Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

to order. Update agenda. These chairs suck. Public comment. These chairs suck. Town plan. What's plan to get new chairs? Duly noted. All right. I'm calling the meeting to order. Um, anything for update agenda?

Do not public com Allison can attend. So, she called and said she can't come tonight. So, uh, the zoning administrator update, um, I was able to talk to, um, Nick and he actually mentioned something almost a month ago, but we didn't have a meeting for like three weeks now and it in the last meeting Joel wasn't there and I really wanted him to be there because Nick has let me know that he doesn't he feels that he's not the person that should be the zoning administrator cuz he lives so far away and he can't do anything in town and he feels that the zoning administrator should be there and seeing what you know is going on or report to the DRB and he kind of was like saying he wouldn't feel bad if you if we felt that we wanted to look for somebody else and that he would actually still stay on until it happened and and and if we can't find anybody away it's not he's not going to quit on us right away so and I don't even know if that was in his thing But he was mentioning how he would he would like us to think about getting somebody else. And then in another text he had told me that maybe we should look into finding somebody that can do things that live like somebody that lives in town. You know that somebody can be boots on the ground and maybe look at things so that you could report it to him. But I said I don't know. We talked about that once before and we feel that if somebody's going to do something like that there should be some kind of compensation because they're doing work and um so I just want to know how you feel about that because you know he's thinking about it and I don't know what we should do. I mean should we go out there and post something or is there anybody that wants to do it and if there's going to be any compensation?

I don't. Well, he does get paid. Huh? They do get paid. No, but I think she's talking about the person that would be boots on the ground like she was saying. Right. Right. But I mean like if he's Well, if he the thing is I think the idea is that he's going to give it up and you know he'll stay through a transition but then somebody local will do it but that person would get paid. I mean we do pay the the zoning administrator. Oh, I know that. I'm okay.

I don't know if he would stay on longer if we had somebody to do that. And it's not going to be, you know, a lot of money, I suppose, but or if you're going to find somebody else and advertise or somebody from town or somebody that's works at the town hall wants to step into it. But it all has to be, you know, talked about because I think he's feeling bad that he's he's not in town and, you know, people might be are aware of that. So, any discussion on that, how you want to move forward? I mean, I told them that we'd talk about it.

I mean, we put an ad out for the zoning administrator once before for a long time and we didn't get that many responses, right? I know that. I know James applied for the spot. I don't know if James is interested at all. Twice. What do you still interested? Sure. I live in town. So that would be like a full-time position then, not just a helper. I mean, it could be full-time. The zoning administrator is probably on the average four, five, six hours a week. Yeah. I mean, divide $6,000 salary by 52 weeks and

Oh, he's up to 6,000. I didn't know it was that. Oh, that's good. I I it should it it depends on the you know it should be more but it depends on the job that is anticipated. We always have the question of how much enforcement are we going to do and you know that's something that should be understood before anybody takes a job is just really what's expected and what's realistic in the job of zoning administrator and who would he go to for that advice or you don't

I mean I've been working with Nick and it just makes me realize how many judgment calls there are to make in this job, you know, and things that aren't readily avail obvious and stuff. And it Nick's been good, but uh he's he's doing well. I hate to see him go, but it is true. He's should be here more. Yeah. So what could we could we have Ozone working with him like the boots on the ground like you were talking about and for a while and while he you know Ozone gets to you know know the job a little bit better.

Yeah but to do that when Nick's not even here. What's that? Who's doing that now? Be getting any training or anything if he's not even here. Unless he's going to work with him with the permits that he's doing now or something. I I I don't think it makes sense to have boots on the ground, have the job be split into two parts. It just doesn't it's not that the nature of the beast is I mean, if somebody's going to be here and be doing all that work, then Nick would be sitting down there. You'd have to take the time to transfer that information to Nick and then all he'd be doing is signing permits. I mean, it's No, I agree. I don't pay a point to No.

Yeah. He was he he he only threw that out there because he didn't know how react to him not being there and people might be not happy with that. So what do you think when when did he come on? It's been a year like in February I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is D. You're right about that because it was right about the time that um I took over running all this stuff. Yes, that's when I came up and met with him and Joel Joel and I met with him.

So, I still kind of want to give him some answer. What are we thinking? Well, I'm personally I think that Nick is right. I think we do need somebody that's closer by that can get here a little easier and not have to uh so, you know, just write the permits and stuff and that's it. Well, if O okay so Ozone says he wants to take it, but do we do we need to still advertise? Probably. Well, no. No, I don't think so. You work within the town. You don't have to advertise. you use promote, you know, within. Okay. Well, does he have

if there was a if if Nick resigned and that's creates a vacancy and you are required to post notice of a vacancy. Have we done that in the past? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Every time somebody resigns from a from a from a position, we don't have to keep it open for long. I mean, usually a week, 10 days is Okay. Well, that if that's what you have to do, your your article five just just says appointed by the select board. Pretty simple. Based on a recommendation from the planning commission, right?

So, I guess we need to hear from from him when he wants to get done. Yeah, I think if he wants to send us a letter of resignation, I think he should do that and then we can get somebody to fulfill the position. But I'm sure he's going to wait until you get somebody for sure. He said he would he would never just abandon us. He would work with us until we got somebody. Right. We we in order in order for us to fill the position, he has to resign. Well, he has to give us notice. Yeah. Yeah. Indefinite notice, not two weeks. Like what do you mean? How how how long?

I mean, he just has to give his notice that he I mean, and he's told you, but he probably should just send us an email that says he wants to resign his position. You know, as soon as you can find somebody to appoint to the position will be my last day. Yeah, exactly. And then they could then they can get together, right? And then we can then we can affect an easy transition. Once he if he sends me an email on that, I can post the notice then and then we can and get through that part of Okay. So, email to Mike. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So,

um Joel, do you know is so can a planning commission member be the zoning administrator or does he have to give up this seat and that makes it an agency here? I it's recommended, but I don't think it's required to my knowledge. I'd have to double check. I mean, it's it's not advised, I think, because uh it's just a slight conflict, but I think it could happen and nobody would mean, but I wouldn't recommend it. I would just recuse myself as necessary as long as we had a Well, I think it would be better to have somebody new. Yeah, really.

So, we would probably we could I could post that notice, too, that there'll be a vacancy on the planning commission. That's what I was thinking. It's probably an incompatible kind of because like I can't serve on the planning commission, but so now I got to serve on water and sewer. Oh, yeah. No, that one's filled right now. You're good on that [ __ ] We'll hold you till next year. Okay. Is that the end of that discussion? We'll move on. We good?

Okay. Um the other thing that um when Nick was updating the you know the permits and stuff and Joel I want your opinion on this because it's very important. He you know how the abandoned house on Derby Street. They didn't respond to the our warning letter and Nick wants to know how to proceed. You should send him a notice of violation. I mean, but that the next one is the he we already did the big warning and the next one was the that you were going to go to court or get a lawyer or something. No,

we sent I don't know what you mean by big warning. We we sent a warning letter saying that if he they didn't solve the problem that they would get a notice of violation. So, so now we have to send a notice of violation. We already gave them a notice of violation. Okay. So, we gave them a notice of violation and they have not done anything, right? So now it's one of those situations where uh you're going to need the select board's going to have to decide what they want to do with this because they have the key to the treasury and it looks and it's going to take a lawyer, right? So um we just try to put that Well, they're having their meeting this Wednesday, so we miss this.

No, not till next Wednesday. Oh. Oh, right. Next Wednesday. Uh right. So, um, do we try to put it on the agenda then? Yeah, I think it should go on the agenda to ask the select board for, you know, to describe the situation and see if they want are willing to uh authorize the town manager to hire an attorney to deal with this. Okay. Hire. Okay.

Is it okay? And the other one was um he wrote this whole big thing about the the shed on Blueberry and he just he doesn't have anything that it's it was actually the permit that belonged to what she was talking about or it was an old one because there's no there's a on did you see that from Lisa how it was signed by Lisa that this was the permit that they're talking about that shed? I saw that the the house in question had actually applied for a permit. Right. But it's not completed, right? There's like a whole piece missing of what of the application information. Yeah.

What's missing? He doesn't know whe I don't he he has this thing with the DRB still. He's saying, "Well, I don't, you know, if you could go back." I can't bring it up because I'm on my phone and I can't bring up the what he had said to me because he doesn't know whether um what we're what we is she should she she reapply or have it go to the DRB and see if if they think she has the setbacks or them think whether this what she did was good enough and they're not going to ask her for the 150 or whatever. So, so she got a she applied for a permit. She got the permit. Is this who I think it is? I don't know who this is.

Okay. She Ro that she had the shed yet. They hadn't gotten anything. He hadn't gotten anything. I It was when she got the warning letter finally and it was certified and all. So, Oh, okay. You know, that's when she finally sent this one in, but I don't know if it's a copy cuz it's not complete. And that's what he's he's not sure about. Was it re is this an old permit that she just, you know, said that she's using this one as the one that she's out is out there? I don't think they have another shed out there. So, I don't I don't know. I don't I don't know how to deal with that one. If you could I'm lost.

I don't think they ever applied I don't think they ever applied for a permit. Wasn't that with um something with Beth was trying to Right. And it was No, there is a permit. There is a permit application in for Blueberry Lane there. Yes. He finally did something with the, you know, that warning. Okay. But um he he it doesn't look right. I'll call if you don't have it. I'll send it to you. What he It's in a text. He sent it to me in a text. It everything I'll do for Ginsburg, too. Yeah. Well, if he uh if he don't think it's filled out right, he should send it back and ask him to finish it up.

Well, he he's he's asking what he should do. He he's thinking of sending it to the DRB. Why? That's what is right. Why? He doesn't have I tried to explain the DRB. I says if you look at the picture, I say he has the variances. They have the variances. That's not a question at all. So I I think he's confused on that the DRB stuff. Do you want me to give him a jingle and see what's up? Yeah. And ask him about um Ginsburg too because he has a whole big thing on that of what he what he should be doing. Yeah. I mean the Ginsburg thing I mean I don't know what the first I hear this stuff.

I don't know what we want to tell the attorney to actually seek to do. I guess we would say we can't make the owner of that property tear. They're not able to do that. I don't think I I don't think the owner is capable of hiring a contractor and having that house removed, right? So, somebody taking care of her business. So, I guess the town would have to probably this is one of those things where the town would end up acquiring the property um with a lean and do the work and try to make the money selling the property after we were done or keeping it. I I don't know what else to do with this thing, right?

Oh, we're talking about the one that needs to be torn down there on Derby Street. Okay. Because I was confused here. We're talking about a shed and then we're talking about tearing something down. So, you kind of lost me there. Well, yeah. It's it's just I don't think that that the owners we can, you know, send them all the letters in the world and threaten whatever we want to do, but if they're not able to do that, they're just not able to do that. But I still don't understand if this woman is in a nursing home, she has to have some power or attorney. She has somebody has to have somebody taking care of her business.

Well, that's nursing home. That's what the the attorney will have to sort through, but it it will cost us some money, but you know, it's got to be done. Yeah. Well, it would be nice to have that eyesore out of there. It would be. It's been too long. But it's also our grounds would be public health, by the way. Not not just because it's an eyesore. Oh. Yeah. I agree. Definitely. Public healthy. If she's in a nursing home, the nursing home will take it over because of her money that to go to the nursing home. Yeah. They take one look at that and say, "Uh, maybe not." She can keep that. It's all yours.

It's probably what she said. That's a liability. That's not an asset. That's right. I know. But the nursing home might be in a better position to seize the property than us and then they can sell it to us. Oh, absolutely. They would get the paperwork done a lot quicker than we could. Yeah. Correct. Same day. Yeah. Oh, I'm not sure if she's in a nursing home, but she's she's somewhere. She's, you know, like I I don't I don't even know how I found this, but she's not where she maybe just talking about it at the town hall. I think it's a nursing home. I mean, she's not responding to her address. Are are the um the uh letters getting sent back or if some are they actually getting she's getting them.

She's getting them because it was certified with sign. Okay. Who signed for? Nothing. They she I called Teresa today and she said they have gotten nothing from her. Oh. Oh. Oh. Okay. So there's no Okay. All right. You didn't respond. Um so that was um just something that needed to be talked about. And Joel, if you can talk to Nick about that, that would be good. I appreciate it. Um, and I don't really have anything else going on. I noticed that that guy took his truck, that sign, and put it by by the side of his house. Remember that one?

So, that was good. He did that. And I guess uh there's an issue of uh out on McConnell Pond Road, I think the house that Mark Jervy or somebody applied for is building out there in McConnell Pond. Gene maybe you know. Yep. At 125 and uh we got somebody called and said somebody's going on there and they're building and they don't have a permit. So the last I knew with that one was that Nick had asked for a site plan. He he was he couldn't approve the permit because there was no site plan attached and so that's why there's no permit but apparently there's construction so I don't know for sure what's going on there.

I don't know. Yeah, I saw that email too. Well, so we'll have to I don't know about that, but I know they burnt a house up there on McConnell Pond Road a week or so ago. Yep. Who burned a house? Uh um they not the fire department, I hope. No, no, no. Um um Julianos because they bought that property

and they burnt a house down and then pit burnt a mobile home in the pit down there. It was an issue with the fire department. Both of those were on the same day. So, yes, we're I know it's coming to it's coming to the select board to update the burn ordinance because they these people need to get a permit because they're both, you know, clean air violations that they're doing. They're not allowed to do that kind of stuff. And they're they say, "It's winter time. I can I can burn. I don't have to get a permit." You can burn brush. Yeah. Not I know. I I know that a lot of dumpsters went out of there

just and and right now I saw a load of metals and all that stuff go out of there too. So I'm pretty sure things were separated. Yeah, there were quite a few dumpsters going out of there. Yeah, I'm sure they separated. There's still there's still a dumpster on site because I drove up that road the other day. Is that a not Austin's? Um, another name. Cassella. No. Was it Cassella? Jaru. I think it was Jaru. Dave. Jaru. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, that's uh I know that dumpster is there right now with all kinds of trash in it.

Well, that's neither here nor there for us, I guess, as far as permitting is concerned. Um, anyway, that's all I had on knew about zoning it. I I've been after Nick to get as a listister. He needs to the law says he needs to put a copy of every permit on the listers's desk and we've been trying to sort through that. It's a little It's another thing with with him not being here. He has to once he approves a permit, he has to scan it and send it to Lisa Moore who prints out whatever copies she has to record one copy and she's been putting a copy on the listers's desk, but he should really be doing that. That's really not her job. And it's caused some issue because we don't have all of them right now and we need them. Is there any other discussion? I don't have anything really more from Nick.

So, what is it that Nick is looking for? A site plan at 125 McConnell. Yeah, a site plan. That's the last I knew was the hold up. Okay. I'll um but that was like you know more than a week ago. So was a permit applied for? Yeah. So there is a permit that was applied for. That's my understanding. Yes. Except it's lacking the site plan, right? Which is a requirement.

You know, we don't we don't ask a lot for a site plan. It can be drawn handdrawn on a sheet of paper napkin. No, as long as we know setbacks and dimensions. Would would the shed have to have that? Yeah. When you when you apply for permit you're building Yeah. When you apply for permit, you're building anything. We need to see an outline of the property. We need to know the distances from the walls of the building to the setback to the borders. And we need to know the dimensions of the building. And well, she put that in there, but she didn't do the site plan. Well, that is the site plan. Well, basically it says like 16 ft or whatever.

Yeah. Bu's the building. It's a little square, whatever that with the dimensions on it and then some arrows pointing to the borders of the property. Did not do that. The the form that she has just says the variances and she put like 20 feet or whatever, you know, and she just wrote things in, but there's nothing as a site plan. Right. Yeah. She just has to put that on a just another piece of paper just like and that. Now, when you say I'm confused because when you say variances, what do you mean variances? Well, you know how when you build anything, you have to have your variances to your neighbors, right? Setbacks. Setbacks. It's a big difference.

Yeah. Setbacks. Very big difference. A variance is if you cannot meet the requirements, the setback requirements, then you need to get an exemption authorization from the DRB. And if you're talking to Nick and you think that term, that's why he's sending you talking about the DRB because variances have to come from the DRB, right? Yes, I do. Yes.

Betacts are in our on our rags. Variances are done by the DRB. So if you're using that term, that's why he's thinking that the DRB. I'm not saying that to him at all. I'm just I was just looking at the the application from them and that's what was on there and that's the same thing he got and same thing Joel got. So it was setbacks but maybe he miss maybe I maybe I did say it was wrong said it wrong. I mean if he couldn't if he couldn't meet the required setback in that area then he needs a variance from the DRB. I I don't know for sure, you know. I don't But well, we can talk about I'll find out from Nick what's going on.

Okay. All right. Um, so that's that. We Okay, move on. Yes. Moving on. I'm not getting an answer. So, moving on. So, there's short-term rental discussion. Um, I'm really not into wanting to talk about that. I really I really wanted to see if Michael Harris could join us and try to, you know, make positive things or not positive things, but I'm not if if we were going to do something like that on the short term, that would go into the um zoning, right? In zoning.

Well, you could have a standalone or you could put it into your zoning. Probably best to be put it into zoning, I guess. I don't know. We still have time to do that if we wanted to add it. I'm not, you know, it has to go to the select board and everything like that. I know, but we still have time for that, right? If we were thinking about if whether that was a good thing for our town or not. Yeah. I mean, the update on the zoning thing is you've been reading about Act 181 is in trouble. Yeah. You know, and that's all the stuff that we've been planning to change in the zoning. So,

you know what? You know what's going on with that? It's all over the internet and Facebook. The land owners are shutting down their four-wheeler trails and next next fall they're shutting down their snowmobile trails that go over these properties. Wow. They're shutting them down. And I don't have money. So that that's a $50 million asset that the state has that I don't think they want to lose. ter cabbat is in is already most of the land owners in cabbat are have already posted their land they closed it down.

So this is a this is a real serious uh act that was kind of railroaded in there that nobody knew what was going on. Well, for now, our rewrite of our zoning is in limbo while this gets settled. Okay. All right. That's fine. Sounds good. All right. So, we're not going to talk about that. The next one is approve minutes of the previous meeting. Anybody make a motion? I'll make a motion we approve the minutes to the previous meeting. I'll second. All right. Bill, you second.

All in favor is yes. I'll adjourn. I And the next one is other business. Nothing. So,

I don't think so. I I attended the NBDA meeting um uh two weeks ago and they're trying to get the the regional plan approved because it has to go through a whole lot of hoops to get approved by the state and it has to be done by December 31 actually I think before December 31st. I think September 30th actually or all of us that are down designated downtowns are going to lose our our designation. Oh, you're kidding. after all this work.

Oh, yeah. We've got a few of the towns that are because of Act 181 really holding up and it's not anything that NBDA has any control over and but they're they're dragging this out as long as they can and it's really putting a hamper on getting it approved in time. So, I think it's something we have to be careful of with ours that we don't we don't do that either. You know, when Allison comes back, you know, this map that we've got, you know, we have to I don't believe we actually approved this yet. Did we Joel? I wasn't I was We have not We have not approved. We have not. So, we're going to need to get our map approved and get

get our stuff done so that it gets through all the approval processes so we don't end up without a town plan because that'll do the exact same thing. It'll knock us out of all of our all of our grant applications. So, it's not something we want to play with. I'm just sitting through the NVDA meeting that goes on for way too long as a couple people just do nothing but complain, complain, complain. And it's like, you know, they have to write it to meet the requirements. You don't like the requirements, go to the legislature and change them, but you can't hold up everything else because of it. And it's not been a lot of fun. Yeah.

I don't know if this pertains to that, but we're still moving forward on the pavilion, right, for that grant that we got that we got a Yes. Yes.

Yes. I'm meeting with So on the on the park project, I'm meeting with um Drain Group and J Miller Landscaping on Thursday afternoon to I have some questions about the plan because I did get the I asked them to send me everything. I can't find what Noah did with any of the the plans that went with that. I found the bid documents, but it didn't include any of the like maps of the park. And so I got that from from Draain and I meet I'm going to go over it with Bruce tomorrow because Bruce does take care of the park. So I think it's important that he weighs in on you know what they're proposing. Most of what's in the plan now I think is okay but there's some landscaping stuff in there that

Well, I'm a little I'm a little confused because didn't we just have this two years ago? We spent money on that park. We we and and and is that that was what phase one? We didn't. No, we haven't done any of this. The only part of this project we've done is the engineering. We've spent like $16,000 in Well, I thought we made a a walkway down to the docks and we we didn't do any of that. That's all a part of this project. None of that was done. Oh, this Oh, I guess I guess some And we obviously thought some of it had been done. We thought that years ago. Yeah. 10 12 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. But I I thought we did some little bit of work around the pavilion and and by the by the ATM. We didn't do any of that. We didn't do any of that yet.

Nonsense. And that's what this project is. Okay. And you know, we didn't we didn't realize we still had the grant. It's available until April of next year. So, I'm going to I hope we use it up so we can use the grant. It's $248,000 for the project. Yeah. So, it's a it's a big chunk of money. Um, but there's some there's a few things I want to tweak in it that I just kind of look at and I'm like, that's just not going to work. I mean, somebody who's run events in that park knows there's certain things are just going to get trampled and there's no point in putting them in there and Well, I thought we had gone over all those. You did. And we authorized

multiple times like a half a dozen different iterations of it. So, I got the last one. Okay. And and I'm not moving really anything except for some landscaping because like there's bushes and stuff in the middle of the park that can't be there. They will get trampled. There is no point to those. They'll be driving over them. They will be the town also has a 20% responsibility on that grant and we didn't put any money in the budget to do that to pay that. Actually, we do have we do the year before I put money in this year's budget for the park. Yeah. this year. The year before we didn't do that. So, yeah, we did we did we've done two years now

that we put 35,000 in the budget. That was primarily for the tennis courts, but we've already spent of our match on that. We've already spent like 16,000 we paid for already. Oh, yeah. We have not we have noted the original match. If we had done the original grant application, our match was like $39,000. And at that year, we hadn't put any of that in the budget. Right. So, this has to go out to bid. Yes. So, when are we planning to go out to bid? After I after I talked with Drain this week because they've already got the bid documents and everything were created. I just have to tweak them a little bit and we will we'll go out to bid for this. Okay. So, definitely

are we going to be able we going to be able to see your final draft? Yeah, I'll send it to you once I once I talk to them because they're the ones who are going to do that. I don't I have to print it out here bigger because I only have it at home on an eight and a half by like Yeah. Okay. Um because it's the one that the snowmobile club approved and I don't I'm not sure anything that they approved except for getting rid of some of the bushes. I'm going to move them somewhere out of the way. Yeah, we had we had a we were we had them at our but I what I can't find in it that I don't know about is there was supposed to be some kind of a cement like patio for the dock to land on. So it's not right

and it's approved in that in the stuff from Drain Group. It's in there that the state approved you know we we were approved to do it but I don't see it in the project. But then in the project the ramp you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Where the ramp, you know, right now how it lands in the sand and we always have to put the mats down and everything. And so there was supposed to be there was supposed to be some kind of like a cement landing place for that that connected it to the walk path. Yep. But I don't It shows that as kind of outside the scope of the project. Well, you know, I want that as part of the project. It's one of the more important pieces of it. Get take away some of the sand around the pavilion is fine with me,

right? I would rather have that because that sand just eats. I mean, well, Jean, you know that you've sold the dock. You know that that just grinds away at the the finish on that that dock every year as we're going on there. And Bruce has to go out there and clean it off every day. So, I I want to make sure that that is part of the project. And I need them to explain to me a couple things in that project. There's 72 columns in there. They're like $25,000. I'm like, well, what are these columns? Columns for what? I Well, that's what I asked. That's why I'm meeting with them because I'm like, you got to explain this to me because I don't see columns in the I see two columns that hold the sign. Yeah, but that's it. I don't see

building a structure or what? Are we building room? You know, if we have a pavilion, we don't need another one. I don't know. So, are they still going to put that half moon concrete thing around the around the pavilion? The pavilion. Yes. And but then bushes cuz I I thought we want didn't want those bushes. So those in the plan it shows in the front of that there's that whole moonshaped thing in the front with bushes with bushes around it. I'm like snowmobiles. You can't put bushes there. Snowmobiles will drive over those in two seconds. Well, they're going to tear up that Smith pad, too. So, well, that's where we're going to have to make sure we put some kind of rope system because this studs on the studs on the tracks will bike runners.

No, you And does it the Well, I don't know if they did it. uh this year. But don't they usually put like a snow fence so that nobody goes in there? They did. They didn't do it this year. I guess they did in the past. They have. We'll just have to make sure they do it again. I think this year when I when I talked to somebody about it, they said they had moved where the the snowmobiles came through. It was not as close to the pavilion. So, it wasn't it wasn't as much of an issue this year. Okay. That's why I guess that's why I don't think they put this snow fence up because I'd asked Bruce when we had the governor here for the the capital for a day thing. Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, we need to we need to make sure the pavilion's open." He goes, "Oh, it is. They didn't put up snow fences here."

You know, I'm wondering if um not having bushes, but maybe like um some benches there that could stay there all year and then the snowmoilers wouldn't be able to get through. Maybe. I don't know. I could look without and we have so I'm also going to so we've been asked somebody wants to do a memorial bench for somebody I know we have a couple of those in the park already. They're granite. Yeah. But the the park project actually calls for two benches down by the the dock, you know, down in that area.

I was going to suggest they were originally wanting them by the basketball court, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be nicer to have something nice like that put down over there by the dock. So, I was going to propose that to those people if they'd be okay moving that because that would count as our match. You know, there would be $1,000 for that because they want to donate a,000 or $1,200 I think for that bench. So, you know, pay $1,000 the town doesn't have to pay in match, right? No, but I'm thinking just um wooden, you know, like um I guess it like the ones we put downtown probably. What? Like the ones we put downtown or you looking for something more? would be more more permanent.

So, you know, like you'll see them in park, you know, they're just wood like I maybe teak or whatever it is. It's just so be heavy or they're going to end up in the lake. Well, that's what I'm saying. But that they would have to be put in like I like screwed into the concrete is what I'm thinking. You know, heavy duty um and just space them out so that you know the snowmoilers can't get in there. I mean, I don't know. It's just an idea instead of having to put a fence there. But I I can ask about that when because I'm meeting with them Thursday afternoon. So that's that's a good idea. That's a good that's a good idea. I like that. They're like, you know, four or five inches thick. You know, the boards that are on it. And you know,

that's why they were wanting to put the bushes in that spot. I just don't see bushes as being useful in that area. But benches could be benches could work. So they can't move them. And in the summer if we wanted to, we could put like pots with flowers in them and stuff, you know, because, you know, I love doing that. I know. I have to I have to buy some more of those. Bruce already told me we have to replace some of the planters again. So, hey, while you're down there uh in the Sunshine State, they want you to take some pictures of a few parks so we can have some ideas. Jean,

well, I'm always on the ocean. I don't go to any parks. There must be some benches to overlook the ocean. Uh, all right. I'll see what I can find. She'll take that into consideration. I'm kind of busy. Yeah, you sound it. It's funny. There's actually down by me on the boardwalk there's there they do have benches on the boardwalk which actually flip so they can face either direction. It's just kind of a weird like flip in the back kind of flips a different direction. You could look at the ocean or you could flip it around and look on the boardwalk. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the ones I'm thinking wouldn't even have a back. It would just You know, don't they have some of those in um in Lenville in the park down there? Don't they have some benches down there around their pavilion? I'll try. I don't know. I've never been there. Oh, the pavilion. Oh. Uh, maybe like their little gazebo in the park. Did I thought they used to have some benches that were permanent down there? I'll look. I'll I'll look for something and I'll let you know when I see it what it is. I'm thinking I do know I do know uh Rahul with Beach does have they do have benches that are there all year, but they have a ton of them because they have big concerts in theirs, but Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Now I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I guess they do have something like that. Yeah,

I think they're the same. I'm not really sure now, but yeah, there's a couple benches along the walk that we have right now. Yeah, but those are granite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want the granite. I'm thinking kind of had to pick those up and throw them in the Yeah, they're not going to move them around. No, no, no, but these would you would have we'd have to put, you know, anchor them into the concrete. I can I I'll ask him about that on Thursday. That's a good idea to keep them off of That's a good idea to keep them out of that area if it's kind of Yeah, it won't be made made so that it's not drivable. Yeah, that's right. Good idea.

And it wouldn't have to be very many of them. It's just so that you know even if they were like I don't know 3 4 feet apart, I guess. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Because you're not going to drive between them. No. You know, it would just kind of delineate that area as a you know. Yep. I like that idea. I kind of like it. I kind of like that idea. Keep keep them from parking their snowmobiles in the pavilion

because I mean this whole project was based upon, you know, the old Friday Night Live thing which, you know, and if somebody brings it back, great. But if they don't, you know, we could do some small, you know, more different kinds of concerts in there that are not, you know, big crowd kinds of things. It's like when we bring the symphony to town, you know, it's a hundred people, but you know, that patio around there would be really nice to be able to set their chairs on and be able to see the concert and they'd actually be close enough. Otherwise, everybody sits in the back of the park and it's like, okay, they're they're instruments. They're not amplified. Yeah. That's that I like I like it.

So, I mean, I I see a po a purpose that otherwise I wouldn't push to spend any money on this, but I do think we could make the pavilion more useful. I mean, it was the the original grant that was written for this, Andrea and them wrote based upon the land works study, which was done back during the high heyday of Friday Night Live. And it's like, yeah, well, I I don't particularly like park projects that are based around an event that, you know, may or may not occur, but we'll we'll make it into something. I do like I like the walk path to connect the the dock to the sidewalk on Cross Street. Right.

We will want to think about how that intersects with the sidewalk on that side of the street running along Cross Street that we're trying to put together. I was thought that would be interesting to have a little expanded area where the the crosswalk comes across from the there there. I'll send you the the map for that because there is like a little half moon thing there kind of at the sidewalk that comes back into the park and that's where that that thing because there's there's an elevation change that they have to deal with. Right. So would that sidewalk be in the pavilion too? Right.

Uh it it run it runs to the it runs kind of through the park. It's made out of like crushed stone. It's not it's the the walk path is not cement. It's crushed stone because the idea was the snowmobiles are going to drive over top of it so to get to the pumps. It can't. I do think they were looking at maybe doing that um stay right that but I think they were also looking at maybe doing that like grid stuff that goes underneath it that holds it in place better because you know when you just put that stuff down it kind of gets trapped. But you can put those. It's like a plastic, right? Honeycomb weave that goes down first and the the mat fills that in and it kind of makes it almost as hard as concrete, but it's not.

I'm going to meet with them and find out, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask all kinds of questions and I will bring up the bench thing to them because I like that idea. So, when do you think a start date would be for that? Not until after Fourth of July. Because we also have that water problem that we have to fix. Yeah. So, who goes there first? Should be the water department. Yep. Should be because we don't want to have to destroy what we put in. No. So, No. And I know. And And I'm not sure.

There's supposed to be like a little planting bed on that corner or something, but didn't we say we thought we were getting rid of that because the snowmobile's going through there. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did get rid of that. Yeah. So, it's it was listed on the plan I was sent, but I'll and it was it was just a little plant. It wasn't anything. I think we had taken it out anyways. There quite of that bit of that stuff we had already taken out if I remember right. I just have to make sure it looks close enough to our scope of work that it's approved because we were supposed to have been working on this project for the last three years and that's what the state's looking at. It's, you know, they wanted a an update on the status of our project, how far along we were, and it's like,

well, we dug dug that we dug the hole this last winter for the water, but that was part of it. We started planting and then hit the water pipe. I don't know. A lot to do. Yeah, there's a whole lot of projects going on this year. a whole lot of projects. Yep. But no pickle ball

that I'm I'm um I I actually found the folder from that Joel had from a few years ago and one of the companies that had they had asked me a question about the 10 mile square bridge and it turns out they're associated with the tennis court surfacing place out of like Barnett or something like that. And so I asked them and was like that, you know, they are the ones who actually had the whole repair system, which is kind of what you were talking about doing anyway, but you had a bid from them in there, which was I mean, it wasn't terrible. You know, it was like 30 25 or $30,000 for for fixing the courts up. And I know that's probably not a permanent solution. You know, yes, we need to spend 180,000 and really get them repaved and everything, but you know what? If we can't afford that, let's figure out what we can do. And if it holds us for three or four years while we put money away to actually redo the courts, I think that's worthwhile. So I asked them already to to come out and look at them, but you know, there was snow on it, so I have to reach back out again now that if it ever quits snowing here.

Yeah, but no, I would like to get the courts at least fixed up this year. They may not be, you know, what we want yet, but I think we could do something to make them usable. I mean, I don't want to look. Absolutely. That's good.

I I think it's important. I you know, we've I was going to I did not apply for it because the the water system is more important, but um the congressionally directed spending applications for both uh Welsh and Sand uh um yeah, Welsh and Sanders both had to be in last week. And originally I thought only Peter Welsh's covered water because Bernie's portal wasn't working correctly. Well, when they got his fix, then I could apply for water on both of their portals. And so that's a $9.6 6 million project that um so if we get approved if if that we actually can get that it's the standard for that is an 80% grant 20% match for our $9.6 million project. I was discussing it with our engine our state engineer for our wastewater treatment plant who also works on the water side and she said yes there is a 20% match but there is a waiver available for economically depressed areas and she said I think Brighton has a good argument especially since we just did this project that we we might be able to get that waiver and then that project would be funded 100%. Oh,

so make sure you wear your patch jeans when you talk to her, right? I like, oh, I sent them every I sent them all the I mean, when you look at us on paper, it really does not We don't look very good. I mean, I I looked at, you know, I pulled the census data and our poverty rate for Brighton is 29.7%. The state of Vermont average is nine.

Wow. And if you looked at median income, the median income for the state of Vermont is $83,000. Brighton's is $43,000. I mean, that that's a vastly I mean, compared to the rest of the state, we are we are way off the mark. And so that's why Cindy said, you know, I I think you have a good argument that this this is definitely an area that could use that kind of support. So, we're we're months away from an answer on that because you know how long it takes them to argue about the budget. So, but fingers crossed. Good. Sounds good.

I I'd be ecstatic if we got 80 because I don't think we'll get anywhere near that out of our other funding applications, you know. No. Too bad. Too bad we can't get that on water to sewer. Well, this is for water. This is for the water treatment plants. Oh. Oh, that really? Yeah. 80%. 80%. Oh, see, I didn't think I didn't think it was going to be that much. Well, it's not if we don't get this congressionally directed spending. It's, you know, DWSRF is 50/50. Yes.

And USDA, you know, we they say we could get a maximum of 75%. I'd be I would be surprised if we got more than 60. I wouldn't be surpris I mean they were they were touting when we got 42% for the wastewater thing they were saying that good everybody thought that was the cat's meow which I didn't think right I look at it as now is that I think you know back in those days we didn't have any real debt on the town and that's what they kind of looked at with that 42% well the town didn't have any debt they could afford that well now we have plenty of debt on that wastewater treatment plant so I I don't think that will be an argument for them this time.

Oh. Um, we did get our first rebuttal from them because um um which I guess planning commission should know about all this. It is water and sewer, but it's it it does play into our town plan. Um, we we submitted our RD application for USDA for the water treatment plants and then I couldn't actually sign anything and it took going to our Reena who's our our engineer on wastewater is I had to go to her to get me authorized to be able to approve things because there is nobody left at USDA. They are literally down to 11 employees. You got to be kidding.

That covers Vermont, New Hampshire. They used to have 60 in that office. And so there is just nobody there. And so we got our we got our first they threw stuff back to us and no it's all fairly easy. The only thing I'm working on right now is my part of it is to figure out how many users, how many gallons of water, how many vacant lots, how many are commercial, how many are residential, which is what I've been working on this afternoon. Um, and then Nate was doing we had to they wanted to know why our our peer is three years old and you know where did we come up with this number that we're we're borrowing now and so Nate had to you know justify the the cost estimate now as 9.6 6, not I don't know what it was, seven and a half, three years ago or whatever. And then they just had some other questions. They wanted our audits from 22 and 23, which we didn't have done. So, we don't have those. Um,

and what do we do every five years here? Well, now we're every year right now because we have to single audit. Yeah. Um, because of the loans. Yeah. Well, the grants and the loans. All the federal money. And it's all that damn water and sewer. I know it. Um, so and I did get I I was surprised you got that email about the single audit because I've already filled out the form to the state this year with my email address, but I didn't get a copy of that. Yeah. Weird. No, I thought you'd want to see that.

Yeah. Yeah. But the the auditors already know that. So, they're all they're all set because we have to submit our single audit by September 30th or August 31st, something like that. August 3. September 30th. We told the auditors we want ours in August. It must be what? 20 grand to have an audit done. Uh single audit 25 at least. Yeah, I think we're 25. It goes up. Yeah, it's um 25 and then it goes I think next year we jump to 28 and then now you think it would go down because you've got all the footwork done on the first one. Well, we signed a fiveyear contract. So there's escalations every so many years for cost of cost of

cost of what? Mr. Breezes.

Um, it's I mean the town we have a lot of work to do. I mean that's you you know you're going to see that the town is getting ready to put out an a job application, you know, a job notice for a finance person for the clerk's office because our we have to upgrade our accounting system. The way we do things here is very extremely outdated. and the auditors sat me down and had a hard hard talk to me about the way we do things is not going to fly for very much longer. So luckily I could tell them everything that was wrong before they told me. So they were like, "Okay, well you have a handle on what's wrong, so we'll let it slide this year and we'll just note it in the plan." So,

no, I I I perfectly understand that it is. I mean, it's the town has done it the same way since Lucy was town clerk and probably whoever was there before her. And, you know, it's it's time for us to come into the modern era. So, haven't I been saying that? So, when the whole town clerk's office and everybody in this office is cranky, you'll know why. Stay away from the office. That's all I is. Do we have any other discussion? We good.

Mhm. I'm good. Make a I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I meeting closed. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. night.