month so that we can get work done that we need to get done and my fear would be that at the end we would run over because for the same reason so  on so when it when i get mine we get this next this current or the one that we just built for we get the revenue statement i'll be able to give you a better understanding because i took what you said to what do we do with drafting new that we received over and above what we're into supporting or what we needed to cover expenses and so that is a policy decision that we have to make because it is entirely possible that with  with people using more water than we anticipated that we will have additional revenue and we won't have to have a discussion we are going to have a discussion about what to do with that so your point could probably mirror screws five hundred bucks or five hundred thousand b and that has been the practice of the commissioners that you don't if you could mention the individual customer or the individual company everything that money problems and so that and then just going back to the this is this is how it breaks out and as you might imagine government it's almost all schools and towns and it's just water i guess there's probably you know if you split this up the fire department be a little bit of that but it's mostly school year and this is the budget for this this now which you see here is that there is even under the old bills in general the three groups were paying sooner you know sort of close to their proportional into that that's people are paying it without consuming water because they're paying for the right to do that and future ok now under the new bills you see not a huge difference i do want to point out i'm sorry for the color here but government went from eleven to eight and that's something that i've mentioned before and that has to do with the fact that when we went from this ystem which was based on  a equivalent bedroom unit right so this is the way the old year used for calculating and and for the schools and for a lot of commercial businesses there was sort of i'm not exactly zero ok but but the important thing is that it ended up with the number of year use for a lot of commercial businesses in for the schools changing or and so so as a result there be the what happened with who got charged you see some more details about this in the second it was not the same for all customers of the so the increase in the in the bills from the old bills to new bills was not the same fortune from us so one thing i  actually find very reassuring about this potty is you'll see consumption and new bills is almost a one to one is that residential properties use sixty three percent of the water and they're that you're actually both correct but let's rather than getting through that i think the next lies will will have a history can i say one other thing when i say without saying what's good or bad just what is so one of the things that jumps out at me for especially folks in the audience all bills for twenty eight new bill six hundred eight so my mere suggest that's about one hundred eighty thousand dollars which is about forty percent increase so when you say why did rates go up it's not so much the rates it's the cost and the and we can i can work with candle to figure out the presidential connections and how many numbers of units in there and what the what's it what it's going to do to the overall structure with let's consider getting the bureau for do you mean for filling an allocation only fill of of an estimated amount of water per quarter we could we could increase good charge that we're charging the town for incident use like like fire flow like hydro plushy like all that stuff that would then go into the the town budget and i think that i think that's definitely something that we can talk about right now as it relates to  some of these reports of the town budget i mean fired her been in schools require some forthright in advance of town meeting in march that that would then to go into effect next july some of the other things which are in the range for church today to meet short term is like can we do it on our own and that might be the the welling units like a minimum point five e r you for each separate well in unit in a building right a building and then the minimum for the business is that something we can do within i can i make a suggestion and i think the whole fire department question is more complex because i think it's not just about per gallon use i think it actually has to do with the value of having a water source available for the card to put out a fire if it happened to your house so we really put a value on it if they fill up the tank put out the fire house that's worth one hundred bucks a gallon it's not the standard per call me but it's bigger than that like the water is it's that's ten percent of our budget it's really infrastructure that it takes to get the water there right that's what we have and then when thing is is we've been recouping the cost of the providing the water but not of supporting  infrastructure that provides it and i think that's that's the like medium term solution is to is to have it be a bigger part of the town budget to support that infrastructure that  these ways of of bringing in additional revenue will help but we need to be realistic about the entire game and also the amount i mean i don't know what the value of that is good for example with the did not have public comment because it wasn't on the agenda or wasn't because we didn't have a public coming th a penalty of eight percent is added to accounts that are delinquent on july first for the purpose clear accounts are considered passed to thirty days per state statute and after the due date on the invoice and the falling policy it is to be followed at thirty days past  a late notice and water sewer delinquent account agreement will be sent to the customer you can't agree when the agreement will specify the delinquent amount the amount to be paid monthly until the bounce paid and should be signed by the customer the amount for  in addition to the agreement for delinquent ounces if we do not receive back but agreement letter and if the past two balance is not paid within sixty days the water insert commission will review and approve the shutoff notices to be sad if we do  certified return receipt requested to customers if there is no response from the customer within ten business days the following monday within ten business days the following monday a pink shut off notice will be posted on the building where the water connection is to  real quickly we're not going to happen i'm an open house during the winter that we may turn people off who are similarly to the spring and there are reasons to do that it's better in the spring when the doors and windows were open insurance and those who walked out were not eligible for health insurance benefits that see no change after researching the various blue cross blue shield plans many and i find that now most of the eleven employees have decided that the blue cross blue shield platinum plan better fits our needs there are levon employees taking advantage of this plan and we are asking that this like work reconsider their decision fund that blue cross blue shield goldfinger and accept funding the blue cross blue shield plan plan and we present the following information of the eleven employees there are five in the single plan three younger couples plan and three on the family plan the premium will be a total of one hundred thirty five thousand  eight hundred eighty three thirty two years for the platinum and the premium be a total of one hundred fifteen dollars eight hundred ninety four fifty six a year for the goal plan the amount the county previously posited to the employee health savings account thousand four hundred thirty four forty eight below the amount previous was paid last year by the town for health insurance then ploy used would still be responsible for the out of pocket expenses and co pays for services under the goal plan the employees out of pocket expense for medical only not considering any prescription for these eleven plans would be a total of seventy two thousand two hundred fifty dollars under the platinum plan the employees out of pocket expense again for medical and not prescriptions would be twenty one thousand two hundred fifty dollars a difference of fifty one thousand dollars to those eleven employees so your perspective i ask that you consider a proposal  we never see thank you and thank you all very much for allowing the time on your agenda for this i'd be open to your guidance as to about how much time you'd like to spend here less than i can keep my remarks to that amount of time i think we environmental nonprofit we've been in existence for fifty years and sustainable community is one of our four programs we have seven energy program forests program and a water program and we collaborate often with both the state department such as the fish and wildlife department as well as with towns who want to work together to improve their natural their understanding of their natural resources and then the steps that they can take to act on that understanding there enters thought i would do is just tell you a little bit about the three components of the science action project elaborate a little on what john mentioned talk a little bit specifically about the technical assistance underway in richmond and then answer any questions that you  so that we components of the science to actually project are really designed to create a broad understanding of natural resources because natural resources are as much about what's on the ground or as much about people in communities there are human communities as well as  communities we can't really talk about one without talking about the other because they all live together so the three parts of the project first and for first there is a walks and talks series that's been going on since the spring and that's what john referred to  terms of helping property owners get to know natural resources and their values so that would include everything from a lecture on bird friendly forestry where you walk around in the woods and look at that nature walk for kids historic walk to look at all our holes here with the forces minister over time a wildlife photography presentation with wildlife expert and then one day i think there was even a community in kayaking trip to understand that part of our natural communities so you may continue to see these being advertised on front front porch forum and papers and it's book so those have been very well attended by a lot of different people so it's going to be a bit connected landowners an ongoing part of the projects that richmond has been very involved in is a town natural resource inventory and arrow what environmental is a consulting firm of ecologists who are conducting this inventory and richmond is actually getting over and above what many of the other towns are receiving in the inventory because as a community that you wanted more details on the ground information morefield inventory and so the conservation commission advocated to have additional money from richmond conservation reserve fun allocated for this and as a result there the inventory that you're going to be getting is going to give you a natural resource map and information that's more detail than you've had to date which is a really exciting opportunity so what air would environmental is doing is specific natural communities so it's very useful to know where those are on the landscape how they connect with your neighboring towns and how they interact with the current development patterns and land use patterns that you have in town so you're going to get out for communities write this you're also going to get better and better to find maps with things like wetlands vernal pools wildlife crossing areas tree cover and a better town wide comprehensive understanding of any where threatened or endangered species that there may be in the town so it's going to be quite a go and meet map it's going to be ready at the end of december and there will be a presentation scheduled for january thirteenth at the richmond library and at that presentation arab environmental zz ecologists are going to give you a written and specific presentation of what they've found so i don't have the time but the date there is january thirteenth at the richmond library so i hope those of you who are curious integrated into your zoning regulations if you choose it can influence what you do with your zoning as you think about what community goals to pursue it's another layer it's another set of information to help you think comprehensively as a community about what your goals are where you want certain things where you don't want other things and so it's an important set of information as you discuss what's important what types of development she go where or stand at that is very much under discussion in richmond right now and we hope that this inventory can be part of a community conversation one thing that i should point out is that the natural resources on the ground the location where those end up on the map very frequently overlap with other areas of community value and that's part of the science to actually project there has been a community values mapping exercise that was held in jericho people came together on the maps and just started dry runs and i like to hunt here i like to fish here i like to gather much it's here i go hiking here i go here for something good and lead we have typically found that those areas that people value for for their own enjoyment recreation peace of mind also often places that have natural resource values and so again if you're talking as a community about your vision about what you want those are overlapping layers of information that can help you make decisions so  third part of this project is the technical assistance piece and that's where the vermont natural resources council and the vermont fish and wildlife department come in so we've been working with the planning commission and also with kathleen jen who's been a big part of this project are receiving customized technical assistance because even though the inventory is going to last take a regional view of your natural resources across town boundaries the ultimate lee decisions about when these are local so we are helping each town for the town to take action when it's ready so i just wanted to tell you a little bit about where the planning commission is on this and i hope that you'll interact with them directly as well as they continue the work and i should emphasize that  assistance is about helping towns implement priorities that they already have that they're breaking state through that unplanned process it's not so much about me talking about things that i think are important when it comes to natural resources though i definitely give my opinion w asked so in richmond the planning commission has agreed on three areas for technical assistance where that like more information in order to take action the first is that there is interest in learning more about of regulatory and not regulatory conversation there's interest in non regulatory tools for wildlife habitat and natural areas and that can include wildlife travel corridors which are important because they connect blocks of land that animals use and the third thing that as a planning commission priority is strengthening town planning language for natural resources as you know the town plan contains policies and those policies are the towns of voice in the regulatory proceedings such as active fifty and section two forty eight so the strength of those policies is very important many many in this room are aware that it and so when we are looking forward to having a conversation with a planning commission about this my colleague brian shoop is the executive director of the n r c and he's the one doing he's also in his marriage diane and he's the one doing the direct article assistance with the richmond planning commission so he'll be meeting with them in the next few weeks to talk more about these actions learn more about  also provided a fairly extensive proposal for providing full services contract services for assessors and so the range if if the town decided not want to hire out  both estimated about would be a week eight hours a day eight hours a week to do the job we thought would be important that that players would want to help someone more readily available so if you provide that makes sense or if you're looking at the budget for work gone from me on the current listers of my fourteen budget that's just taking straight up what what they what they currently been budgeted regular employee is and so it would be employed assessor would jump that would bump that salaried that paid per hour up to what what the minimum or what the other person is right that that's the way we present budget may not be the best number to compare all the rest of them to because we haven't received a request yet from what well because they're waiting to see what comes next will play out but but i think that it has been identified think that lister should be paid what the what the going rate is for a part time employee in the town i mean for me i i value i value the i value of properly determine a great list because that's how our town is supported that's how our revenue is generated by a properly properly assessed are assessed property so i am supportive paid out is a lot less predictable on a contract and close to having an employee it's done that you know but on the contracts that it could be they're saying it's going to take one day a happened since and how we're moving forward and then we will open up when we open up the public comment i am asking you to limit your comments to two minutes so that everyone that wants to speak past the chance to speak  can address the towers and or communication leads on looking at it it a much will broader perspective than rather or one tower at a time in series where we really would be a to understand which towers were absolutely necessary which ones we might be redundant following that we got a letter from eighteen t's applicants basically sa saying that they would be willing to have a forum for all of their applications or pending applications here and rich that's right you two minutes are out yet all the following that  well i'm under the impression the letter from eighteen p they are requesting to meet with the planning commission and the select court to talk about why their plan is their plan and to give us a better understanding they're doing and i think that i'm always a firm believer in it goes both ways i think if we have the opportunity going in front of them that we would have the opportunity to express our concerns and i think it's better done face to face than on paper so yeah i'm very wary of that from the position of this like we're because we would be putting ourselves in the position of speaking for the town  from the neighbors of these towers and maybe something can get mitigated before it even goes to the public service board i don't know if it would be a public hearing it would be to be a that at least in this we can understand what their plan is and maybe they were objecting to they've already fallen out but we don't know because we're only seeing one application at a time i'm just playing think we don't know about it and they may not be part of that meeting but i'd like to get a bigger look at it a couple different ways get a bigger picture to see if those companies have even talked to figure out if there's redundancy  if we need all of those but that on a second level not lose sight of the individual issues with each of the individual towers so look at them as a whole to kind of figure out what the big picture  is and but then also look at the specific issues and their letter did say they're they're willing to put that advocation in the retailers as a whole if we are willing to sit down and have this conversation how that will affect the the coverage the coverage concerns that we have not necessarily what piece of the towers you know what it's going to look like but if the for bird can effect change further down trying to do is prove the molly gather and when they get all together they're going to say oh well no one opposed to it three so the whole project to go and that's what they're going to go to the public service for say you know and it's not put in our letter right we might get a little consultation because i'm sure they're they're probably aware certain things are valid concerns and certain things or they're probably not going to waste time  boards and course and that kind of objection is always raised when somebody is protesting the an application to construct something you say that's intrusive and this is standard r keep you guys to hear these issues so you're getting ready said practice panel and please you have practiced hard now on this interests are competitive with each other and they want it and that's served by the successful completion of patients what we there's there's a lot of strategy i think that we need  to consider and have good advice about and what we don't want to put ourselves in the position of being seen by the site or by having the companies be able to go to the p s t and say we met with the benefit us they're doing this to make sure they can usually get past the p s p at the same time we need time everyone needs time and see it would seem i don't think it's the only way we're going to get it because if we don't if we're here what's going on i think that's the benefit of taking this week but no one should be under no illusion that the i said that allusion allusion that this is it anything you know they're not doing this for the town doing this for put towers up and make money which is fine capitalism but they do need for some it gives us a little time to figure out also that there are other situations where they have mitigated the adverse everybody we're not talking we're not talking fifty thousand dollars here but the commission is not determined never yet so but it will go off pay for the shortest amount of time you can get you that you can fit but if four fifteen is the low that and four or sixty is the truck that you're like this is the truck that we want you know financing it over seven years ma also flags for facilities here at the town center and at the park and we routinely place on the either get worn out of the get moldy over the winter they because they were behind on reserves and chilling and i have no problem with and i don't mean this i'm just wanting to make sure that there is some recollection that this is supposed to go back to where it was after a three contribute to the operations of an emergency services group that you could this is this is a bargain compared to what relatively what another town would be getting so you have a twenty four hour service with provide a service for residents when they're asking for support for this sort of service to continue ask for money and so we send it still so i want to get rid of the g p s a hundred dollars because it makes no difference to them we're not going to you know we're not we don't need to give it up because they're going to give us their services of the debt to be in the curse of ten of richmond pledge one thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars for the school year fourteen think the fiscal year fifteen b n is requesting an allocation of ten thousand dollars or twenty noise which translates to twenty six gives some way to constantly not i mean it's we're giving it to them because they're asking those who are but i guess where i'm at with these is if they're coming into our community to provide the service then sorry i'm fine with leaving the red cross in because i knew during irene when they were here that was a direct community benefit and if cost is directly benefiting this community i would support a five hundred dollar donation not a five thousand which they came in first class and the food shop directly benefits this community if they came in for request of x amount of dollars i would consider i would consider for all we can divvy up a lot of these things you can either cut something to reallocate or you can if you want to can we try to get some specific proposals i would i would propose cutting american red cross by five hundred we are not really in a position to be supporting a charity with ten thousand dollars we're not  yet i mean i love him but i don't think we're in a position to support him with ten thousand dollars and i would propose dropping his rescue out back to sixty four one hundred and further  ok i would support th right now till appropriations it's budget hundred thousand dollars it's gone up too much  that we have to make a motion well you don't have to make a motion today but eventually you'll have to approve something and i'm going to go back and try to make the numbers that came from i can't guarantee you that it's going to be if you say you can amend a second ok so some of these are things that it's in agreement like at the last meeting with the c u s i this for two years i think we just we just hope for more growth well i did what i know i know i've been talking about two years so i think we didn't do it we need to put in the budget i'll give him six months between now and when the fiscal year starts to get to get going again and if if we can take more if there's maybe they can recommend it if i mean there's a big window the moment they're home takes to order and fit in i don't know what it takes for this but if but if we have the people here and stuff so now today right yeah but it people we have to come up with we keep in that twenty thousand yes for the windows yes and the thirty five thousand i mean if it's if it's not it's a thirty five thousand is not coming out of taxpayer right tax revenue and keeping it and i don't see a problem because there may be something that comes up between now and then that we suddenly figure out is truck that's that's in there for twenty fifteen is that what is what is being proposed in the capital plan for replacement dump dump truck it's line eleven dash seven national nine zero dash five dash nine zero zero zero s ok so it's already in their budget yes touch it and then we're going to be paying off the two thousand and eleven dump truck in twenty fifteen right because it's a five year  sixty right so are we kind of like the fire engines are we replacing them it seems like we're talking about replacing it while we're still paying for another one thirty and i'm going to say the same thing we said last year is we committed to this plan i think we've seen significant benefit especially with gravel planned to the roads that have been rebuilt the people who live on those roads are i mean it's it's night and day from what i understand and on the paving i mean we get harsh winters here are good it is what it is we have to maintain our our roads or else we have huge troubles on selfie of that we have repeatedly and worry that our car is going to be out  so i'm supportive of supporting the gravel and paving plan as as outlined by the highway department and the work that they put into proposing it again then we ok i mean even with those overall the highway department i mean i know they're above the two percent but it's three point five percent i think given given the fact that everybody use roads is using the roads every day i think that's my that's the it's our biggest budget item to  the salary line what would be proposed what was put in front of us today even if it stays in elected position so you can look at the salary line and then adjusting the only other thing that would have to be adjusted his social security and medicare and that everything else would probably persist and she read the what was in the government's committee report was eighty two dollars an well for the budget purposes we are looking to increase the hourly rate they were guarded so so we have something right now i didn't say that but so if we if we look at what hines for charlotte underhill and jericho spend on payroll and contract and contractor services it's clear that all three towns or towns pay higher for payroll that's a given but what's also of note is under contract or services richmond pays thirty five hundred times bird pay is nineteen thousand five hundred charlotte is thirty three so we're paying even less for contractor services than what these other towns are paying so what so so if we base it on payroll is is if we increase it just twenty four thousand we would two thousand for mapping and three thousand for whatever   that's been updated through december  and i think the final big item is the unified work program for the regional planning commission for a traffic study where we would need to have a matchup eight thousand five hundred dollars that would be a village traffic study that would and finally operation operation cuts begin to it let me know over the next two weeks what you want to see you all look at it again on december second have another discussion something to consider at our next meeting sorry december second meeting we need to we need to have some members to justify never say the town whether it be a valid i'd rather it be a line item in the budget i and for the public's benefit the town is sort of in a crisis with its website not only because it's terrible and not scalable but our host wants to take the server that it's on so we need to make a decision on what we're going that quite a few public agency websites cross the country it's a very high quality site it has a little pricing it has high recurring fees for hosting maintenance and which is less expensive to develop and has less expensive recurring fees there's no support with it although you can hire somebody to do what you need development costs or very difficult to determine at this point because we don't know how much we need or how much we want and i think it would take more effort to get that up so you probably have a lower you really need to decide something see i think having gone through two website developments i think you are being ripped off i think twenty five hundred dollars a month to month  twenty five hundred dollars a year when really hosting costs a couple hundred dollars a year and so the thing is that no one is proprietary anymore no one and so you're signing up for someone else to own everything and it's just not done anymore everyone's going to you know real time they don't go in and change it if you get word press you can go in and do whatever you need to do when you need to do it and i just feel like you're going to be spending more money and then you're going to end up having to wait for things to get done because this is a proprietary site so actually but with the civics class it's not proprietary to make our current web site provider this is that we have to get that information is we can do real time update with  own anything you can't you it which is not done any more people don't do proprietary sites and you know i just went through this in the last four years have gone to no one does  want with the open source you're going to have to do a little bit more planning i am prone to take that on because i feel like what you have to do is you have to be you know you have a few more choices buy in the end it will take you six months to build what you want perfect really but you can get something up and running a very short period of time because she doesn't she's erica hill yes i disagree with you about the cost six plus because in this town that this budget isn't online that we're discussing i mean i'm bogged down because i'm not making copies and distributing it we need something when you pull the trigger right now and get all our documents online so that anyone can read them whenever they want and the only way to do that right now is civics class and it would be inappropriate i think to do it because we've fallen down on our our basic duty to provide this the digital economy and when you look at them side by side between that one and and any of the civics class even the basic package is is to me it's raising the level of it's it's it's it's call what image do we want to portray as a community and i thought that some of the websites that were on the wordpress and were they looked cheap in the end looked like they were just thrown together and that people aren't spending a lot of time updating and putting effort into it and i'm not saying that we would necessarily that wouldn't be our product but it just sits plus it looks like a professional web site and it looks like it's like the community has prided itself i think if you look at this cost issue is huge and if we can i don't know that the tech person at the library and if there's a way this can be managed in house and i guess i just kind of lean toward local because if there's a problem with color up and she comes over and she was no expensive you know the cost to develop the sixty nine hundred dollars for sort of a difficult life right and for humanity we don't have a proposal right she's working although the basic setup she said would be about a thousand dollars from from there what we have to go on is the sky's the limit essentially you are but i couldn't tell you exactly how much it would cost to get an apples deserve it and they deserve to be educated in everything we see the front of us and the best way to do that right now is to purchase the website that is used by many other this country that wor new plan for the people who are getting insurance that would be a consequence for people who are not getting the insurance right so they shouldn't and you know i looked at it again and nobody does that anymore nobody gives that money for people who are taking the plan so there should be some consequence for those so that there is they're not getting the same benefit that they have gotten in the past because you're not getting the same benefit you've gotten them because  and if they're still going to be the savings to the town well i guess that's what i was trying to ask with i where this came from what i wrote for an organization and didn't opt out and we got three thousand dollars for the family if i opted out but i wouldn't have opted out i