as we enter our two hundred fifty first year it is a cold morning so i look to one of my favorite writers david bud bill who is in walkin or it's probably much colder than here he has a very short poem called three lines for the end of february snow continues to deepen seed orders and days notice for longer he goes on with a short poem called cold winter night fire going in the round oak greased boots glistening behind the stove pull up a chair close a little glass of whisky and  book of ancient poems well you may want to take that with you tonight i was drawn when i thought about this weather to a book my son gave me for christmas a couple years ago called thirty below zero in praise of native vermonters by even hubbard as what he says what my concensus say is the commonality of these people what after buttes were acquired by each generation and passed on of the hard realities of living through the interminable the long winters and seemingly never ending mud seasons failed crops and the isolation at the end of the dirt road brought about a sense of sagacity a deep sense of inner too wild too difficult most of them immigrated to the rich saw farmlands of the midwest correspondents apparently abounds between those who left and those who stayed behind as one load of the touch me from eight hundred fifty nine dear grandpa please come away from the rocks and coal and played out soil of vermont come to where the topsoil is twenty four inches days at this time of year we think of warmer places but we think about learning perhaps humility and patience and perseverance even if we're immigrants here boy may fit in that was as much as i could get from so we're here to do some work this morning and i think place does affect who we are and what we do robert kaplan wrote about new england in town meetings in places the windy emptiness of the landscape suggests a frontier that once was being on the frontier require doing rather than imagining clearing land building shoulder obtaining food supplies from tears test idiology is like nothing else idealised concepts have never taken root in america we are perhaps for all this practical society and that's what we need to do frank brian writes in his in his book on town meetings we are required to ensure that we see that we feel up close and face to face what happens to each other when we do each other harm we are required to allow ourselves no escape from our common humanity we are required to make together the renderings of our collective actions the joy and satisfaction that come when we find the common good the pain in each other's eyes when we ignore as we will often do what lincoln called the better angels  toward that end let me read the town meeting invocation which originated in the town of danville we are gathered together in civil assembly we gather as a community in the oldest sense of the word we gather to come together and try to make decisions about what is right about what is wrong let us advocate our positions but not at the expense of others let us remember there is no ments gap between saying i am right and saying i believe i am right and that our neighbors with whom we disagree are good people with hopes and dreams as true and as highs and lows always remember that in the end caring for each other in this community is a far greater importance than any difference we might have with that spirit we can move forward let me briefly turn to select person s bubba needed something historic because brad's kind of a historic figure he's grown up here he knows our town i think as well as anybody physically mentally he's just a really great representative of our of our great town of under help  so i went of course to gail boardman no better place to go for historical artifacts and he offered up this license plate this is an mot license plate and i'm going to read what i wrote me in his typed letter on some sort of ancient typewriter but this is an interesting plate under the circumstances it was used in one nine hundred sixty seven and then upgraded to one nine hundred sixty eight the next year i rather imagine that our guy has had a similar experience conceived in sixty seven and issued in sixty eight was the first day we're out in the parking lot and he's got that super rule and it's loaded down with equipment it was mud season and he said you know what i like to do sets i like to travel around with clippers chainsaws and shops and he said you know very mud season what you can do is get off get out of your car go to the with two different fema vents with flood events securing a lot of money with the help of others of course so make our town not have to shoulder the burden of this massive expense and time and time again he's shown me and been a great example to me of someone who cares deeply about the town and understands the town and i think you know this just argument big round of applause for a job well done continue i encourage anyone that has an interest in doing this or filling this position to do so because they'll never regret it thank you again very much nine o'clock in the morning to transact the following business voting for all of stray invalid articles to be from seven am and seven pm at the brown's of a middle school article one to elect a moderator for the ensuing year article two to hear and accept the reports of town officers article three so the voters approved total general fund expenditures of one million one hundred seventy three thousand three hundred thirty one dollars of which eight hundred forty eight thousand three hundred thirty nine dollars should be raised by taxes three hundred twenty four thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars by don tax revenues pursuant to twenty four b s a twenty six sixty four article four shall the voters approve total highway fund expenditures of one million seventy nine thousand three hundred sixty two dollars of which nine hundred seventy seven thousand three hundred sixty two dollars should be raised by taxes one hundred two thousand dollars to be raised by non tax revenues article seven show the border of the town meeting continue to exempt the property of the underhill jericho fire department from taxation for municipal and social purposes for a period of five years as authorized by thirty two b s a thirty eight forty article eight shelob voters of the town revisit the tax exempt status of maple leaf farm article nine shell the voters authorized the select board to borrow through debt instruments other than bonds not more than one hundred sixty thousand dollars for a term not to exceed five years for the purchase of a dump truck pursuant to twenty four b s a one seventy six a b and article ten shell the proposed by law amendments to the unified land use and development regulations regarding the reference there in to the town of underhill zoning map approved by the select board in january sixteenth two thousand and fourteen after hearings by the planning commission on december eighteenth two thousand and thirteen and the select board on january eighth two thousand and fourteen be adopted that's the longest search i've done for been my entire life i should and this is the work before us so that let me turn to article one the election of the moderator for the ensuing year and i defer to the chair of the select board to conduct the  election state law has to change the the process and the election of moderator so i will accept now except nominations but no seconds are necessary so nominations are now in order for the ok if there are no further nominations on the agreement of the meeting nominations are now close so as state law takes precedent over robert's rules of order from op requires that local officials be elected by paper ballots so accordingly it's appropriate to move that the clerk be directed to cast a single ballot in favor of william wilson so what i'd like now is a motion me and i can recall and i think this is the only thing i recall from high school that in one nine hundred fourteen in august of one nine hundred fourteen the british foreign minister search everett gray looked out the window it dusk for shovels three hooks one crowbar one stone hammer one plow one scraper one pick ax one road do i know there must be a whole story behind why that was in the report but nonetheless there it is the library a thirty five by ems to a total of nine hundred fifty the health officer recorded quite a few quarantines and release of current teens for hooping cough and six burial permits at twenty five cents each for a total of a dollar fifty watchful eye of the teacher previous covers that roy had done all the store the st thomas church and the view across the green under flats that building which maybe you know we referred died this year noted that it was a little late that underhill had miscalculated and thought its bias and tenor it was nine hundred sixty five so we did better with our with the two hundred fiftieth i think we did our math run camping the syllabus in the state park and appropriation of a community data sheet an examination of the effects of development on the browns river watershed its original members  select board was patrick lanphier roberts good arrow and cliff hill they reflected on turmoil in the middle east economic difficulties at home and the reality of massive shortfalls in funding in vermont state government operations they stated quote over the past years we have been sensitive to the increased tax burden caused by state mandates and reduce federal aid we have been asking for less revenues knowing the demands from the other areas for growing we do not believe that we can continue this practice for the next budget years and therefore request a twenty percent increase in the public works project there is some reflection by the board in no to acknowledge that there was some disagreement within the town over planning and zoning one thousand nine hundred ninety was the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the first set of subdivision regulations and they judge that through this work under has matured and grown to become a very desirable town in which to live the retention of every or character is a result of dedicated citizens administering very effective zoning and subdivision laws the underhill historical society studied forty different sever holes throughout the town with the help of the state archaeologist and they went through an ongoing project for the schoolhouse and were consulted on septic water hook up plans and many volunteers worked on the landscaping orders library burnet at howard and her for her final year as the town librarian reported a twelve percent increase in circulation to over twenty thousand books and six hundred visits per month computer use was expanding it was entirely discussed in terms of access to interlibrary loan through the development of the state library system but not for personal use well all these things have happened and here we are today to carry things forward we have tried to make sure we can increase participation and show it came out of a cold morning as a matter of practice we have yellow sheets that i hope will be helpful to you if this is your first meeting we have contacted all the new landowners as we do annually to invite them to the meeting so if you have any questions as we go along and you're you're new here please don't hesitate to raise your hand my job as moderator is make sure the will of the town is done and so i am here to facilitate the meeting i'm not the chairman i am simply here to on the good direct traffic side on occasion as i sense the body i will say if there's no objection and that is a matter of easing through areas where it seems there's a consensus and there is not the set if there is a stand it's appropriate to raise your hand and want to continue the discussion so we're we're sensitive to that the warning is the agenda and i think of it as kind of  playing field for our deliberations so so part of my work is to defend the warning as the vehicle that we always go back to we say are we on track are we talking about the right things it's going back to the warning that carries  through that on debate we debate all the motions we've tried to set up this year so that we can hear people easily and we can keep afloat to that and how to count  fixed mike here and so is they're moving around i'll try and use that express lane and that way i hope we can keep a flow of conversation going around the issues of debate if when you get the microphone you have to hold it pretty close the runners will turn it on for you i think that mike is alive thank george and always thank you to george if i forget for for his work and setting this up and making it all possible and  we'll have the debate i'll call the question if i need to but will walk through it and i'm sure everybody's if you haven't done it before it's pretty easy walk through on that i will use the voice ballot ballot always if there is the occasion when i need to discern a two thirds majority will do a head count if in fact people want paper ballot we can go to paper ballot and it's vermont state law that that is at the discretion of any seven voters so seven voters want a paper about we will go to it otherwise i will go by voice vote or hands if you don't understand something and you really need to to get that down you can have any point call for point or if there's some disagreement to my rulings so that's fine i have been i was overridden last year so i'm chastened by that but in fact the will of the town is what is and should prevail and the most the moderator can do and should do is to facilitate that process at the end of the day to remind you we have lunch served with a modest contribution  and the proceeds go to the underhill historical society just to reiterate you need to make sure you use the microphones at all times everyone is sure they can be heard by everyone else generally you can hear the person  you but for those in the back it's absolute mystery if you talk without the microphone and we also need that for the official record so if you want to be on the official record then make sure we have video recording and order your recording taking place as well are there any questions this time and kind of procedures and how we move forward scene on we move to article two to hear and act upon the reports of town offers officers and if there's no objection we will approve the abstract of the march twenty third team meeting which is the record of last year's meeting and reflected on page fo the for last year's australian ballot questions arkell seven voters failed to approve the purchase them mcclelland property and that actually i have a copy and it says should the town consider a purchase which is very different i think you're dead on correct on clerk no apologies needed everybody gets one very good and it will be corrected thank you the difference is it wasn't a question do we do it is do we think about it ok good  the purpose of of this article is to review the work of the town officers in the past year it is the opportunity to gain more information that was in there or for the town officers in any capacity to amplify the comments that they made before and so we do run through them the way we move this on the floor is that someone will move article two that would be a motion to accept the reports and with the motion seconded to accept the reports of the town officers one other issue that i i mentioned at this point is it has been our tradition if there is no objection we will pause during these deliberations probably of this article for our delegation to the state legislature upon their  arrival and give them not more than fifteen minutes for presentation and questions that they may have there on the schedule they try and visit the different communities i know they started out in jericho they'll be here we'll just hope whatever we're doing deal with them and then go back to the article before us there's no objection very well you can get the listings on just five through eight of the names and we turn first to the select poor report on page twenty two and i turn to the select board for any comments amplifications that they wish to make to the report i guess just to  so just as a recap here of the slug board report we all know that we were hit with our second flood event in three years this one was definitely worse than the last on scene and we knew that we were going to receive funds from from thema in the state most of our as i said most of our road structures that were affected are back in good shape now  because of this event we put off a lot of our routine maintenance and it seemed appropriate thing to do because we had other pressing matters at hand  revenue was a hard thing to come by our main source of revenue obviously our property taxes we do receive a consistent state aid from  legislature does it depends on how much money comes on the federal level and each district each highway districts get gets a lot of a certain amount of money and then they have to divvy it up to all the towns that are in that district so seeing how we were fortunate enough to get these two grants last year we will not be receiving most likely would not be receiving grants this year so this makes it hard for budgeting  money that is there sometimes other times it's not just not realistic to count on it and plan on it so we have a cow for improving the program which we all approved of t future i'm sure they will but it's just it's just something we need to we need to stand on our own two feet and somehow we need to come up with an idea or a way to find the scaffold prove the program it can be done several different ways we could raise taxes we could put a percentage on the ground west but either way we need to you know would be easy to use that that money that we we put aside in there to fund the program to work on the new roof for example but then where would we be next year you know we have a we have the effect but that our c o p would be drained so we need to just somehow program let's see other other things i don't know if there's any other all entertain in the questions any other questions that would pertain the slot forward questions or comes a point i'm just curious what the history of the capital improvement program is and you know it sounds like a good argument that we should have it but how have we done in the past the fifty years have we had this before this is new this is a new it was a new i would say it was two thousand and eleven nine out of nine that we approved it  we hold hearings every year before before a town meeting and we formulate the planning commission that is involved the select board certainly is involved and our buildings and all of those things as capital and those are assets and those depreciate or those you know those need maintenance of a certain level so we try to prioritize  projects and then try to figure out how to fund them so that's the that's the challenge to existing question to answer your question for the guy  nothing was done in the past it was much more i don't want to use the word willy nilly but when something came along they had to deal with it and there wasn't a future planning which the cia is so really it was a missing element in our said buildings trucks all those things and making a plan forward planning ahead again there is really no no future planning to speak of at least on paper maybe verbally and the importance of the c h p as it becomes a document that travels with the town and with whoever you know again is on the select board or or with whatever employees are here so it guides a way forward no matter what the staff i yes this is an order but a free we do not want to get into the twenty fourteen twenty fifteen budget so if it's a backward look yes if it's a poll or look will hold i guess the only thing i would comment on is the capital improvement program is reflected in the pound report on page seventeen so i think it would be more germane that tough about so when twenty fourteen twenty fifteen comes up they can do various things i can just say that the capital improvement plan is just that it sets a plan that's a dynamic thing you know we we we projected some revenue and i don't want to get into the budget but we did project some revenue due to come in that's not going to come in so that changes the plan you know we push things off we constantly shop things around to try and me what we can afford  so if we had if we had some way to fund this and then build up that fund where it could sustain itself then we would be improving these would be making these capital improvements you know at a steady rate every year and there was that i should say that there wasn't an official catholic prove the program years ago that you know there was attempts at making remember we used to break down each road and then they would say oh they're going to work on this road it can change depending on funding depending on interest and depending on what's coming down the lines over one year it would make sense for energy efficiency you know back to be discussed ahead of time that could be put into this it can go to a hearing so that that dynamic part of it's really important to remember mean that may very well be part of the slide for its consideration already but would be appropriate to establish some baseline amount that community can then look forward to contribute you know having a known idea of what the expectation might be in coming years what percentage of you know that forecast a plan is just an idea i totally agree about stuff that would be the the proper way to fund it and you could do that several ways you know we could we could look for other sources of revenue or you could look for in fact see new homes you could you could look for a tax on a percentage of the ground list every year you know this year we kind of we couldn't spend as much time thinking about those type of things with the flooding we had in them out of hand and then of the situation with the roof the garage roof you know that was something that kind of needs immediate attention so you're always going to get these things that pop up but yes we do need to look at somehow building that fire so much so we have a pool of money from to to do these projects and then once it's in the state grant comes along well that's just that's just an added bonus but those will be questions we're going to have to ask  in the upcoming year possibly next year you know on how how to properly fund the question could use the mike back there thank you was yeah well like last year when we voted to put that surplus money into the capital improvement program those those funds are reserved for that program we have  year there's public input take them on the couch for improvement program you could come to the meeting you could you could force your opinion you could see where the money is is being spat or being allocated so there's  process not just money sitting out a checkbook somewhere and we draw from it and then of course with that money money set aside it goes towards that project unless there's some sort of emerge you know emergency or some sort of drastic change that needs to be made but of course the goal always is if one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the roof it's one hundred fifty thousand dollars for a roof it's there is no slush fund type thinking in that process so we have a crew of three hundred thousand is that what i heard we've put surplus money we've last year we all voted to take the highway surplus to put that into the capital improvement program that is sitting in that money is sitting there it could be used immediately on a project but then it's go you know the whole our hope was to build this five you know and it's easy to take one time money roll it into a budget and use it and then where were you the next year you know then that money is not there so we're just full on ourselves if we think that we can count on you know we can count on the spin grant money but we still need to pave our roads every year we need to pa section of road we need to do these things as as our assets depreciate and as our assets you know start to the infrastructure starts to crumble you just need to keep constant maintenance and we're going to have to figure out how to fund that move money into it and use it as needed sort of creates could be construed as too much option on how the money is spent and you know if you  concerned about having a money that are not specific for any you know that are not a line item specific and i appreciate the flexibility of being able to respond to these emergencies it does make me question how we responded in the past in a big emergency if we had a shortfall would we take a loan and if we did how how how much of a negative thing would that be well the part of the part of the capital improvement program is so we know so we don't have to incur more debt you know and i would say that it's it is very specific and highway funds can only be used for highway so general funds can be used either way but is very few spaces specific but it's not it's not so detail that it's it's pretty black and white you know if you read in the capital improvement plan right now how much money cyclist one hundred eighty five thousand dollars thank  thing but we all seem to live with it so you know utopian situation we could have that fund grow to half a million dollars and that some real road works great for real building improvements the concern that i have if that grows to a substantial amount of money and the question addresses control it becomes a temptation right so well meaning citizens comes to you and says i'd like to know part of you and we've got five hundred thousand dollars why wouldn't we use it how do we control that temptation this the something that that we approve every year and there's hearings on so there's no way i group of the citizens could walk in if you approve this today and they walk in in april and say we want a new park to billion that's not something that they have approved so it would  father any further questions on the select border report already been planned for it has to be floated so it's there's a plan there but before the money is actually spent it has to be approved by the voters anyway as we're doing today in one of these austrian ballots so there's no willy nilly about it the if if at that point when the town thinks it needs to spend the money if the voters don't think that you do need to spend the money then we won't spend it's a plan just as irene said you know that gets you to look ahead i think i remember right after i moved into town there was a bridge a need to be replaced there were improvements that had to be done to the town hall and new town all had to be built that all happened in the span of a year or two and that could have been planted ten years earlier and maybe spaced out so all that money wasn't spent at once kept improving player and gets that on a more over basis that makes it so you're not dumping a whole bunch of money at once having taxes go up that one year but it's more consistent over the time period i think if i have that right ye there any further discussion a select board report i know so state representatives are here so i want to bring them up represent is frank and till the we had a long discussion last night at the school meeting regarding both the issues of education consolidation of districts and also state funding so that was a productive discussion it probably is best if we don't try and go through that again it is a broad agenda before the s morning bill frank and it's always easy to come up here and thank you for the opportunity to represent represent you in montpelier it's always easy to represent a town like underhill when you're going someplace because i think it's very clear that both george and i agree that this district of underhill jericho is you know the greatest towns in the state and we are very easy to i mean we frequently share that with other legislators it's just that there's about a hundred forty eight others that feel that it may only be second but what whatever the case we are here today to  we're willing to chat with you individually or answer questions now but we also try to at least once a month have a meeting at the library where it's a little more informal that you get to choose the topics and there's questions and answers and discussions and everything and our next meeting is march eighteenth which i think just two weeks from tonight six thirty to eight feel free to come out and you know ask whatever you want as you feel there are many many things going on in the state house i like to just highlight a couple that sometimes you know based on the many notes that you send to me with your opinions and your suggestions and your request that i support or not support a certain thing or one of those that have in this community and many communities around the state deal with the bottle deposit law which was one of the first to an a very long time ago and i think many many people feel that this is a this is a great thing however i remember right after i got elected one of the first things that people mention to me is why don't we expand it why is the bottle deposit law such that you can go to a cooler and pay at the posit this bottle and the bottle right next to it which is the same but contains something else doesn't have it and i must say that there's probably been more bills introduced to expand that or retract it than maybe maybe not any other but there certainly has been a lot and once again this this topic is coming up and one of the things is that people that there's a suggestion that maybe the the deposit is not the best way to to do this that we should have a you know one common stream of where we can take recyclables and it doesn't matter if it's bottles or bottles that currently have it so this discussion is going on again this year whether anything will come of it is very hard to tell because things that come up every year it's like anything that happened this year but going along with that is a another proposal to put a tax on shopping bags which is another one of these little items that people like to discuss and say it's very good but do i really want to pay for it or should we too little topics of of hundreds that are going on including about the twenty eight or thirty bills that we've already passed this year but because may always willing to listen to your suggestions on how to deal with something and again thank you so much for the opportunity to represent you are the best two towns in the state i don't understand why there's any disagreement about that i'm not going to get in any specific issues i will remind you that out on the table was the annual doyle surveys of the new paper fill that out if you're so inclined we look forward to seeing you there are meetings and we're going to have a little bit of time for questions here after we hear from you morning i'll be very brief as well i wasn't planning on saying anything but i would agree that as long as you don't spread it around that underhill in jericho are the two best dogs that should encounter my connection with underhill is a proud poker hill parent way back when poker hill used to do bus routes spec and picked up by children in essex within essex for twenty five years before moving to south burlington so i come to the senate under difficult circumstances my wife sally fox passed away and january i'm proud to be in the senate and hopefully to continue her work so glad to be here and have a good town meeting  we have ample time if you have some questions  hi pat now listen i'd like to talk about the legislative committee that's addressing the consolidation of school districts apparently had a good conversation about that last night particularly of course you know our town the i d district  single school district have you heard anything about that and also if something is done about that particular district within that affect the taxes for everyone in town the education committee is is continuing their work on school consolidation as you may know we tweaked the legislation that is presently there about voluntary  mergers and i understand although i'm no longer part of the mt mansfield board i understand that we are likely to in november get another chance to vote on the voluntary birger the voluntary merger comes with a temporary but substantial tax break of eight cents in the first year six cents in the second year four cents and then two cents over the following two years it seems pretty clear that the state is very committed to mergers and that should we not do the voluntary merger is highly likely there will be mandated mergers which won't come with any any carrot with them i think you know the opinion is that two hundred eighty two school districts are probably too many for eighty five thousand students and that there is probably some administrative waste there with the falling student numbers there's some new space in the schools it looks like those numbers are going to continue to fall at least for the next couple years  so i would expect that there will be legislation coming forward to mandate some some consolidation if with we don't to do it on our own doug richmond i noticed that representative bill was very careful only to talk about literal nickels and dimes of how many here are concerned that we have a nine percent increase and nine cent big huge increase in our school state school  tax well some of you haven't realized how big it will be it could be two three or four hundred dollars this year and continuing forward for the rest of our lives we paid the money to the state and the state isn't giving it back to us is there any excuse for this well let's say doug you certainly are right that we pay the money for the state the vermont has a basically a state why education fund and that fund is used to fund education k through twelve education throughout the state the purpose of doing it that way is to equalize access to quality education throughout the state both in towns that can raise gobs of money and those towns that have more difficulty raising money long those lines the there had to be a way of deciding on how to equalize the payments throughout the state and the cost per pupil was chosen and i think that that's a very good way of on the flip side is when you have declining enrollment in a small school and you have a liar and you have a fairly fixed budget over a budget that hasn't even gone up very much if you have a declining enrollment the cost per student to say that there's more more cost in education but this is the system that we have i think it's a good system i think it's very fair cross the state it has worked very well in chittenden east school districts since it was first acted back in the late ninety's and we seem to be one of those situations where we have declining  groundless values and the climbing in roman and those amongst us a few other systems that i'm sure you heard about last night at the underhill central meeting that george was at and the i meeting that i was at to explain that in detail why that is i think we you know nobody likes to have have a tax increase but i think we on the flip side we are getting a very good education education for the dollars we spen did i just want to go back to the last question because i just came from richmond and the governor was there and he made a couple of points one was that in terms of consolidation that he's really a very strong cheerleader for consolidation but maintaining local control and his basic argument which i'm sure will ring true here a little bit is that if you leave it to montpelier will somehow screw it up so he wants to see the he wants to see the communities themselves come together and figure out a way where they can do consolidation starling figure we've lost about twenty thousand students in the last five years and the statewide property tax at least according to what the governor's saying at this point it's absent some changes is really not an affirmative thing that the legislature does it's a formulaic thing that goes into effect automatically as a result of the local budgets that are passed and then once that happens the state by property number comes out and it's a projection at this point but so i just want to rely that just because it was just happened about twenty minutes ago down in richmond thank you and i won't get it long explanation of the unfortunate confluence of factors that are leading to the increase but but i do want to make one point and that is that the statewide increase of seven cents and the base education amount how my stat has gone up those are not set those are just a suggested number and they will not be set for a while into the session so while the projection says a nine percent plus  increase it may be different and that in the end my hope is that we can actually get this statewide tax increase down to four cents from the seven cents which would make a substantial difference i'm worried about something like my second amendment rights ok something real i mean i've heard there's legislation that's going to be voted on coming down the line and we live in a state of vermont where we have the most liberal gun laws in the country almost and we don't have a problem with guns yet we're going to have a debate on gun control in vermont and i want to know if you know about this coming up and what your position  well yes there remember there are eight hundred builds that's introduced into the the house a year and of those eight hundred it could be of anything that somebody so chooses and many times if it's introduced by a legislator who may not believe in it but does it for because of a constituent who asked them to do it so has there been legislation introduced pertaining to guns yes has it been taken up in committee it has been discussed i know of nothing that says that it is going to make it to the floor in fact how do you know you don't know that it's going to make it actually to the full floor of the of the house or to the senate until it is voted out of committee i have never i have i have never said that we should not discuss something in the legislature even if if i disagree with that i think discussion is good to understand why others feel their way and i've  the bill that before us on gun control is exactly the same way i think it's very important that people get opportunity to express their views both pros and cons one one item that's sent to me frequently is that there are way too many gun laws in the state already in fact sometimes of the numbers associated with that if if if that's the case if there's too many discussion of that also leads to retracting laws of the book and this happens frequently that laws are retracted and usually they happen when when you i mean the only time you they happen is if you're working on it on a topic so yes there is a possibility we are in the second the second year of the two year by i'm town meeting is usually considered half you know half way time if if it's not voted out of one of the bodies by the end of next week it does not automatically get taken up by the other body which means it's the chances of of full passage is very those people can have differences of opinion about things and i would suggest that we in fact do have a problem with guns and we have a problem with guns particularly around the public health suicide and that is true also in the teenage population and what we know in the medical literature is that suicide is an incredibly impulsive act that it's not true that if somebody doesn't have one means they'll just use another me  that just isn't the facts so i do believe that we do have a problem with guns and it's around access for people who are having emotional problems at the time that the only bill that i know that is actively being considered this year is already passed as part of the fee bill around guns and that is that when a court orders a gun to be turned over whether that's in the domestic assault case or whatever reason there has been a hesitation from law enforcement to actually take those guns because they didn't have anything to do with them and what passed in the thebe this year was that when the gun is turned over the person who also be charged the storage fee for those gun during the time the court orders and force that's the only bill that i know of that is being considered this year i will tell you i'm going to  bill next year and i'm going to if i get reelected and i'm going to introduce a bill about guns and hospitals and i want to tell you two stories from the last month because this just blew me away in our postpart where people have just had babies they only stay that day or so these days but in the last month we found two loaded weapons after people have left the postpartum for the first one was a really small derringer type of of gun with the safety found off which was in the recliner chair you know how things fall your pockets in a recliner it was loaded in the recliner people had left and it was luckily found by cleaning person not the next person sitting down in that in that chair the second one's even more astounding the second one was a couple with their new baby left a little while later they called the nursing station and they said don't let anybody go into room such and such luck that room or walk just don't let anybody in there on the my way back well you know the best way to get someone to go look in a room and say don't let anybody go look at a room right so there's some stuff without looking they're sitting on the bed is a loaded gun and loaded handgun and the story went  well i would have to set it down to put the baby into the in into the car seat and i forgot it there when i left now in the hospital we recognize that not very many people probably forget their guns so this is probably the tip of the iceberg of the problem so i'm going to introduce a bill next year to to like schools say that hospitals are no gun zones so yeah i do personally think we have a problem with guns in the state  and you know i don't think that it's always an issue of some a second amendment rights i think there's also a public health part of this which needs to be respected are a bit over in the fifteen minutes allotted but is there one last question mahoney wanted to know what your opinions are on an article a five amendment process to impose term limits on members of congress is this for the national congress yet this is actually on the national level i mean the spending seems to not only be a problem at the this state level but also at the national level and one of the avenues available to the states is the under the constitution is the article five  process which allows the states to convene a it's not a constitutional convention but a convention of the states to propose amendments to the constitution one which might eliminate career politicians well my opinion is i haven't been in favor of term limits but i have to say that might be changing given how washington is working and the fact it's it's almost next to impossible to get an incumbent out of office so that it shouldn't be that incumbents have such power and whether it's spending power or however they do it that you can that ninety percent or ninety five percent whatever the number is keep getting reelected over and over again so something's wrong i don't know if term limits is the answer but something is wrong with that i faxed to the delegation for coming and moving from ellen goodman i would like to say that four times a year on route fifteen a tax reminder sign goes out and thanks to that i'm trained to you know rely on it and i'm never late but it did not go out this february and therefore i was late and i got doing eight percent as did about one hundred other people who also rely on it so they i think that was unfair and i think we should all be reimbursed for that eight percent because if you're not going to do it anymore just announce it now and no one will rely on it anymore but you can't just randomly remove something that people have used as their tax reminder and then say well you know nate cares to comment on that but i'm telling you that sometimes we are in the town of ministers report sort of searching to get the connection but at any rate it is there any response i'll respond there's many ways in which we are reminded of our taxes and it is a personal responsibility thing the signs are something that the town offers something that we do is as helpful reminder but i would suggest that you not count on that in the future  obviously but obviously it's now in my phone less than we can continue you know weather conditions us snow plow knocks it over or whatever in in fact in fact even human human error someone might not put that sign out one time because  that's the way things are so i would suggest it really is your responsibilities not the towns responsibility so i would i would highly suggest not to count on those anymore if they are there it's great but if they're not i think that's that's what you need to play out that's great but i've lived here for twelve years and four times here that sign has always been out and this is the first time it wasn't and so i like many many other people have been trained to use that as a reminder so obviously moving forward i'm not going to use that as a reminder anymore because it can't be counted on but this one random time that somebody didn't do their job and put the sign now i don't think we should all be held responsible for are there any questions on the list as report and i should've included the rescue squad and the fire department who was or al twenty four hours a day during the stuff just one more never forget the town staff hard working group are there questions on the planning commission report page forty seven hi pat now and i just wondered about the town plan to be completed by two thousand and fifteen i wish it could become cleated by meeting two thousand and fifteen so we could maybe look at it and discuss it a little bit is that a possibility process going the process of trying to work through a chapter each month and we're also working in conjunction with the regional planning commission because i like to look at it also as we work through that process and we will be having public meetings prior to that time anyway a cause servatius commission report on page thirty three forest fire warden report on page thirty four here in california i would take the whole route to the energy committee report on page thirty five to thank them for their for all their efforts civil marriages thirty seven thirty eight and the cases where operations plan on page thirty nine that concludes the report of town officers and committees there are reports of outside organizations i don't know whether individuals are here but we can run through and see if there are any questions or any supplementary comments the two hundred fiftieth anniversary i was going to put in a plug to get those t shirts any questions or comments the report is graced by our collective pictures i'm sure you've all found yourselves in them they are available for purchase the american red cross page for forty two three i note in passing that i have a bill to brag to my friends for the first time in forty years i can commute to work by bus it's amazing doug richmond just wanted to ask and i working well what i what i can say is it creates a new sub community with its own decorum you know which seat to take and which book to read and who to talk to and who not to talk to i think there are probably more people from my observation that get on me and in underhill probably then than jerko or any place further in and i'd say the bus when i take it which is the early bus into the early bus home is is probably two thirds full at this point so i i think that's good got to remember there are too many people that are going out in the morning at six o'clock either so you're paying for it both ways so by i don't know what the business plan is and the like i think for those people that use it  i haven't heard any complaints solid waste district page forty fo essex rescue page forty seven the jericho underhill library district page forty nine the jericho under the water district page fifty mils riverside park page fifty two  a question i asked was about the expansion capabilities of the water district the pump right across the road here you know what what capacity had and it didn't seem to be known at that time in sense and i've been kind of watching and looking at that thinking about the fact that you know we are growing area and looking nationally and internationally the crisis that we have on water quality you see in the news so more often how important it is communities have drinking water and i also notice that there seems to be a like a fans around our our water area and it's it looks like it's on a fairly small piece of property and i had to wonder what the what the protection zone around  system is when i saw a building go up pretty close to it and we have no municipal septic in our in our town which means it isn't you know private  to me it looks pretty close and i guess the question i have is is a protection zone around our municipal water supply the same rules and regulations that of that only would be applied to like a personal water supply i would have anticipated that there would be a large area around this and be protected and so i guess i just want to know where where we see the future of the water is there are isolation distances around municipal water supplies those are directly controlled by the age and natural resources i would assume that the property that you're talking about when this state or a few the waste water and water supply system that there would have found that special review because of the close proximity to that municipal water source so i do know about is and that's a separate process from the just the state perm some property mentioned is in the wellhead protection area but there is special circumstances which protect the water supply for example there's two clay layers between the top of the ground and the water supply one would be sufficient but this has like double protection and it was reviewed it was protected by the permit by the state and  there's no danger to the water system from the chill on top of that the soils in that area where are exceptional because it's riverbed gravel down through there over the years so it produces a nice link to feel that there is actually you have to be careful that is not too much per me ability and the clay barriers protect that in the areas actually completely developed on the farm has been preserved by going through the process of reducing loss sizes so that harm could the majority of the property in the house that bill was built on a quarter acre to preserve farmland and keep the area and its gone in the deed that can never be developed anymore so this is one answer that the town undergoes come up with to preserve farmland and keep open space and in this situation this farmer got his money out of his land without ahead i thank you all for the input on that and i didn't question that it was done properly or not i just wanted to express an opinion on this for the future and for our children you know the browns river we are the responsible patrons of the browns river we are the headwaters of it and it is one of the more pristine rivers in vermont because of that and i just i think i would like to see planning in our town such that we preserve the browns river and the quality of the water perhaps even up of and beyond the requirements of the state i hope that we can you know as as town planning goes forward that we can look at this and make a sacrifice for our future and we want to collect money for future i'd like to see us preserve our water for the future and i hope that we can really really make effort to go above and beyond the call of duty for the state further comments on the order districts or we have proved to the mills riverside park on the school house taskforce page fifty three oh my name's todd fisher i'm the chief of the fire department here in underhill in jericho first i think i have to be clear i am a resident in jericho so i have to ask permission to speak here today if there is no objection thank you throughout the year the budget from the fire department is put together by the chiefs we review the budget and we present it to the slike boys i want to thank them for their support and actually the town support throughout the year to do that we department i was asked for more detail on how budget requests the outcome is what you see in the town report we have broken now and provided more detail to the taxpayer funds received by the towns provided a clearer statement of our reserve accounts and any transactions a concern in those accounts and have taken on all dollars associated with the river of land and placed them in a separate account with a spreadsheet shown we have also provided that graph this is to the payroll expenses in the volunteer full time employees so that that's what the meeting and meeting with this like boyd has done for you guys stands for the insurance service office and p p c stands for the public protection class evaluates provides public protection class ratings for fire departments for insurance companies to use to help up set up homeowner insurance rates improved race would mean better protection better fire protection and the possibility of lowering your homeowner's insurance rates the project has mainly involved in proven record keeping of our trainings documentation of our process of fire person pression and water water supply and refill locating some of the equipment on our trucks we are very proud to report that they under her dark a fire department has improved our i s o p p c rating from a class six nine ten being the worst no fire protection to a four six these improved ratings have just taken effect as of march first two thousand and fourteen depending on your insurance carrier and crude ratings should translate into significant savings for the homeowner insurance and the four six rating obtained by the fire department is the best rating of any volunteer fire department engine in the county as it were we are aware of the fire department website has two links that of independent studies that talk about the improved i asked our ratings for the public the short story is that these improved ratings should translate into additional savings to you as homeowners and taxpayers because of the under fire department in our performance of the backing of the town's thank you question thank you note i'd like to know a couple things about the reverse property number one has there been progress in communication between the jericho select board and the fire department as it just position of that property that was given to the fire department and the second thing i'd like to know is if our selective board has also been involved with this issue even though the properties in jericho it affects us because it's a underhill jericho fire department issue and i would hope that our select board would be involved also there were quite a few meetings on this topic last year and the last thing i heard was that they were that the select boards and the fire department were going to be talking to each other and coming up with a plan and i haven't heard of any plan those meetings have been happening between the towns and the fire department as far as the proceedings of moving forward and where we are i think that's in the in the goshi ation i think randy h clarke here is the chairman of that committee he may be able to comment only express my thoughts on that week ago from last night at the downhaul the town committee presented its proposals all for the transfer of the river property to community ownership it also provided written copies of the two independent valuations that the town had commission there was substantial discussion in numerous questions at the end of the huge  committee in the kate is that all there clarifying questions had been answered but there was not enough time for the huge the as a whole to provide a response of prior to town meeting in view of this the town committee you requested an extension of the march first deadline for forty five days to provide the u g the was sufficient time for its internal processes and for any additional meetings which may be needed to bring the matter to a successful conclusion the huge a being answered that they would not be able to respond to the request for extension before town meeting day but will do so after their next meeting the underhill slot board would fit into the equation that's my personal opinion board members might feel differently but i was surprised during the property discussion to learn that they're actually a nonprofit and i would just like our select board to consider whether it might be appropriate given that they provide such a valuable service to the town and we every year and turn to contract with them and the town works very closely with the fire department to consider whether it might be appropriate for a member of the select board to be a part of that non profits board of directors because the services that they're providing tical to the town and that way the town would have more and understanding and a say in how we under health care fire department the nonprofit functions just a concept i would just my thought to that would be that there possibly may be a conflict of interest it's a good thought but since we approve the budget of or we don't think from my experience on this like boy today that the fire department done a really good job of keeping us in the loop i feel informed by them they're really clear in their budget items they come to us with any time there is a question i think also i feel well informed by by the fire department throughout the ten years that i've been here for the questions thank you very much you have moved and seconded to accept the report of town officers ready for the question or was in favor of accepting the port please say i  ice have it i should note here that even in the moderators manual from the state it says the effect of not accepting the report is unknown four shall the voters approve total highway funding expenditures of one million seventy nine thousand three hundred sixty two dollars of which nine hundred seventy seven thousand three hundred sixty two dollars  raised by taxes one hundred two thousand by non tax revenues pursuant to twenty four vs a paragraph or two six six four similarly is their motion to place this notion motion for the body of the artic some want to move it it has been moved is there a second is a move and the second that's been moved and seconded that the voters approve total highway funding expenditures of one million seventy nine thousand three hundred sixty two dollars over which nine hundred seventy seven thousand three hundred sixty dollars should be raised by taxes one hundred two thousand dollars by nine tax revenues pursu discussion you may notice we have some increase in the highway budget and i wanted to speak to the majority of that increase today so that everybody's with more informed on on what's going on there and it seems to point it out it's always more expenses and it's good to understand why they're more expensive rather than just random expenses the town garage on new road many of you are familiar where the it was built in two thousand right around there i to explain quickly the structure of the building it's a metal structure in case someone builds a big metal frame and then you take a bad insulation and you wrap that over a metal frame and then basically you screw metal to that so it's like a sandwich ok these are structures there they're probably not the best structure one could buy but that's what we bought as a town they are very common they usually have about a fifty year shelf life so it's what it is as a building it was built quickly after that building was built there was a water issue leaking water issue so when you're working in the town garage there are literally parcels of water throughout the garage and dripping coming down from the ceiling this started very early into the buildings history the the the firm that built the building was contacted there were some legal actions there was a smaller there were some small repairs to me there was a small amount of money set aside but that that can remedy the situation in about two thousand and eight or so it was discovered or someone thought that this the issue was due to condensation so a firm was hired to use open cell spray foam on the ceiling and on the metal structure of the ceiling unfortunately the material that was used as an open cell phone not a friend of a fire department and these guys are in there working with welder sparks trucks all sorts of stuff in a very very flammable environment so unfortunately this so the ringing down problem continues to happen and we have used some of the monies that were set aside from an earlier settlement i should say with the firm that build it and we hired women and lanphier which are engineers to look at the building it has been concluded that the buildings issue is condensation another word so that you have a cold building on the outside during the winter we bring in a lot of warm trucks from running all think have a solid idea on how this can be remedied basically you have a metal roof ok what you're going to do is lay foam on that we exist in metal roof couple layers of dense foam and then put a new metal roof on top of that so that then would create what they call a cold roof the warm air that rises up now it's a cold roof less condensation the next part of this step also though would be to remove all the foam throughout the building it's a labor intensive activity it would take literally man hours of screaming cutting removal of fiberglass and foam putting it in dumpsters hauling it all away leave then third part of this process would be to put in air exchange system in rather than just running a fan sucking all the cold air out of all the warm air i should say to get some fresh air into the air and be using a heat exchange system that would pull you know grab some of the heat going out there recommended by people these days rather than just pulling out which would again cut down on the humidity issue from the trucks that the trucks are creating so the bomber is it's a lot of money and in our budget we have about one hundred fifty thousand dollars in there for that so that's the largest increase you'll see in the budget on the highway budget approximately demolition of that part i talk about taking things out about twenty eight thousand dollars and again these are approximations especially for the labor it's a hard one to nail down until we get into the project the total new roof forty to forty eight thousand dollars approximately to do that new roof structure and erik's inch thirty six to forty thousand architects mechanical no six thousand so these engineers at this time think it's one hundred ten to one hundred twenty two i've never seen a construction job come in at cost so i think that's a good number but i could see it getting past that especially with the unknown part of the labor in the form mobile there will be a little bit of electrical work needed because of this the box is like a box i've also been spray foam so that's the basic story on what's going on with the town garage it definitely is a pressing issue and we've waited long enough on it and i'm worried for from a liability standpoint if nothing else leaving at that weight is thinking gustafson from montreal this sounds like a horror story of lack of oversight of construction of the town crocked in the first place what kind of oversight is going to to our town i'll put a little plug in from right now is brian bigelow we know about full time town administrator that i think helps alleviate the situation is that on always best handled by a volunteer select board that doesn't have all the going forward the oversight will be good i'm not going to be able to speak to really what happened the past i wasn't there none of this board was but we're putting in places in this town i think we've done a good job of getting that structure in place that has really good of the work that's going to be done to make sure it's done correctly it's a great consideration i'd be happy to consider it in the price and it is a worthwhile i right but the challenge then is we need to have oversight to ensure that we don't do that anymore i can just say if it comment on that i can just say that you know i was around at time the firm that you know we did the renovation on the town hall and the building of the garage at the same time i know that the slug board in the town had a lot of problems with the contractor i know that a lot of back and forth there was actually money set and escrow and i can't really you know i don't know all the details but i know  comment about the inspection is a good one will certainly consider that but we're we're looking forward now and not trying to do all in the past so i'll have to stay guy kennedy  i appreciate the explanation that seth has given him makes it makes a lot of sense based on my knowledge of humidity and dew points and i can understand how a layer of form over the existing roof and then another roof could cure the problem of the dew point against surface eliminating the rain and i also appreciate the fact that the foam spray has to be removed for a fire code violations but it would seem to me an economic times like we are now that the project could stop the assuming that they're correct in the way that the the rain and the the problem keeping our eye on the ball the problem is the water coming down i would think personally that you could stop the project there and going forward with heat exchange and bringing it further seems to me that with consideration to how tight our pockets are perhaps should be rethought fixing the problem as it was presented it seems to me is that would be enough together actually i was going to talk about something slightly different but i could address that concern as a while because i feel like the root of this problem is comes from pressure to try and cut things to the quick on things that we shouldn't be doing that south mention that this is a building that has a fifty year life expectation where you know almost rebuilding it after fourteen years i think fifteen years my personal opinion is we shouldn't be building buildings that don't have at least one hundred year life because if you take the cost of that building out over the amount of time that that building will be serving the town and you divide up we just wasted an incredible amount of money even if we didn't have to do this work and i think that you know the expectation of a sometimes unreasonable expectation that we should spend less money  all the time on things that really shouldn't even begin doing unless we spend a certain amount of money puts us in the situation that you know these none of these guys were on the select board when these decisions were made but they're having to go through this process right now and i think i think if we're going to do it we should do it right and completely so that this doesn't not come up at least for another fifty years  d i think there's other issues involved in this the health and safety of the road crew working in that building keeping fresh air and and the fact that if they're going to keep fresh air in it that we exchange heat properly and cut down on the energy bills of that building as much as possible i think we really are i i'm glad that has brought this up in this way because i think fourteen years ago the select board should have had the ability if if they did have a capital plan in place they would've had two projects two major projects happening at once where they had to cut the budgets of them significantly in order to get the bond vote through they would have had the ability to stand in front of the pound and say you know we want to build a building that's going to serve this town for a long time and while we're spending a lot of money right now over the course of that building's life it's going to save money for the town in the long run and so i really think we need to just complete the project to do it right and i hope in the future when we consider other building projects that you know somebody can stand up and say you know this does seem like a lot of money but it's going to pay off in the long i'm julie and kristen and along the same lines i guess my question is me for this but is it cheaper to start over to build a new building rather than redoing the structure that is there sometimes it sounds like a lot of work to fi quality and the way things are now in rebuilding something like that would be i mean i don't i don't want to throw a number at it massively different and then have other thing as we you know we should build things right in the beginning but i'm also a believer in you know we do have it it's not it can be fixed it's not the worst thing in the world it's not the worst building in the world you know scrapping this thing at this point it doesn't seem i get it that bad either i think for this expense you'll end up with  a pretty good building for quite a while  as a builder for the last thirty years i would like to remind people that technology has really changed rapidly energy efficiency is really change rapidly materials  change when i'm building houses it seemed like the state was requiring this has to be done this way and then three years later you can't do it this way and then i was dealing with moisture issues when our houses got tighter and we're dealing with foam now and promos it used to say that the people who originally built this building were being negligent and you know they were working with what knowledge and technology they had then and i wouldn't cast any blame on them they were probably serving us the best they could with what they know i because of that but again let's look for the future i think those are great points technology has the building is a good building still is a good building not where scrapping we're going to fix it up the best we can and the roof is fundamental to doing that for the discussion of the motion i have a question in the since we have this problem why don't we use the other fund that we set aside for these type or ramp capital improvement to fix this issue well again i addressed that earlier you know this is a fund that we're you certainly could be the easy way out to take that money and put it right towards the towards the roof and then the fund would be left empty i think well this is capital improvement i realize but capital prove it also needs to be it also needs to be we need to be able to sustain the scaffold proved that if we could continue if we could leave money there is a little bit of seed money if we it's something that needs immediate attention use that seed money and then try to try to come up with a way next year to two to add to that five and to try and build that capital improvement five and then we can start spending that money you know at a rate and hopefully be self sustaining but just to take the money is this just like it's very similar to the the education problem where you know there's one one time money one time money gets used it's not there next year so our hopes are to build the capital prove the fund that's the reason why we did not use or did not opt to propose using that money on my option would be just ask these people that put the money they are we going to take more money from these folks to the we're going to use what they've already given to fix a problem we know exists today i appreciate your  i thought i had a hand here was just getting a stitch any other comments or questions shelby cain this this gets to the point i was trying to make earlier kind of speaks to this this whole conversation that it might be appropriate to establish a ceiling number in the fund or or give the community some sense of what what the town hopes to have in the in the savings account so to speak what is that sustainable number or give give the community idea of what you hope to save too and then establish some protocols for spending that money whether it be or perhaps even to establish some sort of cost for how you say into the future so maybe in this plane you've done a good job stretching out for the next five years some capital expenses with new equipment etc and maybe it's appropriate to say we save ten or fifteen percent of that some number over the next five years over the next five budget cycles it's a it's a fixed number that the community can under understand and see you know let's just pick a number of weeks a hundred thousand dollars and then each year the community understands that that's the number that you're going to be looking for as part of the tax you know feet reaching into the pocket as we've said so i don't know that might you know just set some ground rules i guess how how you intend to spend the money i know you want to build it up but at what point and to what percent do you do you use it or turn finance officer feels that five hundred five hundred thousand would be a solid number to have in there and then at what rate it's used in replenished i think that's a longer discussion particular remember that you've got to remember that a lot of things in the capital improvement program were in the budget before you know you look at the class three our class three paving you know we used to call that resurfacing was in the budget on the highway budget was a line it's not really we've consider that a capital improvement because our that asset is degrading and and all of our assets to create a certain percentage so that's the percentage you should really be aiming for to put away every month or every month every year rather depreciation is more the word i'm trying to use i guess so to get back to what he said you know i agree we do we do need to think about these things and that would have been high on our purty list if we didn't have a full plate already but these are this is something that needs to be addressed in the coming year  man pleasant valley road i just want to point out i think this is one of the great values of this capital improvement program because we're talking about dodging a three hundred thousand dollar bullet this year but our total expenses next year for capital improvements go from five hundred thousand to six hundred twenty thousand and the year after we go to six hundred fifty thousand we have got to start programming this stuff in or the town is just going to keep falling apart i mean we need to do this and so we might develop this year but we'll be back for twice as much next year with no recourse and no no no question there in case we do run up against an emergency so i think this is a really valuable use of this we see now why it isn't going to be such a great idea to sort of save a couple of bucks today and just wind up paying it to morrow so the information is right here in the capital improvement program we're going to have to follow it years we approve the set amount of money to go back into that fund to recoup the cost so you can do that plus interest you know you make that interest and principal payment every year back into the cia before on the help generate the revenue so the five years you get your hundred fifty thousand back plus whatever the interest would be that would especially be good for like the dump truck that we're going to buy right now we're going to feel that interest to a bank when we could be using that money to pay back into the cia before and i'm not sure how much of it the interest rates going to be on the truck bu to be very low we have a very good you know we can borrow money very low rates i would add that this this money or the highway expenditures that you see here does not include the truck the truck is an item on the separate ballot so those have to be approved first but socially if you were trying to do what you're trying to say  sounds to me like what i am partial to sounds to me like what we're actually trying to do is set up an endowment fund and if we build it up to a certain level then we would be able to spend the if it's properly invested we'd be able to spend the pretty massive amount of money i mean most people look at their own about their own pension funds if they're trying to live off of that's the way it's face that it's a fact of a way to do it there's only certain ways we can handle money and we can't invest money in the open ahead you know you'll notice on this the ip this year there is no money for gravel road improvement we actually take the king and forward and this is happening in many years due to the us non wanting to raise taxes more give a higher tax rate  you'll notice that that dirt road funding is not there so that the tax rate stayed lower you know because of the roof so we have taken things and tried to make it easier tax wise but the expenses are only going up taxes in order to raise this money when there's no ways about it either we have really bad roads for example or we fund the cia to get money in and then you can fix these things but this year there is no money for dirt roads just due to loo the small amount that we have to do id yet that's in the future that's why you see that higher number there we held off on some things some paving some of those things that's not to say that if we're in a good position the spring will catch up on some of those things so maybe that's is getting we are following gustafson poker hill road again sorry talking about ongoing maintenance of roads and things i'm wondering why every year we have to fill the potholes and fill the potholes  say is is we do the best we can with the money we have the reason you see resurfacing like a sherman overlay is that sand little layers that you're talking about well after a while the the pavement is thick enough we can then reclaim that whole thing so you need to get into the six to eight inches range to do a proper reclaim job so the showman and overlay serves a short term purpose but in the long run will be able to reclaim all that amount of material and then construct a better road so it's on to find out on top of that too with a lot of the  that you're seeing it's due to a really poor substrate below the pavement level so you know a lot of our roads were built a really long time ago on top of stumps literally especially something like pleasant valley road so things are always heaving and moving so over time what you want to do is not just get up the pavement but actually be doing the base of a lot of these roads again an incredibly financially intensive exercise and you know you can always put that in the c i p of improving you know quarter my or half mile at a time maybe per year if you're lucky but we have a lot of miles of dirt and pavement so that it's something that we basically don't we don't pay enough taxes to keep the roads how we don't like to have them it's just not possible idea however i do sense a little anxiety in this room that about the capital improvement project which i'm on board with but i sense a legs idea that we're solving money away with on a clear exact plan and i just propose maybe to get everyone on the same page here whether the the roof is a really good example sort of a proof of concept here and that maybe we could get everyone on the same page of we do take a small amount of the capital improvement and allocate it to the roof both as a proof of concept of what you're trying to do for the future maybe we do some of the sting of the in a more symbolic than maybe actual way of the roof you know let's take ten grand out of the sea ip or something like that and throw it at the roof so that people who i think i can kind of sense of the temperature of the roof here maybe like the idea but not sure how you're going to use it and it seems like this is really an opportunity approval concept and so i'm wondering if this would be a way to maybe you know reduce the main budget by ten grand in subs to do that with ten from the c h p kind of shows how this is going to work in the future so that everyone can kind of get on the same page on this appreciate your thoughts comes to what's coming out of your money out of your pocket for taxes two to five this article for highway so while i appreciate what you're saying i'm just not sure total of highway funding expenditures of one million seventy nine thousand three hundred sixty two dollars of which nine hundred seventy seven thousand three hundred sixty two dollars should be raised by taxes one hundred two thousand dollars by non tax article five we have two components remaining article four i which is to transact any other business thought proper when met and then the australian about discussion with regard to article five  occasion when no binding action can be taken by the body but balancing that out almost everything can be discussed so other issues to be raised under article five more i think some of you may have seen my letter in the last mountain because that last year we had an opportunity to buy some land next to the little post office and under health center  very much need some land for parking at some very very very unsafe place just to pick up your mail and that little house is  the house and probably will go but the land is available through a reasonable amount and it's been said well perhaps it isn't going to be a post office in the future that post offices in the on the short and maybe people have a different look about it in the fall th right next door and it's all in such a small law we certainly were we would not have entertained or made any kind of an offer a close to what the offering  price or what the property is being offered at right now which i'm not sure what it is but at the time i think it was assessed value which we thought was very high so i could just tell you as a ford  we were to entertain that we would certainly be offering a much lower amount of money to purchase the neighboring property where the building would have to be torn down don't like to speak to this too i grew up in the middle of town and it will know it's changed in character dramatically i used to go to ride my bicycle without worrying about cars i could walk across the street even looking we have a lot more traffic and there's a lot more demand for parking i grew up across from the right next to the st thomas church and that was a nice little dirt road with maple trees and the beautiful point with a home which was kind of the center of the village that that little home is gone and i was marguerite kavanagh's home and it was beautiful it's a cute little thing and it was it was very very quaint looking in the center of town now it's a pay parking lot and i can't say the same for my appreciation for the ascetics of the pay parking lot and so there's two things to this for me one is spending our money appropriately for gains and then are we going to pave the whole center of town i really don't like the need for having more and more parking lots but i have to acknowledge  if we do need to spend money i don't want to see supplying a lot that's way overpriced and i agree with you in that really the sest value of the especially when you consider right across the road which is only mean meaning that if you're one of the post office you'd have to walk across the road versus the next door to wait for parking there's a much much bigger alive i don't know what the asking price of  sure it be left negotiable but i think if we're going to spend money and we need parking lots let's make sure that we spend it wisely and also try to have this little impact we've already lost the house across the road personally i'd love to see that little place rebuilt by someone and it becoming a home keep in the center of our town with the homes instead of parking lots you know i held my peace last year about this issue i voted yes we should investigate the option i agree with that and brad that this is something that with the town it's a missed opportunity if we don't take advantage of it that house there now is an eyesore and a fire hazard and i think it's about time that it was knocked down and something positive done with that law whether it gets paved or made into a the hardest issue i run into is something like this is as a slick person it's the cart before the horse it's very hard to look at anything like this and tell you know what for a sign tell you can negotiate with someone or talk with someone  from a real estate point of view yet at the same time you always want to respect the voters and not be talboys as a slack or be into real estate ventures and so it's really really hard and i don't have a solution to be perfectly honest with you i was also on i was one of the people actually brought up about this this this property and should we look at it but when the voter said no i had i had to listen to that and then if we go back and say idea sure this is something we did with the gravel pit we have had a few different times in a few different ways it was really frustrating for people and caused a lot of anxiety so i just don't know how you come back with a question again especially when you don't know the finances of it and there's no way i can have a discussion as a select board about the finances of the lot without having the voters hind us to do that so i would i don't really know how we proceed to be perfectly honest with you i would just say again it's just to investigate i don't think i have most of the people in the room don't know what the price was i think of the soul that this is just again  investigation or looking for the right word it's not obligated to town to purchase  if i'm right so where we're worth of owner thought it was worth a million bucks if i'm right i think i saw that offered again and then they were with complete attitude nearing and lotsa gravel on the lot it was available for a little over three hundred thousand which may be more realistic i'd be interested in both the highway for mine and a as a nearby gravel if it's true of all that the engineering has been done hi i'm david rogers i was on a gravel pit taskforce at the time setbacks for that piece of property for a gravel pit do not fit that plane that was in place at the time that the engineering company gave us would never pass her own i guess i would just further add also that you know it's a great source of gravel but that also comes at a price comes at a price of operating a gravel pit comes at a price of you know it sure you can you would have access to a lot of gravel but it still costs money to put that gravel on rebuild our road so we just feel that i think it's much more cost effective for us to buy the gravel concentrate on trying to fix fix our own roads comments under article five carrying on we will move on to the astray about discussion article six is not for discussion because it is the election of town officers as required by law article seven children voters of the town continue to again no action will be taken here this is a stray and ballot seeing is very discussion on article eight shall the voters of the town revisit the tax exempt status of maple leaf far my name is bill young i'm the executive director of maple leaf i'm not a resident of the town if there is no objection we will guided by a lot but we don't have any sets of the title meant we appreciate the support that we've had from undergo over the years i just like to make a couple of points on the subject and i can be brief there's been some discussion about there being two different ways of obtaining tax exemption one of which might save the town considerable money we're certainly interested in exploring that but since i didn't know this was coming up until i read the free press article last wednesday and our attorney who works with these issues is on vacation we haven't had a chap's to properly look at it and and i've i've looked out of enough to know that i'd need some sublethal advice about it but certainly if there is a way that protects the interests of rights of the people i serve in that would help underhill financially you know we'd be glad to do it so we'll be talking to our attorney about that and we've got to do it regardless of the outcome of this of this vote today something that we deal with in any event secondly i think there's going to separate from a number of people that think that because we've grown in size that we must have a lot of money so maybe there are some some some funds there i'm not sure i'm i'm not sure size and money are a criteria under the law but i understand the rationale for  thinking about that we have good years and bad years but the fact is this is the worst year in my tenure here is as almost ten years as executive director of maple leaf farm for residential substance abuse programs in vermont in spite of the governor  medicaid and state funds although even mediately taken strong action to deal with that we project about eighty five thousand dollars deficit this year valley vista across the state for the five hundred thousand rutland because they're smaller and concerned about whether they'll stay in business i'm captured about our future at maple leaf farm because of what we've done but these are difficult times for a saw just as just as you folks struggle with with money as well and i understand that but i don't want there to be any illusions that were like scrooge mcduck i get up in the morning and dive into the vault of money food we've worked hard and at a substantial expense to be contributing members of our community we've invested in more staff and facility improvements to ensure that we're good neighbors for those who have immediately around us and any of you any underhill resident who needs our services goes to the front of the wide whether it's twenty five people on the waitlist or one hundred you may not be number one depending on who is there but but you go to the head of the law and you don't wait for three weeks or four weeks to get to us and any of you who need help and don't have the means to pay for it come in for free numbers vary there's always somebody from underhill over the last year there were five there's been a few folks who needed the financial help and we treated them for free and we're glad to do that we want to be a contributing member of this doors we're working to fight this drug this drug epidemic that's ruining lives and the quality lives in our communities i hope that the talent whoever chooses to the year to deal with this immediate question on the ballot will continue our tax exemption but i'll just close by it get here well of course as you know article seven here talks about the tax exempt status of the under fire department on the whole jerko fire department and that's a residents can go for free but i had no way of knowing that we've just these things in the town reports so we just thought we'd well now's a good time to revisit maybe resist this and i want to make it very clear about what this  article says shall the voters of the town revisit the tax exempt status does not say shall the town exam the property taxes it's again a revoke that whatever it's it's it's  it's a vote to have a discussion or not to have a discussion so i want to also make it very clear that the school we cannot exempt the tax money from the school district so each and every one of you for the school portion maple leaf farm is not paying we're picking up that tab so roughly eighteen thousand dollars of that school portion  thought it was fair to bring the voters we did not go to maple leaf farm and ask them whether to put this on the on the warning or not because it's the people's decision and i'm sorry that they're having some financial difficulties seven property used primarily for health and recreation purposes can only be exempt if the town still votes there was a case in one hundred seventy nine that held that held that lands and buildings released from the from alcoholic treatment center to had to have a local boat in order to be exempt let your farm versus town of cavendish seventy nine one thirty seven be t two thirty nine so i think that speaks a little bit to what you're saying there but the bottom line is it is something that we voted in and have the ability to vote on it either way and again as brad pointed out that's not what we're doing here today we're not voting on anything we're just seeing if it's something that we should be because it has a subject and again it came up because this is brad said you know i've been a taxpayer for fourteen years i didn't know until i became more involved in the budget aspect of the town that this was something that existed it was always obvious to me that the fire department was this way because there is something the town report has reported to us so maybe some of the answer to this is just you know  to inform the voters you know to so we can all have a discussion that was really the the precursor to what's what you see here today their steep way it just seems like if you're going to pick on one example of institutions then you've got to look at them all and so there's not favor to them and i think that's what brad said pretty much where we're looking at the fire department the minute that happens the other people say well what about that so if you're going to you should probably look at them all periodic and they should then they should all be looked at  same tony instead of picking one  time there's a big van which is used to take people to a meeting and also take them to meetings in burlington which are designed to reintroduce people into the greater community there's also an s which we use to bring people to the hospitals and to doctors and to dentists that we use that vehicle to pick up people at the airport and at the bus stations and that at one downtown we use the vehicle to bring people back to day one downtown and to the long home and to a number of what used to be called halfway houses there  you might be interested if you don't know this to learn that there are four of these halfway houses that i know of in burlington we take them there to take people there so they can  to get into those houses and again to get back into the community there's four for men in burlington and one for women and burlington there's another one for women in the south burlington and another one in essex there's also halfway houses sold warehouses for men in south burlington and in essex there's about ten of them if you don't understand that we are in the middle of an epidemic of vast proportion here with a lot of people involved you should understand that's the information that i've been able to glean the past year or so this is a huge problem and maple leaf farm is a big component of the infrastructure that's trying to deal with this problem and over the past six underhill it would amount to another cut as a part of order let me inject and say it's important to reiterate this is not a decision on whether to it is whether to discuss who wrote if you can respond to that directly i would i will respond to that directly if this goes through and the town approves having this discussion it's going to take resources from maple leaf form which you would otherwise be using the time and energy and money statistics and everything else that's going to go along with this that could be better used to serve the population of clients that it is now certain thank you any further comments on article eight if not will pass to article mine show the voters authorize the select board to borrow through debt instruments other than bonds not more than one hundred sixty thousand dollars for a term not to exceed five years for the purchase of a dump truck pursuant to twenty four b s a paragraph one seven six other any comments or questions on article mine is there a plan in place to use the cia you fund fund future vehicles and equipment i know that there's a whole list of them and the report were boring money this time and i know you know i fully understand that we want to make sure we have some sort of revenue into that fund before we spend it so what's the plan going forward and is there a plan to come up with that funding so that you know every year we're not just borrowing money we're actually you know maybe put a little way every year to help  we're taking a loan the next time maybe we'll have a little more money in the fun where we could supplement or or not borrow as much  revenues the money will be coming from bank financing as a debt and a further comments an article mine no changes to the being proposed this is merely a clarification and we're making this clarification so that there was a decision and make team seventy two by the select board which still remains in force and it's contrary to the map that doesn't reflect that decision so basically we have a map that was him that was attached to the unified regs when we voted on those in two thousand and eleven twelve that map this is is not correct so we are just trying to clarify the correct map to while there's not a sense of urgency if various casserole burns i would hear about it for a year or so to that extent i would observe i thought the sound was much better and somehow i don't know if they've got these fans quiet or what but the sound was good the chord i gave you at the beginning talked about the practicalities of blooming in a cold climate this is a nuts and bolts meeting and we didn't soar with great passionate issues so much as we dealt with the nuts and bolts of what we need to do to make the town run and i would observe your comments have been respectful they've been helpful and it all makes it a good day for thomas jefferson called motion i know i'm a little bit out of order here but people are kind of departing and i just want to tell you that i have never seen such a lunch in my life as is laid out in the cafe we call it the dining