let's call the meeting to order we're going to proceed in a without our chairman tonight and as vicechair i'll take over just to get myself moving here thank you maybe he's out on a call yeah i don't know emergency while i'm waiting for the agenda to come up would like to start with a commendation to the girls varsity lacrosse team at mmu which remains undefeated sixteen to ten against rice tonight did they lose one i don't think so maybe one maybe they tied one so do you want to do public comment yeah let me just let me just get my act together here sorry i just didn't quite have the agenda up in front of me darn it why don't why don't we start public comment any any comment from the public thank you prior to diving into the agenda anybody yes sir i'm here about the supposed to be on here for today it is it is it is where is it oh it's under outstanding zoning issues update so it's in the in the first little bit there it's that item 1b and i apologize for the sunlight yeah time heals all wounds okay let's get going here first of all we're gonna start with the will's farm conservation reserve fund purchase jeff you want to set us up there we're at the last meeting we heard a presentation from the richmond land trust and the conservation commission about the purchase of about twenty two acres of land which is just to the east of the farm barn in the old house which we're calling the will's farm property as part of that old farm that's been subdivided the richmond land trust has plans to use two funding sources to purchase that sixty four thousand from the conservation reserve fund and the balance from a state grant which we'll hear about later in june they plan to preserve the parcel and use it for recreational purposes they mentioned they were willing to give part of that parcel to the schools to advance youth sports for the schools and we discussed you know pretty much the the what the property looked like we arranged site visits i know that three select board members toward the site taylor's not here you arnold i think those are the only ones that made it and the health officer also also so the question remains the request is sixty four thousand from the conservation reserve fund we can get into this now after some discussions the town would like to see two things on that property one is some sort of reservation for an area for water and sewer to go through because there's been a request from the reaps that own the former barn and farmhouse that that they get municipal water and sewer that's really been in development there's no concrete plans yet but that's something that the town the water commission would be willing to see happen but that has to cross school property to do that and then also cross this property to do that and the second thing was you've got an email from fran thomas that explains the issue for a long time there had been a thought that there could be an evacuation route from the schools down the route two and that there's any number of directions i could take but again there's nothing concrete there's never been any design for that but we'd like to see a reservation with that i think that we can approve the request if the board wanted to approve the request subject to negotiating some sort of reservation for both of those items and i'd like to hear what the conservation commission and the richmond land trust feel any questions from the slow court those personally i think those are reasonable requests it's about preserving options yeah though the cost of some of those is unclear there's no way to really resolve anything well and that's why it's just kind of holding it as a you know reserve an all just to be clear it's not possible to make a firm commitment for any one of those three different neighbors both the water sewer which have different issues based on flow and direction and then the road based on the slope is a substantial project but if we don't if we don't do first in then we may lose the potential for for the future so the benefit is if we hold this and it's a hold it's not a commitment right it's more of a potential commitment for the future it's it's the opportunity exactly but not a obligation yeah i support both i strongly support support secondary emergency egress from the school congress person board from the public and the school yeah thank you i would just like to say if this does go through that both of those asked for our reserve without cost to the reefs and also without cost to the school or the town we're already billing up a sixty four thousand from the conservation reserve fund and then the second please how has the acquisition and upkeep going to differ from other parcels that richmond land trust currently owns it brings to mind when mr vegans came in last year and had a complaint or a yeah i think it was about a year maybe a year and a half ago a complained about a trespass on his property from the folks who were using the path and just trespassing on his land and the other end of that stick if you will is that there's trespassing on my land and there was supposed to be some action from the richmond land trust to stop that it has not happened so what's going to be different from the acquisition and upkeep from this parcel that's in a highly visible location from the lack of maintenance and upkeep on areas where they can't be seen as easily so i would like and i do not believe that those are unfair questions thank you any other questions from the public why don't we have the the conservation mission were they prepared to come up and present on the project i know ernie's here okay ernie would you like to i might not have anything to present but i'm happy to well look well this might be a better question for the richmond land trust then because we're talking about reserved property not necessarily conservation commission would anybody from the land trust like to talk about confused access i guess is the yeah i'm by the way i'm here of the richmond land trust and in terms of the first two comments issues we supportable for those constraints you know where we can get money from conservation trust fund we've contacted and we have that in email and we'll get in writing also their agreement that right away as being reserved for water sewer and where we see egress defined with design and he envisioned that it would be done with at no costs for the component that belongs to the land trust this purchase goes through can't speak to adjoining manuals of school of course and in terms of concerns about controlling access i can only speak to that parcels that we seek to have the parcels on well signed all of our preserves whether it is not intended to be accessed to the adjoining parcels we have summons in place i think as far as i know on the i think it is concern we have no parking signs about parking i think that is relatively mitigated obviously we can't control even woods everybody who might walk through the woods i myself live across from the woods and yet people walk through it without asking and but certainly it's our commitment that we want to be good neighbors and do our thing to control access to their neighbors without going to have egress from our parcels to get to parcels so we'll put those things in place for this parcel upkeep of keep with the question yeah upkeep is i mean the signage and then we can do the control so there's not unwanted trespassing on the adjoining parcels the original land owners wouldn't want that so i get the signage and upkeep what's the other issue how else would somebody prevent somebody going from this land to the adjoining piece of land i'm not sure what that question some of it is up to the neighbor where you know whoever the neighbor might be our lands are typically open to the public and oftentimes boundaries are known sometimes boundaries are not clearly defined and certainly enforced by state law people have a right to walk from one parcel to the next i think we have my correct science have been made for the back of the parcel of various questioning to the installment some additional signs that they're made to assist the adjoining landowner where there's a fair amount of wine nonwhite activity on brian hilton with the beneficiaries of that mountain biking you know sometimes it's fine sometimes it's not fine we don't support it's use on some of the properties but it does take place the the two easy ones that will potentially be on this property for water and sewer and the road at some future date it's contemplated that they will be up buying the interstate and at least that's the conversations we've had with broth as a conservation board that the that access and the logical access is up against the interstate fence which seems big when we mark the site makes a kind of sense at least for water and for the road sewage or setback it seems less clear in terms of you know slope which direction things flow what about the acres of the actual site who's gonna do the lawn mowing the snowplowing who's gonna pay for that well you'd need to go back to build on that a little bit to to make that site into a a sledding that will require the removal of a fair amount of trees and brush and i would imagine that you have a plan for getting it to the that final vision and then maintaining it is crucial yeah i think our plan for the improvement of the parcel or the of the parcel is to raise the funds required to do so and the benefits of the project if in some instance you are not able to raise the funds to make it a cycle of life and you would and you would have the same parcel that provide all benefits to the school with due egress to the fields we think for all purposes of the conservation funds that would not that just not feasible the project and we wanted widespread community support for the project we're optimistic that we can get that down to that favorable costs you're saying it involves we we need all our parcels we plow saffron preserve it's part of the budget the funds that we raised we all feel their upkeep all across one comment that i've heard is a question about safety and while there is a fair amount of dispense from the bottom of the go to the the paved road thinking how twelve year old voice any thoughts on you know what the engineering that looks like like how likely is it then a kid on a sled in the right place that can get issues could get that far and avoid getting any put up a fence seasonal or yearround fence to prevent that possibility the reason there's quite a long run out from the hill to to to to with a slight update at the end i think a fence will be adequate for anybody who's pushing that in fact with so i guess i'm i keep coming back to the fact that while the conservation commission saying wouldn't it be nice to have a sledding hill this is twenty plus acres of of a piece of property that has come into the come into the village is one of the first things you see and and whether they put a sledding hill on it or not they still want to conserve it i i don't want to be belaboring the points of the sledding hill and and miss the forest for the trees here as it were as it were i think that that we're getting stuck on on minor details and the fact that if there is a sledding hill there's not going to be a driveway there's not gonna be a parking area i think but even still i mean this is that it's it's it's not the it's not the purpose of the property is to be a sledding hill the purpose of the property is to conserve it if we can deal with that provisionally throw the sledding hill improvements into the other provisional items including the road water so where those were ideas but not currently concrete so what you're saying is that the project should and does stand on its own merits as a conservation project i agree with that as well actually the reason that i asked the sledding of the question initially was because there's something funky going on with erosion at least there was during my vision there's very broad dispersion of sediment that was coming from somewhere and it would be good to understand that completely before removing a bunch of trees it seems like anyway it certainly does seem to to be a a valuable conservation project from my perspective either comments or questions from the public or anybody else i would just remind folks that the there were folks in our last meeting including representatives from the schools and we've also received the email from a middle school teacher who has ideas about how to use some of that land creatively so i'm going to make a motion that we authorize the use of sixty four thousand from the conservation reserve fund to be granted to the richmond land trust for the purpose of acquiring and conserving twenty two acres of the former former willis farm on route two in richmond can we have the caveat oh of course friendly amendment or addition to my motion with reserve the right of right of ways for water and sewer and an egress from the school through the property subject to an agreement to do so subject to an agreement to do so and we're still assessing all right any discussion all right all in favor aye all opposed you guys have it all right moving right along outstanding zoning issues update thank you thank you very much thank you thank you so should we handle these one at a time jeff i think so sure what order would you like to do that first i think we should take the issue that we have support for which is the boundary line between the curly's and the o'brians county road i will say that this afternoon denise curly came in and filed an appeal of the notice of violation to the drb so we can't impose any comments at this point until that's disposed of but going revisiting this and you'll see the neil lightener has a pattern of attachment which is an explanation of his history with this two neighbors on huntington road have tried to use the town's zoning bylaws to force property boundary dispute so the town is sort of forced to try to identify zoning violations and go after somebody to issue findings when in fact the the property line is ambiguous and it remains ambiguous was even though things have been surveyed there are accusations that people have agreed to things that the other party denies and it's really gotten to the point where we can't make any determinations and i think our zoning officer's stymied he was stymied all last year and we tried to get tough and say bring people in but it just is not cleared up so you can see the outstanding history of this and it's really gone back and forth as to who did what without a permit who needed a permit where the property line line is we can't get an agreement zoning doesn't make people agree where the property boundary is it really only will put the talent environmental court or where the violation but the issue will still be the same in front of the judge where's the property line who owns this site and who owns that site that that does nothing to console either the curly's or the o'brians and it's unfortunate but it's almost to the point where it's beyond our ability to make any headway at all so so really the options are the homeowners either mediate this themselves or they one of them takes the other to court or the town picks a side and goes to environmental court and does what what's required for there wouldn't that be contingent also on clear accepted property lines surveyed property lines is that an issue of dispute where the it would have to be accepted by the town in order for the town really go after it yeah you guys have interest where it's marked surveys marked up the lines therein for them and they pulled up the pins robustly clearing the marked up the line which i was there when did the survey and i asked him to put several pins down through and he did those are gone and if you look at their survey in at the back of the survey they specifically said the stone they dug that up that up through that off to the side i was told i was going to be fined a hundred dollars a day per not moving my shed ten feet off the line where i didn't know where the line was because they moved the pins they put the fence up as clearly marked by buttons that you guys have pictures on we never asked you i was told that i said would be fined a hundred dollars a day when my shed was ten feet off the line but yet they're fenced clearly on my property by the pictures neil see neil even came over i think he's the one that took the pictures house of the ten feet of my property you know and i don't understand why i was told that you move your shed you're getting fined one hundred a day if you don't and as soon as i moved my sheds they pulled the fence off and moved it onto my property and that's what she done there has to be some process for resolving this and and you know i just want the fence on the line and i agreed to survey i'm not skipping your survey they don't know where it is they stuck a pole in the ground tied a string to it created a fence that was there over top of my shed through a maple tree to the edge of the road and that's the boundary and that's what they think it is okay well let's let's walk through a process that would get us to a resolution in truth so it seems the thing that that we can't that nobody can do anything about without is it final determination of where the property line actually is that's correct yes sorry that's where you have to start and there has been a surveying of that property line and i'm not gonna i wasn't there i don't know what happened on the ground thank you for bringing that forward but a professional surveyor has surveyed the property line this is excuse me i think have there been two different surveyors yes okay and have they both come up with the same result within a few inches okay okay and i'm not disputing their surveys they're disputing their own surveys just to establish facts so is there any way that the town can accept those two surveys as the defined property line and go from there if they are in fact the same property line i think we would need to talk to the surveyors directly yes we could i would say we would have to use chris hagody as a witness either going in front of the drb or not the also the problem is even though and i'm getting this from you i haven't talked to chris hagody in chris hagody found a line that he says agrees with rubenstein survey from two thousand and three it's not where denise curly says it is so the dispute is really a refusal to acknowledge what had been surveyed last year so the surveys are definitive then is what you're saying well we can we can assume that you know i can't sit here and tell you that for sure i can you know chris mark it out so that'll go we can defend that decision in front of the drb because i could see it going to environmental court and it being very good and again we can have testimony from chris hagody on whether or not what he did to survey the line and the judge will make the determination that'll at least possibly set have a court decision on where the line is possibly it's not guaranteed but it's but do you agree that that that some way of determining and i think that going to court is the best way the question is how far does the town get involved in that because our attorney is going to be prosecuting or defending the appeal right well i mean i don't really see any other because as we can tell them the timeline here is the curlys are now disputing the shared property line they applied for a zoning a construction permit because one of their structures is on the opposite side of that or runs through it not just the fence but but a front porch setback and the drb or somebody did not okay so the zoning and construction permit was denied because they don't meet the setback requirements from the from the there's also other zone violations for a second story addition that they put on tuesday okay so they in addition to not meeting the current setbacks from from the the approved line for the fence there's this shed they got a denial of the source construction or the zoning construction permit so they're appealing it to the drb so the drb now has to make a determination so it's that so depending on what the dmb determines then they would appeal to the environmental court if you did go their way they'd have that option and there's another piece of the puzzle which denise curly claims that mr o'bryan has signed a document agreeing that the line is where she says it where the rubenstein survey says it is not by what she says by the rubenstein survey which i had no problem with doing surveys because that was the other gentleman who did the survey yes and it was within a couple of inches yeah i have no problem with rubenstein's surveys within a few inches of a chris they don't remember their own surveys that's the problem and the only issue is they put a fence up without a permit and it needs to come down so the next step i it sounds like the next step here is to allow us to go to drb and for the drb to act and then do we need to decide what we want to do contingent on the drb decision at this point no it's premature to discuss that so the next steps are drb and what do we know the timeframe for that she did get the appeal in in time for the june drv meeting neil sets a schedule there so he he should've scheduled it for for june so could this court revisit the issue after that i recognized been going on for a while right so like after some number of months or years like when i go out for the weekend i come back and i never know what to expect going on in there ten or thirty feet on my property next time around right so the question for the select board would be in this case are you going to impose fines for a hundred dollars a day for not complying with the notice of violation since it's been appealed let's moot at this point and it could go on for quite some time if if the notice of violation was upheld by the drb and the curlys appeal appeal to the environmental court you could still not issue fines but considering if you had a favorable to the town judgment in court then you could talk about whether or not you should impose fines at that time but this could be many months from now if all of that comes to pass let's make sure that it stays on the agenda as appropriate contingent upon action by the drb and what happens next mary yes surveys when they are recorded surveys become legal when the surveyor their stamp on there that is the official document and the survey of record is the most recent survey that is on file in the town clerks office in the vault and they're recognized by the drb and they are also required the survey to define the lines for subdivisions for the transfer of property and the fallback is always the needs and bounced description the deed so the survey of record should be recognized as the most recent one if it's been recorded and should it have to go to environmental court then the button survey will be there hopefully and the rubenstein survey will be as a reference point i don't think the button survey has been reported yet okay it's going to be a three or four block road and if it's a poor off road it puts it back within twelve feet and pulls the pin right down my driveway but this is the pin that you say is no longer there anymore but one of the things that whether its this road or that road you owe it to build a road so your road frontage whether its or the interstate you still owe the seventh road okay sometimes sometimes no okay it could be surveyed differently like different so the question i still have is if the if the if that second survey hasn't been recorded is it its not invalid its still an official survey so if i could interject if chris hagody had surveyed it he hasn't completed his paperwork yet but his testimony could be he found all of the pins on the rubenstein survey which would likely to be that in which case his testimony would say that this the rubenstein survey is accurate the question is where on the ground is the law that's really what's being disputed yeah it was clearly marked out if you look at the surveys road scheme it specifically says the stone in the bag you put a pin next to it he couldn't put the pin where it needed to go because the stone was there the stone ones was three pieces of slate it looked like whoever did it put some time the senator had pointed that it had came off that's probably what a near to one thousand eight hundred or one thousand seven hundred and i consider that a historical mark that was tampered with that they dug up and thrown away and i think something should be done about that it should be replaced well i think i think the pertinent for this evening unfortunately there's nothing we can do right now well what about the fence being my property i was i was told while i was in the meeting but people came back and told me that they said you guys can fine me one hundred a day for having a fence on my property that didn't have a permit oh i remember that we can fine you for their fence being on your property it wasn't the fence at that time no but i do remember the conversation saying that there's because now the the fence is on your property even though i remember this conversation but you have received a notice of violation for the shed i did for the shed for the shed yeah we haven't so we're not issuing you no no no when i was told i had twenty phone calls thirty hey jim we went to the meeting we see a lot of people there saying that they are gonna fine you one hundred a day unless you move your shed ten feet off the lawn so neil told me not to move the shed because we didn't know where the line was that sounds like we're still jeff said that he didn't have the right to say that and this is what really pissed me off jeff says you're going to move the shed or you're gonna be fined one hundred a day well now there's a fence on my property it's been there for months it's you know it's in violation with no permit they need to be fined one hundred a day or take the fence down except the challenge is that it's not actually on their property so would you write me a letter saying i should hold my own fence down then if it's on my property i'm not advising that at all i see the point that you're making too close to the property line but on one hand property line is that april gave you any of that fence so it's a it's a catch twenty two i'm smirking at the irony of the situation i'm not trying to be well at the time when we were discussing the one hundred a day fine with mr o'brien chris hagody had not yet completed a survey so we didn't really have a lot to go on and shortly thereafter chris had staked everything out and said look this is where the line is okay so can we suspend the one hundred a day fine on the shed in question just to make everything that was already so nobody's being charged fines at correct so what we need to define is there's a pending survey which i understand has not been fully filed so that survey help centers the most recent surveys the formal survey the definitive survey right recency and surveys is present once it's complete yes so if we look at and just confirming the facts of where is the boundary from the most recent survey and from the facts of where the survey is we then say this is the official line and whatever it has to move or be set back or request variances we do that there but it just seems to me without being friendly declarative where is the line yeah we can't do anything without starting the survey and where's the question yeah well the drb is going to have to him that's correct because the town's involvement in this issue is zoning based right and that has to go through first neil lightener and second the drb and possibly third two environmental court and that's where the the line of appeal is near i would ask that you might consider talking to whoever has been appointed fence viewer i believe that's also the way or cold but i think that might be your accountant and your accountants understand the survey's pretty darn well i believe that too and i think what he can do is he look at the survey and get the owner here and the owner would say yeah is the survey and that might remove the need to go to environmental court but the purpose of a fence viewer is is to be you there you go its worth a try like said chris went to talk to him tried to explain and told him it is where it is so so it's a reasonable suggestion well let's why do you think it's beyond the because we're maybe it's not worth an attempt by the fence for you to at least address the issue because they're they're not surveyors they're going to have to convince someone that a property line is somewhere where that person doesn't believe it is but that's kinda what this is all about it's people have to agree or they have to be made to agree legally correct and so we're also books being suggested which makes sense to me is it's given a try of getting people to come to a common point before going through all the riggermerall of going to court and the cost for everyone so is it worth the effort to mediate and it may go nowhere they may say i think it's worth a try yeah well when health officer goes out to a place he mediates and does the best possible he or she can possibly do before it gets to a point where it does go to court and then involved with lawyers and yeah exactly well we could try to mediate now we'll contact the fence viewers if the select board wants but you're not going to mediate a property line no that's it really is sort of a due diligence like give it a shot that's one level if it's unsuccessful the other process and timeline continues regardless right and frankly this when this surveyor says they put in pins to show well and i think we need to move on to the next item on the agenda here but but i think what this has been a very confusing process for everybody involved and what i'm hoping we can get a new face in give them a full understanding of what the process to come is going to be and give them the charge of communicating that to both parties so that they know what they're what what's going to happen next maybe that will inspire rethinking of of positions i don't know i don't i don't hold great hope but it's worth a try so but we're still gonna let it go to drb what was still yeah we still i mean there's been a there's been an appeal so we don't get in the way of process i think we do need to move on because i think there's not a lot i think i think that would you please contact the fence viewer and and do you feel like carol for an old contact for both okay you have adequate guidance from us about what needs to happen there or anything or i i'll advise the fence viewers on what we'd like to see i personally question whether it's within their ability to to get it done but you know we're gonna try we'll do our best there'll be a nice write up in the towner after this alright let's let's move move along and thank you for bringing in materials and everything well the fence the fencers are going to come come to talk to you come to talk to the to the curlys we don't know what the outcome will that will be but let's say that that nothing that doesn't resolve in resolve the issue the okay let me make sure i've got this sequence here the drb is going to hear the appeal of the notice of violation and that is most likely going to resolve in a in a non resolution situation because of the fact that we don't have a property line defined and so the next step would be the environmental court but there's a survey there's both an old survey and a pending survey so the drb could find could could the drb find on the basis of those surveys right well not it's again it's not it's not the survey that's in question it's the line on the ground so what you mean testimony from chris hagody that says i surveyed the the results i came up with the same thing as rubenstein and i here is pictures showing where the stakes are showing it on the ground right okay okay then what about the the drb has to make a decision as to whether on what side of the line it is and if it's on the wrong side of the line they'll order her to remove it correct and if it's they might actually removed it if there's no if its not permitted she put it anyways and there was no there's no permit to put it up it shouldn't be there its existence and its location shouldn't be there period but then of these are and the drb meeting is it'll be i think june 10th so let's revisit this in our subsequent attending they we meet on wednesdays or the 11th 11th june 11th the meeting after that when our meeting after that we get an update from the drb if they have issued with the a decision yes or even if they're still looking into it just a status report it's either a decision or status recognizing that the people are frustrated with this being going on for a long frame okay thank you all right so let's go on to the the next wait we have another zoning issue we have two more i think there's one person here for the next one which is the harrington's own property at the top of wolf lane are you there here for them i'm just observing i don't have a lot to add do you have a survey so the issue came to my attention last summer for a couple of reasons but mainly the the harrington's own property at the top of wolf lane the harrington live on lane and so the property's above a very large property and there has been some clearing up there and a little other work done but typically not much that the town would get involved in they are also they have a logging operation i don't know if they have a file plan it's not regulated by the town forestry is not regulated by the town but they also sometimes have parties up there and i i guess the the parties have generated noise complaints and other complaints from some of the neighbors there was a party up there last summer where it was alleged that somebody had shined a laser at an aircraft and many law enforcement agencies responded to that and there was a big uproar and it made the news and so forth so naturally the residents have contacted the town and ask what can we do there was a saying that there was something up there that the kids were staying in that it was an occupied dwelling it was unpermitted we've researched it it appears to be something like a large shed the owner says it's a sugarhouse but won't produce the state paperwork saying it's structure so we've issued a notice of violation on the shed because it doesn't have a design permit so that it's as extremely minor issue compared to really what the big problem is right which is disturbances at the top of the hill that are largely unregulated by the town but are quality of life issues for the surrounding neighbors some of the neighbors have talked to me and said that the logging operation is altered drainage patterns and lead to erosion during last year's rainstorms i i don't think we have the town doesn't have any direct evidence of that the rain was certainly extraordinary last summer but let me ask you a question i mean this is in the news right now not around here but in washington state somebody must have jurisdiction stormwater stormwater really for oh i had you know the nonsense that's going up over on governor peck road i talked to some of my colleagues at the state and i was like stormwater you guys have cause if it crosses a river or if it impacts a navigable river it's considered stormwater and so you can call the county forester and they can come up and what's see i mean it's been almost a year so it might be it might be moot at this point but but stormwater has an interest in what goes on in logging operations especially if there's a stream crossing so if we take these one at a time one is the logging and condition to the land which right properly goes to the state as either a violation you know are they damaging things then there's the shed which is the construction sugarhouse either it's a sugarhouse where it's not it's a sugarhouse they need to to show us evidence if it's not a sugar house they need a permit right which they've likely bought right and but you said that they've been issued at an alleged noticeable edge violation a notice of violation for constructing a structural account and they could correct that how long ago was that notice do you know a few months ago i don't have the original data on that so we need to follow up so the issue now is will we go to environmental court to seek penalties to enforce that notice of violence yes i think as a principal why do we have rules if we don't they have to either address it take it down or go through the process right it's gotta apply consistently so those are the two things and then the third i'm going to hazard guess it's not mr or mrs harrington but the younger harringtons that we think are responsible for this just guessing well not the logging but i mean the use of the shed oh i think probably the logging too knowing one of the i think the logging thing might be a younger harrington okay so but probably the appropriate thing as far as that goes is to refer the parties have concerns about the drainage to the appropriate state agency because that's not even in our jurisdiction interestingly enough the person for the stormwater section in chittenden county is a richmond village resident patrick is already weighed ib on this we've had watershed consulting who came out last friday to some research on our permit but patrick had told us that because it was a logging operation that it's not under stormwater it's under the state i think that the consultant that came out on friday is he thinks that some of the culverts and ditches that were put in around the logging road are redirecting the water and they probably need to be improved but probably not the single source of all of the damage that we had last year that was because we had so many rains last year so i guess the short is that patrick had told us last it is part of the stormwater permit that upper lock but it doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of stormwater because of the operation if that makes sense but the county forester can be i believe that any forester can be contacted so here's a factual question who is responsible overseeing responsible logging in the state and i'm sorry i don't know the answer it'd be a regional forester the county forester i can get the name i can check try snyder i'm sorry snyder regional forester i think is he the county forester yeah chittinden county forester yeah oh you're yes i am you have him on speed dial arbitrary enforcement council okay don't they make if there are problems they say you have to abate this or correct them well i'm also wondering if this gentleman knows was it current use that you were talking about not stormwater with current news because current news does talk about forestry plans and the forestry plan has to be approved by the county forester and usually gets every ten years that there's a recommendation that the plaintiff's redo the forestry plan that comes to current use for approval and a forestry plan is brought to the county forester when that plan is approved so i'm not aware of any informal forest planning or what what's been currently used property if it's doesn't have to have a plan okay i had no idea if there's any plans formal plan this i thought that the scope of this was limited only to the small household or whatever building it is just thinking that that's all this had this was when again this is another issue that has a lot of different parts to it and the town was focused in on one one piece so the town can act as a conduit for contacting other officials and trying to resolve some issues but at the heart of it our involvement is zoning which seems to be before we move on from this the county forester for tiffany thompson according to the department of somebody pardon me wait for it its probably forest and parks forest parks and recreation she's at the essex junction regional office so at this point if if we are serious about enforcing the notice violation of society to ask for vote to enforce the companies you know talk to more experienced move to enforce the violation of penalty or violation of there is a violation alright any discussion all in favor aye opposed it's unanimous but then the broader question you know beyond the fifth place there is the question of parties or quality of life issues i think the only way to deal with those in the moment yeah yeah i noticed the noise complaints and law enforcement shows up to see who's there what they're doing how old they are i think that's improved a lot over the past year i think outstanding meetings we have right now is the impact of the clearing on the volume of water and whether or not that is being redirected away from retention ponds and we've had somebody who is in the party has certainly much less hopefully continues to get state so we see you at the end of june so did we cover all the relevant issues here tonight yeah okay why don't we move on to do you wanna do mobs can i just have an update on mobs i've dealt with this i think you've dealt with this several times and we actually went to court and that's why we're back here cause we wanted to impose penalties and we're at the cusp of imposing penalties there was a court hearing that actually jeff just wait jackie were you waiting for something specific i'm sorry you were being so patient no i just i just wasn't there i didn't want you to have to leave if you were expect if you were wanting to address something specific oh no thank you okay sorry jeff thanks for coming so we even had a court hearing about imposing penalties and the judge basically said you've got one more chance to figure this out and neil lightener went up and visited with his mobs and actually was able to do an inspection and said hmm it it barely meets any qualification for a separate living unit because it has a very basic kitchenette which consisted of cabinets didn't even have a sink it didn't have a bathroom oh my god so how does that mean so the when when you rent to somebody not related to you they're supposed to have a separate space i guess unless you're subletting which is probably different somebody who's gonna have the master lease the property but if you if you're an owner occupied unit you should have a separate apartment and that apartment through the health code has to meet certain minimum qualifications to be accepted as an apartment and this unit does not get it was being rented as an apartment so when certain issues would come up the tenants would call right preston and say it's a landlord tenant issue because it doesn't meet the state code for this to be habitable or whatever whatever the terminology might be so that's how we got involved which is if you're going to have an apartment you have to get a permit the structure is capable of being permitted as an apartment there's nothing in our bylaws that would prohibit that all it would take is a building a building and a zoning permit to get it done so the issue was are you gonna file this and get this legal or not neil spoke to her offered to fill out the paperwork come have her sign it he did that when we went there she said no i refuse to sign it i'm just going to remove the cabinet and it will no longer be rented so that's where we stand so mike marksbury has written a letter that says you have to show proof that this is no longer that the cabinets are removed within two weeks or we'll go back to court and there's a status conference checkup on it yes so let me understand even in spite of state code or anything so somebody can rent an apartment that doesn't have a functional kitchen and call it an apartment if you're renting it to family right i don't know all the rules but and i'm sure people break the rules all the time but it's gotta be some sort well this the outcome that we wanted we wanted it to not be in a like we really kind of well we wanted compliance one way or the other i mean she could she could either upgrade it to code and continue to rent it or or or not rent well that's where i was going upgrade code means upgraded it to have a kitchen or not yes yeah and and there might've been a couple of other things there i think there it was up upgrade to the minimum requirements for a rentable apartment apartment family or to stop renting it and she chose chosen the latter the problem is is that the this we've gone through this before yes and so the point is is to make sure that this actually is no longer rented right so to date we've spent one thousand two hundred and sixty in attorney's fees which includes court and sheriff's fees that's why you can't just issue one hundred a day you have to have costs so these are really our costs so if we were going to if if we were going to input if she doesn't do do what she says she's going to do within two weeks we can start imposing fines right to recoup essentially our investment in going to court correct and also enforcing our rules i mean yes yes okay alright i'm sorry so we've been through this before yes last summer well the first violation happened in two thousand and eleven and then ms mobs wasn't there anymore i believe her son was living there everything was fine for a while and i think we had a couple more problems then she came back and then a couple of more tenants had issues the original violation was also for the debris in the yard also it was debris and evidently they couldn't you couldn't maintain a habitable temperature in the unit in the middle of the winter no different okay yeah but no this is not the first time we've seen this yeah alright but i think we're done with this one for now alright so let's move on to the cell tower update so the on just a quick update on detail that i had said that the hearing is scheduled for the week of june 11th but not final now it looks like it's going to be the week of june 16th it's still no final date it's probably going to be the 18th i will be the town's only witness i think we're there was no additional prefinal test to no testimony from the applicant so i think the only thing we have left is to do a rebuttal to what they filed with their application and then we'll have the hearing they intend to rebut some of the things we've said when we have the hearing it'll essentially be like like a trial and will be witnesses will be examined the cross examined and then there'll be that on at and t the hot issue is jericho road one thousand nine hundred and twenty five jericho road the they're proposing a tower we heard this at the march meeting with at and t it's a standard one hundred and forty foot tower i think one person at the hearing objected to it i've put several notices on front porch forum seeking comments and those comments are attached it quite honestly is hard to find a line of objection to this tower the decision is really the same issue as with vtl it minimizes our zoning regulations and takes the control away from the municipality and gives it to the public service board which is an entity of the state but that's not a failure of any of these applications that's something we object to in the way that the state has chosen to proceed it's already pressed there's legal precedent for upholding the not honoring a town's zoning regulations unfortunately yeah well i'm looking at the comments specific to this location people at least a small set of people are saying they want the tower so i'm not sure we're looking for reasons to oppose it if people are in support of it what the issue is the principle of her son well but yeah but this is this is where things get sticky because jeff i believe you said there was one person who objected to it yes what level of public opposition to something do we need to see before we take actions spend down money and et cetera et cetera i got now the longer this goes on and the more we learn about the public service board's unwillingness and frankly refusal to honor local governments opinions and not even hear like they're like we don't even want to hear anything that has to do with zoning because we've already made a determination on that so you have to come up with some other reasons that issue is moved and what is that other reason it all comes back to zoning and aesthetics well all right but one person's aesthetics is another person's whatever i'm i'm frankly tired of spending money on this then give up i know two months ago i was like we gotta do what we did for one we have to do for another but now that this is starting to get more and more expensive i'm getting i'm just i'm feeling like we're fighting a losing battle and there's no hope in sight because the legislature has didn't make any changes to the act to the statute and we're at the end of the legislative session nothing's changed and these are going to be decided in sixty days i'm done i think we have to acknowledge that that we have not been completely unsuccessful in that we at least have standing at the upcoming detail here i agree i don't think we're going to get anywhere but i don't know until we go through that that we know that everything is quite as moot as we're assuming that it is here is that fair to say that is fair to say we do have a deadline this week to request a hearing and raise a substantial issue on this town on the retail one no no that one was already going to a hearing if we want to you mean on the eighteen yeah on the jericho this is the thing that makes me crazy but we can't the substantial issue can't be zoning well well i think well it can be actually they they consented and that really is the issue we've got it's whatever got us in the door before i think the way we were talking about this is is do we have a mechanism for getting in the door then the basic issue of the superseding of our local zoning is sort of the the core bug in our ear if you will now whether we act on that or not is another question but do we even have a a route to to remediation and the the short term answer is yeah we do you know within that we have here how costly is well that's the question asked now recently we've been thinking that if we did it once we could kind of cook you know cookie cutter it and just more or less do global search and replace fetal for adnd and send it in again but well i think you'd save upfront time because we filed two letters for detail which were substantial investment by the attorney if we filed one for for this one we would probably be a cookie cutter of the substantial issue letter but going through this i've seen what we have to do which is we have to develop our own prefiled testimony which may be similar maybe not we have to rebut their arguments we have to spend time reviewing their testimony and then we'll have a hearing in some hours before we even get to hear yeah at this point if you if you look at jeff's memo we're spending close to eight thousand just on the retail one and and believe me i mean you know where i was coming from originally on this i don't want to spend money on a wild goose chase it's just that i think we have a responsibility to make sure it's a wild goose chase it would be nice if we could figure out how the prefile how the hearing goes before we made a decision but it sounds like we can't well we can put the letter but we don't have to follow through with it right well you can file your objection i think you reserved the right to withdraw that later time yeah i just i'm so does that keep us in the game until after the 16th at low cost and the principle here is our local zoning but i'm with you you know i'm really reluctant to spend six thousand again that we've already lost and that's no way taking a stand on the appropriateness of any of these towers it's do we have the means of effecting a change yes regardless of what that changes is i'm less and less convinced we do and i as am i responsible use of our resources exactly exactly i think we're all kind of in the same general direction and i'm also this is tempered by we're getting we don't have a group of people saying absolutely don't put that cell tower in this location we have people saying do put that cell tower in this location yeah but and that and just just to cover everything again it's the principle a break i said there are two principles there there's the aesthetics the neighbors that sort of the citizens opinion the zoning principle is one but if we don't if the zoning principal is doomed to failure and we don't have a group of citizens right well in that case let's say this worked out much better than we can possibly expect right now and on the 16th for the retail one we actually prevail prevail well for the 18th one there's no reason that we couldn't go in and say no problem go ahead go through our zoning process and or even or even yeah whatever but but it's defending the principle and the right to to affect the decision and okay i guess yes but on the jericho road one separate from the beetle and the cochran road which we haven't made a decision on the cochran road and the williams hill road is is that we don't have the objection to it so what is the why are we objecting to it why are we bringing up a concern when we have and i'm not to dismiss the one gentleman who who made who made the point but but the overwhelming majority of people is saying that they're in support of it so are we with the minority the very small minority well that's but that's and i see where you're going with this and that's a really good question to ask but it's a process and what i'm saying is is we may find out after the 16th that we don't even have to worry about that because we're not going to get anywhere so i i have no problem with submitting a letter it basically a carbon copy of what we submitted period and then we take the net step whatever the lowest cost way of keeping in the gates so you're willing to request intervention status and raise a significant issue of our zoning similar to detail and that's as far as we will go pending further information from the other process and what's the estimated cost of doing that is that something we need to well the estimate the cost of filing the letter will probably be in the neighborhood of six hundred to seven hundred outside of three thousand four hundred and thirty five hours that's even though it's essentially the same letter that's already been drafted well i'm asking for the attorney i we're still gonna have the peripheral stuff to do you can't just say here you go change the line yeah alright so anyway i know but i think that is the i mean i'm feeling that's the appropriate course of action and then after the 16th hopefully we will it'll be very clear what we need to do yeah the focus of this letter is we want to enforce our zoning and if our zoning process gets high again what's the point of spending money fighting more and more fights about losing ms cayman the public service board is bullying us it's also bullying towns with housing with the front desk coming from canada i don't think we should spend a lot of money but do you think that if we fight back a little bit the public service board will notice you know they're noticing middlebury and cornwall and shoreham and monkton and maybe they don't care maybe they're arrogant and they don't care what we do you know they're so corporate minded but i don't know well they're are noticing and we do have the just like they've had those hearings in in addison county we got we had a hearing on the first one which is good but we may find i think like the folks are finding that it's you get a hearing but you don't get to change right so i think we have a very high bar for what a significant issue is it should be noted that that two hundred and forty eight process was set to expire at the end of this june and the legislature voted to renew it i believe the governor if he hasn't signed it already so it's our legislatures we can legislators that we can now blame the state is reaffirmed its stance that the state should be in charge of issuing certificates of public good for these projects and not not the towns there is a theme across this with our you know do we need a motion to for you to do the thing i would like a motion for an additional two thousand five hundred on detail and for six hundred on a check over summer seconded any discussion all in favor of i think we just are talking about approving three thousand one hundred combined for the purposes of pursuing these issues please say aye aye i'm sorry the amendment i don't want to bleed over i want like a real tight limit on the jericho road i don't want to spend more than yeah six hundred i think it was okay fair enough it was two thousand five hundred for vtl and six hundred for i mean it was just kind of hold our feet to the fire okay good so as amended all in favor please say aye aye aye post it's unanimous and just for the benefit of the public there's been no movement on cochran road that i've been made aware of so there was nothing to report alright moving right along the town center parking lot paving i feel like all we do is spend money well that is all we do i have an old plan of fitting the parking lot with gold or so i thought what was that i said i had a bold plan to pave the parking lot with gold yes i was impressed so to redo the town center parking lot which serves a town center chittinden the school district the post office and the library it's going to be about one hundred and eighty thousand i was hoping for one hundred thousand but the reason it cost so much is because there is no real base the asphalt has been laid directly over the original ground and it heaves in the winter we're in the spring actually and breaks apart and creates dangerous safety conditions and we've been battling it for many years so both pete goslin and mike wisell tell me the only way to correct that is to excavate a foot of material out of there replace it with a good bed of road gravel compacted and then pave over top of that they did something similar out in front here in front of the post office where the that that area used to look a lot different had different concrete panels and they dug out there and even into the entryway where the asphalt is put down road gravel and compacted it you can see it's remained mostly very stable since they did that so obviously that's a solution doing that adds an additional one hundred thousand to the cost of just paving it but the kicker is we don't have that much money in our town seven rent fund we get about eleven thousand a month but right now we only have about one hundred and nine thousand we do have some expenses that are going to come out in june so in order to do that project this year i would have to run into deficit for about nine months or take out a shortterm loan alternatively i talked to pete goslin and he said that we could use fifty thousand of the town's paving paving budget for the parking lot and that would reduce the burden on the town center rent fund but the taxpayers generally would be paying for the upkeep of the parking lot at that point and where but he needs fifty thousand to do paving so would it just be oh it would over the winter it would go back into his fund does that how we would have no no no not a reimbursement i mean we could talk about that we could reimburse later yeah but he's really going to do good to be done with this payment yeah yeah i keep it clean i'm also just worrying about wondering about the timing of this because there's been some discussion of with with the development of the creamery parcel of of having an access to the parking lot here and i'm just wondering if it makes sense for us to go and do this now as opposed to waiting in maybe having that be part of whatever larger deal is on them it's a negotiating point that could be used with whatever developer finally picks up the project oh sure i can appreciate that my concern is the parking lot is in rough shape that continues to get worse i'd say you know we could maybe hold off one more year patch it up and hold off for a year we can patch it up it won't hold it'll be a hot patch and it might last until march i mean i i chris i totally totally understand where you're coming from but i don't think we're going to get a developer to go ahead and throw in two hundred thousand well not the whole amount but i mean some kind of plus the plus the plan to do it i think is what chris's big point is i mean if we pave it one way and then there's a proposal that slightly alters it we lose that opportunity so can we can we cause we're going to be getting bids probably the goal is to do it before winter to do this before winter correct so can we can we put a timeline on this and say i'm just throwing out an idea that if we you know if by late july we don't have any proposals then we'd go forward with this they'll give us a couple more months to have some some more reserve funds in the bank proposals for the cranium parcel proposals for the cranium parcel if we don't have proposals from the cranium parcel by x date or late july early august to to evaluate then we then we go through and because we still will have until the end of october november to get this done and it will give us more months that'll give us six more months of revenue from the post office which means the less money we will need and it loans and loan or shortterm interests to pay for it but is that going to drive up the cost of the project if we do paving then no i don't think there's going to be much of a difference so mike wiser still has to design the project take him for a while to do that you know to the end of june i can come back to or just the bid spec there's not a lot of engineering it's just to get the bid spec ready and ready to go to bed i'll bring it back first meeting the july for authorization to issue the the bid we'll put it out for a month we'll get proposals we could award in august similar to depot street and do it on the same timeline how upset are the post office and the other tenants about the current condition i've had several complaints i mean the post officer office postmaster has talked to me regularly about the condition of the parking lot actually i think his section there is really the first section of the entire parking lot so the library doesn't complain somebody who fell and broke their leg or something or any other notices being pointed out that it's deficient well i know people have fallen they haven't made made any claims but i know personally people have fallen on okay so so if we hold off on putting out bids until the end of july early august that's just a month later then the time when you just said can we do that in hopes that maybe we'll get some some cranium parcel stuff we'll know more we have more information if cranium parcel stuff looks like there's going to be an egress there then we we'll talk to that end we'll talk to that end yes if this goes out to necessarily being able say this is the timeframe that we're looking at so that either you have that right well i think the concern is we wouldn't do the project if it looked like there was going to be a proposal to alter the traffic pattern here well you've already had the objection by some of the neighbors about allowing a pass through here but we still have the ability to make a decision on that too i mean i'm you'll be able to make a decision on a lot of things but if this is going out for proposal which i would hope rather than the town for doing this when you had suggested the date later so that they can just say this is the date we're looking at right here my only my only reason for wanting to push it out a little bit is in is to account for maybe changes to the design based on cranium creswell design that that was my not not for starting or stopping i recognized that you could put a bed out in june and say we're not going to start it yet until october no that's what my thinking was was to account for any other proposals that may be out there to make adjustments not for access if it needed several loud has to go through some massive change absolutely oh yeah and so that would be the only consideration would be if somebody if a developer and there may be myriad options and one of them that includes it and six of them don't is that we could say oh well it's just not an option we're going to go forward on ours on our timeline period and then if a contractor wants to do something then it's on their but i agree this is a tough area to potentially have in an egress although it could turn into another green state when people are trying to avoid the light yeah yeah so are we done with this for tonight i think there's this is this worth our signature do you need this to do anything i mean it is what it is i'll authorize mike to design it and i'll bring him back at the end of july and we'll talk about it again okay let's move on rbhlp loan referral well we say it easily look for last right so david sandra and i have met twice since town meeting with firms and it was with the champlain housing trust to discuss them the broader issue of which is very clear for them it means a fifteen year deferral at a minimum and nothing less for us it means the political objective of saying we we promised our town we would have a revolving loan fund we're not convinced why that cant happen so you know i remember looking somewhat closely at this and i had a couple of questions having to do with their how the sort of present the financial presentation worked some of the facts that they presented were low occupancy but it's currently a hundred percent that they previously had high heating costs due to fuel oil which has now been moved since november due to gas so those things seem more relevant in the past than the future there's the modest valuation of the pieces of property was something like sixty two thousand per unit which i don't know how the formula works how that set up but that seemed like modest contribution to tax rules and then there was the depreciation which i wasn't i wasn't clear how that was managed and i don't remember remember these auditing and budgeting and listening and appreciation which let's be honest is a tax credit given to them by the government they're listing that as a cost so i'm not comfortable which frankly if i actually when i work with water systems and i see them listing depreciation as an expense and they're actually funding it i'm cheering because that means they're actually putting some little amount of money into cap into reserve funds you know they're accounting for future needs but the reality is is that a lot of systems a lot of entities won't actually have cash on hand equal to depreciation so that means they're eating into their going over budget every year well so if you showed the depreciation as a cost then where's the money it's it's it's an accounting term no but then that the question did they have a fund did they have a capital fund that they were putting that depreciation so then the reserve funds are below their budgeted fund exactly so that means the depreciation is they're not actually taking it they're not actually expensing it they're it's they're eating into their budget it's showing it's a way for them to show that they're not in the red but where's the money going then no but they're counting it as an expense but the money isn't showing it's going into paying for maintenance it's going to not evidently yeah the exhibit we saw and maybe i misremember this was it looked like it was an expense and it was expensed out but there was no balance of a fund balance so either it goes somewhere else not to this organization this site but they were they were showing the loss right they do have after depreciation they showed a loss yes yes before depreciation is my question it before depreciation they'd show the if nobody has it handy i've got the do you see where i'm gong depreciation is money that goes if you're showing that as a cost then it's going somewhere it's not here i'm right there with you right so is it cash positive or not exactly it is is cash positive yeah so i just still have questions i am very strongly in support of affordable high quality housing our discussion of the apartment recently is instructed i don't want people renting i don't think that's the issue here without kitchens but yeah i think we're all in supportive of of high quality affordable housing it's it's but i think i think there was broad consensus that there was a commitment made to the town at the time that that we'd reenter into this arrangement and that the that the that this was a a grant that was to be used in used again for in order to maximize the amount of highquality affordable housing that was available to town residents and the question before us is is by turning over basically agreeing with with the request does that best serve that purpose and it's not clear to me that it does it's not clear to me either well i'm frustrated by this i'm frustrated fred thomas as well had june heston had volunteered to work on a committee to talk about this have they gotten together so they could tap this resource to work with this project no they haven't initially david and i offered to to meet see if we could understand the issue better wait i'm sorry i wasn't aware of that maybe that was before i think jared had offered before she left the county and fran i think you may have been granted i talked with fran i've heard from fran i think it's going to be really difficult for us to get us through this and negotiate something without champlain here i think it means some envoys with some continued work i still was sort of stuck on the depreciation on one hand and also the idea of the money coming back for other purposes one of the concerns i've heard from folks outside the room was is the money going it might not be a bad thing but my revenue is coming out of this project going to another part of chittenden county which is not a bad thing for chittenden county but may not be particularly helpful for richmond so so perhaps it is prudent to to see if folks other than us who have a lot of work to do and regular meetings to to to work this out to come to some kind of conclusion because i think we're all not comfortable with a fifteen year deferred or indefinitely deferred deferred program but we also we also are uncomfortable with putting a an affordable housing company for lack of a better term in jeopardy so so we need it needs more than what we can do in a half an hour once a month correct there may be other i don't know if compromise is but other things that might be negotiated what else could they as an organization do i feel they can we chair can we what can be legally described as affordable housing sets rates for record and the rents there already at the upper end of that bracket they're saying we can't pull enough money out of this to pay this long without raising the rents which would put them out of affordability practice i'm not convinced seeing the numbers that they gave for industry to fees salaries expenses we don't have a we don't have sufficient information at this point to make a determination about the longterm viability is project as it was presented to us back when we approved the use of the initial funds so that we do need that additional input so i'm with whoever said it that we should call on on fran or june to see whether they are willing to fulfill that initial offer and do a little followup there because what we've did is a new status of wellpaying lawyers well paid lobbyist wellpaid cpas and you know they can they can put these figures together put it right back in our labs saying these are our numbers showing you that this won't work can i see it first so i feel like we have a year because didn't we just extended it for a year we have seven months okay so we have until next march but january next january to do this cause remember they came to the light board late in the year and this is again in april right before they would get their final yearbook so this needs to we need the results this this summer okay can we can we ask june and fran and maybe there are others who are interested okay you did just great that was fine alright so can we go to reports yes unfortunately i was not able to make the economic development committee meeting last friday i did not have an update and i was invited but i also couldn't make it i had to be at my office at seven thirty in the morning which is the same time but i will go with the next time great you think that's going to be a problem on a regular basis i don't think so paul sent me an email and he was like we're meeting and i told him i couldn't go unfortunately but i'll plan for the next time please note the financial reports we are still trying to reconcile the final taxes taxes are still coming in that will be final final until the end of next month but it looks like the collections are going to be higher than what we thought from last year and not by just the little there's there's an issue with the homestead rebate and we issue we set the tax rate in july goes on the tax bills and then the home state rebates get finalized for individuals and it it looks like more people are paying the nonhomestead rate than what the tax rate predicted so it goes to our favor and we don't owe it to the schools we keep i don't think so cause connie looked into it she's talked to people at the state they've assured her that that happens sometimes but i don't have the final answer on it and our cpa is aware of it and it looks like we're going to be collecting more than we anticipated which is better than well i mean this is the thing is when i added the delinquent tax amount into the collections and then compare that to budgets twenty that you know i mean this assuming that we do recoup significant amount of the liquid tax which is higher than expected also i mean that's a that's a lot of money it's not going to be twenty and on the overall rate i think we're looking at more like maybe five to six when all is said and done i think this still needs to be cleaned up a little bit sometimes it's very difficult to pull apart what's what's going on in the computer system until does effectively increase the number by twenty the next time i wasn't there i was like just happened do you want to do you have any any comments about the delinquency rate no i think the overall delinquency rate is about on par where it's been which is running their belt three to four which is not not bad at all okay it's slightly higher so when you collect delinquent taxes it's doesn't have anything to do with the delinquency rate so the delinquency rates only what's on the current taxes and you don't really see that because they're not delinquent until the end of the year so it's hard to show you what the delinquency rate is until it's closed so when you're collecting delinquent taxes you're you're not affecting your delinquency rate you're just collecting what's due it's present going back or just delinquent could really just really just collected right so when we talk about the rate it's how how would the percentage on collected for the current year so even though you've gotten outstanding primary balances it doesn't add up to what we talk about when we say the rate otherwise with the budget i think that we're we're doing okay again the big over expenditures are with the some of the town of administration line items for professional services and legal highway has some high expenses the we had two claims for federal highway which is a is a change from prior years last during irene all the highway damage was covered under fema this time they split it out we had to apply to federal highway for aid for ninety thousand of damages i don't know if we'll collect that this year i said that ninety thousand i'm sorry it's more like twenty thousand i don't know if we'll collect that and this year or whether that will be next year so we'll have an outstanding receivable on that i think okay otherwise i think operationally speaking the towns doing very well is there any other questions on the financial documents i don't think so it'd be great we should look at it more closely yeah yeah definitely alright well let's move on department reports i think the only department report again is the police report did you have an entertaining police report i know i was like we did get a grant from our insurer which is a property and casualty insurance fund that's run by plct that's for fifty of the cost of replacement flotation devices at the water treatment plant and some other safety gear because it was noted a safety inspection two years ago that they were deteriorating and needed to be replaced this is in case somebody falls into the wastewater yes well because of the turbulence of the activated sludge operation you could sink yeah it'd be very hard to stay afloat and it's not a pretty way to go and we are going to have a regional concerns meeting now i should have written down the date it's in june i think it's the fourth monday in june the snipe arland broke the bridge on route two over the sniper went broke is due to be replaced not this year probably ten this year two to three years from now haven't designed it they've got several options to holding a meeting it will be in our library they'll talk about the design options and traffic flow and what they need to do and what the community's needs are because they could either shut down the road detour down cochran road or they could do a temporary bridge and the needs of the community are really going to dictate where they go with that okay and we'll be updating more on this but you'll see in there they've made several amounts months to have a lot of interested people that are concerned about route to traffic flow come to that meeting okay and so just to clarify this is the bridge replacement and and the effects of that are a couple of years out the repaving of two in that section has now been moved up to well the what there they call them maintenance code which is just an inch over the top to smooth it out will happen this summer okay i've been assured that by several people including representative anna brine and that'll be fast i mean they move quite quickly i mean they're not grinding anything right it's just an overlay the larger work which will be similar to what they're doing in waterbury now are going to be doing in bolton this summer won't happen here for at least another two years so i think in my in my wisdom i would say they should replace this bridge at the same time they do the major workup to if they're going to shut it down but i don't work there it's complicated you know there are things that we don't know about have different contracts and finally i get a good news on richmond rescue won the ambulance service of the year award this week is ems week on thursday we're going to go off to montpellier and receive that award i think that's a good pat on the back for them they've worked hard to improve their operation get things straightened out keep it wellrun wellmaintained and they get this award if it's that's very nice congratulations well taylor called me today saying he might not be able to make this well a cat in the the award okay great and that's all the reports i have this evening nobody have anything else pertinent have we heard anything about the new signal i've actually used it i've used it also it's been re timed there's a much longer it's probably twice as long which is not terribly significant but seven or eight seconds as opposed to three seconds there's a delay so when you push the signal everybody stops and it does feel subjectively different to me but i'm wondering if we've heard anything i haven't heard anything from any residents although i'm sure people appreciate it it does provide for a stop pattern so that you get more than halfway across before traffic starts coming at you that's always a good thing do you have something well it was the loan pay executing the loan but you probably have to do that and can we do we do it tonight or if you want to push it i don't want to push it but i'm just wondering if we it's because it's on the agenda so at our water and sewer commissioning meeting we have this we have this loan for the final design of the chlorine contact time it's a loan that we need to execute so we have to sign it and we didn't feel like the water and sewer commission had the authority to do that we thought it was the select board's authority to execute a loan so we differed in our water and sewer commission meeting to the select board to do it and this is this is so that we can seek reimbursement against expenses that have already been incurred and and expenses that have already been approved by the state and this will all go into the bigger this all goes into the the loan right right so chris hasn't seen this you can take a look at it the loan amount is for it's more than twenty right eighty four thousand one hundred and fifty seven so what that includes is that includes reimbursing the big loan from a many years ago the appropriated portion of it that was used to do preliminary design pouring contact time so that's a little bit there some of the money that's already gone into designing the storage tank and the approved final sort of construction phase engineering on the it includes the chlorine contact time tank right yeah the chlorine contact time project does this have the effect of moving yes yes it will be reset the date but fortunately it will reset the date so instead of two thousand and fifteen that we'll have to start repaying it'll get reset two years after that's substantially complete so two thousand and sixteen we'll get a year i'm loving him for more but being the person who's in charge of the program all right insider i don't know how much we have so so you want to you want to move we do sign on this i move we execute r3302 in the amount of eighty four thousand one hundred and fifty seven and any discussion would be all right all in favor aye aye all opposed okay you have quite a bit of signing get your can i sign first i don't know but ten minutes should be good yep let's while we're doing that why don't we move ahead to minutes i was not here for this one and taylor is not here so i guess we get i got bear barely large enough group to to approve these does anybody have any comments or changes on the minutes of may 5th two thousand and fourteen something like that i'm gonna move the minutes of may 5th two thousand and fourteen second all right any comments or questions regarding saying hearing none all in favor of approving the minutes of may 5th two thousand and fourteen for the richmond select board please say aye aye and one abstention and they are approved then we've got a couple of purchase orders or a purchase order is that right it's actually two purchase orders for the same issue which is triaxle dump trucking to move the gravel plan forward but it's under two different lines so i have there to do purchase orders to the same company but using two different fundings why why is it he's using equipment rental and gravel plant oh okay i think he probably could have done it under one and just listed the account separately but he chose to do two purchase orders do you have sorry to pile it all the a cover page do you want us to initial these well what you do is you take a look and if you agree then you would make a motion to authorize signing a purchase order two thousand three hundred and eighty three to newton trucking in the amount of eleven zero for tri axle trucking and if it's approved and chris signs it good good go ahead it's a good thing to get used to doing it all right so a motion to approve the purchase orders to that's different newton trucking construction one is thirteen and one is eleven zero could you list the numbers two thousand three hundred and eighty three is two thousand three hundred and eighty five for thirteen thousand for triaxle trucking to remove the gravel and then there's a second one two thousand three hundred and eighty three for a eleven thousand for the same purpose so he's made a motion for both all right any discussion on either purchase order alright all in favor of approving a purchase order two thousand three hundred and eighty three and purchase order two thousand three hundred and eighty five please say aye aye aye opposed both purchase orders are approved and i will sign them as soon as i'm done signing this thing all right end of year policy and prior year charges give me one second i need ashley to sign these items from prior meetings why didn't i cover it in this space well they were this one is a service officer from that came up and we will ask me these are the two policies that should have been i didn't circulate them am i the only one no nobody's signed oh so everybody has to sign okay and then for you so policy on the end of year policy has to do with how we handle charges from this fiscal year once we roll into the next fiscal year and this policy basically says between july 1st and august 31st you're allowed to charge prior year expenses to the prior year account and then it'll be closed so this would be for things like utilities or prior goods and services that we buy in june the bill doesn't come in until the end of july you don't want to charge that to the next year's fiscal budget we want it to go to fiscal year fourteen the accountant makes those adjustments but you have to have a cutoff date and we're sorry that the cutoff date is going to be the end of august and i think that's proven because sometimes we don't pay june bills until august makes sense to me any thoughts well you know i'm just i'm wrestling with cash approval sort of approach and so i haven't really thought this through i don't see the downside but it's something we've been doing anyway it's always happened but we never had a policy that specifically well it fits any parameters okay so it's basically okay what's your pleasure you want this are we just putting off the inevitable what do you mean i mean this is what we do are we planning are we just putting it into alright well why doesn't somebody move it so i'm sorry the dates again jeff well essentially the policy which should have been i'm sorry here it says invoice is paid after july 1st with dates prior to july 1st will continue to be entered utilizing the last year invoice procedure until the second pay period in august or when our trial balance is given to the auditors whichever comes first so moved second discussion all in favor aye aye yes sorry yes i just have one question jumping back to the conservation fund that payment for the conservation fund when they do the final the purchase you're not paying that until their due date right we're not paying this in the town until they had made their other deadlines cause they're also applying for a matching funds from the community housing something or other so if that falls through then the essentially the deal falls through is so they don't get any money until they're ready to go yeah that was my understanding of the sorry guys i gotta go okay well we need you to ensure we have no executive session and there's three of you to sign the warrant so right we can do it so everything's copacetic i assume there's a fifty cent error in one item which i corrected and i mentioned it to jeff i'll have conduct correct that too and okay good catch is that the only yeah it's all covered for the package here's the clip that goes with it i'll ask ashley another time but gentlemen do you know your summer vacation plans if you had such at this point would you mind sharing with me and the reason i'm asking is you know besides idle curiosity it's just anticipating that we may have something of the interim zoning quote who might later in the summer are you planning on missing any slight board meetings in july and august is what i'm getting at let me go through that one no no vacation wonderful june 23rd but that's that's my it's the 16th yeah i'm sorry i'm just skipping monday to monday through my cramped screen my screen was stolen with the rest of my ipad oh no really i saw that from sports oh i saw that too yeah that's that's awful its kinda my fault i left the car unlocked but still yeah it was right there where was the car jada's covered jeffersonville it was where jada's cover after jeffersonville i went in for fresh donuts and a sandwich after meeting with ashley on saturday yeah i'm not gonna miss any meetings i did my vacation in february so i think so we don't know this is just being prepared we don't know sounds good so are we all set here don't hit yourself i think we are discuss any items for next agenda we have a followup depending on the dr the toning issue that we discussed earlier well that won't happen until it's just like a ways away yeah at the earliest what else we have coming up that's timely or anything we want to just note before we depart the public hearing on the changes to section sixty eight are going to happen at the june 2nd meeting this is regarding that's the two minor amendments to the floodplain regulations at some point over the summer i expect the full rewrite of the zoning regulations to come to the select board again you'll have to go through the same procedure okay yeah it's likely to be more dense yeah it's a complete re rework of the sections okay and then as things if if when we get action on the criminal recusal yes that may have to be handled in special meetings i would recommend it because it will essentially be like a drb hearing you'll you'll have a public hearing you'll take comments you'll take testimony from the applicant chris think we're going to get some of the members of the interim zoning committee together to help claire rock write the staff report and we can talk about opinions on not only how well it fits with the zoning regulations that are in place but how well the project fits within the community as a whole and what what sort of the community member reaction from the village might be i want to also mention we did appoint two members to the recreation committee robin isabel and rabideau and they're been working on trying to put together a plan for a tennis court and she had wanted to speak at the june 2nd meeting well there was some conversation about the browns court fields was yes the brown's court ball field has been a ball field for over a hundred years there is some surplus space there although i'm not sure how much space there really is for a tennis court it might mean a redesign or a conversation about what we can do there and they are looking at that in my memory there was some substantial workup there to bring can i say the softball field closer to the standard of the baseball field in town it was in my within my sort of kids career i'm playing softball so it wasn't that long ago so that's my only sort of caution i'm a fan of tennis but i don't want to do it sacrifice the interests of softball to the fields right but you know how are we sort that out well it's good again to have a conversation because we need people to look at these issues or else they don't get looked at and the larger issue is really we we have in the general area and not just richmond but huntington bolton richmond maybe not hollinsburg i don't know but everything in jericho is full there's there's just no facilities there aren't enough ball fields around there aren't enough soccer fields or somebody who wants to play in the lacrosse they get they don't get a chance and other sports as well there's just not the opportunity there's no basketball courts and and volunteers green is out because the floodplain regulations that are in place now that have to be there prohibit any kind of development or that sort of thing yeah like soccer and so we we need more land for facilities what do we do just food for thought and you don't have to yeah i'm taking him to the school area right now actually in the back middle school elementary school if they expanded fields they don't have a flood problem and there is potentially space up there it's just i may suggest we adjourn and continue that discussions after so somebody wanna move alright all in favor aye we are adjourned