i my name is marie thomas and i know that you guys are winding down your work but a lot of you are also on the board so i'm going to take this opportunity since i was here at the meeting to talk to you for those who don't know me and most of you do i think my  very thomas and i'm the executive director of our community cares camp which is a summer food service program enrichment program then our compass is all of chip cookies so we have we feed all the children who go to your summer program which i think enhanced your programs effectively because the kids are getting fed twice a day and they're getting a chance to you know taste different foods and continue the good food that they get during the school year and we also run a free enrichment camp that allows a lot of children who normally would not get to go to summer camp to go to summer camp right here in town and because of our strong partnership with the district variables you get transportation so we have this really nice partnership and this year excited that way because of demand we're expanding our services slightly so instead of having sixty children a day from casey six point five seventy and in our middle school care which is seventh and eighth grade which is called leadership adventure camp we're going to have about twenty five a day and we have of close to twenty in terms of kids fourteen and above who are coming to us volunteering their time to get a draw or experience and i have  counselor working right now on our our guides for them to give them guidelines on how to be counselors or how to become an area in terms of how to be a good employee so we've also got a job training program and i was telling john a little earlier i'm very excited because i think we have about six or seven of our former campers this is our seventh here who are actually becoming junior counselors and sheer so i'm very very excited about that because it means that the kids themselves are themselves on the career path one of our campus last year said yes next year i'm going to the leadership adventure camp and then i'll be a junior counselor and then i'll be a counselor so they actually seeing their steps to go progress and once again we have cliff coming one day and they'll be giving two books to every child in our program as well as in the summer program so that's another nice benefit one of the things i want to say you not just to to advertise my program but i want to make sure you guys knew about it i think most of you do but i think that we're an example of the kinds of things that are going to have to happen that's going to have to be more private public partnerships in order to give the kids what they need and what they need richmond they originally after school they originate in the summer i think that the two hour delay that whole controversy i think that's a great opportunity to engage the community to come up with some at richm activities that happened during that time that not a significant cost to the district but again i think we have to be local people fighting local solutions and i think there's a lot of people out there who would like to be more involved in the school and that's a great opportunity to do it so i'm hoping that the new aaa board will really embrace that concept of thinking outside the box a little bit and looking for other models of ways that we can provide more services to the kids without spending more money so we spend smarter and involve more of the of the private community so i'm very proud of the program i'm very thrilled with the great relationship we have with the school district with job and our carbone who's our  host for the summer he's also since of the word so i make sure that everybody's interests are served and the more every time i go to a new meeting or something and hear more research about children he i really still say we're doing that we're giving that to them and giving them are giving their music we're giving them cooking we're giving themselves sufficiency skills we're giving them self esteem boosting things teaching them how to get along in a community because for those four weeks we create a nice little community where everybody's loving and supportive i know it's kind of ideal but at least it shows that it can happen and we're very close if we have children students from the high school program which is mostly sort of special needs kids who come  participate in our program and we're just we've got a place for everybody we don't like to turn anybody away we've got a place for everyone so or almost zero zero most everybody there are some services we can provide you know we can provide mental health services we can provide some some other things if somebody severely physically disabled we can we can deal with that but for a lot of the kids and those of the kids that a lot of times they don't qualify for the services you know they they're not they know they necessarily the academics in the summer time but they also need they need something to keep them active so they know end up needing services in the future so i just wanted to throw that out there and i'm hoping i get to speak to the new board at some other time and just keep encouraging you to you know embrace change or brace the community of the community and rise up and help support the system and support these kids that don't need a lot they just need a little bit of extra and they're going to be awesome it sounds like you are successful and the kids who are participat community exactly as this board winds down we are going on from politically yet is there anything that you can think of that we could know maintainers the poor are working hard but i just think that those of you who are going to be continue being on the board i think you just need to continue to be supportive and and and sharing ideas with other people out in the community and spreading the word about things that we people don't have children in the school it's very hard for them to know what's going on in the school so i'm so amazed that michael marks is or got the support for so long he has no children you know but he's very getting committed to his community and i think now that my child is out of the school system it's kind of hard to know what's going on in the school system so i think there's a lot of there's a lot of misconceptions a lot of misunderstandings as to what what happens so i think you know just continuing to be really good citizens and really helping to support and share that or you could come and help work on my board because i'm getting very tired after six years this is a seventy year and i'm getting very tired and i'm looking for this but i think it's something that's established now that needs to go on and this year i said we have expanded not just the enrichment camp but we also serve pizza at the library in huntington on fridays we used to dish do with the four weeks that we were in session to give that also the break she did it all summer and now i also decided that she really like a break for all summer so we're taking over seven weeks of pizza fridays and honey to add last year we started it in richmond so we have pizza  the library richmond and this year we're expanding to jericho so we'll have pizza friday in jericho and i'm trying to get permission to do whatever you comments and then hopefully next year we can expand out to for a quick manner so that we can do more outreach with food it's only once a week but it's the day that you know summer school is an exception and it just helps to sort of spread the word and to attract more kids into the program so i think i don't know now i think john c more for us in terms of support i think he's does all along i can't think of anything much that i more that i would need from the school district i think that's that's really great unless you have and i know you don't around and throw together a few thousand you know and i've asked for loans and some other things but we've always managed to stay solvent and you know with our improved reputation because the state loves us and they're always highlighting outside asked me to  the women are for them this year and giving presentations i just came back from a tri state child attrition meeting so the words when it gets out and it's it's easier to raise money there people are going to check for five thousand dollars somebody in maine has no idea who they are and it was just like at first it was from a lawyer and i said oh my one oh here's a check for five thousand dollars an hour i was shaking for you know but that that kind of generosity is wonderful i mean fifteen people like that but you know just spreading the wants to take some days off from them come back and she doesn't want to leave the kids the kids form bonds bonds with their counselors that they were during bonds over the years so the kids this is my counselor so we've got this nice is what a community supposed to be that kids have people in the community they can go to and they can trust that helped them grow up so it's very cool and this was all by accident it all happened there accidentally so i was very happy about it huh you see our community care is helping o wednesday lead i don't know that i don't know that we notice in our current configuration we couldn't do that if we could get our vista volunteer in there then the vista could maybe help coordinate activities or things with mark and i have talked about sharing wanted to work on the after school in richmond helping to support a nation and things but in our current configuration we're just a summer program because you mention the wednesday noticed showing that you know we have we have an issue in the summer that not enough kids are getting summer programs while now we're managed to double the number of kids that get a summer program so we're still not reaching all the kids that need food we're reaching maybe fifty maybe sixty percent or fifty percent of the kids i was thinking of that might be some other entity or some group that could be formed that could then help to solve that problem i mean if they need to be a five zero one c three that they c certainly we're going to get their own you know fundraising they can come under us and be like a separate little satellite group or something but in our current configuration we can't do anything right there telling john this room one of the agencies that i have to deal with there i called one day on says i'm out of the office indefinitely as she was gone for three months and there was no she had no backup so i just having subpoenaed haitian issues trying to figure out if i could figure out exactly how to get there then i think we'd be ok but it's it's like this different agencies that funnel different histories down and we fit better on this mission than that mission and you know it's just very confusing so  you have any connections i love you to use them to help me make those connections that would be great you know as those kind of things as a small state so somebody you know somebody who can help grease the skids that would be wonderful but i'm very proud of the program i'm very grateful for what the school district has done we have you know we started off a little rocky but i think every year we've just built we've got a legacy you know the kids come every year that some kids for six years now literally have grown up in the program and i'm very proud of them i think of them as my kids you know and then once when they move leave the district oh and i'm going to have this one this year they left this trip to iowa sneck kid so cute was he so i said and the kids and even they see me in the wintertime and i don't even deal with them in the summer i mean i just raised the money and i take attendance but they come up to me they say i to you're from my camp and they just that you know the name was right for our community care because they you know became unity supports it and the kids love it and it's a wonderful thing and i think we do enhance the summer academic program people you can and pay them as much as you possibly can and try to stay out of their way i don't always succeed but i try but you just had some really good really good camp culture so when the kids come in they feel like they're coming into a warm  embrace and they're just happy there for a few weeks they can take it they can take a break from all the six of the going on in their lives so it's just really nice but i want to make sure you all know me on it and if you hear grant over two days or know somebody who's looking  i want to leave somebody some place work i remember this is a good investment it's an investment in our communities investment in our children it's a good place you know if you go for a chuckle or whatever you know you never know reason we're presenting this my question came to the facilities committee right now we have staff taking care of the fields up at the high school with all of the new fields in the track and trying to keep grass growing on the mall and the idea is that the institutional knowledge can turn over if they could create a plan to help and rich the soils in the fields to keep the rotation going in a proper way so that the fields would stay as nice as they possibly can it would be a good idea and then to have it as a written plan they could follow with fertilization plans with the with whatever is needed to keep the fields going and the facilities committee that was a great idea but that we should do it at the middle schools as well all the fields get a tremendous amount of use any field that's used over and over again and it's going to show where and the example they used at our meeting was wimbledon on grass courts by the end of their two weeks their grass courts  know and basically they were deep analysis on all the things that you talked about and what it should be doing to the soil what they do for samples they do you know they check for moisture and what's needed for the think so i think what you what you have right now is a stack that's the dis fertilizing the fields they are doing their best to rotate them based on the soil structures they may discover ok that particular field has a clay base that one's going to dry out fast it's going to wear down fast so put that in a rotation that it's not happening that's not going to cost us money fertilizer they're already spending money on fertilizer really help our capital plan and the other piece to remember is that those fields were a significant investment we think of you know one point two eight is gone and some additional money that went into it is probably more like one point five more up to you know maybe even two million dollars when you look at all put together in the middle school so when you think of it that way have a history teacher point that you can use over a decade to really service and maximize that investment i think it's of voice use of money and one of the other pieces it is that it really i will think i think it will help the community can communication as well i mean you know what i heard about this twelve thousand dollars my first reaction was ask a firm i have and and the other thing is i wonder if if there could be some help with this from the extension service it just seems to me like that's a lot of money to spend for a study that really doesn't take a mental giant of anybody that knows about soils sorry but that's what i think if you get a soil expert they are mental john and i and i it you're right a farmer does have that knowledge but most farmers are really busy trying to make enough money to do with their farm well maybe they listen this is a consultancy that you hire somebody a farmer isn't going to be able to tell you twelve thousand to maintain and that's up to we aren't sure it's going to cost that we covered up our bases by putting a little cushion on it i don't think that's a very big investment and myself when the fields were mean it was an engineer that designed the fields and ran some some of the premises that were made did not come to fruition the topsoil that was supposed to have been on the baseball field  doing the best we can so some of those issues have concrete cropped up that weren't they originally i don't think having had a plan benefiting from it i don't know what the numbers are in the middle of the middle school fields are used extensively for community use as well whatever we would then send that analysis into a source scientist that the company employed full time and then we get back more of the recommendation is to you know how t fuel you know how the fuel should be used you know what should the crop rotation be that's her stuff so it's it's not as simple as it makes seems and to me having a good plan in place to protect this million plus dollar investment that we have in these fields which are going to get more and more use as time goes by i mean not just you know the kids but you know some community says well there's a good idea  i'm sorry completely lost my mind there's a motion to approve spending up to one hundred thirty five thousand from the capital reserve fund again to pave the meme m m u rear parking lot and the section adjacent to the bus cried again this is something else that's been under discussion for a number of years and we've had conversations earlier this year during the budget process about the use of the money in the mt mansfield more discussion and at the time the last two or the last discussion i was familiar with anyway we were dealing with three entities the idea that had no money in the library which also shares the parking lot and t the whatever's left in the capital reserve will become part of the triple m resources at that point when they decide to deal with this they will have access to that mone that it would be handled the same way we was the hundred thirty five thousand or an estimate or what what was the big it's not a it is my understanding but they are numbers that are faced on roads every spring they become and do the new and challenging obstacle course because prostitutes different rocks move underground and things to shi  some of the education fund has been used to compensate for shortages in the general fund in other words i it's it's not all about it it's not being spent on education and that they have made this shift as a way of being able to raise taxes but getting the money out of the education property tax and this person feels that that people should know about this and also that it really is a practice that could seriously be questioned my concern and the reason i want to bring it up is just that  a lot of people around the state just feel that education costs keep blossoming and blooming getting higher and higher and higher and higher and that if in fact the education fund is covering other things other than education then the public is not being informed fairly and properly as to what's really going on and i just wondered i john i don't know what you know about this but i'm not sure where they directed those money or if it's you know i'm assuming it's accurate but i'm not i'm not aware of where the money for it to be i'm sure this is true because of that the integrity of the individual or how early about it and and his concern that the public was not understanding this and as i thought about it i thought well you know education's been getting so much attacked for being overspending and all this navl and actually it's covering up something else and i guess i'm interested in finding out what that is and i i think i have some ideas about where to look but i  i just wondered if you knew and the other thing i heard was that time are merger was going to say three hundred thousand dollars next year and i be interested in knowing those fakers that's very encouraging that's realized over a period here that we did anticipate one hundred forty thousand dollars in savings directly connected to the merger without that was really  sure there really conservative because they felt that was really important and would give credibility to any position i just wonder about that because i heard a lot at the state house about all this merger saving three hundred thousand dollars and i think well you know how stories get going but i just wondered what the what those numbers were and where they were coming from there's been some concern around the community  that some of the first savings have been from some local people losing jobs and the kitchen being cut back i can't tell you how many people who that saying come to my house for private music lessons you know i do see people they're up in arms about closing the richmond elementary school kitchen it's not a popular decision and it would say we're not closing the richmond kitchen oh you're not you know well  why are people thinking that bad information you know it's it's all over ten i mean it's bad information this is that it would be it would be really practical to cause what it would seem so the that's you know one the schools are trying to do and her thing that i'm excited about is i think it's going to put us in a better position to get a significant firm school there were going out you know very actively employed to try to get that's going to help everybody one of the problems i think that we had was we were almost too small you know everybody was too small and i think two years ago  it they could not stand it and they were upset and they called and they wrote letters and then and there was a there were some claims that it is it is so much better that it was before and first point about the three hundred twenty three thousand dollar reduction in the voluntary merger planning committee report we did list a bunch of potential reductions that add up to three or twenty three thousand dollars and over time we're hoping to am i correct in yeah you're right on the bottom ok further committee report the words