my point I got shipped up the goal

**Speaker 3:** pulse is always moving and we need a set standard a set practice that we do every time every person

**Speaker 28:** they kind of respect their policy is that they send the letter in but we we eliminated the

**Speaker 3:** position yeah we had a lot of talking about the different things people could get blindly appointed way more things to pay attention but I'm not dumb I'll tell you that now I can't afford

**Speaker 10:** to go alone

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** with what everything is going on okay so can we John suggestion is this going to hold the Planning

**Speaker 2:** Commission though we're totally fine who do you have to remember zombies nice Lisa you trying to say seven people yes

**Speaker 3:** okay for now we should at some point um so john's motion is table until next meeting do i have a

**Speaker 29:** second second all in favor person who is that person is what the trustee for the library who

**Speaker 30:** wants to be oh that's coming okay i didn't know if we uh okay now planning commission now we'll

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** move to letter of interest from the library board of trustees now cindy did not resign she just didn't run right she did not run so there's a vacancy vacancy left too much so um victoria jeffrey stepped forward and said i would like to be appointed to fill the vacancy until the next

**Speaker 11:** election any problems with that make a motion to i mean i haven't been doing that i think we

**Speaker 31:** still need to do the same thing we just did i think we need to just ask that is this person what

**Speaker 32:** they think of it of it before we just started is it is it an elected position this was elected

that's not what's the procedure on hand

**Speaker 1:** she went to a library meeting a week or two ago and i believe they already supported it and told

**Speaker 2:** her to send in her letter process they just uh maybe you need to uh ask the powers that be

**Speaker 9:** that needs to wait to an election no we can appoint

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** a scenario that i'd deserve to be consistent we can appoint until the next election so her term will be up in march of next year tree work representative she thought he's been kind

**Speaker 21:** of involved in whatever projects she was involved is she wasn't there at the library that day and

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** said that's why she'd like to fill that vacant position you want to wait for this one too just

**Speaker 5:** put it out there say we yeah game because they've been without one thing yeah put this in the minutes

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we have vacancies and get the letters of interest to the select board for next

**Speaker 3:** meeting at the very least we could probably be consistent with that we just

**Speaker 26:** wait so we have a motion to table it all in favor yes anything else under

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** correspondence Lori old business 9-1-1 numbering update so I went through the list that Bob Briggs sent to us I've matched all the names up with the address I sent Bob the letter copy of the letter that we sent out two years ago I asked him to please revise it or any suggestions and he didn't get back to me yet so we're still on hold with this but there's I could send you the copy of the you see anybody on there maybe you could get your 9-1-1 they have to be four inches contrasting letters on a reflective surface reflective surface and if your house cannot be seen from the road there are certain specification do you still have that move Maybe we can include that in the letter

**Speaker 4:** Collen says if we can't see the number, it's because the number needs to be seen from

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the edge of the road on a house or a post at the end of your driveway what is

**Speaker 2:** it uh is it fifteen dollars 16 16 dollars for half an hour or 15 estouks six hundred dollars is that saved? 擊 $16 the Stamford volunteer fire department will make you a nice

**Speaker 33:** reflective sign that fits the description. Fits the regulations one or

**Speaker 2:** two sides. And you can pick if it's vertically or horizontally. Yep. Pre-drilled. Pre-drilled holes. Save yourself a trip to the hardware store. Yep. Especially when they don't have matching numbers. Then you're running all over for them. It would be like me that buys a sign and then it's sitting under my seat in my truck.

**Speaker 3:** He has a few also. Strolling to the side of the truck and parking off front. There you go. We did notice the town of Stamford was in violation too. So we are working on that. Busted. Yeah busted.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Alright I'll send you the list of guys and if you need anybody.

**Speaker 12:** What's that? Do you have any volunteers yet to do flower pots on the signs?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Under there? What's the job? We haven't really discussed any flowers there and just let it go to the grass. We know what happens in the past.

**Speaker 12:** I was thinking about brackets off the poles just for hanging baskets.

**Speaker 13:** Who wants to do them take care of them. I'm not taking care of them.

Yeah that's the thing. I'm down here every day. Is there an outdoor faucet here? This is too much. Cactus.

**Speaker 2:** No. I think there's a little area where the memorial is. The VFW memorial. I think if you're going to do flowers that would be a good spot right in front of the school.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I take care of the two buckets there. There used to be a beautiful flower bed.

**Speaker 2:** It's kind of all grown in right now. It might soak up the water that's coming into the school. There you go.

I think that's done. Then we don't need the facilities manager.

**Speaker 2:** Well they have Leo's areas decorated nicely.

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

**Speaker 2:** I think Carol keeps that.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** There was volunteers that took care of that. I guess the school was doing it for a while. Somebody was working on it and then...

**Speaker 34:** Years go by and the people that knew and worked with Leo are gone.

**Speaker 26:** Yes.

**Speaker 3:** Like the memorial out there. Who's that guy out by the basketball court?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That is...

**Speaker 3:** Like the guy that built the school or something. I don't even know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. The stone out there? Yeah. No. That's Jackie. Somebody that died in a car accident. Ah. Many years ago. Lived down Main Road.

**Speaker 10:** The little log cabin? Yeah. The log cabin guy. Yeah. With the mailbox in the driveway. His name was Jack.

**Speaker 3:** I forget the name on it. It's been a long time.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's been a long time and I can't say it. He's probably almost... would have been about 80 years old. Yeah. I mean that's been there my whole life.

**Speaker 10:** He had a sub shock down under the big bridge on the highway there. Where... He used to have the gas station here and then you have where you can turn and go to the cops but it's right in there where the engine... There was like a sub-shot I'd call it. He's Jack Roy.

That's what they make. They do a lot of good things for the town. They just have a name and why not. I think it was Jack. I think it was Sherman. That's the last name.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Old business. Have you had any luck coordinating the school and library meeting with us?

**Speaker 3:** Well, they had a meeting together so I was kind of waiting to see if anyone had any information on the outcome of that. We kind of farmed an email as of what to say. Based on our email it was going to be about the library and school relations as well as the town. I just wasn't sure what the outcome of that meeting was.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Lori and I were both there and what was the outcome? They just discussed it and I believe Cindy was going to go back and talk to the school board because there was only two members there.

**Speaker 3:** So do we still want to meet with the library? Do we just want to meet with the school? We'd like to meet with all three of them.

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

**Speaker 3:** Okay. I'll send out an email tonight. I wasn't sure if they came to some kind of conclusion or agreement. Not as far as I know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Was there any library minutes out? I don't know that. I didn't see any.

**Speaker 3:** Do we want the supervisory in there? No?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. I think just our local school board, library. Just our three local boards. Okay. Any other old business? New business. There's an upcoming training for VCA training. VCA training. June 17th, 6 to 7 30. It's an online webinar.

**Speaker 4:** I'm dumb. What's VCA?

**Speaker 17:** VCA.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh. Focus. The session walks participants through the legal and practical requirements of the hearing and offers guidance on conducting fair, timely, and well-managed hearing from start to finish.

**Speaker 35:** Is this the same one that we did before when we all came in here?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Probably. It's an hour and a half. Yeah. Maybe it'd be a good refresher course. Yeah. And if anything's changed. Yeah. Might be good to sit in on it. It doesn't say the cost or anything.

**Speaker 1:** So do you have a CT?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. It's through PBR. They usually charge. I'll find out because it's June 17th. And if they charge, they would charge for you being on your computer and you being on your computer. So we should be all together here on one computer. Any other new business?

**Speaker 1:** Just a Uniform Municipal Access Weight Permit. Okay. Casella. We're getting more now than we...

**Speaker 2:** By these people that, or they just blatantly come in and give you...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We said we weren't going to chase after them, but ever since we said we're not going to chase after them, they've been...

**Speaker 2:** We started sending them in. I don't know if it's worth chasing $10, but...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, it wasn't. Yeah. I think Sheila, when you were on the board, you called people for these overweight permits. You had the list and called them every year. Yeah, we did. But we never had as many as this.

**Speaker 36:** We had five.

**Speaker 10:** Okay. Basically, there was only like two or three that were on the honors. Yeah, we got a lot of them.

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

**Speaker 10:** Motion.

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

**Speaker 2:** All in favor? D.O.T. Not for us.

**Speaker 12:** D.O.T.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** D.O.T. This is a new business. I don't... This is kind of an old law, I guess, or passed a couple years ago. Act 181. Anybody familiar with it? Oh, yeah. It seems like there's a lot of people up in arms about it.

**Speaker 29:** It's a contention. It's a contention.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's just another layer of permitting for... You've got your town permits for something, and then if the town can't approve it, it goes to Act 250. And then from there, it goes to this Act 181 approval, and it could cost up to $30,000, I read, on one machine.

**Speaker 3:** I don't know what tier that is. It depends on what tier. What tier you are.

It's all a tiered level. I mean, some of it doesn't even override Act 250. It depends on where... They haven't drawn out the official maps yet, so it's hard to say.

**Speaker 29:** It's all based on if you're in 1A, 1B section. Then you don't have to worry about Act 250 stuff, and you can build. It's all about how fast can we move houses. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And from what I read, too, that it's another level of bureaucracy that they have to do another committee, another review, so...

**Speaker 23:** We don't want it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** More levels. Everything you're reading, we don't want.

**Speaker 8:** Everything that I'm reading seems that they're absolutely, you know, shelving it for now, and, you know, that... How do you get... Probably, it's just dead.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** How did it get passed to begin with? Did it just slip through, and nobody heard about it until it's...

**Speaker 3:** A lot of flame. Housing is a crisis. So they're trying to alleviate that without having sprawl all over the place in Vermont. Mountain sides and range just getting torn up. It's not all bad. And there's some parts in there that people aren't going to like, but...

**Speaker 10:** Yeah, like the part where you can... It's not all bad. You can have yours here, and you want to get it over there. You can get it over there. You can scoot right through everybody's property without getting in trouble. That would be perfect.

**Speaker 3:** They're trying to actually tighten up on the road a little, make it shorter, 800 feet. That's the most contentious part. Yeah. People would put private roads in. Well, I mean, I think there definitely needs to be some limit on private roads. You can argue the distance, but there definitely needs to be limits. I mean, you can see this whole town changed completely. I know people are big on property rights, and so are I. But, I mean, if you leave people to their own devices, they're a lot of the times going to do absolutely the wrong thing. Yes. So, that's why there's structured laws, you know. I don't know if anybody's seen that, but Reedsboro sent a letter to the farmers to be there that they weren't... I think Whittingham was also... Whittingham. Whittingham. I mean, farmers are definitely going to hate it because it restricts their private property.

**Speaker 1:** Have you seen that coming up?

**Speaker 12:** Here?

**Speaker 1:** No. No, they're like... Oh, yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Other informational media.

**Speaker 12:** It seems to be pinpointing metropolitan areas, if you want to use that word, in Vermont. But they're just basically left all of the rural settings, you know, to... Yeah.

**Speaker 28:** They see this thing, and this doesn't work in rural settings.

**Speaker 3:** After the meeting the other night, I went back and read up on a bunch of things. And I'm curious. Stamford, obviously, is going to have a lot of kids. Yeah. So there's a lot of kids in the area. There's also a lot of people from other areas who are going to have kids, and they're just going to have a lot of tier-three in it, which they already do. I mean, 60% of the town is already a national forest. So it's really no change. Absolutely no change to that. But I'm curious whether they're going to label the village district a I-A or a I-B, and a surrounding area around it, which basically alleviates all permitting for a period of time. I don't know how river corridors and flood plains and stuff like that play into it, but A lot of this is still being argued about and debated.

**Speaker 12:** Well, the big thing is, too, is floodplains is something that FEMA sets, right? So that's a given where the floodplains are. But river corridors, they can put a number on 100 feet apart, a different number. So there's no set number on a river corridor. They have to come down to tell you if you're in the river corridor or not. So for us to call, that's a set, right? There's maps, but they're not footage. You know, like for us, if the AO has to go and try to give a permit to somebody, she needs to know where the river corridor is.

**Speaker 3:** Generally speaking, I think it's 50 feet from the rise.

**Speaker 12:** That's the right. It's always been 50 feet. But now that's all changed. There's an if-if. It's a big, huge change now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Jim, the Planning Commission, are you going to ever have somebody come down and explain this or train the sessions on it? We're working on that now.

**Speaker 8:** It's on our agenda for our next meeting, is 181. I think there's been so much pushback, and I feel like a lot of it has become very politicized. It's an effort to balance development and conservation in a thoughtful way, and unfortunately, the way they're doing it is very heavy-handed in terms of cost to people who just have a big piece of land and want to build one house for their kid. And the financial burden, and then also people discovering that their massive piece of land is not suitable for development. If they were planning on cashing in, you know, that way, it's causing a lot of strife because I think it's not well understood, and we don't really know where it's going, and also mapping isn't finished yet. I mean, there's a lot of mushiness around it, and now it has become this real hot button.

**Speaker 3:** And it has because, I mean, as soon as you lost me a property, that's right. I'm not even going to go read the law. I'm not going to listen to anything else. You just said my property rights are affected. So I'm against it, which is the wrong strategy to take. Look, Stamford could very easily be inherently a different town than what we're looking at right now. If all these hillsides and everything are developed, which some people want to do, the town is completely different than the whole reason you moved here to begin with, right? It can very easily change your definition. Plenty of land around here to be developed. So we need to be careful of what we're wishing for and what we're not wishing for. Yeah. And be logical about what we're thinking of.

**Speaker 8:** The Riggies. If you're 1A, look what happened to... Right next to their land.

**Speaker 3:** I mean, we started standing all over the place here, and the real budget alone is going to break this town.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So how do you get into 1A?

**Speaker 3:** You have to have sewer or water as a prerequisite.

On your property? No, like... No. As a matter of the sewer system or water system. I didn't read it. I didn't read it. The sewer system or water system. You have to have the town, the background, the purchase of the sewer system, the sewer system. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't matter. The sewer system or water system. Sometimes it just has the ability to... 1A or the... It's a fine for... Seriously, our taxes are going up exponentially every year. Right?

**Speaker 3:** Because you can't start stacking houses on top of it. It has for 10 years. Did I know? 11 years. I mean, these planning commissions, they're salivating over a town like Stamford, right? There's a 300-acre gulf forest out there that's prime real estate. Right? They love that there. You know, they just see it. They just see it. They just see it. They just see it. Bam. Wow, there it is. How many units you can put on 300 acres? I mean, it's a multiple land with multiple access points and basically a road system

already through it.

**Speaker 10:** A little bit.

**Speaker 37:** Not well.

**Speaker 3:** We're zoned out at two acres a lot. There's 300 acres of land over there.

**Speaker 10:** It's 75.

**Speaker 3:** It could be a lot. Put it that way. At the end of town, it's flat. There's land all over the place if you know where to look. What we have to do as we're planning for the future, and when you're on a planning board, you're not planning for next week, right? You're planning for the future. We need to get out of the floodplain, all right, and start looking at the next elevation up before you get into the elevation where you just can't build.

There's plenty of that land here.

**Speaker 3:** I'm not going to point it out because it's private property, but it's all over the place. And it just depends on whether people want to split up their 40-acre property or not. I mean, Stamford is exposed to vast development if we let it. But I don't think that's the key to our success. We just get bigger, and we're going to need more people to go to high school, and, you know, I don't know if there's a fine line between it all. Yeah, we need some development and a little expansion, but we've got to be very careful over it, don't we? That's why we need other sources of revenue in town other than taxation.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So that brings me to that 1% tax that you looked at. Is this something we want to pursue? You know, I don't know. Is it worth putting the law in? And who are we hurting or helping?

**Speaker 26:** Is it worth it?

**Speaker 3:** Exactly. But you can't create any atmosphere for business without trying to create an atmosphere for business. I agree. We're not going to probably generate a lot of revenue from it. I mean, how many rooms do we rent? Alcohol, we could probably get a fair amount for. Food, we don't have any restaurants. And the other one is just a general sale tax. But, I mean, if we want to... I don't know. I don't know. What direction does the town want to take? We have no other sources of revenue other than taxation. That's all we have. And that's all we have for the foreseeable future. And I can... I mean, maybe I'll lose the election, but taxes aren't going down, all right? Nope. They're never going down. No one's ever taking a pay cut. You know, the budget for the school is not going to get smaller. So we need to start getting creative and find ways to afford to live here for the people that have always lived here. But, you know, at this point, it's probably not worth it. But I don't know if at some point we can't do it at all. You know, the laws are changing all the time. So... And it had to be a town... I mean, it'd be a town vote at town meeting, anyway. Yes. It had to be warranted. It'd be all three separately, the way I understand it. There'd be a vote for whether you want a general sales tax. Then there'd be a vote if you want a meals and alcohol tax. And then the last one's rooms. So you could vote for one, none, or all three. And then you get what you get. I mean, I don't know how many people are claiming their room rentals in town. That's a whole other can of worms, right? Yeah.

**Speaker 11:** How do they...

**Speaker 3:** We don't know. We don't know if they're paying a sales tax or not. There's no way for us to really verify that. I think the Airbnb, they're checking on this now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I don't know who they charge a sales tax or if they pay into it. I mean, the only reason I would even slightly consider it at some point, because it's a consumer-based tax. It's not... I mean, the property owner, you collect it, you know, at the premises. But it's paid onto, you know, from the consumer. But you do... But is the consumer going to come up here because we have this extra tax? I mean, I don't know.

**Speaker 3:** 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 all depends. You know, this town's only ever going to grow only so far as far as restaurants and commercial properties, because we don't have any store of water, right? You can't put a 100-seat restaurant in with a septic tank. That's not really going to work. Maybe a group of people can do that. Could we just say good-bye to that? Yeah.

**Speaker 26:** I mean, you know, we're all right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It's the only thing we don't have.

**Speaker 3:** We've got to work on the We've got to work on the Okay. We've got to work on the We've got to work on the We've got to work on the We've got to work on the

**Speaker 38:** We've got to work on the

**Speaker 12:** we've got to work on the people got together or so, you know, like a little advisement committee or something to do this kind of brainstorming on the side. I mean, like you said before, our taxes are just going to keep going up and keep going up unless we figure out a way, one, not changing the atmosphere or the beauty of Stamford, but two, make it affordable for people to live here. Sure. I mean, so if we come up with a way where we can make money to pay down our taxes and things like that, that solar field I was talking about, it might be a site that nobody wants to look at, but it might be, it would be in a location to where you couldn't build in the area anyways because it's...

**Speaker 3:** Like I said the other night in the meeting, right, not many people like windmills, but when you start selling them, they're 50,000 pop or so, right? They get a little more interesting. I'm not saying I'm for windmills or anything like that.

**Speaker 12:** It's a, I'm just saying, if a town, if a town invested a million, 1.5 million or whatever it is for the fire truck, I mean, I don't want to, I'm just saying, we have an investment to protect our town. So this, I would say, would be an investment or something like this in order to bring in, you know, a half a million dollars or a million dollars a year. Right. Wouldn't that be nice? Could we do like a lottery?

**Speaker 2:** You know, that's generating some serious income for the state, right? Probably like a 50-50 or something. Fire department, how's that? Yeah. Would the town be able to do something like that?

**Speaker 12:** To set up a five-meg system.

**Speaker 2:** A town fair, where you buy admission tickets.

**Speaker 3:** Future, we talked about before, I mean, gravel is a resource, right? What if that resource starts running out and we've got to start trucking in gravel this town? Holy cow, man. I mean.

**Speaker 11:** Well, that would be a good idea.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That would be a good idea. Yeah, 1%, if we're really thinking about it, we've got to start now and get some information

**Speaker 26:** before town meeting and see if it's worth putting this into effect.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, I mean, the statute's pretty fairly written. It's just a matter of whether we, I mean, it's going to stir up a lot of emotions, I'm

sure, with people that just don't know how they're reading anything into it and just react on the 1% tax.

**Speaker 3:** But, you know, we've got to get creative. It's worth at least a discussion. I don't know whether we go as far as, you know, we've got time to figure out whether it's a warrant or not.

Well, maybe more. It's more of a debate, I guess, at a different time. I've got to look at that. Yeah. Okay. Any other new business? No.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's it?

Make a motion to go into executive session for personnel. I second. Okay. All in favor? All in favor? Deadline's up. I got it. Thank you. Yep. Have a good night, everybody. All right. Thank you, Kirk. Yep. Take care. Thank you, guys. Thanks for coming. See you. See you. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.