all right i must come to the monday november fourth meeting of the water and sewer commission a reminder that this meeting is is a policy discussion meeting and we are not going to have  open comment at the beginning of the meeting for this for this meeting it's for the commissioners to kind of started stablish ing our policies that we've we've not really had any written policies to date so it's it's it's what we need to do something or other policies are generally relied on the water supply from the state without direct reference to it so we should really have a discussion like that go on when it is account discussion because in a sense folks who aren't receiving the benefit of water service have been paying into the system for that benefit but they're not getting that benefit yet so that money in a sense is would somebody opens up a new account they have to purchase an allocation of water and sewer and or is there are charges per gallon for that so that which they would pay the number of gallons of allocation we said and it's not a thousand pages but it's more five right so so that's another one we can establish when our annual meeting and i think generally it's again it's may or june many how many meters are going to are we going to require per connection i think that's one discussion right and then another discussion is it made me come out of that if we if we say you can you can have one meter per use if we if we go to calculating units i'm not saying that it will be well but we may go down the path a little bit further to make it a little bit beyond awful but there right now just when you walk around you might see a building that has maybe six gas meters on a mountain there might be one water heater right well in their turf unintended consequences so one of my neighbor and i decide we want to be together on one meter oh it's one connection of this discussion yes so what you've just described just to just to define that would in my experience be defined as a practice but if it's not written down it's not a policy and i'm not criticizing when it's a difference so it seems this i think i think they're going to happen i would i think it's a good idea that we that we have a conversation about that and so you're saying that we've highlighted that maybe there's a way we look at the previous year or that the average of that was that was the two previous year beyond their control know an exception to the rate structure it seems to me it requires an exception or variance process and that they actually be transparent groups of varying even if we don't know all the criteria say that some of the things when for their other utilities commission what we do for property taxes not being members were i mean well the state has a program that if you make under a certain amount of money the state okayed the town back for a certain percentage of your taxes but positive one one of idea of rounding up if you if you want to round up that would go into a bonus find and or additional donation or or whatever right i'm uncomfortable building it into the rate structure i know that because then you are spreading it around too to people who are making a good faith effort and not i'm not saying that the that not everybody is making a good faith effort don't take it that way but that everybody is paying the bill some people have more difficulty i don't i don't know if i want to if we should be in the business of means testing or if it just be a i need fifty dollars can you can to make to make the bill this  one of the things i was running the numbers of over the weekend and you know the residential side probably about fifteen twenty percent of people bills dropped in that they're not coming here  stick it back people can apply for it then you have to come up with rules would you give it to yeah you do have to have a little process it's not as complex as means testing but you still have to say when we get it where is it going and how do we give it out  this not in the water superstructure but in the town river revenue structure i know i've heard of towns like themselves not through the state giving people a variance on their property tax i know  and oh and i've talked to ashley about this and maybe this is a policy but just an idea that can be put in a flyer or some points on how to conserve water or how to use less so the first one is do we want to talk about this one first because it's it's already printed out and i think we've we've agreed on what in principle with this one if it's the delinquent in our policy we have something in front of us we've talked about this for the most  richmond water and certainly going to count policy interest of one percent is applied to accounts the day after the due date on the invoice a penalty of eight percent is added to accounts that are delinquent on july first of the private school year this is consistent with our current policy accounts are considered past due thirty days of that state statute after the due date on the invoice and the following policy is to be followed at thirty days past due past the due date a late notice and a water sewer delinquent account agreement will be sent to the customer 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 accounts for the past two balances of three thousand dollars or less will be calculated to be paid within six months the amount for accounts with past due balances of three thousand dollars or more will be calculated to be payment and balance customers are expected to pay the current charges in addition to the agreement for delinquent balances that we do not receive back the agreement letter and if the past you balance a signed agreement shut off notices will be approved by the water insert commission and mailed certified return receipt request to customers if there is no response from the customer by the following monday a pink shirt i notice when posted on the residence where the water is to be shut off in the sh noticed it will be painted on the road in front of the residence within four days of the notice being posted and painted on the on the road a staff member from the water sort apartment was shut off the water her start to the shut off must occur within four days of the post first to notice between monday and thursday and between hours of eight am in two pm restoration will be moved in twenty four hours of the customer making appropriate payment customers account will be charged an additional reconnection fee of twenty five dollars during normal business hours and thi proposing changing if there is no response from the customer within ten business days of mail certified letter a pink shot up now this will be  ok then from that other meeting about this did i understand correctly that the paint shop noticing the spray paint or states just it's in the you know from water it's or disconnect it's title twenty four to to work with and to to get to get them back it's only if they don't follow through or they don't make any attempt to to to rectify the situation that this is what this is what we have to deal with then and  we do this too to protect all users because if there are two one accounts that affects everybody because that means that we're not taking in the revenue that we need to stamp system and so nobody wants a shot of any water but we also can't continue to just let accounts go to limp when people for years and then that's why we allow for three minutes i mean the agreements are negotiate there's no standard that says well except i suppose we are out something some sort of standard but i imagine that in significantly greater situations we'd be willing to negotiate with we want to work for the firm body we want to make it a didn't say that i would say and that it's in the last paragraph if there is no response by the customer following monday posted on the residence i think we should say post it on the customer or the connection because it may  shut off notice gradually we go through another policy that if if they neglected to the great upon terms then that it would go into the  far from a water source in the fire department it's ten if you're close enough to the fire department with water access you get nine if you're within a thousand feet of an acceptable hydrant you get a fire insurance  rating six i'm not entirely clear yet on what the the financial value will be six persons and nothing versus it and his says back and forth between the map the value and the cost of fire insurance see how they treat allocation only accounts and so i have to say that my experience with public water systems is it's all over the  i know there are some who will require a different thing and it's good for three years if you don't do your project within three years you lose your fee and you're going to get back in line there are some who it seems like richmond pays basically an ongoing fee every quarter you think about that and be able to connect to the water system at x amount and that amount is determined i mean i know how it's calculated but i don't know what that for one reason others doubt being developed with the assumption of the elders that they're going to be able to connect to the system but they're not actually who develop it there it probably makes sense to have some cost associated with that  and you can use the sort of say marginal cost of course but you can also just sort of figure out what seems like a a level that that doesn't scare way a any proposal at all i but i think we need to because we have half a dozen connections that that have asked for an allocation they think they are in line do we do we say all right you you're reminding for the next x number of years or to be said you're in line good anybody future you know you'll have to get in line do we continue to charge them on an equal basis or do we the amount of money and i mean i'm not arguing either way i'm just i'm just the realities of it is that they've been paying fifteen thousand dollars a year for the past over many years for the benefit of water service that they're not received and that is directly benefited the system and i think that's kind of what you know when cantor was talking at the beginning of the meeting where and when they've made that connection fee which is which is based on what their float would be so if if a three bedroom home wanted to connect to the water system they would pay for fifty times whatever cost we've attributed to the value of a gallon of water times three sixty five seven would be whatever that amounts to be times the right but for up to one hundred gallons per day the the cost for residential is point zero two four two per cubic foot and a cubic foot is seven point four six gallons or something like that is it's not seven o'clock is  system so we want to set a price for that foothold right reasonable that they are going to try to just that sort of develop yeah and it would seem like it's it might be time limit if it's sort of arbitrary one level somebody want to pay fifteen thousand dollars a year number that we do charge per gallon to charge i mean i have no problem charging the people who want to be in line on a regular basis but i think we need to fight fully decide how we're going to charge them i mean i'm not saying that we now say all these six people you don't get allocation anymore i'm actually just i'm actually would propose that there grandfathered that that that there are men they would be billed dave that they would be belled on what however we choose and then we come up with a policy for how we treat them govern forward not and so i reached out to the school district to sort of see what their concerns would be about if we were to amend that specifically to raise the rates on the schools and obviously this is  take place in the context of ongoing budget discussions and the school districts are having a budget schedule of the nineteen right so that was a reason for getting go and so i think they think the opportunity is is there but i think we should make room for having that discussion and because it is it's it's not it doesn't being a huge thing but it is taking expense that would be paid specifically by the water sewer system users and putting it all three types of users you describe residents business and institutions institutions in time and this would create what works or is the possibility of creating different restructuring or different types of users ye we are ahead of schedule a little bit and so there may be people planning on arriving at seven thirty for a cell tower conversation so  bank anymore as it's it's it's out there it's years essentially using borrowed money to fill the gaps as we gradually increase the rates over over a period of years to the full one hundred percent rate the big issue with that  is some of the bull talk about more of the context of the water and sort of mission the the significant rate increases are the result of the rate restructuring and not lack of revenue as  make that very clear so adding revenue into the system doesn't necessarily get us help to the people who are feeling the greatest in some of the things that we've been talking about terms of  town offices fire district and schools action that town meeting bring to voters a recapitalization plan that shifts water system improvements cost improvement cost to the town action quantify contribution of richmond village businesses to the tax base and advocate for town wide capitalization for some of the repairs some of those that we just talked about in our water and sewer co n where we're looking at the fire ratings and the benefit to the town as a whole christof looking at schools contribution and how that's changed under the new structure i have to think we also have to take a look at the high usage users and make a separate class for them i'm interested in exploring if there's a way to have some sort of different rate structure that we're either in the usages and a lower rate or there's some sort of cap or something on the analysis of the jerk of a construction project and find a vision to set assess whether the division of costs between town and water district is correctly assigned to that one jet that looks like it's haven't really talked about it has really been an agenda item get to kind of the public discussion about what that is basically the more jeff do you want to give a brief overview of what what that very trees with the result the trouble is making sure that you get it vetted you're not just shooting from the hip because you could make a mistake that would sacrifice and develop understanding so it would be something that the select board would pass that in terms of would have to pass the in terms of thing and then any project would also come before the select board that would be so that you know think the maintenance line and we would ask for continued deposits into the capital reserve because the building constantly needs work so if there a extensive i did have an initial inspection and it's not like the whole thing it's been replace some of it somebody has to go up there redo tiles patch tiles and repair the ri get added to the reserve right and we pull from that ok ok so the reserve is healthy enough to sustain i think we're going to have to make make choices just simply because the non postpone of all repairs have occurred we've definitely dipped into the fund for those and i think some of these are couldn't end up being pushed back but i'm hoping that it won't be quite as bad given that our initial understanding with one inspection was that the slate roof isn't as is so bad as be thought ok because i also see carpet yeah that might be postponed all right  we love to plan for the new replacements and modified maintenance but when you have you know too large a c condensers ail and your and your entire heating system failed priorities and right passing elevator inspection and things like that it does it does to them too and that's there's no other place to dip into the funds it's not part of the plan operating budget from year to year hundred the government health insurance so it's a minimal increase of one percent maybe write the without that eight hundred dollars the fiscal change was going to be point to one talented good programmer who goes and visits the day cares for early literacy and she has also little started and plan the curriculum for early math literacy we call it early bird math we have a lot of children's activities and we continue to try to expand that at all age levels and that requires staff to be able to interact with parents with caregivers and with kids who come to the library independently to try to make them readers and thinkers and consider all of the options for the rest the rest of their lives actually really want to make it a positive place a lot of our services are digital i would say that the physical space only reflects a small portion of what we have to offer  content so we have joining together with other libraries to bring costs down we have a consortium database for circulation catalog patron information patrons are now able to log onto their accounts they can renew items they can reserve items they can see what we have is called in safety see what forty three other libraries have this foldings and  library staff are going to be supporting pecans if they come in they need to be able to keep up with that and one of the big increases or you know one of the big places where the budget shifted was that there will be more money put do but they are also things that i want to have somebody else who is technologically comfortable and i did found somebody and i had hired that person at a library assistant one and really he he he was fantastic and he left after five months because he couldn't eat he just and i think i think there's people here who have met this this young age who really was helpful at all ages and could rip apart machines and set up wiring and do h t m l code and i don't know if i'll find the same person but i don't really want to step up  the kind of credentials that are now needed in a library or even in a small town and the other question thank you very much have doubled in highway one hundred percent increase there from one thousand to two thousand dollars if we get back up one second the health insurance hasn't a plan included in it that we're not paying for it right so it's a shift from opt out to moving down to put in rental it's a one thousand dollars increase that all of the capital plan for the gravel cycle from twenty seven hundred dollars to one thousand dollars a gravel plant is showing a six percent six point three percent increase following the capital plant salt were trying to hit an actual good calls were actually don't truck that was pushed up from last fiscal year we got a note in there for twenty five thousand dollars on that other than that those are the unique changes in my way that brings how we have to a three point six million percent increase over last year and that's from one point four nine six million to one point five i thought i mean twenty five an increase of fifty five thousand dollars yes some slight increases in some staff time cleaning some increased hours for those earning officer that is also getting paid slightly higher than what was paid to the previous sorting office or health insurance is down substantially due to the changes that were made at the last meeting i have split what was the office equipment line to include a new about the website thing i've got some ideas about that heat is gone down to twelve thousand dollars which is fading a substantial savings now that we've gone the natural gas water sewer has increased to forty eight hundred dollars and may have to go even higher than that if we make some other changes that we've talked about with the allocation account because this is where it gets paid out the independent authors like the auditors i've increased that line slightly insurance has gone up six thousand dollars and i've slightly increased the anticipated county tax on they have better figures on those in about a month well actually do you think we're going to be able to use it in time since we're talking middle of the year but you know at this point no one knows i don't know we're proceeding on the enrollment plan that we put in place a month ago which is we're wednesday morning we're going to have employees meeting introducing them to the health plan that is going to be funded and also telling them more about the options that they have there is the option that if everybody took the one plan we could enroll on paper directly through blue cross blue shield and probably nobody can know the listeners budget i've carried over the numbers from last year i believe that they're still on discussion to go  living health insurance has gone down a little bit off the supplies are you most wines or are the same illegals staying the same there is slightly slightly more money in contract and that line has gone from a one hundred fifteen thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars to one hundred nineteen thousand two hundred forty two dollars three point five percent increase in the town for the budget needs to be approved by the first week of change so i could go over some other numbers real quick for the audience  but overall the budget has proposed to go from three million two hundred eight thousand zero three nine to three million two hundred sixty thousand four hundred eighty three dollars of one point six three percent increase the proposed tax increase as it stands now in this budget is two point one cents or three point four percent think specific concerns or priorities to use one would like us to look into particularly with the capital plan so i think it's pretty a four year cycle we're placing one each year except for the fourth year we're replacing two by getting a three year lease on jewett do the intro on this and then when we open this up for conversation in order to make sure that everyone gets to speak who wants to speak we are going to limit you to two minutes so that we can get everyone to speak who wants to speak and then if we still have time we will open it can't be to speak again but we would like to be in the hear from everyone ok all right i'm going to make some general statements and then we can move into the specifics so first of all i we thought it was from the date we received the application but it's from the date that it was filed with the public service for which we got a few days after that to jeff could i son email earlier  the johnny brick road cell tower on wednesday six so they will be able to submit comments on thursday to select a board can submit comments or are authorized me to write a letter or statement one thing or so when when i communicate with the public service i'll be communicating the select words a bit i'm not necessarily going to communicate everybody's opinion speaks here tonight exactly but i think it's worth reiterating the good that's all that is to this like what i actually have no jurisdiction averages for drawing brick road balloon test so before we kind of get into this because i think that's why everybody's here on the ladder i don't know if if maybe i was reading  sounded like to be a little bit more strongly worded and i don't necessarily have specific suggestions but but i i know i'm frustrated by the fact that this law is in place and we have no local control over over where these south and looking up the hill righ often two miles and miles i think this is the gist of what we're going to take letters is what is the benefit to the community in terms of increase coverage that comes from these you know so that we can do some kind of cost effectiveness and the huge problem with the whole process no one has come to us and said this is good for you put it up here speculating about a balloon from looking at it from the picture on a small screen totally ridiculous totally ridiculous pairs so the question is why do we need more than one if if we need one which i think there is a need for additional something average then maybe we should be talking to the public service corps and saying ok we believe that there is a need there in to and it will be for the public good but not for five if you can put five on one and that's what the selectors how do you make an interpretation of whether this is good for the town do you just rely on what's in the down play and what might be in line with the zoning regulations or public comment that sort of thing it's not an easy decision there are a lot of people here that might want to talk about it so it would be good to be able to get the impression from the public what they feel about it and then try to develop tools a way to respond  great thank you so i just because it seems like we may have people think two different applications here so we have really good cochran road folks which seems like the last three were from the conference ro if in light of the times here and if this does not satisfy you let me know but i think that we're we're hearing the same thing from everyone and i think that we need to draft this letter has to be charged language i think that the extension is a idea and talking using our zoning regulations as our backbone for that and because then we're not saying no we're saying we want to we want to have a conversation on why and what  but and i think that i mean i think that everybody wants to be able to say that we need to do what we need to for this town but we're not convinced that that's what this is about because they're under the gun to get these done  which is why we're seeing light i think that the idea of looking at all four and not one at a time is the best thing to do so we will communicate that and and i don't know if you can check into the extension piece and see if because i afford or think it's a bigger conversation because there are so many non profits out there that are in need in their basic needs so i think it's a bigger conversation you know what that looks like because we have we have constitution kind of response they got that so it all comes under that appropriations section of the budget and perhaps we should discuss the first week of december or the second week of december that specific area so that would  us be notifying the people who had previously received funding that that's when you're going to be doing away because of the terrible not matched anything in me would be safer than what it is now because i you know we decided we don't care how this parking lot looks with the curbing so why not go the well i'm happy to report that several weeks ago the fire company did a number of repairs to the fire station they got together and they painted the did to me interior repairs to it it was really a strong from taxes and last month the court agreed on summary judgment i think you're still within your thirty day window to appeal if you would like i haven't heard any indication from would like to do that but what this means going forward is the town's going to lose some tax revenue that it had on both parcels there was a partial exemption in  place on both of them since last year on one of them since two thousand and six there was also some current use money that we were getting we're going to lose all and it's somewhere around fifteen thousand dollars a year total we did have an eight year agreement with them where they paid a payment lieu of taxes over what was going to be around ninety five hundred dollars in two thousand and fourteen i'm not sure that that agreement has included any more it's possible you can already on there's nothing really for this like we're to do with this point it's communication between the listers and the appellate and the state and i believe that the value why it went from report i know that some of the burglary that have happened have been in print for trying but i do think we need to make some sort of statement for people to be aware that there are no lot of burglaries going on so that people are watching for their neighbors because it's broad daylight this is happening that's kind of scary there's a lot here and you know i know i've heard before you know we're investigating we're not putting them out there we're not advertising it and then you see other departments tweeting about them so really is your fault you want to do well there's got to be data something right so perhaps the chief could find it and use that to make a decision or show us why he hasn't made that decision is making we i do think that we can't i don't think that we can just say well we haven't considered the data the actual professional opinions of police chiefs in the country so yeah that's a good point ok expenditures ten general got a quarter one is one hundred seventy thousand actual is one hundred ninety thousand variances in one thousand seven that were at one hundred twelve percent of budget and based on the fact that we're this budget is for the year not based on the quarter correct right we're at one hundred percent and were only in the first quarter so is that projected all to be spent in the first quarter do you mean do you mean are we just going to be over by twelve percent just for the first were are we are we expended have we expended one hundred twelve percent knowing that was going to be spent in the first quarter of the year you know i think i think the budget is divided by it is not or he does not know we mean we had that conversation at the last meeting that the budget is the yearly budget right now no this is a matter of all it is quarter but it ok as we don't i mean we don't get seven hundred thousand dollars in property taxes for a whole year all right ok but when we have this conversation at the last meeting he said budgets were not projected by month i think that right i said we don't do we don't do our projections to the end of the year like that maybe there's month they won't have to be doing more financial statements five years is normal and i think that they have consistently been behind and and so i think it doesn't hurt they're welcome to bed everybody knows really what the expectation is on  so you know it is late and it's late every year and that's not necessarily acceptable  mean they certainly could be in here even if we're getting certain financial reports in order they could be in here doing field work where they located services i'm going to stay in their service i will not do so in your proposed budget you didn't put enough in to start with so my question is where's that up comic well what's in the budget is what would be the ongoing maintenance right one of the vendors that just mentioned it really got me the initial one so where's that coming from and i think that would be that's a discussion that i think we need to have because one of the vendors has offered us  significant discount on top of what the initial proposal was so let's just do it now no i disagree i delete i think we why what are we waiting for because since i got on this board we talked about the website and we have a good quote and no one wants to get every one of those that say well first of all it's not on the agenda so let's talk about it at the next meeting and then we'll figure out what the quotes are and what we wanted to verify and look at them look love the fact that they're giving these reports to us it's excellent you know they've really ready with a quarter of their revenues one of the things they didn't mention in the report is where they're at with an outside  if you want to serve sure ok because if we if he did show interest it would be great to get him i think he would be a great addition so i agree  information i was really surprised that they'd been asked to supply information i was surprised that that was the recommendation being made that it was a third party vendor just because it seems like a more expensive  ok that's all i found one page to read in my twelve and i just mean be interpreting this wrong but the sentence is the manager asked of the permit was issued and mr lightener said that one permit was still outstanding do you mean reviewed the warrants and there were no errors excellent excellent to