think the only thing i had on that was at the top of the pages are the four treasure elections only less bullet pieces she says there are no elections this budget year there are tell us since there are no state the elections this at the bottom of page two is was the position that chief morton wanted a combination fire marshall assistant fire chief or where those two separate positions one position here the bulk of the planning activity has been done the management plan and accepted a license agreement accepted so the main focus has been on continuing due diligence activities and continuing to raise funds for the project so we thought we would give you an update on those things so we wanted to update you on a phase one environmental assessment that was done and the results of that so in fall of twenty seventeen there was a phase one environmental susman done as part of t p s due diligence for for the acquisition had was corroded and released gasoline the tank was promptly removed in fall of twenty seventeen and that was paid for by the collars and by the state's petroleum cleanup fund and the environmental firm concluded that that contamination was limited and was not widespread it can it appears to be confined to about a thousand square foot area around the location of former underground storage tank beginning but about three feet below grade and down to about eight feet below grade so the environmental has concluded it's unlikely for recreational users or the general public to come in contact with contaminated soil or ground water while on the site and d c has determined that the site is very low risk in terms of acting environmental or human health and they've also turbaned that they don't think that the contamination  has contaminated doesn't have much it won't spread very far they don't think it's going to spread very far and the primary i guess the primary concern and then in the spring the fall monitoring that was done indicated that the contaminant concentrations has had decreased but recommending at this point not to do any additional cleanup just to continue to monitor and let the the contaminant levels naturally subside until there are acceptable standards  they d c has recommended that the town and role in the program which is the brownfields reuse and environmental liability limitation in order to limit the town's future environmental liability associated with this limited soil contamination we are intending to submit an application to the broward program we have not yet submitted that application the application the state issues a certificate of a completion letter which basically says the issue's been taken care of and correct me if i'm wrong it won't be reopened in the future so that's the land trust would like to temporarily exclude from the conservation easement this thousand square foot for i guess it's two thousand square feet which amounts to point zero eight years for plan that this environmental issue doesn't affect the community forest program grants or any other sources of funding nor does it affect the appraise fair market value of the property so i will stop there and and i think we can you know if you have questions at this point before we go for it this would be a good time to just take up this issue hopefully going from there this was going to last i don't remember fortunately when i saw this come out this was the first time i heard of this did we did we know about this this contamination last year so in the fall of twenty seventeen understanding has been taken care of and what i didn't know is the state process i'm you know can some it can sometimes take a long time to completely resolve you know resolv environmental issues so i was i'm so if it's a very low risk is that what they said very little if it's very low risk then why do you need to enroll in this bro thing if it's it's yeah it's it's classified as a low risk or low priority site meaning that the potential threats to human health in the environment are considered low and so again the the direct exposure risks are low because the contamination that's an underground storage take the leaked there's no sufficient contamination so it's mostly in some kind of a groundwater issue more than up to ground water yeah in the fifty's i was going to say so it's but it's been a long time on the news if if if the the land trust excludes this couple thousand square feet until the state deems that it's clear it's change and the standards become more i mean and maybe the standards become more stringent they can't reopen the site and say actually you need to clean  up more because our standards have changed and so it protects the town in that sense that's one aspect that's one benefit of participating in the bella program i think what it boils down to is that if the town takes ownership of the property it is a it is an act of has site with patrolling contamination and groundwater so you without and rolling into the brother program you're accepting liability for that issue it's a liability in the state of vermont is joining in several so anyone in past we've done soil borings in monitoring wells and we've assessed that there's two wells one being right in the source area where the tank was that have ground water  scanners so the other two that are downgrading are clean so that attacked in those wells which are very discreet location where we have seen contamination and it's at depth there's no drinking with the one drinking water well is sufficiently far away and up gradient of the release so we don't consider that a sense of depth or there's no there's no surface water bodies nearby we don't the site's management section right i understand and it sounds you know reasonably low just trying to understand what it is what is a low life ability even if if this were to come up as a problem for the town it is that explain they've been rolled or they've successfully been now deemed eligible for reimbursement through the petroleum cleanup on so they're a their insurance policy didn't cover such a loss they were not aware of the underground storage tank property the town does and we have no i believe it's actually have so we're going to expect from you know the agency will expect to see ongoing monitoring to see contaminant trends if they're increasing stable or decreasing if they are increasing understand it either so i'm with you so the if if we receive application and we deem it administrative or complete and we are in the support of the reuse plans this one's a little different other than a phase one so we're ahead of the head of the curve here a little bit so based so sort of hypothetically here if i receive a bell application from the town halls them and we go through it together  because contributor worsened to any of the site contamination we would just ask that again in this case the act of remediation is not warranted it's a low risk or low priority so we would ask for continued ongoing monitoring perhaps every spring we have to consult and go back out and collect groundwater samples and to assess trends and once those contaminant concentrations are below participant in the brother program we as the participant acting in good faith continuing to diligence we would the state of vermont would not pursue any enforcement action we wouldn't you know there would be you would be considered in this case a pretty eligible perspective purchaser for the property meaning there's there's categories of prospective purchaser or current innocently and  yeah ok so this is in the states infinitely changing their regs quite frequently yeah it often i if i don't know the rise of an attorney and i deal a highly with residential and commercial real estate so i don't want to see the town getting into south thing that they're going to buy in and ruin a program where suddenly the ranks skyrocket to a whole different level i don't know i know you can't give any assurances because it's not what you can do but that's that's going to be a huge underline concern for me to make sure that all of the sudden we're not hit with a set of standards we can't possibly understand so right now the only contaminants we're monitoring are the trolling related you know we're not testing  to have an occurrence phase one and you're going to continue to act again act in good faith and comply with agency expectations so continued monitoring of the maybe one thing that would help is first of all sean how common are the low risk type gas tank can i know what the right word is sites for lack of better lights yeah  i'd say it's more common to see you know higher priority sites given the close proximity to sensitive or sectors drinking water supply wells surface waters indoor you know basements indoor air she said when you have when you have this all phase compare nation plumes migrating off site migrating toward drinking water supply wells in someone's basement nearby that may cause a vapor intrusion issues those are all factors that raise it up in terms of and we were to ask the question well what are still worst case scenario we could be looking at down the road how would we would you be able to explain that to us how would you do that in this particular scenario where we've got an old up which is all but it's all going to be just the north side is going to be ok oh i see outside of it and ok i see so that's where the cut off this you know you when you talk about dissolve face plumes migrating off site that's that affect of the source area so that these are all very favorable so i characteristics that you know i don't i don't see of the for you know a worst case scenario here if let's just say let's just say part of the  plans at some point in the future involve putting a structure right there where you'd have to dig up soils to put down a slab or something like that and that would raise concern and we would have in the c o c there would be  there would be language such that you know that area is a den a fight is a that's contamination and that if any future uses to occur there you can notify us first not saying it can't be done just you need to notify us we need to see a soil management plan be like a land use restriction saying before any work is to occur there notify the agency so that we're aware of that publicly and ok i just wanted to make sure make sure and then my last question has to do with there's the mention of the drinking water well are there multiple wells we should be worried about or no i've only seen the one how should we view that three hundred fifty feet just had a lot yes i would say so and it's upgraded that well we have in our court here we've had some brief conversations radius of between a quarter and a half mile and if they're in they do what they do is they simply say that there's x number of supply wells within a quarter mile of the site and they will they can provide well construction hopefully these c o c certificate of completion and after the phase two we are going to want to see a corrective action plan so that from the consultant says we've got enough data to extrapolate any trends you know and they'll summarize site history and they'll say these are our proposed corrective actions one can be dig up any remaining long term monetary so every year we'll go out we'll collect samples maybe twice a year at the you know to start off with these are all costs again that are eligible for the p c f that will be paying for it and what do you envision are this is more maybe for melinda down the road as the town potentially will own this own property in this area will this impact that if that if a drinking water well needs to be installed where it's located yes i don't know that you have to ask sean for one and i think he says the weather if we had to do a structure they'd have to assess it because we have to be digging in that ground you know well but also we need some suspect i mean you wouldn't i don't see any reason why you would want to quote a well right there and there's a lot of all right i think it's more i'm trying to understand down the roads what are the potential impacts and really my question was about as the as that's assuming the town owns this as it were trying to pursue whatever goals we're pursuing at the four hour for the property one of them might be we need water and if the answer to that is yes how big of an impact could this potentially be on finding a source of what i soon the best source will be will be ground water would like to consult with our colleagues and drinking water supply just out of curiosity do we are we anticipating providing possible water as part of to support the activities that go on the property well they do that now through catamount the town may not do that as owners of the property that doesn't have to be more desirable but it it's just i'm just trying to understand what this is the kind of the first we have heard about this so just trying to understand some of the liabilities and i'm not hearing anything i think is or shaking one of the persons has already answered by a shark i was concerned about you said as long as we continue with our due diligence i wasn't clear exactly what that meant and i was concerned that we would have your early cause for we're not doing the sampling we would just want to see it to continue it doesn't we don't necessary that are taken care of underbelly tracked who is to manage a school manages that's what we're trying to get at is what is the continuing obligation of the town are you continuing so we would we would want to we typically what happens on all the other sites throughout the state of vermont is that the property owner has a concern and a qualified environmental consultant and they provide me or any other site manager with work plan cost estimate to do these annual sampling events and we review and approve it and they do it and they submit a report to you and to me and with conclusions ensure the annual or twice annual whatever the requirements is monitoring actually are kirks it's our responsibility that no g r b response and i would say that it's one once we've selected a corrective action i e so we don't even see very you you're certainly welcome to look at it but we don't actually see the bill itself if you will and there's specific p c f rates so ok unlike insurance i don't  connect you if you talk about experience with that forest i personally think that's probably not a bad idea at least follow up with a phone call on everything from we can't believe two yet went substantially complete so we we've done the current we we've had your consultant to work corrective action report we selected a corrective action remedy and then it's implemented and as long as those continuing obligations are perspective it will be a pain but at least it won't be a cost impact because the i see it right there are our insurance if you will it's where the brother will cover those costs even if they're significantly more because more there were so the buffets one identified that there was a phase one is a records review they go all the way back as far as they can and they know to be noted that there was an underground tank there associated with the bar so that was a red flag they said we need to investigate they did that and they found this contamination they got rid of the tank as well the pair of that as well as one hundred ten gallons of gasoline  for the questions for sean from the us before you moved on from this part just only thing it's just it it seems odd that it's coming up so late that if we knew about this we should have maybe brought this to the board when we found pretty pretty well caught up to speed on this site already so that the appraisal was wrong or incorrect but that the appraisal didn't need the yellow book standards the way that the review appraiser want to congeal so we had to start over with a new appraiser pushed last year it seems like to quickly get through some of the stuff it seemed like a hurry and it wasn't really because obviously the this hasn't closed as quickly as we were people were it least implying it might or needed to you know jim hasn't ran for the hills and done a deal with anybody else i didn't expect that either but is there any reason that we were approving spending the would be nice to know about the broader thing closing signed and i actually i'm i'm still a little disappointed in being asked to spend money before we can see the appraisal and not that i'm going to i'm not an appraisal expert obviously but s and the reason we applied for two hundred eighty thousand is that after all this shaking of trees are all open i mean we have been raised hard near and wide with natural and right now the way i drafted it it basically says the first two hundred will come back to the town and then anything about that will come to the p l o up to sixty thousand in the last twenty would come back to the town  stewardship endowment fund for future management expenses on the property and what i'd like to ask you to consider is whether you would be willing to kind of share the risk with us  instead of having kind of the first two hundred come to the town and if it's over two hundred then we get some reimbursement that if you'd be willing to kind of you know if the award was one hundred fifty you guys would get one hundred  yet we adjusted our budget taking that out and then we'll be putting sixty something into a couple of closing if a lot less i mean we still have some requests out there and if we're pleasantly surprised if the next month or so great about a little confused by all the the math that's going on that's fine maybe the best way is for me to ask what is the potential that we don't reach the goal and i don't even know exactly what the goal is because it sounds like trust for public land may be put up to sixty or eighty thousand and i guess i'm asking the question what is the risk we won't reach that minimum amount that needs to be in place in order to make the purchase does that make sense the question i'm trying i'm trying to understand we right now we're still short it sounds like we're short by a small amount but we're still short we don't know what the potential for additional money to come in through your fund raising efforts so i guess i'm asking the question of is there the potential that we won't be able to get that they're asking for more this is what i'm trying to understand is this kind of piece that's a little bit in flux still not asking for the town to put in anymore right i'm not asking that if we get the grants and it would be great if we could get a portion of that grant even if it was less than two hundred i would suggest that the two hundred thousand if we do give up less than that that is that we are giving up more than so i think i don't know if you got that in just but basically they're prepared to buy now because the t p o is going to be extra sixty some odd thousand dollars to close the deal of their own money at two hundred thousand dollars was supposed to be brought back to the town in the form of a if if we receive this grant what they're suggesting now is a set of just two hundred thousand dollars they're going to add another eighty thousand dollars to that right sixty to pay back the t p o and then twenty four the image of the search ship that they're putting that at the very end they're suggesting that the well initially the suggesting two hundred thousand dollars because the town then t p takes the next that sixty if there is such funds in the grant and then the last piece would be the stewardship they're asking us if we would maybe take less than two hundred thousand dollars of the grant doesn't go up to to sixty so and i think the whole premise of the purchase in our participation was based on you know putting in four hundred thousand dollars with hopefully low risk on the extra two hundred thousand so i think we would probably through the taxpayers want to get the folks back and that would be my opinion but and i have to think about that a little bit because it's the environmental reserve fund that's impacted if i remember correctly and yes general so it wouldn't necessarily affect taxes but it would affect the health of the environmental reserve fund taxpayer money oh i guess i'm not i'm not belittling that but i just i look at those as two separate not separate laded but separate things we have used the environmental reserve fund to purchase many things in it you know this is just another way of looking at it is kind of the way i'm feeling about this is how strong is our desire to buy this property if our desire is kind of on the contribute six hundred thousand straight before her we were hoping to contribute and the trust for probably then would be on the hook for sixty thousand or eighty thousand jobs ok but my point is is that it's coming out of the environmental reserve fund that six hundred thousand or four hundred thousand whatever to ultimately ends up being so it's not we don't have to budget for this expenditure it's already in a fund that was set up for these types of purchases did the liability is going to be is if if it's six hundred thousand our health of our environment a reserve fund is worse or less or whatever you should financially say that then if  opinion but if that's the consensus of the war which i suspect there's still the other issue about if if we do get a grant that exceeds two hundred thousand what happens to that money and how is that distributed because right now we've only pray and it's the most receiving two thousand then i'm fine with it because that was what you expected you entered into this into this with the belief that that's what you're going to get back if you want to give the excess back to the trust republic land i don't necessarily have a problem with that and if we're lucky enough to have money left over after that for the store chip i'm great we kind of a bunch of big but the only thing i'll say in difference was that we kind of expected the twenty k in the storage up that was part of the fund raising deal that was with what was supposed to come in that was our plan was to of the two hundred thousand of the grant the twenty thousand came from their fund raising it was part of the closure of the deal but he's a kid so that was the last twenty thousand yes i'm i'm less passionate about it although and they'll make decisions beginning in march how competitive is this group well two years ago when i was on the committee did judge the grants there were only three applicants applying for a total of six hundred thousand dollars this year i think there were fourteen uplands but they have more money as year two so i have no idea how how much the other groups are playing for so we'll see ok i don't know it were not for this the federal shutdown would you be pursuing closing now we are pursuing closing i mean we're we're we're finalizing all the documents we can't set a closing date until everything has been reviewed by the us for service and approved and they are i imagine knowing the person is going to be reviewing it that he'll be able to turn it around in two to three weeks depending on what else is on but if it lasts months then we have to wait  must be competitive with similar private facilities so that was actually the word we first plan and rick responded well to what if there are lower you know we want them to be lowered yes exactly right so then we change the language to say we don't want them to be higher than similar facilities but it's ok if they're lower than similar facilities but it says subst is yes i thought the wording was funny if you really wanted them to be lower because they're not significant competitive right but the point is for someone reading this it says ok it looks like it has to be competitive we have no an obligation to do that they could be less yes absolutely not clarifying explains how i read it the same way very competitive or less that works for me regarding that request question of this charter approval to the public and there's golden boy doing that one way is to have one question and kind of i don't know what language you need but refer to all changes as recommended by slack board or something to effect the other is to break it out into five or six different questions or the and you can do it however if you do obviously have to have at least one but you could have as many as you want  back about it that was just curious what her thinking was and in a guess we talk about it and we said well if there are controversial issues like let's say we proposed to i know something in there that was really controversial then we might want to pull one out from all the others because you know a vote against that one controversial item would simply defeat the whole charter change and it would be to break it out like the idea of one simple question that makes it easier but on the other hand is we are asking that the voters vote to change how they vote at ten elections and you know what they vote  for and i think that's kind of sniff account so when we were asking when word we were asking them to change for instance the town treasurer that will no longer be an elected position it goes to a point that the town clerk is going to go from potentially go from elected appointed so when we're when we're asking those when those questions are at stake i think it's important that they be separated out how much further down we go i'm not sure so i think maybe you're suggesting that one other thing is significant and that's the listers so would we break up into four pieces then  if you are like the least the treasurer and tom garner maybe the way one way of doing it is to take all the positions that you're talking about changing from right now from appointed to  elected to appointed a group those are the category and then you have all the other change up as a group together or you can because the position of town of course the really not changing all that we're not changing anything other than just the allowing of the town it wants to make that position from elected to appoint but we're not actually asking for that change out of that and i mean when i say that that change i mean actual physical change of making that appointed we're not that's not what this is about and so i it we i don't want people to get confused over that that one particular issue so it but if we are you know so that is one way of doing it is just bring it out by those specific that are changing from appointed or elected to appointed and that would be the cost of all the treasury think ability to and they'd be grouping that is one question and then whether we have two or three questions it could be the first grouping you're talking about that the constable in the town treasurer that makes sense to me whether we need two or three or four subsequent questions  don't we haven't figured out that yet i've already started to work on it so wildflower circle and took a look at it through their criteria that we have a german attorney means two of the eight and we're not recommending that it to the list at this time of i jennifer if you would be willing to try to get through the general admission part leave much of before we go into a public hearing on the budget dollars i believe it's just a one time  manager's office you'll see increases for the managers salary and staff salaries both cost of living increases the plies have increased to include video equipment we don't currently have video quitman in eric's doing a lot more with communication office building maintenance see a slight decrease only a portion of that building maintenance is the utilities and solar credits are being applied there so there is a slight decrease on our discretionary wages  we're also asking to decrease that this year both union contracts are in place so we're able to budget those departments appropriately based on contracts so it's our our one year off from negotiation under the finance department in the salaries is the finance director and bookkeeper salary and benefits under audit fees we're currently under contract with father to give us an extension due to the changeover in the finance director position it's always good to keep your auditor in place you don't have to change is happening at once provide some consistency and they know what to look increases really in that area in technology we'll see there is an increase to computer applications support we are continuing to explore managed  currently are very reactive with our i t service so we call when we need support it's better to get on a plan where we're actually being proactive with that they're coming in and checking our systems before there's issues miners issues how how does that p and put that out to different companies to see what services they offer some people do they come in to check things once a month they provide some office support here occasionally something i found they're all very different so is just up but it increasing it slightly to maybe provide that for half a year ok these are eighty equipment just remote terminal basically and we use software as a service somewhere or do we have local applications  an individual who may be retiring at some point right now there is not succession plan for him in his business is a very small operation we had an issue months and we had to wait for someone to get off a plane to help us so it's very small that might not be the best thing for us in the future so it's something that we as a town need to start exploring what is that next step for us other interesting point to this the benefit of suffering the service is just if you don't have a local instantly basically on a server you know what they call the cloud route so it's not local it's maintained outside and you have just basically your  connections are just dumb terminals if you will their pc's or laptops but it's mandatory not be so people that we have to look into is a lot of our work comes from the state and we send information back and forth to this day for it so we want to make sure that we're getting something that can x for that you know be out there on our own our own system  anything legal services we didn't have a change and our legal services here we are lowering mad amount based on the contract that we currently have in place w town manager in the eight hundred eighty three this is before i was manager here he was talking about the budget and he'd sit came to the legal services and he said of course we have budgeted thirty five thousand dollars for that talked about this a little bit last time is changing we now have what is called the town clock police and arm and that is not in agreement that we have in place yet it's a suggestion of how we move forward doing those large repairs every twenty years or so that we just pay them a lease amount to keep that clock and they'd be responsible for any repairs that need to happen the just make sure the concept is and twenty five years or so when the clock needs to go through another major repair we're expecting the church would not come to us and say we need to raise f and then under on the mountain transit the numbers that are currently in your budget documents are flat to last year and keep in reported in the first meeting are seeing some increases and i believe that rick has  actual numbers now and those should be on your report of possible budget changes get a note we were supposed to see three to five yes that believe that when it went right the city told  increase that we'd like to do to provide some wellness incentives to our employees change to the new plan this year and those oneness incentives that used to be built into the plan are now our responsibility and so we've added some money there for that as well as some safety programs so we're trying to put on a financial responsibility hat looking at the this requested increase would be we're going to see a reduce insurance company payouts if people are healthier but is there any causal relationship that it actually reduces rates  related to the range of employees that the town of williston has because you can you're talking everything from a firefighter to a librarian public works police officers the whole nine yards and so it would be hard to s dictate the job based on whether be a librarian or a firefighter just two random examples of this the amount of wellness incentives that are put forth that will allow oss in whatever range of town drugs it is to take advantage of that and really incentivize us to get into a gym to you know eat healthier cut sugar out of our diet things like that it's hard to say the exact relationship there but i can tell you that if even one employee is see it from for example a multi thousand dollar back injury because they were working on their core more than gin or save from that sudden cardiac arrest because of this healthier lifestyle related to diet then i think that again it's hard to give an exact number of think what you were going to come up with as well but even just one employee in our town he could benefit from those and i can tell you if the programs as they are being rolled out  them all those programs are always greet just wondering if there's any relationship of actually driving down premiums and right now we're in an association so we will see if you know other towns are making the same change trying to build this up to thirty thousand dollars and that was we're trying to do ten thousand a year we did use a little bit of it last year so we're asking to find that a little bit higher than the ten thousand to get that up to the thirty thousand in three years and so as you'll see this is never intended to take place of projects that we know about which like the fire station is a great example of their h p s or their boilers they actually know they need to replace them next year so they're they put in an actual request for that this contingency fund is for those projects that we don't you know our going to break maybe year and we want to have a capital fund in place so that we're not repairing something that i should be replaced so we're not spending tens of thousands of dollars to fix something that it would be more beneficial to the town to just replace it so this will get us up to that and if we look at seventy three seventy four and seventy five seventy three in the electric vehicle charging station this one eric might want to touch on a bit this one is a grant related  some of the requirements for here your application we wouldn't have any charge to use the charging station there would be no financial component to it for the first year that we can look at a rate schedule from there if we choose so there'd be no charge  people using the station for the first year or so just to make sure you understand if i were to buy electric vehicle i might come over parking here charge it walk home come back pick it up and i mean that that type of use would be ok i'd recommend the board they want to look at us paul sure ok so that's the concept and then down the road it would be more like the charging stations that are out there now where your cre card or something you would use your credit card or something to charge your vehicle based on how much electricity use would be how much you were charged ok the next project is the town hall file server  placement so we currently we just replaced the the server this past week and so we're not requesting any funding for that for twenty twenty we were quite over funded in that project so we will take a look at this again in two thousand and twenty one to see what we need to fund that to make sure we have funds for that but it needs to be replaced again and the next one here is the software replacement that we talked about a little bit th just saying that eventually we are going to need to replace our current software and this is something we're not requesting any money for this year but just know that it will be coming as we look at what options are out there and what's best for the town your interest for that is what our estimate is right now is clearly just an estimate we have not even started w tales that you get all come from that software come from that suffer so the concept is the look at a product that better serves the town with those same essential functions yet the current software is it's fine person who owns a company that's going to retire and there's something there might not be a successor or we don't know yet and there is one more terry on page fifteen other is some is cameras and another is a door alarms and these are i have seen these numbers i get input from a contractor recommending in year one to do the silent alarms than building and the cameras and the exterior door alarms and outlying hears and there may be some savings there's big ticket freezes the server for the cameras and after we put the together they learned we might be able to use one server in this building and run the cable through the of a building security system whatsoever on any of the buildings have we ever had a problem yes so we have we moved on that doesn't happen very often but occasionally will have someone coming in who is very unhappy and you know they've you know on screen i guess it is not here often but it does happen and and so our employees are right there and it would be kind of have to be right there because it's an open public building over there to serve the public on the other hand we want something for that more than just picking up a phone which is still option obviously in calling on one but something that's even faster than light and pushing a button which you can do without you should be noticed maybe we think is a better approach for security reasons you ha some officer and i said actually he's complaining about the police and i think if you send him over that made make it even worse so i said stand by and we'll monitoring the situation the person calmed down and left the building whether that was the fortunate name the only thing with it seems like we've talked about a couple buildings this building the annex a you mention the library and we've also talked about the fire department and in their budget so i guess my only question is does it make sense to do this building by building or does it make sense to do sort of a town building wide security effort each building is a little bit different their needs will differ provides for expenses eleven million four hundred eighty two thousand three hundred were about five dollars this represents a three point three percent increase over the current fiscal year the funds are used to provide miscible services i limited to police fire library recreation and highway maintenance so the public hearing is open brick did you have to promise to make before we asked for  subject i don't know if you get any feedback like that about the construction and the build up in the finny crossing as well as cottonwood differ i don't get totally different than the budget just saying ok feedback is so that's unfortunate but it pumped out that much water before anybody if there's nobody i mean if you talk on a saturday night if nobody's driving around that area really or whatever you know the police may not have gone by there for a while so like i said the first a lot of times probably sixty to seventy percent of the time when we get called about a break it's because the notices it and the tanks dropping or they can't on the other reason one of the things that drives that is our cost to see that we buy our water from you they tell us what their increase is going to be and we have to figure that into our rates five per corner and eleven thirty one per quarter for commercial industrial use accuser george and we're trying really to build the basic user charge anyway to help to help slow down the rate increases as far as you know charging people based on the falcons down don't want to use if we can get the basic user george up a little bit more than we don't have to maybe necessarily increase the rate so much what's the philosophy for how the basic user charge would sing in the basic user charge verses in the user rate theoretically the basic user charges supposed to cover all those costs you would have whether you draw one gallon of water right or fifty thousand that's what gets water to your shut off valve well under proper ac user charges last time we've waited did not cover all of that try people that are conserving now are doing a good job of keeping their water usage now because now they're getting most of their bill based on that water usage is no thank you for joining they're still doing that being conservative there's they're getting higher head yeah ok i do understand that it's always a bit of a challenge to balance those yeah i guess my point more out of anything is i just like to be it to be consistent as opposed to trying to fluctuate them we should set a goal and then be consistent with that goal for which is which is anyone vs what charges are or cost or any other that's  balance to help keep the rates down in the sewer budget so if you look at revenue you'll see that well one of the first  to see is the interest earned that's one page thought of interest earned thirty three thousand six hundred dollars that's because we got three million are fun balance that money put related to the revenue stream and then you see page five reserves that's two hundred eighty thousand dollars we're talking about taking from the fund balance to help hold the or rate down even with doing why don't think we are but that is what it would be without going into the fund balance to help hold these rates so by taking them one out of fun but if we're able to hold the rate at five percent increase and you know you can say well three million dollars you could do a lot more than that but what happens is we keep using that fund balance to keep that rate which artificial over time it starts to catch up to us and that's what's starting to happen so this budget uses mistreatment now what we're looking at well that's what we're looking at but it doesn't that's that's just showing our our retail rates that that's not showing the acid junction wholesale rate so i don't ownership of the plant that we have today toward  still talking about a difference between the retail and wholesale rate that we get charged here that there's certainly a difference i don't have a wholesale rate ring in front of me is what i'm telling you jeff we don't we don't charge out what we paid to try to because we have to cover our expenses yet then too but that wholesale rate goes into what we come up with for the retail rate just like we pay c w different water so if they have an increase of three percent then we have to figure that into or when we do our reach and still pay our salaries in our infrastructure cost and everything on top of that right ok i get that  not were we treat the water budget the same as we treat the sewer budget and that we have the wholesale rate we could charge for either water or treatment of our sewage but the resulting rate that we have to charge users which is what we're going to call the retail rate obviously have to be different because of all the cost we have to incur to be able to provide that service to our residences and businesses ok i did i just when i heard you say that it k never mind sorry i'm trying to speak without putting my mind in carry on i'm looking at on page fourteen undertreatment and it talks about the current retail rate but that's the rate that the town that the rate that the town gets charged per thousand gallons for see that you have you did it pick up on that you have to read all the way through  through the homeowners association that we've given loans to so that goes into the revenue side the only number they quit honestly we're not totally positive of although we're told it from the state that they're pretty sure we're going to get the money is the state grant utility incentive of twenty five thousand dollars which we got last year they say we're getting it this year and they're saying that they're going to be asking for us to get it next year too but i guess that hasn't even gone through the legislature yet  needing to use the cli motorists are asked to help provide loans to the homeowners associations are we able to sell fund that again are we are so far self i mean we're staying away from that as much as we can but it's still an almost a half million yeah now it's almost it's four hundred some one thousand dollars and we're sure no one no rich project by itself is a half almost a half million dollars and they've already got three hundred thousand our project was eight hundred thousand dollars of their projects alone and we're talking a word about this not it but the loan program even though there's this what could be reviewed as a negative term for shortfall it's actually been a highly successful loan program as evidenced by the shortfall because hold that rate for a song more for quite a while because when we get in that money back and help offset the other expenses that come along gradually the fund was weighted more towards capital projects but as up to about six percent or wastewater and that's their cost of treated by the way i remember percentage of the total plant is twenty twenty two meters at the end of this and that last next purchase of the fifty thousand we've been buying ten thousand a year we will do one million eighty thousand gallons of capacity at the treatment plant and that's what i think it's a three point three million gallon plan savings there hand i'm looking at doing the same forty nine thousand three hundred forty programs through the capital and we're talking about right now that's actually the one who's got the least amount of money and one hundred to six sixty six more projects you know we were asking to put fifty five thousand in capital into that one yet so capital current capital savings are asking to put in their manager approved it to a nine for ninety and that was because after this after we looked at the stormwater but we did make some other adjustments and it changed our number but then you see it in their words as loan funds needed four hundred sixteen thousand five hundred seventy and some of that money is already being talked about for other bruce is there a quick explanation there may not be of the difference between the project that's terrible alan bourke flow restoration phosphorus controlled plant versus the one called watershed improvement which also seems to focus on alan burke there is a restoration was that was originally put aside for the two projects that the town has supposed to reason a smaller line was put in between two larger sections and i don't i don't know why it was put in because one project didn't know what was going to come up down the road or whatever serving made a line smaller at some point but then when the other project came in it came in as a larger project so now we have to replace that section is fairly it's fairly cut and dry i'm sorry you have a resistor in the line right exactly that's exactly right in theory it makes the rest of the line that same size will come in two thousand and twenty two we don't know what mechanism will pay for this yet if i read this correctly says to be determined well it so it's fifteen eight then we do go to replace and we have the money  one we only own one water pump station in town and that's on a pill road that serves the thomaston and health center and a dozen homes pas right now when we have a power outage or something like that happens they don't have water so last year we put a fence around it as a security measure so we want to just get a generator on it so that we don't have to run around and run a generator up there every time we have to do that we have to hire a tradition come in and actually do the wiring because it's not even set up up there for a generator so that's what this project is for just that a  it's done and it's one of the recommendations and look i'm not disagreeing in any way we can have this study done to meet the law that we have to meet at this point wasn't enough mind we got five hydrants don and probably sixty or so that we need to have a lot of placements down on so we've increased that number to sixty so we can start to do more during and we'll get a better deal anyway you know if we put out ones that are already past their lifecycle i just wonder whether those things came out of the you know the one actually not taken out was an older one and because it was an older one it wasn't it was very deeper than it should have been i left at one thirty saturday morning i went out there are nine thirty and they got down to a certain point and karen got down and turned the not to turn for the hydrant good we did find that i said ok you're down there i don't it was easy i they came and they do they do ninety percent of work and mostly work their set up for it we make a phone call and literally they respond without much question or so we've had a good relationship with them that way that some point to over the next couple years they conversation with the village of essex junction i have to start about whether they're willing to sell more capacity beyond what they've already sold and then what if they are what would that what were they willing to charge us ok but i did right now it's a big question but any money in past twenty twenty two but there's a good chance that we may need to put some more past that we have booked already the next three years twenty twenty through twenty twenty two ye by ten thousand gallons a year issue is going to become and we'll talk about this when we do attack may i soon jack stays the concept of we may not have enough some capacity for the build out of the town  and if we're able to continue to buy capacity that's maybe not an issue if we can't buy capacity then what do we do and that's a very big question so there the most likely will be will list and does its upgrade of the plant well essex would do it we would pay for it hundred thousand gallons between now and two thousand and twenty two when i asked if it was booked i don't mean does it booked in the plan is do some of them already have mission controllers some do not and some of them have an upgrade to controllers so this is just a project to get missions into on until then across when i was just bringing one there wasn't enough holmes on it so brennan with his own that until about two years ago snyder had to do major repairs there to bring it up to standards and then we ended up taking it over because then it went over that it's well over two hundred now so they can make criterions two hundred connections were a municipal connection so if we have can i ask a question maybe for preparation so i've been doing some research on it i sent a note out to other select board members just some of the research and found a paper on  the increase in fire department spending and the decrease in actual fire department mean certainly we need a fire department of course but if we need an ever increasing size and fire department and what it said and and i don't you know i don't have the data behind our own for department but what it basically said is that fire department growth is not being driven by fires in fact not at all it's being driven by ambulance service or in the future end up doing is you are increasing ever increasing costs the fire department is fairly expensive right fire to you know firemen  insurance and all the other things that go with it is probably very costly and fire trucks driving fire trucks to you know e m t e m t calls which have to assuming that that's one of the reasons the chief doesn't like the giant truck you'd rather have something smaller and nimbler to take out for amul in service so my question is should do we have any data behind our usage of our fire department and fire department people that tells us do we have the right balance of firemen versus the m t s and i've also i've noticed and it's only been two years for me obviously but that a lot of what the chief comes in and talks about is the who recently got an award for ambulance service and getting to training which is very necessary you know the every aging population do we need some kind of a balance change in terms of spending because my understanding from the paper and there's a lot of papers out there actually on this topic because it's a topic me neediness of how these are dealing with is that fire departments in general are just more expensive than ambulance services right significantly more and is there a way for us to return to balance do some rebalancing there another when i see it when i see the guys go out for him i have seen him in my own neighborhood we've never never had a fire in our neighborhood to my knowledge of me maybe there's been some small kitchen fires or something that aren't visible but we see the fire trucks roll in and it seems just like an inefficient use of resources which is kind of what one of the things the paper says is you know come in on tuesday to address some of these questions but the reason why he was interested in shifting into the service was that that actually  expensive if if we've got dual trained people that you know ten dual trained rather than five five for five firefighters and five in teams just and it seems like we added several people last year eight staff and he's asking for more people this year and if in just a something to look at what you said the other thing to note is we gradually have been reducing the net amount of rolling stock that we have on the far side and the chiefs most recent proposal reflects that there were i saw that you know that's a kind of piqued my interest in it and when he will have the fire chief and so will be available to answer questions from the board you raise a good point to me it's over it's so difficult to know it's impossible for me to know so i need to rely on rick and eric and chief morton but what is the right fire department for will listing both in terms of equipment in terms of staff in terms of what have you it's just it's just a very hard question and it's not a question i can answer so i really need to rely on sort of the the people who understand this issue better than i do and part of the story it's a really good point because a big part of the story was the push for more less career firefighters and more cling back to volunteer because of you know the current safety of buildings and maybe in an old town old built building town like of new ski maybe that's a different willesden town there's probably the ratio of old to new structures quite low right i don't know he would have to tell me that but but so the push was volunteer and some of the problem with that  not advocate one way or the other just now to explain you know another peer i'm sorry and i'll stop here another piece of it is the chip makes the point of it's getting more and more difficult to keep on claw staff  so if we're going to have a staff fire department we need to rely more and more on the professionals that's just the nature of the beast i assume that's probably a trend elsewhere but it certainly is the trend in that so it's just a very complicated had to continue raising staffing levels versus the the downward trend of need for firefighters not in ts of course and that is being an issue but i don't know if it is february eleventh we can't do a similar amount because next week is to see if we can put it all together the week after that is martin luther king day and week after that is the available the so i said to rick the legislature will not have done very much should be between the time of the budget coming up in the third week in january until february but we give opportunity for people to tell us my calendar and it looks like i'm not going to be able to make the eleven sorry so don't change for me i just got something already scheduled once roger