welcome to the december second two thousand and thirteen modern sir commission meeting tonight is a policy only discussion thing and the policy that we need to discuss tonight and we need to make a decision on is this fire rating thing is the audience out so we need to basically come to a conclusion to make a recommendation to the select board on how much or if anything we're going to be putting we're going to ask for them to put in the budget to be voted on by the by the public if within the fire part example the paper of fifty thousand pounds every three months sixteen thousand seven hundred right and the challenge with that is that that per gallon cost is not representative of the value of the infrastructure that that conveys that water is right now it's just what five cents a gallon or what's the what's the hydrant rate per gallon it's five perth thousand five dollars  because in actuality as we've all talked about the cost of providing the water is really it's pennies it's not a significant problem under itself yet the value it's it's the infrastructure that gallons ok so if we did fifteen if we did it on fifty thousand gallons per quarter and if we started to charge that as an e r you and we look at what the value of that he r us fifty thousand gallons a quarter times for two hundred thousand pounds a year divided by three six five zero zero is five five and house five and a half units of water are allocated to the town for water consumption so we treated them like every other connection five point five times three hundred seventy five think  base charges two thousand and twenty one hundred dollars to bring it up to five thousand dollars but i think we explicitly departed from that you know in terms of achieving policy goals in the far ahead is to distribute some of the cost more broadly than just the source of the system put in the provide well that was just kind of a justification for a number and then easy kind of an easy way to justify it so right now the town pays roughly two thousand dollars a year and the water only allocation of of an estimated fifty thousand gallons per month two thousand for two hundred thousand three year right divided by thirty six and a half thousand equals roughly five point five s and that would be an additional two thousand dollars and it would be argue value which would bring it up to roughly five thousand dollars at the the town be contributing they contribute roughly twenty one hundred now so they could it would be roughly five thousand if we went that way if we went at that cost based approach to what were these and get on to to basically make it make it say this is how we treat everybody else so let's let's treat the time differently do we think the town uses more than fifty thousand gallons a quarter i don't know both i can get this leases tagged and so we remember that in two thousand and twenty one two school counseling the government accounts so here's a here's another approach we can look at it is we have some estimates on how much the new tank is going to cost and we know that the new tank is roughly fifty percent fire protection we have to because we are a fire protection system because of this size of the tank the reason why we have to increase the size and not just the location of the sun it's because richmond is chosen to be a fire protection system meaning protection system he said what is the state minimum versus what was the highest overeating he didn't do a calculation based on what it would be if it was only a drinking water system because essentially that's we have now we  tank that we have currently is a drinking water system it's two hundred thousand gallons a day that's our average day demand it's it's the seven hundred thousand that adds that's for the fire protection i mean let's let's let's be honest about it and we let's just take it it let's just look at it at a basic level so we say you take the rough estimates of that and you will only payment if we get the best deal possible would be roughly thirty thousand dollars a year if half protection system that's that's fifteen thousand dollars that's another way of looking at it is breaking it down at least on let's look and see what what the value of an increased storage tank is to the fire protection system which or we could say that goes into helping lower the amount of money that we have to borrow to build that tank which then they're buying low is that the payback that personally i'd rather get into grades but here we will go into final design in the spring and the construction started a year from that so year and a half and they're going to be the construction so be done those things should be relieved i mean if we put it out  in the way that it breaks down that means peace of mind way of looking at it it's his is the fire there probably are other similar issues like that but i think fires the main one makes sense when we talk about asking for  direct contribution from the town for infrastructure and when it comes to sort of the the political mechanisms the you know or paths that we have to follow we're going to do the town and country rather ask for  yeah i mean i think it's an ongoing view that distribution system also needs to be maintained to provide that fire protection it's it's an ongoing i mean the tank i think the take is just a good way to justify the amount but the reality is that there is more than just the tank that provides fire protection i think they're going to sell to people an idea the mechanism has to match the rhetoric if we're telling them that they're buying a bigger tank in order to get f maintained regardless i mean whether to take whether it be a twelve inch distribution chain and they joins it all have to be maintained and for the next thirty plus years you're going to be paying off a tank at x number of dollars and maybe future commissions w construction and two thirds of the meeting should go to the fire to have to do with an income survey now we don't do it the third independent third party that is hired does it we don't see anybody's and come we don't we don't even see the final number it's sent directly to the state they use it for determining the interest rate and the reason why we have to do it this way is because the division that i work for has not accepted the american community survey during yet we missed we missed the window and there are still some people who internally are not crucial to us getting the best deal and so encourage your neighbors when they get it it's not that we haven't we haven't been detached and an income survey person here but but it's it's incredibly important average date and is even a full build out of twenty years versus what do we need for fire is what is that what is the down with that and i think that's what we would look for to some but if th the the amount of water it is two thirds is if if we have to provide a hundred thousand gallons a day and seventy five thousand gallons evidence for fire protection that it's very clear that three quarters or whatever fraction it is then that's what is an ocean as if it's twenty neither residential residential including multi only multi use so that could be a commercial connection that had both apartments and commercial commercial only which means it's only things we're going to analyze is is what how many residential units are there really you know and if we treated every individual unit as mine the challenges like i said maybe now was was can is a middle school is one unit because they have one connection there's not seven different humans in there there's there it's one so it just is a whole different how the yes and outside of your use so you can also have that for commercial is because there are like the bender block some of that some of their connections have eight commercial unions so you know we would it would have to it would have to use we got to spend some time on that but certainly other communities this is not something i mean this is more widely used in other communities throughout the state in the country and the region is having different rates for different classes of uses and you'll actually see in most cases the commercial double the residential yury not necessarily in the base charge but in the consumption charge and they don't necessarily have a government but i think i think that that could be a policy that we have  understand so the way that my feeling is and the way the residential rate is currently set up is in terms of structure ok if if we if we're bringing in to the residential customers rather monkey with the structure i would posit monkeying with the commercial customers though and because essentially what this approach does is penalize businesses that are water intensive users so this adjusted budget it's still not reflective of the budget that we passed in august right ok so so i have and i have and i have noted some glaring things that are missing thousand and five zero seven as a as an actual for twenty twelve to twenty fifteen but then on this it shows an actual of eighty three thousand one twenty point six for  budget because we still have the ability to change that it gets approved in our annual meeting in mayor jim because our fiscal because we don't actually approve our budget we move our budget separately at the end our annual meeting so this is just kind of amount in relation to the overall budget but we never had those we rarely had those i should say and to anticipate that forty you know five thousand had we had two or three new connections ye that we we may he will the sun shines and then when we have that money at the end of the year because back to or even to the race for the next i'm going to be so we have a budget conservatively to answer that right and that and that's what we did this past year and we're a little bit about right now in this in this office do a lot of work for us and i think that we should recognize that value just like we are now will billing the waste water treatment plant for the amount of water that's used i think we need to americans and i understand it i think it goes hand in hand the kind of the direction that we are going to be more transparent with where the value of the costs are is is is if we're asking the towns have put a value on the water that is provided for fire protection thro it would it would would you then say that we should see if we did a deeper three waterline just for example at sixty thousand dollars would you advocate for taking a bond or for taking a twenty year bond i mean for sixty thousand dollars great and then the projects seven day it is what it is the collection system upgrades to this past year we had that we reduced that line item to ten thousand not nine thousand ok so do you want it at nine thousand or do you want to keep it in what we left it with ok so that should be ten and then the distribution system we had actually reduced that to fifty to ten thousand ok now you wanted to return it to where it was two years ago and i think we all kind of agree that we need to do  public when we kind of went into this when the adjustments that we made we said we would we would dial it way back and then slowly increase it so we increased it with the goal of being a twenty five thousand in a number capital reserve we down the back to forty thousand this past year not to fifty five we went from seventy four to forty which would mean we're not going to go to eighty sorry unless you have so there's one other line item that's not reflected here that we've that we've had before it's that r f one zero zero zero one zero one it's the waste water planning study i'm showing that that's come due to the to the amount of twelve and then said well but let's and then figure it out but i want to put it in there sort of reminds us to look at that ok ok i i look for budget no more than x percent but i look at capital differently and i think the town of gross i'm doing that differently on the town side is we look for general budget of x and then on the on the capital stuff we we do average so to saying to say what you can see your usage for the for the calculation period or something like a bit of comedy that's what you're thinking it's getting reall was for the period that they're here he was calculating so that's not what that says that's right usage to the previous four quarters that isn't that isn't what what this time period is so the time period for the thirty six five zero zero  is is seven two thousand and twelve two six two thousand and thirteen and so this previous fourth quarter is should equal whatever turn out to be quite a significant discussion considering that the socially with the states may indeed start with the girl scouts means it does reach into huntington i received an email recently from the people that live in huntington on the southern end of the dam but probably not issue happens to be that not just the condition of the dam with the fact of the day and can't be modified to meet modern standards and there's no repair possible which leads the girl scouts to say well what are we doing  scouts would be allowed to move the dam on the local regulations it remains to be seen but they wouldn't even bother taking an action on if the town wanted to get involved in another way that would be is that is old in failing most of the leds near this sort of thing it is owned by the lows but the damp itself is owned by the girl scouts is just a dam is not just failing but actually can't be repaired we would be a party to be a party to just like the lowes can also ask to be a party to any of the property owners that live around it and that that process is mandated as as mr lowe said by act so that's out of our hands because it is owned by the girl scouts now now the town could be could say we think this is a public resource and we want to we want to purchase it and rebuild it or we and that there will be a public notification it'll go i don't think it'll go in the newspapers because it they're getting away from that but it will go you know go on the you know electronic notice bulletin and i'm sure that we will say something out of court meeting about it notifying because it is it is a public use facility for lack of a better term can we say that certainly because you're bringing it to us and we're aware of it now that w mean we just don't know what's going on and it could be months because the girl scouts they're the ones who have to initiate it and they can sit on it i mean they could take right but what i'm just saying is that it's it's not something that we can act on until because we don't invite you up to the table that there's a sixteen affordable mintz there that fifteen ish years ago the town received on federal money through the state of vermont it's actually on community town got three hundred thousand dollars of this federal funds from the state and long owned it into this richmond village apartments to allow there to be affordable housing built there i think it's been a very good project you know it's  one that you know we don't have a problem keeping flow it's very desirable people like to live there there's a mix of one two and three bedroom families mostly there's two better apartments there and the rents range between eight  hundred fifty a month so that's the level of affordability that we have there the the funding well i want to back up for a second and talk just a minute about what the champlain housing trust does just that you're familiar with who we are where  nonprofit affordable housing developer and manager that serves should in franklin in grand isle county we have about seven thousand eight hundred apartments throughout those three counties and in this case as in many of our cases we partner with housing remount which is another nonprofit organization that deals with the financing of affordable housing projects unfortunately the financing for affordable housing projects is very complex the main program that we use when we're developing new affordable apartments is the low income housing tax credit program that program requires that even though this is there's this federal grant money that comes to the state it has to be a loan into the project so that it can be counted  fifteen years that there were no payments made from day one until there is a payment that becomes do able first of two thousand and fourteen which is why i am here to begin this conversation  the payment that will be do able first it was a pre hundred thousand dollars loan that the town made into the project the payments will again it will first it's two thousand six hundred twenty five dollars a month which doesn't seem like a lot money two thousand and six and twenty five dollars but that's one hundred sixty four dollars per unit per month so we would have to adjust rents to be able to cover that so i'm planning to begin a conversation requesting that the town come here to get a list of any of your questions about that and sort of begin the conversation i have a question because you know it seems like a huge request considering that a fifteen year loan when the loan was given would never have been perceived to be asked for another fifteen so what are your financials can you present us with financials that show that you would have to you can see exactly what our rents are and where that comes from and what we're spending that money on absolutely oh i want to just back up again and say this is the way that portable housing is financed throughout the state so we have had the same conversation with other communities saying you know yes you got this this grant from the state that you loaned into the project and we're going to ask that you keep it in the project so that we can meet with woody so that's a typical conversation  and so why is it not just given as a grant that's why there's not see it why is it not given as a grant it's because of that i r s the low income housing towns credit program where the money that comes into the project has to be on the books as a lo we could raise the rents and we do not have to continue to provide this as affordable housing but it's an important resource in the towns in this town and the other towns and we've gone to and that's why we come back and say ok we can start making this name and not be able to do terms now you know where the decision point to whether to sort of re up on that project or whether there's another project that we want to make sense to use and that's maybe one way of thinking about it maybe not the way you'd like to think about right now and i know that on there has been some conversation and i know that the town is very interested in reading creamery it makes a lot of sense and we've had conversations with the owner and the owners representative for the last two or three years and just recently sat down  deferment of payment so you said fifteen more years so why not thirty or fifty or one hundred seriously like that if it is if we're going to do this every fifteen years why not just make it three hundred year loan i mean we could certainly do a thirty  deferrals reasonable time period or a or a so if the payments were to start in april you'd be paying monthly for fifteen years right ok so what if we changed the terms of the loan to paying for thirty years or twenty years or have that warning something like that so that the impact would be as much on you but we could then take that money and reinvest in the community as well i mean i guess i'm stuck on the like if we got a grand i understand the i r s restrictions so so i understand that we didn't have to do anything to get the money you saw a direct benefit from it a grant you know a long term zero interest deferred payment lo it's a it's a one for one what audi so i'm stuck on that but then i'm also stuck on the fact that that there was a contract that was entered into between between the community trust and this community that said you would pay us back for for the value of that loan and in theory it is increased in value over the fifteen years and i just drove i'm just thinking out loud here is that fifteen years ago it was worth three hundred thousand dollars fifteen years later it's worth maybe whatever whatever would be valued at that is a crude inference ok so i would like to i would like to look at this is taking something that we don't we saw the benefit you saw the benefit from for fifteen years and so now let's turn around and turn that into another benefit for somebody else maybe we have just the terms just throwing out ideas not not for burying it or putting it off for fifteen years but starting repayment for an extended period of time i can certainly run some numbers i  are making a lot of money and that's what i'm struggling with is this whole like we got a grant to pass it on to you to benefit the community and we didn't have to we know we had to do some paperwork right now to pas but i'm sorry the other thing i haven't looked at is your town plan and what your town plan says about portable housing and the town's commitment to you know creating new or continuing to support existing political housing ma and put that into some other use or you can go back to the city p d and get another grant which is going to be one big infusion to support a project like the senior center or redevelopment of the green or in some other way so on but i'll bring that list do if you were going to require payment on the terms as laid out in the promissory note which is twenty six hundred i don't see any way that we can raise people's rents one hundred sixty four dollars per unit for a month i don't see us at all being able to do that it's not keeping with our mission but also because of that description of the state right now likely what we what we would need to do is probably go back to the state and ask telephone ten o'clock i think the big thing that came out of the last meeting was that we really understood we needed to have professional counsel who are going to be in front of the public service who are on it one of the projects that have been complied for we're going to be applying for we did issue a letter to eighteen t taking them up on their offer of joint local meeting which i well we want to be a part of any and why we want to be an interested party so when anything comes out we are informed and you know i don't know what that means as far as his role b regulate them is are the really other concerns of people might it's the yet i don't know if it's just the two main things to me or there's the broader issue that there are five or six of these all at once so how the individual each one of us use regulatory jargon service optimization and impact medication difficult to put a value judgment on one person cell tower or maybe someone else's art i think it's difficult and i think we've heard from the folks who have come that that that's one of commission meaning in there you know looking to follow our lead you know but at least for now they we may be in a situation where the planning  goal for everybody i guess to wait for them to work with us so that we have no objections but it's a sport i couldn't tell you with that when this meeting is scheduled there will be locations for the other two that we don't know if we need to make that clear i think it's clear in their offer it's clear in their off that what i found here is that it's clear that that's the  mean in terms of public input that's why i had stressed during the last meeting that we should see agree to it under our terms are the meeting should be under our terms so that we can have a robust public discussion  clusters of solar panels above a certain water dish are now going to be taxable by the state and i don't know the size of the people i see see solar array but it may be large not if not does this do we send this to the vote to a vote at every meeting to discuss whether or not they should be tax exempt do we have time to do that this is  so that's a just don't for three percent just over three percent spending increase in just over six percent tax increase russian so can we talk about what we talked about an hour or two hours ago here for me go there we we have a request we've had a couple of requests for increases in pay while i was an e mail that taylor and i got for linda to happen a stack i guess is the request because isn't been put into a formal you know paid plan it's just sort of been agreed to what it's been for many years all along with a dual cost of living increases suppose but it seems to be updated should also talk about their preparations right ray can we bring that up yeah per my diary e mail after the last meeting right right like some of those appropriations sections is it too late to i don't think it's too late to break out some of this stuff but it might be too late to do the this is the pot of money that we want to put away in a pl in making any changes in my hearing that due to the appropriations so the only folks who received in this is was the regional planning commission and the cousy domestic task force because that is a contract right right all the others were what the request what the exact request that they received last year right were we essentially are entertaining any new requests them or not entertaining any requests for increases with this one area right including richmond rescue and the visiting nurses association right regional planning and like because he did us a task force and to some extent richmond rescue we take those out and put them specially with admin and then we take an arbitrary amount of money it could be one percent of the gram list it could be five percent it could be it could be fifty thousand dollars could be one hundred fifty thousand dollars some amount of money say we're going to then spend it on on donations to suspend certain causes where we're at now are we right is that what we want to do so basically we're saying ok aside from the people who we've already committed to through contract we're not donating any money to anybody yet ready because we're we're we're starting a new process and if you want it you have to follow that process that's to be determined right do we have time to do that i think we do i think we can put whatever money has been budgeted into one line that is you know appropriation for ok so what you're saying is at town meeting day the voters approved basically a discretionary fund essentially that we then decide throughout the year where to send it through a policy outlined through public discussion right or maybe we have a governance committee or some committee that does that for us i'm not into that i think that is not very transparent i think this is a good way to say the voters this is where where the select board has agreed or split on sending money because the following reasons and then we can publicly defend it versus i don't want to spend the year getting into arguments or discussions with individual entities who have come asking for a donation i was suggesting that the committee establish policies and make recommendations to us and what the policy should be we we make the decisions we make the policy formal right and then the people follow the policy and we make the decisions very well i still think this is a good way to let me just yeah i mean i like having a l mean i agree there should be a process to apply but i think it should start now and be written into the budget for a town meeting day and i think there should be a line that in the future we will allocate appropriate this money i think it should start now and so that's why i ask do we have time to do that because that's what i thought you meant we were going to do which i don't think we have time to do it this can't see me break let me go back to each of these no we don't put it up we'd have to establish a policy in advance well in advance of time meeting day so that we would have the people so we would have the policy solution we would basically have a decision made in advance of town meeting day based on said policy who we're giving the money to who were giving that twenty thousand to and i totally agree with you that i public hearing or public meeting to decide on what who we're giving the money to so it can be a public participation no it's not going to be on a level town meeting day but time meeting day there were lots of other stuff to do in town meeting day that sometimes i can just drive to you know adding this and my i feel like that would be a lot so having it having to be a soundless in advance of the fiscal year i think is appropriate who we're giving our money too and creating one line item that's our discretionary fund yes right again a post that i think that should be in the budget for voters to look at on the meeting today and who are discretion in their films to yes ok i think that's the way it should be i don't buy it we don't then we then we have to change it for next year then we don't have time to change it that some of the interests of the town's residents are served by one or more of these organizations but their remains fairly arbitrary the way we do it of appropriations and put them in the administration and i'm gonna motion that we put in line item for discretionary appropriations spending in the amount of twenty thousand dollars to be appropriated  to local organizations that it would be that select for its decision to to to react to this by a certain date so applications need to be and i'm staring at a date of april fifteenth so that we can decide camp feeding children over the summer but i guess i still think that if there are allocations that people want to made that this board wants to make they should do it now and before the town meeting so that the voters can  contracts as chana dash eight dash nine zero five nine five dollars zero eight regional planning in the amount of five seven four eight i also designate line ten to see domestic task force in the amount of seven thousand five hundred thirty six those would be contract and they can either go under admin or they could be appropriations content and they're there once a week with that we've agreed to pay  two transportation services s s t v in the twenty three hundred dollars so those four line items i would go under and then it would be appropriations contracts i would recommend well if if we're taking last year's numbers we could decide that we want to do just a line item of twenty thousand or fifty thousand or one percent of the general fund or some other not money it would mean either an increase or decrease of or what we've appropriated in the past year right so everybody gets what they were promised during in our current budget cycle it's in advance of july first that we would be making this change right so july first the world changes   offered up which we would then solicit in solicitations and we would have to make determinations based on that eligibility criteria we would make that to build recruiting in advance of july first the fiscal year at a public meeting maybe it's just a select we're meeting maybe we have a special meeting where we would make a determination as to who we've chosen to divvy up that eighteen thousand four hundred dollars to why i don't want to do it that way i think it's great to have a policy you know the town of jericho has major deadlines they send a letter to everyone who in the past has has contributed to said this is what we want back to you by this deadline to be considered i think it's great but i also think that the way the story really we have done tony to date in vermont all across the state is that everything is laid out as much as possible and the voters get the final say and that's why i think that it should this seems like a step that we don't need to take in administering that discretion i don't really have any problem with the way it's done now and it gives the voters basically a chance to say your prayers are out because we're under the gun we don't have time to have that open process or more open process you know anyone can come to this meeting and tell us to adjust these these numbers and you possibility but it think that when there is a conversation about how this process is going to work it will happen but no one gets more than five mean i'm just playing devil's advocate you know the d n a i mean they did a little bit more research than just say you know and said that this is you know whatever thousand dollars this is what they're asking for which is less than what it costs to provide services to the people here richard so you know i mean if well we're spending a lot of time and eighteen pounds no guess we need to make a decision because we don't have a policy i say we just keep it the way it's written here way it's been in the past couple the past however many years and we establish our policy moving forward and so no i think to the american or nothing to anybody else because we don't have a policy and once we do to one because cuts came into it so would we would we honor their five thousand dollar request this is this is this is the challenge so either we have to say work or cut the quarter saying we're stopping everything right now and we're going to stop the policy or we say let's just entertain everybody and increase and maybe not increase the budget for them or arbitrarily lowlier lowering other people without having a policy on who we lower it to with it's brushy trading we can't we can't open the box without redefining the exactly what's an example so i think we need to much as i hate it go to what we what we did last year because because we don't have a good policy in place but start got this wrong but the budget is going up by three point zero six percent but the tax rate is going by six point zero percent this is right now the non tax revenues are dropping but doesn't look like they're dropping by enough to make a difference or am i just threw in the mantra of you may not be looking at everything that's happening socially we had twenty three thousand yes because once you take the increase in your spending plus the difference in their own tax rate equals three point so science which is essentially commission decided that we would make a recommendation to the town to put a line item in the budget that would essentially equate to supporting fire protection infrastructure currently the town pays a water bill and each on each building and then there is a line item for water only usage that is two thousand dollars a year it's it's estimated water usage and they just get billed on the per gallon basis the that doesn't begin to cover the infrastructure that provides water to the fire protection community and a lot of those fire trucks to hook up to any hydrant in town and felt tank and put out fires and neighboring communities to come in and hook up their tanks to to fill their tanks to go fight fires mutually so the recommendation from the commissioners was to  put a line item in that is equal to the parade amount of the new storage tank between what daily demand for water consumption ends versus what demand for fire protection is in that program that amount would be fifteen hundred thousand dollars can you go over those two numbers and well i did and we'd have to get the final calculation from our engineer but essentially because richmond as a community as a town has chosen to be a fire protection system they've installed lines at appropriate sizes that installed fire hydrants they've committed to to fighting fires and with that comes in increasing need for a larger volume storage tank at x amount so and so but at a basic level if we weren't a fire protection system the system would need x amount of gallons two hundred thousand gallons a day average day demand just during a number i would have to get more specific versus a seven hundred fifty thousand gallon storage tank to be able to fight fires the justification is that currently the the cost of fire protection is borne exclusively by the use of the water system even though the entire town benefits from having fire protection being able to the the percentage increase in costs for providing fire protection and have that equate to what the potential annual bond bond payment would be and that would be a line item in the budget charge what goes through the meter is roughly thirty percent of the budget ok so the fire her pays and hear you but that's based only on the infrastructure that supports the user's  there is a value in being able to fill up beyond just the cost of the water it's the it's the infrastructure that curve it that provides that water to that that that gets that water to them that allows them to be able to suck on  hydrant and not blow not collapse the system so that's what we're not capturing we're not capturing the value of the infrastructure that supports the fire department the fire fighting capabilities of the system i mean there's there is a payment for water that is based on estimates but that's just water in the waters the cost of the water is so small that win i mean the reality is is that the users the three hundred twenty connections on the system are supporting millions of dollars of assets that benefits the entire community right so understanding that what is what is the amount a line item to to begin to receive more i think about it but it's not a good i mean but that was the determining the value but the reality is is that is that the the value of the infrastructure has not been adequately appropriated for fifty years so starting one year in advance of the payment of the i might follow but i think that having i an infrastructure of fire protections fire suppression system very protection system infrastructure line item is is what we're greed to how it's how you want this land to go in there to help pay for it in five fire protection infrastructure or fire you know fire infrastructure or something like that you put it under under the fire you know but the but the issue that and i brought this up and i called this because now and that muddies the water i mean i think we've also talked about other ways to generate revenues to reduce freds but i'm happy about the idea of using this mechanism in this way and i understand i think it muddies the waters but unfortunately because there were no there was no pre planning you know twenty years ago we're in the situation room and so i hear like the preplanning things that we don't get into another situation like that history and starting it a couple of years before the new tank is put in i as a as a resident as not a water user would say ok let me play devil's advocate that infrastructure is used once maybe every year to buy a fire it's the insurance so fire dry hydrants are available for use by fire departments but it's my understanding that the fire department prefers not to use them because because of the silt that comes out of the river and it burns their pumps i mean we we had this conversation at our water and sewer commission meeting the reason why we're a fire protection system is the fire departments didn't want to take it out of the river because of the added wear and tear that it would create on the community infrastructure i e the pump trucks that everybody pays for do then and we've said we're going to do it in front of the public the public can make a decision on what they want to do if the public says no take that line on amount then we have to then go back to the users in the system saying he tried we we pleaded the case they said no let's move when we have made that commitment to the users of the system who have come who have taken their time to come to the public meetings we have now taken our time to listen and to spend a lot of other hours discussing what we can do so i will get you a number but if we can put it in as a line item to the fire department under whatever i think it needs to bear conversation and it needs to start this fiscal year because it's for infrastructure not just for the tank we can link it to the t because that's a it's a it's a it's right never body space it's an issue that we know we need to but it but it's something that's been ignored for twenty or thirty years that that the users of the system have gone on to support  well the some other it would be arbitrary well right because you needed the take this tangible right but it's not the only part of the system correct we can look and see what the and value of the assets are in the ground and then say well because fire protection is x percentage of it what is the value of those assets sure but then we're talking fifty sixty one hundred thousand dollars we're talking a lot more than what than what we're talking about here so yeah we could we could do those calculations they take tax rate and the few places when i was looking at the capital plan i think that we need the river bank again by a you know it's in the plan but it seems like right but i guess i'm wondering if that's feasible and if fourteen thousand is going to make a difference to that in the end you know i know it's in the plan and it's important but we're talking like a hundred eighty thousand dollars not spent in this  plus another two hundred thousand next year really is going to spend it in well he is going to spend it in the same direction i guess i'm questioning he says he can do it but i'm wondering if fourteen thousand is going to make a huge difference but then i'll have to the next spring to spend the effort fifteen but i agree that we should push that  i have another question yes i moved this is in relation to the gravel plan going to reference the line eleven seven fifty sixty six sixty five zero three and i thirteen was one eighty nine which was on par with what they budgeted right jeff you have information and i guess my question is are we on the firetruck i'm ready to roll because of the way it will be financed starting with payments starting in twenty sixteen which is kind of a budget that she takes a trip this year should be at least right sometimes they do so the rest of the town hasn't seen anything on it well enough so you are they ready to vote on it well and i'm sure they will be by the time he comes up well let me tell you we have to vote on if i time meeting grants we lose the funding but then that's why we have public information meetings in advance of it right so but why have is that information for us to say yes this is like i mean you're saying we have to vote on it but why do we have to vote on it and why do i have to has specific deadlines associated with this for readiness to proceed criteria ok ok so the money that we're that we're hoping to access is called the drinking water state revolving loan fund and were were funded under the two thousand and eleven project priority list which if we do not pass a bond by the end of march twenty fourth team we will be bypassed and we will not be able to access the money until probably two or three years from now we're going to permit deadlines to fix this tank nine it's a single wall steel tank welded steel that has a life expectancy of twenty years so that would have been one hundred eighty nine more in two thousand and thirteen we get it inspected every year the people who inspect it now say we can't guarantee that this is going to last that past at any time they're basically like it's you need to replace it now we're also under current condition deadlines because there is inadequate pressure for many connections under all conditions and especially under under maximum datum and so if everybody was showering flushing the toilet if there was a fire the pressure in the system at the reaches basically above brown's court would have inadequate pressure which is a public health risk there's other ones oh it doesn't it doesn't need fire it doesn't mean the fire protection standards so because this community is and i also rated it's insurance something organization thank you is rated at x were required to have capacity to fi for three hours and thirty three hundred gallons per minute i have to look back at the report but basically we need a tank so our tank right now is two hundred thousand gallons the steel one and there's a concrete tank just just above it fifty thousand gallons that's two hundred fifty thousand gallons of storage right now we need seven hundred thirty thousand gallons of storage where this tank sites are right now in their heights do not provide adequate pressure to meet the water supply r with land for that and then the other balance of the one point five in the one point two is a clearing contact time project that we have to do down to the well tank because we don't need we don't need out acquiring contact time before our first connection water systems are required to have a minimum of twenty minutes or for log in activation of viruses prior to the first connection and we don't have that water so the proposal right now is to make it almost buried a concrete tank so the plot that we're looking at is it has a pretty good steep slope and so it would be carving out part of that and bury put it in the tank into the side of the mountain we've already talked to the people who own the property and because of the way that the that the bridge is positioned is there are people who live kind of on this side of the ridge and there are people who live on this side of the bri and they can't see around it which is where the tank is going to be you'll only see twelve feet in the front of exposure as you drive up jericho road and in the back there's going to be three feet sticking out of the ground  the what's being proposed is a rectangle poured in place concrete tank using local materials and local builders and it's going to be a to sell so it allows for one cell to be drained so that people can go in and and clean it  be what's called the bilko hatch on top that as it's sealed to the outside it has a has a lip on it it's going to be a flat roof well it's going to be sloped slightly still out snow to to to move off of it the access will be very modest probably similar to the way that there is right now with just a small pull off and then walk up we're not proposing any roads to go up to it because we want to minimize the the security issue for it this is the type of tank that has a life expected sea of eighty to one hundred years of well maintained and are looking to pay for it in thirty years there have been other alternatives proposed and the alternatives are actually shockingly more expensive than the off site location one of the alternatives that we would consider would be using the existing tank site and put two very tall roughly sixty four foot double the height so it would be over the over the the highway so they would be roughly sixty four feet tall and they would be two side by side that would we have to go for d r v application because it would exceed the height of our current regulations and that probably would cause some of you should problems for the people who wouldn't see the tank because of the way it's positioned on the bridge and our engineers work very hard to kind of address the landowners issues in that area you know i mean including you know minute minimizing the amount of potential area that we have to clear doing some plantings in the area to try to maintain it but the reality is is that we're going to be clearing in acre of land of trees for a concrete storage tank but the idea is that by burying it into the into the into the ridge is that you'll minimize the visual disturbance from the people in the area money is that because it's a it's a competition i mean the priority lists are competition if you're not first of all if you're not on the list you can't get the money and second of all if you're not ranked high enough and ready to go then they just bypass you this is what i do on a daily basis as i bypass systems who aren't ready to go and then you have to wait for for the next funding cycle to come around and you have to wait to hopefully be in the list on that and then you have to be ready to proceed and then if you don't it's just an vicious cycle yes because it's considered because we're looking at it as infrastructure support not specific tank payment and how would it impact the budget each year well i think it would be a whatever twenty fifteen thousand dollars line item that would area of richmond is likely disadvantaged meaning it has a median household income below the statewide average is the funding program has allowances for different rates in terms because of that and what they would target was a is a user rate of one percent of the service areas median household income so say for example the median household income of richmond's service area is forty five thousand dollars that is below the statewide average of roughly fifty six thousand dollars ok the would be at the end of the project they would shoot for a user rate of four hundred fifty dollars a year that would include existing debt service new debt service like the tank and operation and maintenance costs i will tell you that the user rate for for them for the average single family home is already of of four hundred fifty dollars so what they would do is the new of said would be a thirty year negative negative three how does that work negative three equals about a forty percent gram so every year you paid less principal over the course of  essentially what it would work out to and i don't run the numbers for the one point five million dollar project but for about the one point two million dollars project is the annual bond payment would be roughly thirty five thousand dollars a year if it's a three year negative three percent interest loan and that can dovetail into our existing budget rather fluently because we have a bond we have a debt payment on brown's court that will be that will be expiring about the time that we start the repayment on this this loan this loan also comes with a a two year so you start payment on it two years after the after substantial completion so if we don't substantially complete the project for two or three years we don't start paying on a trailer two years past that so we're five at least five years out and paying on this beyond it to start paying on the spot which gives us ample opportunity to kind of save some money to either not do much or so we need a motion to make a motion that we approve the two funding questions as as a mandate for the fire truck and the water storage tank a member of the class of one nine hundred thirty five and graduated with her m b a from new york university and where as mary started her new teaching career of windsor vermont and then moving to hartford connecticut teaching at bluefield high school and working at the nephews fourteen great great nieces and nephews and there is a very tributes for longevity to walking as much as possible not taking be able to hear him surrounding herself with young people and where is mary virginia coming temple celebrating her one hundredth doing all this but i'm very confused about who is going to be rich who is doing a survey who has an option to buy the property what their relationship to all of them are and who is going to be coming  asking for expedited zoning and they feel uncomfortable so i don't know if there was something he that i don't know what i don't know if you can get the message of the person who needs to do that to put that in writing but he needs to lay was doing was yeah what is going on right is it like in the past three weeks we've said that there's now an option to buy and there's a survey and i think they're two different groups and like are they want to upgrade what's going on so that so you don't have and kept going forward like this obviously will be in writing but you know i keep hearing around town over x but it's already or taylor don't let them do it or and i'm like i don't know what you're talking about i don't know what you're talking about pundits i think when others learning things that come before us when we change the parking regulations of a bridge street we had that conversation and that one didn't seem to be very controversial so the five of us could sit here and change that but there is this one may generate more public discussion and still i think i would want to have a lot of public discussion input on where i would be ready to so part of that and it's a part of that whole process of public input and so there's with the surveys going around and there's a night ok how many surveys are there going around so there'll be a survey monkey and then there are posters i did not receive any department reports before i put the agenda off a lot of people were way work in progress i should have after her i went to high trails committee meeting couple weeks ago that is an active little committee that is very active holy cow so they're working on actually getting a new trail  up take thompson road out i guess there is there's a trail that goes up there and potentially using some cochran road conference ski area so basically what they're looking to do is they're looking to g p s all the trails that are day and they they have to get they were very hard to get landowner permission before they obviously publish all of this and g p s it and they do trail maintenance they have trailed like working days  anything i think that this came out of the fact that in the whole government's committee review of what was happening they think that they're proposing to design center is still taking applications and going to put in for that you need help with that application we are it's for questions yes certainly issues but ok we are and if we want is we made the decision it was based on doing something other than the civics class but i made the call because i think it's free and they have volunteers who are coming in setting up and they really really want projects in chi on july first i want this feature in their future boss to break it to commit to maintaining this once they put it in place and we can maybe do like we're doing appropriations entertain some ideas what to do for the next funding cycle to get there there are you know get requests for how much it's going to cost if we want this fancy adam thing that's going to cost ten thousand than that we've taken into consideration in the budget cycle the kids first solicit for or donated pictures and then if that doesn't come to fruition we could maybe talk about purchasing them but i would even if you know voted for have courtesy