---
title: "Stamford Select Board — September 17, 2026"
date: 2026-09-17
session: regular
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 1 named from roster attendance, 6 of 8 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_01":44,"SPEAKER_02":8,"SPEAKER_04":3,"SPEAKER_05":113,"SPEAKER_06":5,"SPEAKER_11":45,"SPEAKER_13":1,"SPEAKER_15":15}
duration_min: 119
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_HOtU2hUM
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%209-17-26.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, Michael G. Denault, John Dunn, Jedidiah Gramlin]
absent: [Kurt Gamari]
transcribed: 2026-10-12 (faster-whisper large-v3, CUDA; names corrected per data/name_fixes.json)
diarization: pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 (automated; cluster labels may over-split a single voice; unattributed paragraphs have no reliable speaker)
---

# Stamford Select Board — September 17, 2026

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 119 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_HOtU2hUM) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%209-17-26.pdf)

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

---
**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's call the meeting to order. 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 calm and civilized manner and respectful of others. Select board members present are Will there be any adding of items? or removing items from tonight's agenda?

**Speaker 1:** I do have the reappraisal agreement. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** It wasn't available when the agenda was ready. And I'd like to add an executive session regarding the upcoming tax sale. Will there be any adjustments to the agenda such as changing the order of items? I don't think so. And Jed is recording tonight's meeting for his YouTube video. Okay. Hearing of visitors. Representative Jonathan Cooper, you're on. All right. You can come right up here. Sure. All right.

**Speaker 2:** Stand wherever you're

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'll be on the stage.

**Speaker 3:** Stand on the stage over there.

**Speaker 4:** Here we go. This is a good background. I'll take it. Okay. That's fine. All right. So, hello. I'm Jonathan Cooper. I'm the State Representative. This is my first term in office. And I think the purpose of meeting here tonight was to talk about something that's affecting tax sales and how municipalities have to go about providing notice to individuals affected by upcoming tax sales. This was Act 106 of 2024. I'd like to thank Shepard for giving me a little bit of guidance and who to talk to. For example, Kevin O'Toole, an attorney who works in these matters. I was having a good chat with some legislators who had introduced the bill in 2024 and also had jurisdiction over it to get a sense of how the testimony went. This was prior to my time in the legislature. The issue at hand appears to be that, you know, two new actions were added for what municipalities have to do to provide notice. As it had been in the past, you send a certified mail. If you get a receipt that has been received by the individual, you're done. If you don't, you have to send first-class mail that provides all the information about the upcoming tax sale date, etc. But the new things that were added was that in addition to that first-class mail, you now have to attempt to reach people by email. And make a good faith effort to find an email if you don't have it. Second, and most importantly, you have to go to the property with the notice. And if there's a structure on the property, attach it to the door. And I think that's really, that's new work. That's an unfunded mandate that doesn't come with any assistance from the state. This is a new requirement. The goal is to make sure that nobody's surprised by a tax sale. In my conversation with Kevin O'Toole, he said about 70% of those certified letters are received. So this is about the last, you know, third. Just making sure that people find out what they need to know. And you can go into these things fully informed. Maybe make, you know, make up, get out of arrears in the first place if they can. It's worth noting that people, you know, after a tax sale, you have a year to make good. And then, you know, everything's restored. But the challenge, I think, and this, I talked to the ranking member of the House Committee on Government Operations to ask, did anybody raise whether this creates a situation for conflict? Going to someone's house with bad news at a tough time in anyone's life. Sending people out there to just go up to the end of a long driveway where someone doesn't want to see you. And... And tack something to their door. And tack... And just boom. And tack something to their door. And that's a... That's an uncomfortable situation. And unfortunately, that situation wasn't considered in the testimony they received. They took a lot of testimony, but that just didn't come up as a potential issue. That surprised me. But... How did you get that information that it wasn't considered? From the legislator who was in the... The ranking member of the Chief of Jurisdiction. What's his name? Her name is Shea Waters. Okay. And so the testimony is all archived as well online to be viewed. I just, you know, so we can check that out on the VP. But... And then Kevin O'Toole also did not recall that coming up as part of, you know, the deliberations of the committee work. So there's... But... So Kevin and I were talking about what were the options. The legislation is very moving. You can assign whoever you want. You can send whoever you want. To pass that letter to the door. You can even send your state representative. But... You can be reelected by 1200 and carried by six. And so... I just... That's all you do? So you carry them all the way around.

**Speaker 5:** It would be a public safety thing.

**Speaker 4:** So there is... Again, there's... So people could hire anyone they wanted, Steve. Police, sheriffs. That also may play into the same dynamic that we were already worried about in the first place. Amplifying it is not a police matter. So this... And lastly, unfortunately, towns are not allowed to pass along the cost that might be incurred by, say, hiring the sheriffs. So right now, you can only get out of arrears. You can't then say, okay, but it costs us 400 bucks to have the deputy take this up.

**Speaker 6:** Yes, they're forcing you to do it.

**Speaker 4:** But you have to do it. So there's another bit of that unfunded mandate. And now you have to eat the cost. And so... So the legislative intent was, I think, like a lot of things, well-intended, but maybe this didn't quite hit the mark. So what I wanted to talk about tonight was whether there might be some interest in the upcoming legislative session, really making sure that we're sharpening up how we can address this. There may be a lot of ways to be addressed. And it may be making that email and notice an email or notice. It could be that the and becomes an or, and then you have a few options to go with. So... It may be the case that you try to find a way to allow the legislation to enable municipalities to recruit that cost. That may feel like the camel getting its nose in the tent a little bit. So anyways, there's just a lot of different options, but I wanted to mention that this is the conversation I've been having in preparation for tonight. And I want to just sort of share that info with you. How would we start that process? Write you a letter and say, please present this to the next session? I mean, so it sort of starts with the first letter. And then you have to say, please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry.

**Speaker 3:** Please, I'm sorry.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

**Speaker 4:** Please, I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry. If you don't allow us to present this to the next session. I mean, so it sort of starting now, if people are interested, it doesn't have to be formal. There doesn't have to be a, but a town can do something like that to say, this is a nation for us. And that just allows legislators to do what they need to do, which is represent. I'll add one little quick comment that I looked at the, there was a roll call on this act. And it was 92 or 44. Who said no? It was interesting to see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my predecessor, Nelson Brownell, representing Snickerd, he sat down. Nelson spent a lot of years on town activities. He saw the issues of it. Representative Sebelia in Dover said no. Representative Roberts, who was Halifax, Weddingham, and Wilmington. So this whole area was pretty clear. And I think that the rural caucus, which is a group of legislators from the rural parts of the state, which Representative Sebelia chairs, is a natural ally. We can sort of begin to send this around to them and say, hey, here's something, because this is about the time of year when people begin to think about what they want to do in the next session. Obviously, there's an election and that matters, but the point is to at least put that out there so people can begin thinking about, am I seeing that from towns in my district as well? I doubt that if this is a problem in Stamford, this is not a problem anywhere but Stamford. So it's a matter of finding who also feels uncomfortable with this.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think there's a lot of, not a lot, but many delinquent tax collectors that are older and do this for part-time. And I know we did not feel comfortable going here. First, I said, oh yeah, that's no problem. Then you hear on the news with these shootings, people turn around in your driveway and, yeah. That's not good. That's not safe for any of us.

**Speaker 7:** Ruby Ridge, what happens to the government that shows up to your house?

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, you know, you weren't even elected when this was passed, correct? So we were not going to beat up the mess in your desk, for sure. Right, right. But it's not just about the safety, it's liability. The state has done more than just one thing that they force us to do something and they don't compensate us. Right. If you were to go back to the legislator and say what our concerns were, I would not want to end a war. Most of these people that can't afford their taxes and are in arrears are having big problems. They might not even have an internet service anymore. You know, to go up to these people in those times, they've already been contacting for the last two years before this happens by members of the town. So contacting them is not a problem, or if it was, it still is. So I would like to be compensated for what it costs. Now, I'm not saying that we're going to be compensated. We're going to hire a guy. We're going to pay him $100 an hour, but we should be able to call law enforcement and be compensated. Whether it's state troopers, which they should just come down and help us for free, because we're already paying them, and we very rarely get service from them, not to pick on them, but we're staffers, okay? They don't spend a lot of time down here. We already found we can't afford or we chose not to have a contract with the sheriff for three hours a week. It's just not feasible for us.

**Speaker 8:** So we should definitely be able to call. We should call law enforcement and protect the citizens of Stamford. We don't ask much from the state at all, at all. You don't ever hear us calling you. Am I correct? Especially this board. I think this is the second time I've ever met you. Okay? Our last representative, I never met at all. Not really did.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** My question, I have one question while I'm at your ear, is when these legislations come up, you always hear about them, correct?

**Speaker 4:** Yes, we do.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** If there's a bill. A lot. That is presented, you always hear about them, okay? So if there's a bill that comes up, and you're representing us, and when I say us, I'm going to say, what is it, Bennington County, I mean, how far do you reach out?

**Speaker 4:** Oh, so it's five towns of Stamford, Reesboro, Searsburg, Woodford, and-

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And you get one vote on that, just like when they ask for these votes, et cetera, it's nine- It's a vote call, yeah. Okay. So you get to go and speak? And talk, and vote, correct? Yeah. All right. So how do you know what your constituents want?

**Speaker 4:** Okay, so, so a big, bigger picture question, so we're sort of non- Okay. So one of the- Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. I mean, if there's 1,200 of those a year. Yeah. And so there's a lot. We rely on committees and jurisdictions to really dig into the details and let us know, here's why this is a great idea, here's why this is not, it was interesting to see Mr. Atul's testimony that you gave. Okay. So he said actually, February looked a lot more like the final bill than what it was looking like when he gave his testimony. So a lot of his input made a difference. So we've spent a lot of time hearing from committee chairs, committee representatives who are saying, here's where things are with us. Like a lot of things, you gotta, you gotta be curious. You have to want to know. Sometimes you miss all of this or something along those lines. You miss a bill, you miss this section. In fact, this past session, this session, this session has been a really successful one. Section of statute was touched again to raise the threshold, to establish a threshold where you couldn't do tax sales until someone owes $1,500.

**Speaker 9:** Right, right, yeah.

**Speaker 4:** And that was new, because they didn't want people losing everything over a $400 bill. But the point is, that was in the education bill. So that was in one page of a 120-page monster, and so sometimes it's hard to catch all those little bits. However, the process is slow. It takes months for bills to get through. I think that legislators will have an opportunity to hear if something comes up that's, can you provide this for us? Or you talk to some of the attorneys that help legislators shape the bills. Look on legislative councils, people that have that area of statute expertise. There's one version for the education stuff. There's one version for the tax stuff. And you try to figure out questions you may have, you bring it back to the public, and sometimes it's hard to give every single bill the same kind of...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. Is there a place where the general public can almost go to, and what is... I'm making a reservation.

**Speaker 4:** Legislature.germont.gov. I actually have to say...

**Speaker 6:** It goes through the process.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's a really comprehensive... It's kind of like a media almost.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** In the 1500s, are they working on reducing that? That would mean land like we have Alkmaul Lots. And how many years?

**Speaker 1:** It would take forever. If I didn't make an adjustment and said that there's no building on the property, they waived that requirement. Oh, okay. If there's a building, it's still safe. Okay, all right.

**Speaker 4:** That makes sense. In the early versions of that legislation, that exact issue came up where it might take 30 years for it to actually become actionable. So they pulled that, they added some numbers, they moved things around. But it's interesting with the legislature, everything seems so formal. Everything seems so set. And then it turns out there's just erasers on all of these pencils and people can adjust things. And that's sort of... Sometimes it's the case where do we make it perfect in this session? We just have these 19 weeks and we're not even close to one big happy family. And we just... Can we get some things done and then fix it if we find a problem? And that can bite you when there are some problems that you didn't anticipate. A lot of blowback can take place that you thought was not going to be the issue. So we try to be as... I mean, it's imperfect. Like any cooperation of the people, it's imperfect. But where these things arise, it becomes really helpful for municipalities to have these close conversations with elected officials to say, well, this is a big problem for us. And the Newmont League of Cities and Towns, by and large, you hear from where people want things. We want this. It can be hard to get the same amount of attention for, you know, we're this one little town down at the very southern end of the state and this is a problem for us. It's not always easy to elevate that same thing. But, you know, it's a kind of Horton, here's a who moment. And it can work out if you're not doing this.

**Speaker 10:** Jonathan, one more...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, I lied. When I say one more question, that's... But if a town doesn't... So this is a mandate that we have to do. If we don't do it, so we've already been told by the person that usually does this. They're not going to. They're not safe enough. They don't feel safe enough to do it.

**Speaker 10:** I see. So what happens?

**Speaker 4:** What does the state do to the town? I don't think the state's got too much of an iron fist. But I'm not... It's a law. I actually don't know. It's a law.

**Speaker 1:** And it might... It might void the tax sale. That would be it. We spoke with the attorney today and he said that you will not have a tax sale. Oh, yeah.

**Speaker 11:** You won't do it.

**Speaker 4:** Oh, yeah. I see. So you have to take... It doesn't seem to do this, but you have to take a picture when you put the notice on the door, because how can you prove that you did it? So... And I think that is the goal. The idea is to do it. Yeah. As many of these not fall through

**Speaker 12:** is AI. Yeah. That's good.

No comments.

**Speaker 4:** Okay. You're smart.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** What else would you like to talk to... I think we've talked about that. That was my main concern was the tax sale. That was the big thing that I came prepared to talk about, but there's... I know there's a number of issues and I'm just happy to jump in

**Speaker 4:** if there's questions. All right. We'll do that. I have a question. Okay. So how... How do you communicate with your constituents?

**Speaker 13:** How do you... How do you communicate with your constituents? How do you communicate with your constituents? How do you communicate with your constituents? Yeah. How do you communicate with your constituents? You know, periodically throughout the year so that we have an idea of what you and the legislature is doing. So one of the things...

**Speaker 4:** So I've tried to do a number of things because they always tell you to be doing more. You know, there's sort of the minimum be at the town meetings. They're all on the same night. Yeah. God bless them. But at least it's a little bit staggering. You know, so this Yankee cannonball whipping through the starting board for getting back... Yeah. The... The... And then at those... At those meetings, reports that people have in mid-year reports, here's what things are, trying to get folks a sense of, I think that this stuff in 1.81 is going to be repealed. It looks like, you know, this elements of the education buy-down tax will be somewhere in the $100 million range. Really giving people as much of a crystal ball as it can. And then events at office hours a little more consistently last year where it was the Stamford Library on the... Let's say it's the third Saturday of the month, so we're going for that at 9.30. As many of you know, my wife and I have twins and so that was in December of 2025. So my weekends, my Saturdays, it was a little tougher to come home on Friday and then just be out the door on Saturday with some of these civic engagements. But that's really events and coming to slideboard meetings. Email lists are another important way that people make updates of what's going on in the legislature. And, you know, I think I have an interesting story about the news tomorrow. So there's just trying to be in as many places as you can. It seems like the goal is to never stop talking, but I just need to stop talking once in a while.

**Speaker 13:** Like now is a good time. But what needs to happen is that

of course you need to be available to listen to us. And so those events

**Speaker 13:** that you were

doing,

**Speaker 13:** the Rays Road General Store, you said, I mean, will you be doing those

**Speaker 4:** things? Yeah, that was important for me to spend some time, you know, sort of sending the family in the first year of this last eight months. How long's your term? Two years. Yeah, everything except, I think, attorney general or the state's attorneys are two-year terms . You see a lot of turnover. There'll be a lot more turnover for a bunch of new people. A lot of people are not returning after some time in the legislature to work. Probably have 40, at least 40 members out of 150. But anyhow, the answer to that is yes. One of the, I think one of the, I don't, it seems like every legislature seems to do it really differently. Some people send out three emails, you know, every, you must send something out. Some people have, I think Kathleen James in Manchester said, some districts are the size of a few city blocks. Some are about 192 square miles and you try and get what you can get. So that's something that I think you can always do a better job of letting people know where you'll be. But it's important to be out there and it is, I think in fact, they come into slugboard meetings another way of just hearing from people,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** talking and hearing and listening

**Speaker 14:** is the part that legislators need to be more willing to do. So, one of the largest items on our school budget is the healthcare insurance. And I'm wondering what the legislature is doing to try and tackle that. Get to the root cause of it and tackle it.

**Speaker 4:** Yeah, so I think from us, healthcare premiums are the highest in the country. It's $8.50 a month I think is what our number is. And then if you live in New Hampshire it's like a third of that, if that at all. So, we're trying to figure out how do we move off of numbers that are not affordable for people. And my guess is that we'll be focusing a lot on this in the healthcare committee and then the legislature at large. It's impacting our school budget, it's impacting household incomes. Every employer is straining under it. So, I don't know where that came from. I have no idea why it is the way that it is. But it looks like we've been very empowered in Green Mountain Care Board it's a teaching hospital. Teaching hospitals cost the public more because they have to provide certain educational elements that broader hospitals do not. And so that in a small state we're doing that

**Speaker 14:** the wrong way. How big is the pharmaceutical lobby in the state? I mean how much pressure are they

**Speaker 15:** putting on

**Speaker 4:** to allow this to happen? I mean there's I think we they don't seem big but I think good lobbies good lobbyists I don't hear from them too often because my work is in commerce and economic development. So that's so I'm hearing from lobbyists who are affiliated with META and whatnot. I do think that you know the Vermont Association of Healthcare Systems VAAS the hospital sort of association they have a lobbyist we hear a lot from her. I think that where we tried to implement reference based pricing which was a way to rein in the quality of the healthcare system. And as you know we do have a lot of information that we can share with the public and we have a lot of information

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

**Speaker 6:** and we can use to help the public understand I haven't seen much about him, and I know you probably know your strengths, but I just think this is vice versa. I'd really like to know.

**Speaker 4:** What I know, so Charles Jewett is his name, but he lives in the wrong corner from me. And so what I know about him mostly is just, I know what color car he's driving. And, you know, I think that his campaign is his thing, and I've enjoyed talking to him. We walk, not quite together, but whenever you go to the Greensboro 4th of July parade, they put you in place. Hey Charlie, how are you doing? So, you know, we've had some exchange pleasantries. And I think, you know, that his campaign is, I haven't spent a lot of time focusing on it. So I'm trying to talk a little about what I'm up to, what I look forward to doing, and why I love this work. I'm not trying to make this into a softball where I just talk about me more. Because your question about Charlie, I just don't know much about.

**Speaker 6:** I mean, normally candidates know their strengths over another person. I'm just curious, because I haven't been able to find much about him, so you as a candidate should know.

**Speaker 4:** I don't know, to be honest, some candidates really take care of their campaigning in a very personal way. They may be doing all the door knocking in the world, and you wouldn't know because they're not knocking on your door. That's because they're afraid to go to a restaurant.

**Speaker 16:** Take it out.

**Speaker 4:** I think it is important to let Mr. Jewett speak for his own campaign. But I know that it's hard to do. It feels odd going to strangers' houses. But if it feels weird going to their houses, it's going to feel weird. How are you going to be able to advocate for people around people that you don't know in Montpelier? And that was something that I challenged myself with. I felt like I was back in the Boy Scouts doing the campaign. I'm driving first, just scared to go up to the doors and knock. But you get used to it. Any time it's your first campaign, I think it is in Mr. Jewett's first campaign, you have to get out of that phase. And that is a phase.

**Speaker 13:** I have one more comment. So I was on the Select Board. I'm now on the Planning Commission. And right now I'm thinking, just because it's easy and I can bring it up, of Act 181. I honestly actually think... From what I've seen from you since you've been involved in politics, I feel like you are a great listener. And I feel like you truly want to do what's right for your constituents, for the people of the area. But I have to tell you that... And I'm going to use this word, but I don't...

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Don't say it. We can't say that.

**Speaker 13:** It's probably not the right word. But I'm a little... I'm a little alarmed by what I'm seeing. And Act 181 would be a good example of it. The push for building new homes. The Regional Planning Commissions. Because it appears that there is a big disconnect between the Regional Planning Commissions and the people who are making these rules and changes. And the people. And I feel like...

I feel like the distance between the people, us,

**Speaker 13:** and these larger Regional Planning Commissions and people who are making big changes that have all kinds of fallout, it's not good. I feel like people feel like they are not being listened to. And they are not being understood. They're not being included.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well, that's the thing with government. It's supposed to be for the weak, not the strong. Right. And when we are, what, 800 residents? Yeah. And if you ask the legislators if they know where Stamford, Vermont is,

**Speaker 8:** they probably will still say, yeah, but I don't think they have any money in there. And that's the thing. They represent those big... It's all about votes. You know, we talk about health care and insurances and all that. It's all about votes. You want to get rid of all these problems, you get rid of the lobbyists, and you get rid of all your problems. That's your biggest problem right there. But, you know, Pam's right. You're both right. I mean, we have your representative and what Burlington has for representatives. So, Burlington is going to vote. Yeah. And here we send up Jonathan.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I disagree. It's going to be very...

**Speaker 8:** It's like that math with Watts and Berkley County. But the thing is, you know, of course you know this. You're here to represent us. You're here to listen to us. You're here to represent us.

**Speaker 13:** And there can't be such a big disconnect between what the government and large regions of the country have to do with this. Right. And what the government and large regional planning commissions think their duty is and the people on the ground. And so, you know, you need to find a way to try to bridge that because we shouldn't be surprised and taken aback and upset or whatever about things that are happening.

**Speaker 17:** That also applies with the state. Right.

**Speaker 14:** Right. That also applies with the state education supervisory districts that they're planning too. These giant districts where we're going to be some tiny little voice out in Brattleboro somewhere and they got all these big wigs out in Brattleboro. We'll be nobody. So, we won't have much of a say when that happens. I'll try to respond to kind of both of those. They're similar. That's why I wanted to throw that in. I think that it is... You know, we have this experience that we've had just going back 30 years to when the Brigham decision under the Montefiore Court ruled that we were not going to be able to vote. Right.

**Speaker 15:** Right.

**Speaker 4:** Right.

**Speaker 18:** Right.

**Speaker 15:** Right.

**Speaker 4:** Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. I mean, that is, I think, one of the reasons it is such a great question, is when the Brigham decision on the Montefiore Court ruled that you can't just let towns decide themselves with their school budgets. There was... I mean, that's a pretty big hit on the concept of local control. And we had to create this whole new system that almost nobody can understand that costs of fortune, that people can't really feel that they're getting good and clear answers on, also that we could meet the constitutional imperative to provide equal opportunities to access education, but it could be that people don't have the opportunity to go to school during which time, because there was no access to housing or any other services in the county. Right. Right. Right. Right. But the math hasn't gotten any better. It's not the- You mean the P.L. Brigham? That's one of those, is it right for the decision? You know, the point was just that, if you look at 1996, the year before Brigham, the five highest spending districts and the five lowest spending districts was a little closer, just a little closer than it is now. It's gotten a little bit worse. Even adding in this whole system is meant to make things more equal. Part of that bridge building that you mentioned, as just for full transparency, I work at a regional planning commission. I've been at the BCRC now for just over 10 years. And it's been a weird time for regional planning commissions. We're not used to being in the paper. We're not used to having people be mad at us. What we're used to doing is going to meetings and talking to people about the things that the meeting is about. And listening to people tell us about what they want for the future of their towns. And trying to get it right and square it with whatever the state statute is. And what the conditions are. And not everybody always has the best user experience. One of the challenges with Act 181 was that it meant a whole new way of thinking about Act 250. And it really did mean a lot of signature, what you might call keystone legislation. You're gonna have to figure it out as you're going along. Because some things didn't get fixed or addressed on the first passing statute because the legislators that are making these laws are not the planners who are doing the planning. So some stuff gets missed. Not every shop in the state interpreted one and one the same way, and that is the exact kind of inconsistency that we need to avoid. One really kind of quick history lesson, because I love planning. It's what I chose to do with my career. One guy I know, a bunch of years ago in New York, Robert Moses, was the most powerful man in New York City. He was a planner, and he kind of got himself onto all of these boards, panels, unelected positions where he could just do what he wanted. And one of the things that he wanted to do was to ensure that certain people in New York City could get to the swimming pools, and certain other people couldn't. They'd be right next door, but they'd know that road, that street dead ends there. There's no, so now kids have to walk four miles to get around to a pool that's less than a half a mile away from the Kerr Plus. Our profession was ashamed of that manipulation of public power and betrayal of public trust. Because everybody was paying in for those pools. So, over the years, I think that's what we've done. I think planning has attempted to be very engaging. Really focused on public input. Attempting to bring on public input. But it's hard to ask people to come to New York. We're supposed to be having dinner, which we're supposed to be having. And sit in chairs. Maybe not the most comfortable chairs in the world. And talk about what they want to see here, there, everywhere. Maybe it's just leave us alone, is what we want to see. That tension, I think, will often be there. I mean, we got, I think, 900 kids. To participate in the Bennington Town Plan. But what they want to see in Bennington. Their own town. In 50 years. It was really exciting. It's hard to replicate that everywhere. You end up gravitating towards your biggest population centers. But the obligation is to the entire region. So, I think the legislature will be taking a pretty close look at how this rolled out. The process in which a regional plan is adopted requires approval by a new body. The legislature view board. One entity that submitted a regional plan. And the legislature view board sent a pretty strong letter back that they thought it was not worthy to be. So that system is looking out for people at that local level. And the last point I'll make is that right around now, fingers crossed, the Bennington County Regional Plan is being adopted by the commissioners in Arlington. Which would be a good thing to see. Because that was a lot of work. And I'd love it if it sailed on to its next destination with the legislature view board. Anyhow. That's.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** One other thing too. That's going to affect a lot of towns. Is the mandate that the towns are going to have to reappraise every six year cycle. Who's going to do the reappraisal? I mean, we've scheduled one. And just an estimate. For the one. Coming up in 2032. Less. A little bit less than $100,000. How are the towns going to afford this?

**Speaker 4:** Because that is. You've got to do it every six years. And now it's. It's the state again.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The state mandate.

**Speaker 19:** You've got to do it.

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

**Speaker 19:** How are we going to do it?

**Speaker 4:** All right. So I think that that is. The state has an obligation to help figure that out somehow. And so that's something else we should be sure we talk about. To give clarity to towns. To our smaller towns. Here's how this is done. I'm going to bring it back. As it is right now. It seems like that's.

**Speaker 20:** Too much.

**Speaker 12:** A little too long. I had that conversation. And. With a. With a person. Who's your. Transportation planner there. Mark. Mark. So. The conversation. Was just. Just about that. And we were talking about taxes and stuff like that. Can't. The regional commission. Because of that. Not being able to afford. Reappraisal every six years. Because. You know. You know. You know. You know. You know. They don't have the right to pay. Every six years. Could that be. Treated. Sort of. Like the. Town plan. And the bylaws. With the. You know. Being able to get a grant. To do that.

**Speaker 4:** That's my first question.

**Speaker 12:** I'm glad you got it. Okay. Let me. Let me. Subject. Question. It's speaking it. On grants and stuff. We had had a conversation. A couple. A few times about. Playground equipment. And stuff. Yes. And I know. You know. or something yeah it's um so that's where we're at here and i know our principal here is interested

**Speaker 20:** in what you have to say so i'll start with that last part we'll talk um the building communities

**Speaker 4:** grants uh educational facilities grant um there's a deadline coming for that regional planning commission can assist with an application it's dollar per dollar at the twenty five thousand dollars uh of course that's an eligible expenditure um so i'd be happy to in my professional day job role grab that conversation um put something together in the next two weeks um that would be ahead of the application right the previous thing that you mentioned around the appraisal the regionalization is kind of something that the legislature is very much thinking about there was a task force that was just to examine how that would look that was again part of that government operations um committee uh the house and senate um you know elections have consequences the 2024 elections saw a lot of turnover and some of the people that were spearheading that we're going to point it to one that we're going to that office so we just that kind of needed to take a break for a second but that's still something that's been exactly examined consistently over the years as you don't want to do these things impulsively you want to take your time but that is something i think that people are talking about is regionalization in an area where proposals can become soften that give a bigger bite of business to one entity that can then handle it at a larger rate i expect that those conversations will pick back up a little more honestly after this this new election because i think some of the people that are expected to be in leadership positions in those communities are people that really care about that and have the energy to sort of keep those task force meetings you know on on track any other questions for

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** representative cooper

**Speaker 4:** i'll stick around for a while and people want to chat and yeah thank you

**Speaker 21:** i'm here uh regarding the green top and hometown hero i would like to just make a statement about getting veterans banners put up in our town they're all over southern vermont they're in reedboro powell harlington shattsbury these are the rules and regulations the town will have no expense in this at all this is all put on these sponsor the person purchasing this fan and it may take over a year to get this done i'm willing to

Take people's orders. I do have the application that someone wants it. I'm basically looking for permission from you. Do you have a word that's working with you? All right. Go hard.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I've been reading about it now. Yeah, I have 1 question 1 question on the power company that's doubled up down here. I'm wondering to hold up today. We're talking about it. If you can't do it, well, I've seen a couple of American flags go up and everything. I've actually emailed the, uh, 1 of the, uh, hold things up down there in support of this.

**Speaker 22:** Well, my last page here is the email and they said any requests have to come from the select board. Okay. Okay. So you have a group that's gonna put them up and take you down. I don't know. I don't know that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Other than. That I support it 100%. I'm just even if they said no, and I just as a board member, we can't give you the permission to break the law. Okay. But, uh, but I'm saying as a person, I support 100% and I'd love to see it go up, but I don't feel that Green Mountain is going to hold you up. But if we need to request something, let us know. Yeah. Well, I think they, they say that, and it may be for insurance purposes. I don't know. But we put our American flags up on every year reasonable as done. And, uh, same thing with Massachusetts.

**Speaker 23:** They've been doing an all word list. I think it's a great idea. Um, I don't see any negative at all to it. So I have no problem doing, you know, go ahead and discuss this and get back to me. I mean, I'm not, you know, I, I don't expect an answer right now.

**Speaker 21:** But If I You know, once if I get a green light from moving forward and my, the other concern I had regarding this is making sure people are aware that this is going to be happening, you know, would be the program and that was that was called them on Facebook. Yeah, and a lot of people, I guess they had over 100 applications now to add to them. Yes, it's, it's awesome, you know. I certainly, you know, I agree that there was going to be more, because the reason if, uh, the the residents came in, all right. You know, if Kadie and cinco are on board and we can everybody should vote and they should vote on our fault.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah. I know that, you know.

**Speaker 21:** Oh, yes. Yeah. You have to ask for it. they didn't vote. Yep. i really want to make sure that no one is left behind or unaware and do we have a representative

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** in southern i would say i know we do in southern vermont in stamford we don't know no uh for uh veterans not right i know we know about it no they don't anymore okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** he's not supposed to come into vermont but he talks to vermont yeah okay there's a veterans

**Speaker 24:** affair in benedictine okay yeah because my my uncle pad got here he's really involved

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if we needed to get some guidance i'm sure they would be able to uh representative cooper do you

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** know anything about the hometown veteran banners can they be put on the state highways that was what i was told years ago years ago but i don't know

**Speaker 4:** they're in bennington in the town yep and they're on and they're up on route seven in palma like just if you're if you're not in the center of palma you can still see some a little farther

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** up i believe is that on the state highway yeah i think i have that right first we think that

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** they're just doing it and i don't think

**Speaker 25:** power companies could come and get them down i didn't know if the saint was going to take them

**Speaker 22:** down if they're on the state highway and i don't know i don't i just you know i i just need to

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** i say go ahead and look into it more i would have no problem with doing that to request it let us know what we have to do the letter and we can at least we can go forward with that i'll just drop in the line

**Speaker 26:** when is it possible a way to put it on like a

**Speaker 27:** or

**Speaker 21:** fill so i can go ahead and proceed to you know it's going to take well over a year oh definitely

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah i would say as long as there's no law being broken i can do 100

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** i think the first thing we have to do is write to green mountain power get their permission um i just

**Speaker 28:** make a comment i know that denise sahay has been looking yes okay very good thank you so uh

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** if we have lori right to green mountain power and say we'd like to proceed with this program do we have your permission to put them on

**Speaker 25:** as it's done in other towns along other highways and i don't know if they're putting new polls from

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** cluff road down to here

**Speaker 21:** this will be i know nancy said that there was a motor list of veterans from the dinner we had and i think it's more of a cemetery commission members that are deceased that were our parents

**Speaker 29:** generation that their kids made right we did have you're doing uh all veterans not just deceased

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** right because we did have a a list of veterans uh dan poppet actually yeah that's right so you probably

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** will get some information what is the criteria what is the criteria they have to been living

**Speaker 30:** here when they enlisted or the application says what is your connection to the town went to school

**Speaker 21:** there lives there owns property was born there okay i did um i submitted dogs to clarksburg because that's his hometown but you could have it up here too he could sure but that was a lot more because the thing about getting it done was was in clark's birth but um my son i had some he's been in the navy for 22 months so he's certainly going to get one yeah yeah if i can so i can go back and

**Speaker 26:** absolutely i don't see why not thank you

**Speaker 21:** to green mountain power yeah thank you that's great i don't live here anymore this is important

**Speaker 31:** i just wanted to do everything from what i understand too is now they're

**Speaker 32:** changing all the bowls they're still leaving the old one on they think they're part of the amount of nutrition side yeah so there would be a whole number of set of holes that could be used outside of that area

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** those other poles are still owned by them i asked the guy the other day i had to go through my yard up there up there i had a few left holes in there to change for now I asked the guy at the Green Mountain, what are you gonna do with them? He says, well, one would saw it down, they'd have to come back and do something. We're made, okay, what are your comments?

**Speaker 6:** I would've had three, right? I would've had three, but they just got the time to move it off the road a little bit. So, you know, I think we have seven or nine that go up to our house. And Green Mountain Power owns them, but we buy every single one of them.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right, of course you do, yeah.

**Speaker 21:** Yeah, we get to buy our full, too. Do we need your permission to put them on your phone? Lori, do you have this? No, I'll put you on, Lori. I had six, but Kirk was here, so. So I, anyways, I am here for every, I'll proceed on as circumstances allow.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you, thank you, Lori. And people can get in touch with you with your phone number, you have your phone number public? Yeah.

**Speaker 21:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. So they would contact you directly?

**Speaker 21:** Yes, yes. Okay. Once I start, when we hear from Green Mountain Power, I will go ahead and I've lost that, I'm sorry, Lori, there's a patient, there's supposed to be one with three patients.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Here, if you want to, okay. I got it.

**Speaker 21:** Here you go. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Jean, again, again, just go say hi to Jean. You're never getting out of here. Yes, I am. I don't live here anymore, I can leave. All right, I'm good.

**Speaker 33:** Any other visitors, comments from visitors?

**Speaker 17:** Lisa, go on. I just want to clarify, you just pointed out to me in the minute 11 meeting, it did sound kind of like the plan was just working on a municipal water system, which we are not, we're really looking towards planning with the eye on. Not. Right. Exactly. We're trying to say it nicely. We understand. We want to make sure that the meetings, the minutes, don't sound like we're letting people. People are working on that, but we're not. Yeah, we don't want people to read the minutes

and think that we are doing something, but we are not only not doing that,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we're actually doing the exact opposite of what this is. So you are not working on municipal,

**Speaker 17:** we're proactively trying to be standing around with conservation and . Protecting water sources. Yeah.

**Speaker 34:** No, we're not.

**Speaker 6:** No, we're not. Oh, yes.

**Speaker 35:** Okay, go on.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It says the planning commission is interested in preserving water sources in the town while working into a municipal water system

**Speaker 29:** for the summer.

**Speaker 36:** I do too.

**Speaker 21:** That's what I was saying. Yeah.

**Speaker 13:** That's for the other commission. We had a meeting where we did speak about that, a planning commission meeting, but it's that. It's more to gather information, but when I read those minutes,

I was just like, hey, that's the exact opposite

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** of what we're doing right now. So the planning commission is not.

**Speaker 32:** It is not.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Actively looking into municipal water and septic system at this time. We are absolutely not. For any part of that.

**Speaker 17:** And in fact, when we get into it,

because my father-in-law is on the select board in Miami, he can't really get any more information.

**Speaker 17:** The more I look at the figures, the more I think we're definitely deviating away from that.

**Speaker 6:** So we're looking back to preserve the water sources so that we never have to go down.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You do know this is going to come up next meeting now.

**Speaker 6:** Which meeting?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** The select board meeting.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. Probably. Yes. Okay. Anything else? My shoulders.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** We've got to sign it. Don't worry. We don't have the money. We can't even get money for what the state forces us on. Oh, I'm sorry. We've got to sign it. Don't worry. We don't have the money. We can't even get money for what the state forces us on. Oh, I see. Oh, I understand. Yes.

**Speaker 17:** Yes.

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

**Speaker 17:** Anything else?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Reading and approval of records and orders, the regular minutes of September 3rd. All right. I'm going to make motion to approve it. We know that there has been a clarification. Are you putting that in the minutes? Huh?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It'll be in these minutes. I'm going to approve the minutes, but we know on this, this, this, this, this, this, this,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this, this,

**Speaker 2:** this,

**Speaker 25:** this,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** this, this, this, this, this, this, this,

**Speaker 2:** this,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this, this, this,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** this,

**Speaker 25:** this,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** this,

**Speaker 2:** this,

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** this, this,

**Speaker 25:** this,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** this, this,

**Speaker 7:** this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and we're unable to sweep so i've got a different contractor coming in next week okay

**Speaker 25:** how do you think your rope came out it looked better before it got swept

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so i had a good point following her yeah uh dude it seems like it's i don't know they said there was a window right down in the middle yeah okay yeah so that's probably why

**Speaker 7:** okay so i so that just doesn't happen again

**Speaker 37:** and east road is probably unholding next year too i'm sure that's next year i haven't heard

**Speaker 7:** big contact hb therapy update on our truck they haven't called me back so i'm guessing that's probably wrong and if you have i don't know how your schedule is working but if you can

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** start working on the tennis court yeah so what was the day october i think it was october 5th

**Speaker 7:** right so i'm planning on friday trying to get down there to do that the day that they're off i don't know if we'll get it done don't kill yourself whatever you can get done get all the material from the buildings out there so we won't have you know

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you can check with julie and see what days she had two like friday and monday but i think monday

**Speaker 37:** was the holiday yeah so don't work on the holiday please no i mean it's not a big deal if we're out

**Speaker 7:** there on schools in the session but it does not be the majority of it yeah they probably wouldn't like that finish it you know as far as top zones even though they certainly can't get out on highway yep so we got our final bill from payton slightly more than what we can run the tonnages and written in the contract is the tonnages are estimated so it's about seven to five hundred dollars more than the official contracts it's like one percent or something yeah so normal yeah i just wanted to run it by the employee and send them a check to make sure that's all and that's what they're saying it's not bad yeah i i i did fight with them because the actually they contacted me and wanted to go up on the price because the price of oil i thought about it so we signed a contract with you at that price per time yeah you're just gonna have to eat a good time yeah so yeah so i think we really did luck out

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** on that yeah well i think the hill looks good though the shore road jefferson road looks really nice and hopefully the winter will cooperate yeah

**Speaker 7:** you work through it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** up pretty much for us so so can i have a motion to pay the uh the uh all state

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you see don't give them

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** wait a minute we finally got the bank to approve our loan there was some uh difficulty there but we're all straightened out um worked through the monday monday already and they um yes what was the difficulty yes

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** and how do you want to say that i've tried to think of the actual definition

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the paving loan has no collateral it's a non-binding no secured unsecured loan

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yeah i tried to remember the words

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** But, we're a municipality, they want to work with us, and they came through.

**Speaker 25:** And they also said that they were going to.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes, they told Lori.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** And then they went, oh, well, you know, you don't have underwriters that nobody ever sees? Yeah. Now you're in that business. Well, the underwriter said, no, sorry, you can't have the loan.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And we did check with the bank that you suggested. The bank that I sent, and they couldn't help you? Well, they would, but see, they want all our money. Everybody wants all our money.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** But that's a good thing, though, because now you have competition. Right? So now you can just say, well, sorry, we'll go over here. I really like them.

**Speaker 13:** I really, really like them. But I realize that, I mean, I don't know how often you have to manually move money, like actual checks. Right. As opposed to, I don't know how much of a big deal that is for you to go to Bennington.

**Speaker 38:** But I did talk to them.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I talked to your co-worker, and I said it would be Peter. Peter. And he told me about him, too. And I'm saying I'll give him a number. He gave me a number, a girl up there. That's me. Yeah.

**Speaker 8:** And I feel, the thing is, like you said, when these other banks merge, and we saw that, and who's that? If anybody talks about 30 years ago, they were the greatest bank ever. I know. We all knew each other. You shake hands, you walk in and say, oh, these guys are fighting it all. You're definitely not getting along, you know?

**Speaker 13:** Yeah. And now Adam's Co-op is merging. Exactly. That's what it says. So I don't know whether that is part of the thing. But I don't know. I love bank to bank. Yep. I mean, I really do. It's nice to be able to shake hands and kind of know each other.

**Speaker 8:** Oh, the 3%? That's not happening with the 3%. Well, Adam's Co-op does not have, the merger hasn't gone through yet. They don't have their review board in place.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, they've done. They've lost, they've lost. Okay, so they've lost a lot. They've lost employees. Personnel. And then one. So. And the other thing is, they've lost, they've lost, they've lost employees. Personnel. And then one. So.

**Speaker 13:** And the bank, when they merged, it's the bank of Pittsfield, correct? No.

**Speaker 38:** What is it called?

**Speaker 13:** Pittsfield Co-op. Pittsfield something.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Is Pittsfield larger than Adam's Co-op? No. No. Okay. But, but Pittsfield Co-op, to my understanding, is the same as Mike Bailey, who's the president. He was the one who was with Berkshire Bank.

**Speaker 35:** Okay.

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

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

**Speaker 7:** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. What all that for? He's another one of those people who are independent. And then, they, they, they, which have been bored. But, they, he's been around forever. Right. They've weren't for a long time. And, and then, I, I, I hate mergers. Yeah they do. They do, they do. You lose all that personal attention. Right. But everything is fine now. It's the way. Everything.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's very hard to say small-

**Speaker 39:** Well it's just like you were all just talking about first about the lobbyist.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** You get insurance companies in the, in a state. And. and you got four insurance companies, three insurance companies, but there could be a great insurance company, like UB Insurance, you're not allowed to deal with them. You know, I talked to the representative in North Adams there, this one and the prior one, yeah, and I told her, I said, you could have an insurance company in Tennessee, it's great technology, you don't need to have a guy go broke. But they have to be licensed. That's what I mean, and why is that? Because the legislators won't let them do it. They can't come here at all. There's only so many of them to work on. It's all about money.

**Speaker 25:** It sure is.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah, it sure is. And the higher up you go, the more money there is.

**Speaker 2:** Anything else, Dave, on highway?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No. Okay, recycling.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I thought we skipped right down to the paint.

**Speaker 25:** Well, it was in, it was in.

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

**Speaker 7:** The Castello Saga just is a weekly thing, it feels like at this point. The price is definitely the best out there, but their service has just gone totally, it's, it's, you know, we had an issue. I had an older person pick up and dump one of our youngsters last week, I guess. I had called Castello a week prior. I was trying to be able to get our dumpsters emptied, and they weren't, they didn't work emptied. So then Carol had to fill the demolition on Saturday with trash, instead of putting it in the compactor. So I called them up, called them over and said, what's the deal? And they said, oh, we're not on a schedule. Well, I called last week. And now if I call, I go through four different people to be able to get our trash emptied. So I'm on the phone for, you know, at least a half an hour. So I'm trying to be a transfer. It starts down, and I'm calling up any numbers. I don't know if it's an 800 number. But you always get somebody down south. And then they ask your zip is. And then you've got them getting somebody in Brattleboro. And they're like, oh, I don't even have you in the system. Well, they don't even have you in Brattleboro anymore. You know where Stamford is, you know. And so then they transfer you to somebody else. And that person finally will get you to Wilson, Muscat. Something happens. Okay. So what's the difference? I haven't gotten the bill. The Hilltown demolition guy. Okay. I did get a break from Don Leo. It's a little bit higher. And they're obviously busy. Hilltown demolition. I didn't have his number. So we called him. He came up that day. And took our dumpster down empty. And said it's Richard's place. He's been in the hall. He'd be more than happy to do it for us. And he just never texts me. He doesn't. He has his own business. You know. Containers and stuff. But he has time to be able to drop those for us. Now the price is going to be that she can sell. I haven't got his bill yet. So I don't want to say what it's going to be. Where's he hauling that? Same place that it can sell. Same place.

**Speaker 6:** So it's not like it's going anywhere. Bill got fired. Is that one of the problems?

**Speaker 7:** Did somebody come? No. That was somebody I think that's new in town. That was our system.

**Speaker 6:** But they came and dumped.

**Speaker 7:** Somebody called. They came and got rid of it.

**Speaker 40:** Yeah.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah. Do they have a recycling cart? Will that.

**Speaker 7:** The place is unclosed.

**Speaker 41:** Because of that.

**Speaker 7:** Well. Oh. Somebody went up there and opened it. And dumped. I don't know if it's done or not. But this is part of the conversation. You have people that aren't full time residents that aren't going to be here on Saturday and leaving to go back to Long Island for a week. Some have a problem. Trash on Tuesday instead of Wednesday or Saturday. It's not going to change with those people.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. You know. We talk about this a lot. And if we make it. Like you said. If we fight the fight. Make it so hard. You're going to have dumping on the side of the road. And you're going to have the green day pickup. One day you're going to have it filled. And you're going to have people bringing stuff down. What do you want to tell the people. The four wheelers. Side by sides. To me that's a service for free. I mean there is people that don't. And it's a very few times that we have that. My thing we should look at. The big question is the prices. You know if you've got a service that's no good. And you can get a price that's close for a better service.

**Speaker 7:** I would guess I mean that it's going to be 150 more haul. So that's 12 haul a year. For the one down here.

**Speaker 42:** So.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well let's see what happens.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Hey we might do this. And the consultant comes back and says hey we need your business. There's a lot of things that can.

**Speaker 7:** It's the service that the consultant can't provide anymore. And you call them.

**Speaker 13:** So they just know. They just know. They suck and they don't do a good job. Because they have everyone. This is more than a year.

**Speaker 32:** Everybody does this. That's a stupid question. I know we own the compactor. The containers that everything they put into. Do we own those too as well? Or is that a consolidated thing?

**Speaker 7:** So the demolition and the compactor we own. The recycling we don't. That's still consolidated. And they're good about that because that's on auto. So for the most part they only mess that up once or twice a year. So we're not going to lose that.

**Speaker 32:** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And they'll still do the compost.

**Speaker 8:** Yeah. I just noticed the service from this guy

**Speaker 7:** was pretty spectacular considering we're not a customer. We just call him and he says yeah I'll call my guy.

**Speaker 26:** Is it worth trying to implement fees for these people that are from out of state like you said part time residents that aren't full time residents. Is there a way to implement a higher don't fee for those particular people to offset the cost of it?

**Speaker 17:** I don't know why we.

**Speaker 26:** Because like I said North Adams City Dump they have it open to everybody. The non-residents residents they'll take all your trash. There's a higher fee for the people that are non-residents. So I don't know if that's the way this town wants to go because they're operated like a business. We don't make any money

**Speaker 32:** at the dump that's for sure. Right. Versus something we can

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

**Speaker 43:** I see what you're saying. And then that means

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we need to update them.

**Speaker 17:** We need to update them.

**Speaker 44:** We should start looking at things like this.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** So I was a big believer in raising the prices way back. I think it should be free. Yeah I know you do. But then the taxpayers

**Speaker 39:** that don't use that are paying it

**Speaker 6:** and so on. We're paying it anyway. It's a little harder

**Speaker 35:** to do that.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's a loss on the town's money. Yeah. I don't use it.

**Speaker 6:** We're using it now but if the price goes up.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** It's still going to be a lot lower than any other place you've done it.

**Speaker 39:** I know but I just think I think that's service

**Speaker 45:** personally that I should provide.

**Speaker 13:** Well okay so how much do we bring in? Every year in revenues from the dump.

**Speaker 46:** You don't lose it.

**Speaker 13:** No I know. I know we're losing money

**Speaker 47:** but what is the income and what's the expense?

**Speaker 7:** I feel like you'd have to charge for demo. If you got rid of the trash but you could never say that the demo I mean you just every time somebody wants to redo the incident I'll take advantage of it.

**Speaker 26:** It's not like we We bring in 15,000. As a minister and it costs I don't know if we have to.

**Speaker 1:** Well do you have to? 80?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 73,000.

**Speaker 1:** We're only bringing in 15,000.

**Speaker 48:** It is free.

**Speaker 13:** We can't lose that 15,000.

**Speaker 49:** We can't lose that 15,000. We can't lose that 15,000.

**Speaker 13:** We can't lose that 15,000. I mean thank God we're getting it.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Well that's what I'm saying. I think we're so low and I understand your size. We're losing that guy. We're losing that guy.

**Speaker 28:** That's the thing.

**Speaker 13:** We have to raise taxes. If everybody gets it for free now everybody's going to use it the 80,000 will turn into 160,000. Sure. And then we're just going to have to raise taxes. Absolutely.

And save 100,000 dollars.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm sorry. So the guy that It's just a both sides of the coin. I understand that. So the guy that

**Speaker 7:** don'ts for us the other day does four for them and he says it's every week. Or once a month.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Right. How many residents use it if it's only 30% and now we make it free and now you have 100% it goes up not half

**Speaker 13:** not double I think we've got a good thing going on here with it. I mean not good I don't want to do more.

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't want to do any more. I mean if I have I'd pay for all the roads in town

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

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There you go. I don't want to do any more. Right. But you can't write that up. See I understand same thing with a school. I don't like children going to school.

**Speaker 14:** But I do understand it's dark in here. It's a collective thing.

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

**Speaker 26:** Yeah. Well she charges for items too isn't that part of that too?

**Speaker 1:** Yeah that's $3,000 and selling the cars is $12,000 so $15,000 total.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah but how much did we spend getting rid of them last year? Yeah we've got to pay for people

**Speaker 1:** a lot more than $3,000. It's just wrapped into the cycling cost.

**Speaker 7:** Right. I can guarantee you that it costs us a lot more than $3,000 just you know it costs $340 to haul it never mind the cost of the downhill so it's six times a year.

**Speaker 1:** Well do you want just the cost do you want just that recycling cost not including people and all of it?

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I've got a load in my trailer right now I'm looking where that is next week. I'll ring a bell we'll see what that costs.

**Speaker 13:** Well I told you I can't remember now but when I used to be when I used to be able to go to Palinol and I went to Palinol and dumped you know a couple of huge loads in my dumping trailer I mean I feel like it was about $150 and now you can't even go there. And now you can't even go there.

**Speaker 26:** They charge by the weight.

**Speaker 50:** When I do go

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm going to have it's not really a demo it's more a house clean out I guess you would call it you're not supposed to have this this and this but it is what it is people never look I'm going to tell you right now you probably get stuff in there all the time that you don't know what's in there all those in the same hole and get down to Pittsfield but I'll get the bill and the weight and all that we can see what that costs I don't know what North Adams is charging I don't consider a resident because of the business what they're charging me for that with my sticker that costs so much

**Speaker 26:** Yeah so when you go there you pay for a sticker an initial fee and then you're charged for your weight Sure

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** no cash either all credit cards and you only use one vehicle it has to be the vehicle you have registered tickers on that vehicle your truck breaks down too bad You're always nice to me

**Speaker 13:** I'm like a sticker

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Yeah you're always a sticker

**Speaker 13:** Yeah you need to be a woman

**Speaker 35:** and be nice to them

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** There's a woman at the window

**Speaker 26:** They charge for problem for trash Excuse me

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** Oh sorry Anything else Dave? Recycling

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** See Jonathan how bad this gets us

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

**Speaker 2:** Okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Each household has a waste facility in Bennington will be closing October 5th so if you need to get anything up there before winter Oh it's just closing for the winter

**Speaker 13:** Yes You should not if you did what I did and you went into basements I know they must have somewhere clean and acceptable and safe to put it or it will be on the back roads it will dump it on the back roads there has to be a place

**Speaker 21:** where that stuff can go

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I know this is just because it's up where my campus is but Risky Man Show they used to dump a lot up there they wouldn't just dump on the side of the road they'd throw over a bank and be like well you've been up there

**Speaker 51:** in the river

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** nobody can get it out of there and there it is seeping into the brook

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** down to the natural bridge Okay so the other thing with the alliance we're still looking for another member from Stamford to belong to the alliance it's only one hour every three months you attend a meeting online any select board member and it's part of our rules that we have to have put it out there

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** see if someone wants to do it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** a selectman would be the best

**Speaker 25:** advertise it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** selectmen have a future and selectmen should jump forward

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** anyway one thing that the alliance is looking into with DOT and emergency management to develop a plan for disaster debris planning if there's a disaster where is the debris going that must be part must be something

**Speaker 2:** we're fairly lucky

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** in our time our disaster would be something that tears down a building like this it's not going to be a hazardous waste so much an industrial building or a nuclear place I mean you go down to Pittsfield and something happens down there

**Speaker 25:** it's not going to be

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** dark you know okay painting loan

**Speaker 1:** we just dust that anything else on it is that good okay correspondence do we have a chance to read it

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 2032

**Speaker 16:** is Nemrick a lobbyist

**Speaker 4:** in the state of Vermont I don't think so

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** there's not many re-appraisal firms

**Speaker 52:** that work with us I think they work pretty closely with the League of Cities and Towns as much connection as they

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we are forced by the state to do these appraisals we don't have someone that can do it in town so we hire firms they're the only ones

**Speaker 2:** that ever get back to us

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's almost a monopoly we sent out when we did this we sent out over 60

**Speaker 53:** RPs

**Speaker 1:** 72 72 everybody on their list I got one company from Boston and Nemrick

**Speaker 13:** but let me just say as somebody who sees this all the time in all these towns I mean you really have to do it you have to do the re-appraisals because they are it is so unfair you've got some people who are paying this and you've got some people who are paying this

**Speaker 54:** well look at what we did

**Speaker 8:** when we did do that

**Speaker 13:** they went up 20-30% that's right

**Speaker 55:** they were paying way too much

**Speaker 8:** I can't get into it too much because it was always in the executive session but we had people complain about their taxes and if you saw what they were paying they were all it was a camp a honey camp for this wonderful honey camp you saw what they were paying versus what they should have had

**Speaker 56:** all these years

**Speaker 32:** you'd be like holy crap I could move into this I think one of the biggest things too is the appraisal because it happens so this is what it was this is what it was

**Speaker 43:** just recently you saw

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** some people were like 27% what did you say

**Speaker 39:** well that number don't make sense to me

**Speaker 6:** because

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if you look at it this way appraisals may come down but it has to well it's important it's all about what I did like about

**Speaker 6:** the schedule regional it's all about if you vote on our budget everything is somewhat balanced so there shouldn't be these craziness I mean 20 years is a long time

**Speaker 1:** so this is $86,400 they will start in 2030 with a completion date of 2032

**Speaker 26:** was it monthly so it's $3600 for 24 months they don't have an hourly rate on there

**Speaker 1:** it will hearings beyond DCA will be

**Speaker 57:** that's part of the $86,000

**Speaker 26:** so your paying concerns prior to is paid in full free do you hear that

**Speaker 6:** have you done it now

**Speaker 26:** I don't know if there's interest on it but then there's $150 an hour yeah so there's

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** $86,000 charge and anybody who can call it

**Speaker 38:** disputes

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's $150 an hour more for them to defend what they did the travel time

**Speaker 6:** is more than it used to be with John

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so if I make a mistake for me to defend my mistake I'm going to charge the time does that sound right well if you make a mistake

**Speaker 50:** if I'm in the business of

**Speaker 26:** doing this I'm going to make mistakes

**Speaker 13:** and remember when people want to object the bottom line is it's the town's it's the town's opinion of value it's very hard it's very hard to legitimately you know complain and say you did it wrong it's very

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** hard the best thing if you're selling

**Speaker 2:** is to

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** re-appraisal remember too they got to go in and build it too

**Speaker 58:** so these people

**Speaker 32:** that say well I'm going to complain

**Speaker 59:** but they can't

**Speaker 1:** come to my house what are you hiding

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** right otherwise we'll be in the regional the regional

**Speaker 2:** whatever it is

**Speaker 25:** motion

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** all in favor

**Speaker 7:** they used to have a formula where if your sales were so far out of whack from what you're appraising they do doesn't that seem like one of your time and you go by that for a certain amount of time it should be okay is it really worth spending that kind of money when there's a few that might be a little off I mean the juice isn't worth the squeeze there you don't have to do it though just another way to get you to spend every last hour and a half it's one more angle this is not worth the money I understand we're forced to do it but

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** there's other things that are in place that trigger when okay yup there's a problem again if that's not working make it tighten that up so if you're saying it has to be 20% out of whack take it up to 15 or 10 instead of maybe let's do it without a thing if it stays in line for the next 20 years then this thing with all that money we're going to waste it every 3 years 100,000 dollars there's so many needs

**Speaker 7:** there's so many needs now that this is one of those things there's other things you can put in place to fix or was it really broke

**Speaker 60:** it's just we went so far

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we made it

**Speaker 1:** 25 years without having to re-appraise and our numbers didn't change enough to trigger I know when we bought

**Speaker 6:** I'll make this quick but when we bought the Club Road property the appraisal just came in at what we bought it where I could have gone around at the time I should have I guess I mean there were houses out there that were far bigger

**Speaker 39:** and many more bigger

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** wouldn't a lower here

**Speaker 6:** well I could have no I could have if you have so many

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that you come up with I'm going to call an owner you know what I still think we made it 25 years but I think that the town of Stamford didn't do their due diligence by going out and actually appraising they just let it ride the state didn't see it because there was no big numbers and I really do believe COVID had a lot to do with that

**Speaker 8:** when these people came into town when the numbers went through the roof you saw numbers that were unbelievable

**Speaker 13:** but it's all people are just like it's around the entire country yes Vermont the real estate prices in Vermont have gone up drastically but that has happened all over

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** all the hill towns in Berkshire County are too you're looking at some boys you know $800,000, $900,000 house and it's a boy

**Speaker 13:** years ago you would laugh at that

**Speaker 47:** that's just the way it is

**Speaker 7:** we're always throwing money at stuff to fix it it's like plugging an electric pump when you can use a ram you're wasting energy and you're wasting money and this is what we're constantly doing throwing money at stuff to fix it and all of this is creating more problems I agree I agree there's that many things that are wrong 1,100 buildings

**Speaker 60:** or something like that

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 1,100 buildings every single like lawmaker's

**Speaker 26:** jobs are made possible a lot of those bills

**Speaker 50:** they're trying to justify their jobs

**Speaker 61:** that's what they do

**Speaker 62:** I put in one

**Speaker 52:** I put in one and it became a law so I've never done another one 100% it gets totally to the constituents

**Speaker 4:** you don't like that thing I put in that bill and then it takes up so much time and energy Colorado has created a law that you get five every legislature you know more than five just to control this outrageous amount and then it was just wasting people's time

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we should be $400,000 for one bill agreed not shoved into the farm I get $100,000 you mean we gotta give kids an education well what's the point over here

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** anything else on your oldest story ok I have a couple here on 9-23 what's that date Wednesday that's the night that we set for the school library and select board to meet together Laurie's got the agenda out for six o'clock I will not be here so I hope somebody from the board will be here otherwise it would look too good and the only thing I'd like to see on there

**Speaker 2:** is move the slide

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** who's moving that slide well that's something that Jim brought up tonight about the whole the whole playground I don't want to talk too much about it on the school board but the playground is in need of some things while that project that number expense that they need to spend to do things happens we should add that slide in on that deal

**Speaker 2:** well in the meantime

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that slide is being used there on town property because the fence is not inside the school fence

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** well even if there wasn't a fence it would still be used

**Speaker 63:** once the school is closed

**Speaker 8:** the school inside the fence I would still say that the town is in charge of that so if someone was to get hurt they're just going to sue the loss I don't think they can sue us I guess anybody can sue anybody

**Speaker 64:** but the loss

**Speaker 8:** so they're going to go after the people with the money the town has insurance so that's where we have to if there is a defect we have to either

**Speaker 65:** close it or get it fixed

**Speaker 8:** I don't think that slide was part of the defect actually

**Speaker 2:** but we'll see

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I moved out of the playground

**Speaker 25:** because it was defective

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so it's not up to standards from the school yeah I'll take it if you guys want to get rid of it I'll take it home for my children because I don't care you're sliding down two by four right now

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we don't have it on here but we should set Halloween hours because it's out on Facebook now that the PTG has Trump or Treat hours on October 31st oh and I didn't write down the hours anybody remember Trump or Treat

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** here Trump or Treat

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** PTG 530 we can set our hours anytime what do we usually do 6-7.30

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** is it 6-7.30 Dave's got a good point here Trump or Treat

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Trump or Treat Trump or Treat

**Speaker 21:** Saturday October 31st

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** starting at 5.30 pm ok so if we set the Halloween hours 6 to

**Speaker 2:** same as last year

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and if you can you email the fire department see if they want to do traffic control if they would like to do that please the other thing is I want to mention that starting now come October everybody in the state of Vermont every voter is going to be mailed a ballot

**Speaker 37:** I don't want one

**Speaker 6:** that just infuriates me

**Speaker 66:** waste of money

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I want to be sure to get it back to the town office by election day either put it in our drop box or bring it here and if you come to vote that day without your ballot please bring your ballot because we should keep track of those

**Speaker 49:** so this is election

**Speaker 13:** lady boss election boss ok so I always come in person I mean they're probably going to mail me the ballot and I'm like yeah yeah yeah I'm going to add it to a stack of a million things so you want me to bring it here but what happens if I don't

**Speaker 67:** and I'm like yeah I want to vote

**Speaker 1:** they can't stop you from voting so the first thing would be bring your ballot with you fill it in or blank and go in the booth and fill it out or stick it in the box option 2 is if you don't have your ballot you're going to have to sign a waiver saying I have not previously voted and then you'll be given a ballot the problem is people are like I don't want to sign the waiver I just want to vote

**Speaker 6:** wonder if you didn't get it

**Speaker 45:** I mean the mail is just

**Speaker 6:** the mail is

**Speaker 13:** they're not saying they haven't voted you cannot trust the mail nothing should be done by the mail we send stuff overnight and it gets lost sometimes actually lost inside the post office and cannot be found but I no but so

**Speaker 28:** everyone

**Speaker 13:** everyone who's been freaking out about these ballots and how oh you know people could be voting I'm 99% sure that that cannot happen because I've been in here with you when you're running these elections there are checks and balances over and over and over again

**Speaker 38:** fear fear

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** the check and balance is that people that can't vote twice but there is no check and balance that a person that didn't receive their ballot in the mail or they did but her son receives it and she takes it and then she mails it in with what she wants or their mothers and fathers that are elderly so there is corruption

**Speaker 13:** don't ever think there's not

**Speaker 38:** well I can tell you right now

**Speaker 13:** that get ballots mailed to them they mail them to their kids or whatever who live

**Speaker 38:** out west

**Speaker 13:** and they get them to fill them out and then they send them here

**Speaker 49:** I mean so that's

**Speaker 13:** I mean you have people who are mentally incompetent three states away I know that their kids are filling out their ballots but again that may be and this power is small

**Speaker 55:** but that's not

**Speaker 8:** your city is big

**Speaker 13:** your is small

**Speaker 68:** I just don't believe that

**Speaker 13:** I don't believe all this voter fraud that they say

**Speaker 68:** I don't believe it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's legit bring your ballots back vote here in the office with it or vote absentee

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you don't have to be sick anymore to vote absentee you don't need an excuse that's what people voted

**Speaker 38:** they literally had

**Speaker 69:** I want to know where you got those numbers

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll send it to you the other thing is tax bills have been mailed bring them back mail them back at least two weeks ahead of time make sure they get here or put them in the drop box because the mail we get you don't know where they went okay permits old business you asked about permits versus assessment so the questions I had to ask are what gets taxed oh yes well the town can set I certainly you don't have to answer the question kind of I mean you got to tax buildings but does the town want to tax the dog house the sheds it's up to the town okay

**Speaker 6:** but does it never say it's up to them

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** well when it comes to right if it adds value to the building like a great big beautiful party shed does that add value to your property it could leave with the person that sells the house maybe not so there you go

**Speaker 32:** is that the whole point of our conversation was to make things less subjective

**Speaker 70:** right

**Speaker 6:** it's not because never a kid can pretty much do what they want how is that even possible

**Speaker 32:** there's people to do what we want them to do which is

**Speaker 43:** and if we say you do not tax chicken coops

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you have a beautiful chicken coop and I have a crappy chicken coop

**Speaker 13:** don't tax them well I'm not so sure that I'm not so sure that it's that simple because of course not if they are if they would be like an appraiser which in essence they are appraisers right so yeah but appraisers appraisers are licensed individuals that have a set of standards

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that they must follow

**Speaker 38:** they have a check box

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** but if we say in our in your check box that dog coops are zero we don't know what the value is

**Speaker 13:** it's just interesting because there's a difference between that Nemrick saying assigning a value because their job is to create a valuation you're talking about taxing whether you want to tax something or not whether it has value for taxes and I'm not even though you're saying I'm not sure they are the same if a roof

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** is in a different condition they have all roofs are taxable but one tax the value becomes more because of the brand of the roof but if we say that dog coops are exempt from the value of the home we don't want you to put in a bag for dog coops or swing sets or chicken coops we don't want you to put a value in it for the horse barn that's different although we don't charge for a permit for the horse barn that is a value

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we've seen some beautiful horse barns but the permit taxed differently because it's a farm

**Speaker 7:** I don't know it's valuable there should be a size period

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** no matter what it is I like that too I do I know I go to the extremes and it sounds crazy but there is no minimum so when we go to that what was it

**Speaker 35:** 300 square feet

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that's what we stop the permitting cycle but we don't stop the $15

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** we still want the permit to notify where it's going to be

**Speaker 8:** a structure is anything that's built right

**Speaker 63:** is a birdhouse of structure

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** what I'm asking is that considered structure and if I make the birdhouse out of bronze it's worth more than

**Speaker 71:** your 300 square foot

**Speaker 1:** so we did look up the permitted uses and it says anything that encloses equipment vehicles or animals requires a permit

**Speaker 72:** I had a really nice dog kennel

**Speaker 13:** it was really nice

**Speaker 38:** there's a beautiful chicken coop

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** up the road here

**Speaker 49:** that's nice

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** it's beautiful she paid for the permit

**Speaker 6:** that was perfect $15

**Speaker 73:** I think it was

**Speaker 52:** yeah and it's bigger than 300 square foot

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so it's all

**Speaker 2:** I don't want

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I'm in agreement with Chad I don't want to make it harder I want to make it easier and I want to make Doug's job easier we're not going after that's what pisses me off is when someone gets a permit for a doghouse and they're living in it because they built it as big as this room or a garage and they're living in it because they got sewer and water hooked in a garage and they got a garage door on it but then everybody else is watching in the back door and they're watching TV when I go by

**Speaker 74:** those are things that bother me

**Speaker 1:** that's why they recommend they get a permit for everything

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** so that we don't have that game but everybody wants a birdhouse and nobody's living in that

**Speaker 6:** I don't think we should have permits for sheds

**Speaker 39:** under 300 square foot

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** under 300 square foot

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so if there's no if there's no permit then we wouldn't know about it and it wouldn't be assessed

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** until it busts it will under 6 years are you telling me that that dog hoop or that shed is going to take a $500,000 house and put it at any number that passes or doesn't matter it might add a $1.50 a year

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** but we're losing money on the assessor to go and assess that to get I don't know 10,000

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that's what I'm saying we don't know anything

**Speaker 6:** under 300 square foot don't bother with it well people need to know setbacks still apply so if a neighbor complains

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** yes if the county is involved in that you can't throw a car on a neighbor's property right I was told by the state my son was selling his truck he broke the sign and put it in the ground in front of the truck the state was down there I'm going to work I stopped and I said what are you doing he says you can't have the sign here but if he puts it on the truck that close to the sign you can't have it so there are rules that's just the way it is

**Speaker 2:** yeah

**Speaker 74:** you can have two signs

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** vote for

**Speaker 32:** go off the road they're gone you technically can't have them in Vermont anyways

**Speaker 39:** because it's considered a billboard

**Speaker 6:** why does Stan Potkin get to leave

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** his sign up on that's not on a state that's on a town road why is the property there Dan didn't put them up you know that but yeah that's kind of a humorous thing to go by there

**Speaker 1:** so if you think about not having permits for 300 or less can you waive the setbacks for 300 or less

**Speaker 75:** how can you police that

**Speaker 6:** that's what we were just saying if the neighbor complains I don't mind

**Speaker 38:** whatever he does yeah but okay

**Speaker 13:** but should the town so if you're saying that you don't need a permit for a shed and you don't want to be involved in it and it's civil I mean it's almost like you're contributing to some a-hole who puts his shed on someone else's property

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** and then making that poor bastard sit not on someone else's property because the guy who does it anyways owns it no one is condoning putting anything on someone else's property I'm saying if your kids want to build a tree house that's in the woods on a property line and the neighbor says I don't care why should the town get involved in that

**Speaker 12:** you know what I mean

**Speaker 7:** you know where all the property lines are in town nope

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that's what I'm saying the state doesn't even know I mean I've got 40 acres

**Speaker 38:** and 17 now

**Speaker 13:** they got mine wrong too and I didn't care at the time when I came out

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I was just like I don't want to deal with it but now it irritates me I paid $7,000 for a survey to prove the town to find out that the town not the town the state was correct and the town's deeds were wrong $7,000 survey that was quoted at $5,000

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay so nothing is really black and white we're kind of back where we were and we can't really change anything yet until we change the zoning bylaws

**Speaker 66:** I have a question

**Speaker 6:** if we're saying I don't think we made a decision I don't think so if you were going to say we still need a $15 recording fee so that we at least have it please don't make me put up a fee

**Speaker 70:** for every shed

**Speaker 32:** again so back to letting the town know that these things exist and so I say if we're going to do that so you come down here $15 fee that's where it ends that's where it should end and then if my next door neighbor has a problem where I put it then we have a record of what was going on and where it should have been so then we can have some recourse for it but if we don't have this piece of paper there's no way it becomes a huge mess right I feel like

**Speaker 70:** because nobody takes them down

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I know I take them down so I can put them on my land

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** and nobody knows but isn't that part of the law that you're supposed to put up a fee if you have a permit but a $15 recording fee but it's only a notice

**Speaker 6:** it's a notice of a building

**Speaker 76:** right

**Speaker 32:** I think it's good for us to have the money to go down but for her to actually go down

**Speaker 77:** and do all that kind of stuff

**Speaker 26:** where the house could we like post it down here somewhere

**Speaker 78:** like yeah he's got a permit here

**Speaker 6:** well I post it here

**Speaker 79:** like I do the actual

**Speaker 26:** hearing because she's getting into the same thing I mean I know

**Speaker 6:** oh no I don't put it on I don't go onto this property unless they know I'm coming it goes on the telephone

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** or a tree there is no I mean it might be a brand new structure

**Speaker 58:** we're back to you

**Speaker 32:** the only thing I think we actually need to do with this is the size but then it goes down to the planning commission situation that it needs to state in the rules for our bylaws that we would like you to sign off fill out the permit applications pay your fifteen dollars so we know what's going on but that's where it stops so that anyone who picks up our bylaws knows what's going on because the way I see it you can read them and what I think is totally different than what she thinks and what you think so if it just says

**Speaker 6:** if it's this shed I think it just needs to become simple and I think

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** well I think we should do the 300 square foot

**Speaker 35:** but if somebody has a bird house and it's awesome

**Speaker 39:** we don't worry about it

**Speaker 6:** you brought up

**Speaker 35:** the bird house

**Speaker 39:** only because

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I like to go to extremes and show that we don't have that so if there's a we can go all the way up to the 400 square foot building or the 100 square foot shed there's some small sheds out there if you buy it at Walmart you stick it up on the thing you can blast it once it's craziness like you said can I pick it up well you have machines and I have machines that can pick up big buildings so I can pick it up put it on the trailer and away it goes so it's movable what if there's not a concrete foundation that's attached to it you're not going to move it

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** ok so are you going to say we're not taxing anything under 100 square feet or 300 square feet

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** 300 or less

**Speaker 39:** under 300

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** under 300 not taxed now does that have to be in our zoning bylaws I don't think so no tax

**Speaker 76:** oh tax

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so do we make that

**Speaker 2:** but when we do

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** when we read through the bylaws I agree with Ken we should definitely make it easy for people to understand when you open up a bylaw and you know Pam remember the old bylaws you might as well have talked in a different language

**Speaker 13:** no the way they were talking about it and we're trying to figure out how you can make them readable they are so unreadable the average Joe can't make any sense of them they're so confusing and I don't know the answer but there has to be a way to write them better so that anyone should be able anyone should be able to move into town and pick up our bylaws and if they have any good intelligence at all read them and really have a good idea right now you would just your head would be spinning

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** what is this I have no idea

**Speaker 25:** it's crazy

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** it's sunny on a Sunday we don't have that much in this town how can it be so damn complicated it's not like we have city waters and sewers

**Speaker 6:** I call up Lori and I'm like alright Lori

**Speaker 13:** let's talk this one through and it shouldn't be that there's something wrong when it's that complicated

**Speaker 45:** you can't tell me there's not

**Speaker 6:** it's not complicated it doesn't make sense it's complicated it means you have to have a certain mind

**Speaker 35:** you have to have intelligence when you have intelligence

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** you still can't understand it

**Speaker 6:** it's just like you feel like it's a ping pong ball it's like okay hold on let me go back to this section oh my god primitive camps conditional use remember we've got them here and we have them there

**Speaker 35:** but they're not in this section a primitive camp can have an outhouse

**Speaker 6:** if you say you can't that was the problem

**Speaker 80:** it didn't say you can't

**Speaker 28:** so we're going to try to fix that I mean that's a thing

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that has to I shouldn't be too deep but with today's technology a lot of these sewer situations I mean they have these burning sewer things now for camps they're amazing you literally push a button and a 12 volt battery turns it you take the ash you put it in your tomato plants

**Speaker 14:** it's this much

**Speaker 26:** for a whole weekend why is there an orange

**Speaker 81:** or one with a tomato plant

**Speaker 14:** exactly

**Speaker 13:** you realize that you really can't do that you realize that that's why the PFAS that's why there's an issue

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** with spreading the sludge no this is not like that sludge has heavy metals in it

**Speaker 13:** and I'm pretty sure that there's heavy metals and stuff in your body and unless

**Speaker 32:** I'll get the paperwork have you not just totally gone off

**Speaker 13:** they probably shouldn't be putting that on

**Speaker 49:** tomato plants it came from me okay

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** alright let's move on let's go to Mike's house alright any other new business no I'd like to have a motion to go into executive discussion oh and one other thing dogs have we heard anything yet

**Speaker 1:** from the dog people we have not heard anyone who received this letter of fines I did license one dog today a fellow came in to license two dogs the other day I could do one because he did pay the fine the other dog I didn't have a rabies certificate so he's got up for appointment in October

**Speaker 82:** I mean this is a slow window

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so we're almost down there the next step for the fellow that doesn't pay for his dogs for the fine the $200 according to our bylaws I think it's increased and then it goes to court an increased fine and then yeah

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I don't know it's crazy I don't know why would someone

**Speaker 39:** spend all that money for $20

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** if they don't have the rabies I can see avoiding that but if they have the rabies shot holy crap get it done it's not even a big deal I tell you rabies is up big time that's a big problem rabies bags are number one

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** okay so we'll keep after the dogs

**Speaker 83:** and keep watching them

**Speaker 28:** can I ask for an update before you guys go into executive session can I ask for an update on the tax sale has anybody come in and paid their stuff

**Speaker 84:** what's going on

**Speaker 1:** we've had several properties come off the list I think we're down to two at this point can you tell us which two

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** we should know

**Speaker 1:** yeah they're out there first one is and

**Speaker 67:** second one

**Speaker 45:** all the other ones have been taken care of

**Speaker 6:** and okay so which one

**Speaker 66:** well

**Speaker 6:** oh yeah and okay now do they pay it in full or do they just pay a portion that keeps them off

**Speaker 1:** how does that work they pay the whole thing in full tax, penalty, interest, the attorney's fees the cost of the sale, the publication everything that's worse than the dog deal

**Speaker 13:** that's another dumb thing it's like you had the money to pay

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** I had a gentleman one time tell me I do it because I like to mess with you you mess with yourself

**Speaker 85:** that's so stupid

**Speaker 26:** they didn't have the money they had to go to borrow

**Speaker 61:** they had to go find Peter to pay for all

**Speaker 6:** I have a question on St. Bosco Church has that been resolved yet I know there was a cloud on the title for it the diocese is claiming it's still on which

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** that moves to me I don't

**Speaker 13:** I heard the same thing but it makes no sense how did UNC or whatever how did they close on it

**Speaker 45:** if there was a cloud on the title

**Speaker 6:** I'd like to I don't know all I know is Aaron can't buy it I know

**Speaker 66:** he can't buy it

**Speaker 6:** from UNC because the diocese is still claiming that they own it so now they're going through the whole bankruptcy

**Speaker 13:** and it's still on there but how did UNC complete the closing

**Speaker 69:** on the title

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** the title search

**Michael G. Denault (inferred):** because it was yeah it's gone through I mean everything on our end that I know of is gone through and there's the thing with the diocese too with the bankruptcy there's a protection of the parishes as of now that the parishes are singled out the diocese is here the parishes aren't all singled out I guess it's going to be

**Speaker 6:** a couple of years before this is

**Speaker 86:** before this is sorted

**Speaker 8:** because the diocese filed for chapter 11 so

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so so they got to come out it is but somebody's working down there

**Speaker 8:** the state lifted the statute I can still give a permit

**Speaker 87:** because

**Speaker 6:** we haven't dated it out as UNC they can't transfer it to Aaron so UNC is the one that will have the permit

**Speaker 75:** did you find it?

**Speaker 6:** no I don't bring the new ones home

**Speaker 88:** but I might have to find the same

**Speaker 1:** let me check my file but I made a comment

**Speaker 75:** I know

**Speaker 8:** so I wouldn't

**Speaker 89:** you don't have to set it for money Dan

**Speaker 32:** so we've got the motion to go into executive session

**Speaker 90:** second

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** all in favor aye into executive session second

all those in favor second 8 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 3