Historic Preservation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Six, and I am calling the Erie Historic Preservation Advisory Board meeting to order. Pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic of which stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Madam secretary, roll call, please.

Mike Tringer. Here. Deandrea Edwards. Here. Melanie Fuller's here. Cesar Jimenez.

Here.

Lara Thomas. Second. Councilmember O'Connor.

Here. Harry Brennan.

That's Here as well. Neil. Neil. Hi.

Highland working with the Smithfield team.

How do you spell your last name?

H y l l a n

d. Yeah.

Taylor Ingram, cultural arts supervisor. How do you spell your last name? I n g r o.

Great. And are you Madison and Taylor normally spelled? T a y l r m a d I r

o n?

Thank you.

Warren and. Okay. Has everyone had the opportunity to review the agenda and need a motion?

Move to accept it.

Second.

Second.

Andrea has moved that we accept the agenda as written. It has been seconded by Caesar. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Everybody read the minutes?

Yes.

Yeah. Motion, please.

I move to accept.

Second. Deandrea has moved to accept the minutes as written. It has been seconded by Caesar. All in favor? Thank you.

Now before we get to our regular meeting, we have a presentation on the status of the Schofield. And, ladies, I we didn't, I don't know if you spoke loud enough. So you no. You'll need to state your names for the video because I couldn't hear I couldn't hear you.

There you go. Perfect. Okay. My name is Madison Highland. I'm the history intern that's been doing my research on Schofield Farm. So I

have done

all the research, and then I've been working on interpretation as well.

Have coffee

table book, and then just been looking on signage and some other projects that I don't have at the site when it's open. It might just be first.

Hang on

a second. You see that? It almost And I just have to

mount you. I just have to note and I'll remember my nest. So my research methods included a complete review of all the on-site materials we had. This included archives and objects, which I just finished cataloging the objects today. And I built the catalog for both the archives and the objects.

Most of these were donated by Patsy Distal Distal Scofield Holt, who you can see on the family tree is the fifth generation of this family to have lived in the house and been involved with the property. I also went through the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection, which is a great digital database of thousands of newspaper articles, scoured through thousands of them, and saved over 300 that were relevant to the family. And I also went through oral histories. I transcribed audio and video oral history interviews that were done with family members in the past, and also found additional ones that we can now reference, went through in person archives at the Boulder Public Library, specifically their Carnegie branch for local history, which is a really great resource for Boulder County, and the Lafayette History Museum, as well as online collections, including libraries, historical societies, the clerk and recorder's office, and then also meetings with experts, including historic preservationists. I'd like to start with a land acknowledgment.

Schofield Farm resides on the traditional homelands of the Cheyenne, also known as the Zititaz, Arapaho or Herdpanada Ina, Ute or Nuch, and many other indigenous nations who call this region home. Homesteading would not have been possible without the displacement of native peoples, which came at a dire cost. Learning the history of the mechanisms and beliefs that took land from some and gave it to others helps us work towards more inclusive historical practices and understandings of the past and present. So to go into that a bit further, I'd like to talk about some of the history of the first peoples on the front range. These are the three main groups, and then the name in parentheses is their autonym or the name that they call themselves.

So the Ute is kind of the main tribe that's known for living in Colorado. They're traditionally nomadic, highly adopted to living at high elevations. And the two pictures I have are related to the Ute. The top one is of a Lithia, which is a temporary shelter, and they can be found all around Colorado, a very important part of the archaeological landscape. And then there's a picture of some Ute people gathered in Denver in the eighteen nineties.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho are divided into northern and southern groups. Both came from more of the Great Lakes, mouth of the Mississippi River region, but moved to Colorado. Both living nomadically eventually, but the Cheyenne were actually traditionally agriculturalists, and they grew the three sisters, corn, beans, and squash, which together make a nutritionally complete meal or overall diet. And there's a few events, particularly these last four that are relevant to the time period in which the Prince and Schofield families came to Colorado and were settling here. The Sand Creek massacre in 1864 was the deadliest day in Colorado's history.

It was a military attack on a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho camp, which was followed by native revolts in Denver. And Oswell learned this was the same year that Hiram Prince settled in Denver. This was right after Colorado became a territory, right before it became a state. And after that is when the Meeker incident occurred, which is complicated, but increased tensions between youth people and settlers and created a lot of extra discrimination towards indigenous people. Didn't really matter which tribe they were from at that point.

And, also, boarding schools were opening up around the state, particularly in Denver, one of which was in Golden. That would have been the closest to Erie and Schofield House. And it's very likely that people growing up on the plains when these families first settled here ended up in those schools. So now to get into the one side of the first generation, we have Hiram and Helen Prince. They met in Ohio, were born in 1851 or '7.

It's actually really hard to read the records, but eighteen fifties. And this is after Hiram already had a very adventurous early life. He left home at the age of 10 to go live on whaling vessels and moved on to some Mississippi steamboats After they got married and had a couple of kids, they moved to Denver. This was 1864, so right around the time of those Cheyenne revolts. And these actually cut off Denver's supply chain, isolating it pretty badly.

It was a tumultuous time to be in Denver for sure. Despite this, he had a blacksmithing shop where Union Station is today, and he built the first omnibus in the city, which is a horse drawn carriage bus so it could carry a lot more people, and was also elected president of District 2 in the Denver school board. He was called father of the Denver schools, known for having a very pragmatic approach to some of the racial tensions going on at the time. They moved to the Lafayette area in 1870 to transition to an agricultural lifestyle where he helped establish the South Boulder Canyon Ditch Company, was president of that for thirty years, and was involved in digging the Prince Ditch, which is now the South Boulder Canyon Ditch, as well as Prince Reservoirs 12, and Erie Lake were all built by him. His land was right around Isabel Road And 287, which you can see on the map that I provided you with.

Feel like farming no longer exists there, but that's what it was. And he was a well respected farmer, politician, and family man. This translated to all aspects of his life, and he took this as far as he could go. He was in the state legislature twice representing Canfield, a small community. It's no longer really called that, but it's kind of in the area of Jasper Road, wise Homestead.

Here I have some records talking about him. We have the census record from the eighteen eighties. You can see Hiram at the top followed by Mary, his wife, Frank, Lewis, John, Mary, Molly, Emma, and Clarence, and some articles just talking about his involvement in agriculture. He would talk to the public about corn raising. He happened to find some naturally occurring drought resistant wheat in Boulder County and also dealt with the weather that we all know and love is very unpredictable in Colorado when he had some damage to one of his reservoirs.

And by the end of his life, he was so well known and loved by the community, they had to poke fun at him a little bit. So there was an article in the newspapers saying, how long does a man have to live to be old? Have to ask someone older than Hiram Prince of Canfield? We don't know how old Hiram Prince of Troy was, but the prince of the Principality Of Canfield was ninety May six last. And we also have this portrait of him done for the general assembly.

There is a whole page with portraits done of everybody at that time. A lot of them had wonderful beards like us. So moving on to the other side of the first generation, William Henry and Mary Eliza Schofield. William Henry came from Nova Scotia, which is where he met Mary Eliza. He worked as a farmhand.

And with the family, they moved around a bit, finding employment, working on other people's farms. They moved to Massachusetts and Kansas. And they stayed there for a while while their son, Alfonso, found a home in Colorado around age 20. They had 12 children total, eight of which survived to adulthood. And William Henry was also known for his light blue eyes, you can kind of tell in this picture, that were passed down through the generations.

And, Patsy told Luke Bowen during one of the interviews she did with him that these are the Schofield eyes. So when Alfonso moved to Colorado in 1882, he was working as a farmhand for Hiram Prince, and this is where he met Mary Molly. He later rented land, which prepared him a bit more to own his own farm rather than working for someone else, and this is what prepared him to eventually run the Schofield farm with Mary. They got married in 1892, and we don't have a lot of pictures of Mary Molly. We have this one where she's on the porch in the dark.

You can kind of see her, But Al is the taller gentleman on the lawn, and then several of the children are there as well. We also know that their siblings, Clarence Prince and Scarlet Schofield, also got married to each other. This was common at the time just because of large family sizes and not a lot of families around to begin with. And down in the bottom right corner, that is the picture I added since sending the presentation to Harry. This is one I found of Mary Molly a bit closer up, which is really important because there's not a lot we know about her just being this far back in time and not knowing a lot about women in general from this time period.

But another thing we know about her is she was deeded 91 acres of Hiram Prince's land for only $3,000 in 1983. Hiram set aside about 80 acres for each of his children, and this one is unique because it's in Mary Molly's name at a time when very few women owned land. They started building the property right away, starting with the old barn, which you can see in the background of the picture behind the house. And the trim painting on the house is unfinished, So we think that this building was there before the house. And the house was completed in 1896 in time for their third child, George, to be born.

They started adding on more quickly. They built the big barn in nineteen o five out of the Sears and Robot wizard concrete building block machine. Sears and Robot would send out a catalog that was like the Amazon of the past, and Mhmm. Everything would be delivered by railroad. They did this bank in style.

So if you're at the barn, you can see there's exterior access to both the basement and the main level. The upper floor is the hay chute or the hay loft with chutes going down to each horse stall and then three chutes to the basement. And that hayloft pulley system is still preserved, so that will be on display in the barn. With that blockmaker, they could only make two blocks at a time, and they would set for two minutes before they take them out to finish drying and pour some more. And they did this so many times.

There's more than 1,300 blocks in the barn and then extra that are part of the garage. So I can only imagine how long that took. The silo is the only building they outsourced to another company, the Colorado Cement Safe Silo Company. This also is attached to the barn via a shoot in the basement, and this exact silo is featured in a company brochure. It's tiny up there, but that top left box on the silo brochure is a review from Al Scofield talking about how much he loves the silo, and then that bottom left picture or bottom right picture, sorry, is a picture of the Schofield barn and the silo.

I don't know that they knew it would last as long as it did, but I think it still shows just how how innovative this technology was at the time that we still have it a hundred and thirty

years later.

Back. Yeah. And I also have the Sears and Roebuck page showing that block maker. And here's a little more detail of how that was done. As far as other outbuildings, we don't know the date that a lot of these were built.

They were kind of added as needed, but most likely before the nineteen thirties because they needed all of these buildings by the time the Great Depression hit to be able to survive. The milk house had a lot in it. It's a tiny building, but it originally had a one cylinder gasoline engine. And this was to power a cream separator, sickle sharpener, butter churn, and washing machine, all of which they got as soon as they were available and affordable to the public and greatly increased quality of life. There's also a milk cooler in there.

The cellar was originally built as a storm shelter as well as underground underground canning storage, and it was also a great dark space for egg candling, which is the practice of shining light through an egg to see its quality. This building originally had a sloping roof that was later upgraded to the standing structure you see there today, and the roof is now connected to the mill house. Going back to the old barn. Once again, we don't know when this was built, but it was probably before the house, so it could store all of those building materials. There was a blacksmith forge in there.

And after it was completed, it likely was a small barn either for animals or farm equipment. The farm just needed a much bigger barn quickly. So less than ten years after they started living there, they built the big barn. And then this space was sort of secondary. It was the brooder house where baby chicks were kept until they were old enough to join the rest in the coop.

A few more outbuilding fun facts for some of the other buildings. So the garage, like I said, was constructed out of leftover cement blocks from the barn. And one day in the nineteen forties, the family came home with a new Buick, tried to park it in the garage, but they couldn't shut the doors. And they had to build an extension that could fit more modern cars as they started increasing in size over time. At the chicken coop, they kept over 500 chickens at a time.

And a lot of these were for eggs, but they would also eat them. The outhouse was built by the Public Works Act, which was an effort to improve rural housing during the Great Depression. No bathroom before this, but it does have a cool feature, which is that the lid is connected to the door. So when you open the door, it lifts the lid for you Mhmm. And that is still intact.

And then the coal shed, they got their coal from the Black Diamond Coal Mine on baseline in February. You can see that on the map as well. And throughout this whole time, they were very active in the community. Al was chosen as a delegate to a local convention by William Oliver Wise, so he's associated with the family from the Wise Homestead. He was on Lafayette school board, Modern Woodmen of America.

He bought the Lafayette Cheese Factory and was also a part of founding the Lafayette First Bank. And if that sounds like a lot, just wait for Kelly and Maude because they were involved in over 25 different groups of folks and activities throughout their lives. They met in high school, got married in 1918, and Maude had immigrated here in nineteen o nine when she was only nine years old from England, daughter of a mine worker. They followed her grandfather out here, and then her father began working in the mines here. A year after they got married, Mary Molly passed away unexpectedly.

Al was still living on the farm and needed help. And even though they were living on their own and getting ready for their handsome new eight room bungalow, as this newspaper article says, they agreed to not even spend a night there and instead move on to the farm only in exchange for a new cookstove and icebox, which I think is a good trade considering she was homemaking there for the next forty five years. And my favorite thing they were involved with was the covered dish evening supper club, which I think is like a potluck, but that's what they were calling it in the nineteen thirty's. Yeah. Yeah.

And you put supper club in there.

Yeah. Sounds striking. Mhmm. And

their life on the farm was highly productive. Maude remembers being able to churn up to a 100 pounds of butter each week. The main things they produced were milk and eggs, which they sold in town, but they also grew tons of crops like fall wheat, spring wheat, alfalfa, oats, barley, cucumbers, sugar beets, beans, corn, and potatoes, as well as a vegetable garden for their own use. So I have a picture on top of sugar beets being harvested at the Schofield Farm. These were really important in Colorado's history.

And then some chickens in the brooder house and Al with some horses. They also had income from the Lafayette Cheese Factory as well, which was on North Public Road. Then moving on to the fourth and fifth generations, Lois is Kelly and Maude's daughter. She married Joe Distel, and their daughter is Patsy. When Lois was growing up, she was very successful in school.

That top left article is from when she was a little eighth grade reporter at school, so she would write updates that were published in the newspaper about her class. She also worked in Estes Park over the summers. Her and Joe met in high school, and they got married in 1939. And then Patsy was born on Saint Patrick's Day, which is where her name came from in 1940. The other picture I have of them on the right is Joe and his merchant marine's uniform in World War two.

So now we're kind of entering the modern era. This really starts when Kelly passes away in 1965, and Maude could not run the farm on her own anymore, so she sold it that same year. This is when the only major damage in the farm's history occurred under non Schofield ownership, of course. There's a fire that damaged the living room in East Gables, and this damage was seen during the rehabilitation of the building. Joe and Lois bought the farm back into the family in 1969 after it had gone through a couple more owners.

And they were living on their own in Lafayette, but they used this property for Joe's grain elevator business. And a grain elevator is basically extra storage for grain, for people who have livestock but are maybe not, growing or storing their own feed for their animals. So they can go to the grain elevator and get feed for their animals. Lois passed away in 1981, and Joe did decide to move back onto the farm full time. This is when the Kwanzaa Hut was built to store his vintage car collection.

And then he remarried a woman named Eva in 1982, who he told me some great stories about. I've met her. And they added the floral cabinet paintings in the kitchen, which I have a picture of one of them here, but they are on all the kitchen cabinets. And they also added the 1984 sunroom, revived the historic garden, which is just across the driveway from the house, and planted a raspberry patch. When it came to nominating the farm, Modjoe and Lois were involved in oral history and historic preservation as early as the seventies.

They wanted their history to be remembered, but it was Joe, Eva, and Patsy who really wanted to preserve all the buildings on the farm and use it as an educational resource. So it was first nominated in 1997 and granted Boulder County Historic Landmark status in 1999. Eva said that it would be a great place for barn dances, craft, and antique shows, and Joe thought it was really important to preserve for educational purposes, to show how farmers have lived and worked always to improve their lives. This is in memory of Patsy Schofield Distelholt. She just recently passed away this year, but this project could not have been done without her.

She did oral histories with Luke Bollinger in 2021 and 2023. She had an extensive inventoried collection of her family's antique furniture, artifacts, archives, and photos, and had a strong passion for her family's history, being so close with her parents as their only child, and her pride in her dad's improvements of the farm, and just wanting to pursue his wishes of preserving the farm that he started but didn't quite get to finish. And here is that same map that you have the printout of to show how localized the family and their activities were around the 287 Corridor. And, yeah, they were really tied to this area, loved it a lot, and I am grateful to have done all this research on them.

And some of these buildings are still standing, so we plan on grabbing some lunch and doing some drive by

Yeah.

And being a little sneaky and being like, hey. This is what the bungalow looks like nowadays and all that fun stuff. And prior to Patsy, she moved out of the state before before she passed, and so she actually, is working with Lafayette Historic Society at the time to also tell her oral history, but also, donate a lot of Schofield artifacts, whether it's photos or, in this case, furniture. So we have we currently have a partnership with the Lafayette Lafayette Historic Society, to house a lot of the original Schofield furniture. A lot of it's antique and beautiful.

It looks gorgeous. I'm a huge fan of wood furniture, so I'm really excited to work on with the conservationist to preserve all of it, but it'll be on display throughout the property too. So once it's all built out, you'll have to come and view all of that. And but, yeah, Madison has done such a great job with deep diving into this history. It wasn't easy because there's it there was easier parts because Patsy did such a good job keeping track of things.

But there were some, like, mysteries that, you know, we kind of went down the rabbit hole and sometimes it led to nowhere, but that was that was a really fun moment and learning moment for myself too since I'm more in the arts realm. But, yeah, it's really cool to see this map and visualize.

Great job. Thank you. I've walked that property several times. I know every building on it.

Yeah. And

if you go to the if you go to the garage, you'll see the bump.

Yeah. It's

just big enough for the front of it

Mhmm.

To fit in the garage, the bump.

Yeah. Look. That's what Pat calls it. Just

just a bump.

Yeah. Just a bump. I

had the honor of meeting Eva or Eva, however she says. We made biscuits together at the time of that biscuit day, I don't know, a decade or two ago. So she's a fascinating person. Any

questions for Madison?

Great work.

Yeah. A lot of hours.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The whole I've been with Erie almost six months now. Mhmm. The whole first half was just research. Mhmm.

And, of course, she's not just tasked with one with one project. We're like, hey. Could you do research on, like, the Eagle Mine? Hey. Could you do research on railroads? So we've just in Parks and Rec, we identified some special projects, and we're like, hey. Could you help us out with this? So she's been great with that.

One of our other board members knows people that were actually part of the Eagle Mind and work in the Eagle Mind. So let us know how we can connect you with them. Yeah. Rachel

Folger. Rachel Folger. She's not here. She's

So Yeah. Historical

Yeah. She she works at the historical society.

She's local. Yeah. She's a native of your.

Yeah. There's we just got the grant for Marks and Brett Ferry. Finally gonna be able to survey Eagle Mine.

Awesome.

Yeah. Because according to our ordinance, we can't landmark anything until it's been surveyed. Mhmm. So it is gonna be surveyed so we can landmark it and save it because it is the only existing mine, I mean, for miles. Yeah. And so that's why it's gonna be saved.

Yeah. Yeah. Then The history of that needs to be gleaned now.

Yeah. It's

I secretly make it, like, public art piece, if I'll go live. To commemorate. Absolutely. And that's our plan with Schofield is to, I also asked Madison, like, hey, with your deliverables, I plan to make public art out of it and give that information to the artist to then beautify and just another way, a different visual to give out the history to visitors of the space. So we'll we have quite a few projects coming up with with Madison's developer.

If he's never been in Scofield Main main house, the cabinets are just striking. It's amazing that they survived this long, but they are just amazing.

It was paint

with little LED. That's pretty

It's much in my office right now. I haven't hung it up yet. But, yeah, they also painted like an old not a can. What are those called? Like, the barrels, a giant barrel, but, like, a lid of a barrel. So they also painted that, and it was, like, their cute little welcome sign. So I did, a shellac clear coat on it to preserve the paint because it was starting to chip. But yeah. So that'll also be hung in the house and

And the last time I was in a big barn, you couldn't get downstairs.

Yeah.

It was an environmental hazard.

Yes. Yeah. Now it's got concrete on the floor, and then inside the silo, it just received four inches of cement on the inside, like, on the interfacia of the silo so that is structurally sound.

Like, yeah. It's been saved.

Exit stair exit, so it must be insecure. And it's just cool to see the process

of it being rehabilitated.

So Thank you for doing that. Nice work.

Yeah. It's It's me. Thank you.

But personal note, but I'm

a

sixth generation Lafayette residents. The locals say Lafayette. And our family barn was put under the landmark process for the city of Lafayette, and they didn't do near as much work to preserve the history and our family story. And so just thank you for doing that for the Schofields.

Yeah. I didn't know. Awesome.

Thanks for the time.

Thank you.

Yeah. We really appreciate that. Yeah.

Yeah. They have, like, a nice plaque, and they preserved the structure, but the property is still not bothering with it. They stopped doing tours of it and kinda stuck in it talking about it. There's no coffee table book. Yeah. Thank you. Write one. I know. Okay. That's really good.

It'll be over a 100 pages. So Yeah.

It's almost all of my materials. I have it on my own OneDrive, when you're signing party.

Oh, yeah. I I got it.

Yeah. Everything should be available to everybody. Yeah. Online. Yeah. It'll be on our

on our Schofield webpage for sure, including this presentation. So once it's up there, either this week or next week, feel free to share with others. And then Madison's last day with us panic is, like, the May. I can't remember. Is it May May 12? Yeah.

So you're just So I think you have

it finals. I'm so sorry.

A temporary position. Gotcha. Now

where are you going?

I am actually about to start a position with History Colorado. Tomorrow is my first day doing inventory and conditions reports on items at the governor's residence.

Where do you live?

What was that?

Where do

you live? Fort Collins.

Fort Collins. Yeah.

Well, that's quite a drive. A

week. I'll stay with my parents in Denver.

It'll be fine.

Well, thank Thank you, guys. Okay. And we'll start our business meeting. Budget report. Budget report.

We're coming back to the work plan. I'm sorry.

The work plan.

What was next on Yeah.

We could do that quick. I so we don't necessarily need to spend a lot of time talking about it today. And then I wanna get us thinking about it. Mike, you've done a great job in the past year, the present semiannual presentations to the board. You always have a couple slides that say work plan for the next year.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to get us thinking about it since the schedule's a little different this year, and we'll be doing the annual presentation or just In September. Right? Annual. No. It's in July. July. So we only yeah. So I just wanted us maybe to think about it a little because it's we'll get one more meeting in June. We don't have a meeting next month because of

Yeah.

Our meeting falls on Memorial Day, so we won't be meeting next month. None of the boards are. None of the boards are.

Because of the

it's the last agenda items.

Yeah. Yeah. Should scroll down.

We we could also move that up. Michelle put it at the end.

But Yeah.

Wasn't the beginning, I thought. Now look at the And

so was, and then and then Michelle moved it to

the Okay. I was like, maybe I have an old But

You know, what that means is all the, board members that were appointed will not be officially appointed until June. Correct.

So we could, I guess, hop into that. So you guys did great. It wasn't it wasn't us.

Michelle told us it wasn't us.

There were there were some complications with, one or two of the other boards, I think primarily because at the request of the clerk's office, some of the board members that were reapplying left the room, and then there was a quorum in the room, which I think we kind of took care of because we had people reapplying, leave the room, and then come back when we were making the final decisions. Yeah. So And I know Yeah. Yeah. I know it was a little chaotic last time, and the instructions weren't great, and I think some of that was on my delivery. So condense.

Don't don't take

the We we we do it different every time. Hopefully, I I think there is talk about in the future just just having counsel do more of the appointments.

Well, we we're going back we're going back and forth on that because it used to be that way. And then when I was on Treeboard, it made it kinda made more sense to possibly bring in the applicants and not even just interview them. Just meet

them. Yeah.

And just see how the rest of the board gels with them or not.

And

so a lot of it is you could be the smartest one there. But if you're not gonna participate, then that's not it's more beneficial to have people who participate.

Yeah. I understand. People that are gonna come every month and back to

Go to the events and Yeah. Be active in it.

And Mhmm.

That's hard to

deal with one meeting, though.

It is. It is, but it but it's gives it a

chance at least to

I'll have a I'll have a the draft of I'll have the draft of the the work plan done for the next meeting in well, I'll I'll actually send it out before our meeting in June so you guys can read it and approve it before I give it. Okay?

Okay. So And

that's when we and that's when we see the eyes of all the council members glass over.

Yeah. Never.

That never happens. I don't know what you're talking about.

But instead of having to do it twice a year, now you only have to do it once a year.

No. Okay. So so let me That's it. It's funny.

It's such scary Harry. You just back in a minute.

So Yeah. It is. So so, yes, it boring. It is fine if

you want. Well, for me

I I see

Harry needs to talk.

Yeah. Here. Look. Sorry. I'm multitasking while I try to sign in here just in case. So okay. So what I'm hoping is that you all will be willing to fill out these score sheets, and I'm hoping that you have had time to review the packet ahead of time. And and I can pull them up also, each of the applications. And I I should say if if you feel confident that last time you made the same or made made the a call that you liked and agree with still, there's nothing wrong. I can also tell you what we had in terms of order last time

Yes, please.

To help you help you score it. And and, yeah, I'm happy to pull up any of that.

Because I was thinking that all

Nobody has to leave the room. Sorry. So stay here with me, please.

It's a sailboat go. Yeah. Say it was over. Nobody goes anywhere.

So last time I one. We can go. But And and you can also, I think it's fine. Like so if you have in your in your heads, if you have, you know, multiple people that are tied for first.

Can you tell us what

The list? I can't.

What is their list

of them? So we had one one through seven here, we had Deandrea, we had Alex Wicks, Rachel Folger, Kelsey Debo, Casey Kimble, Ian McKnight, and Tanya McKnight.

End of number five. And what are we supposed to

do with the question?

Is it alignment?

Or I'm sure we're supposed

to So that, in theory, is sort of a grading rubric for each of the questions that they answered within their applications. So so this is

Oh, so they would get, like, a point system, and then their points would rank them in order.

Yeah. Which I know seems like a lot of work.

The line Okay. Math has entered the equation.

So we already did this last month.

No. We that's the whole point. Have didn't do this.

I was just gonna say recommend the same four.

You You

just have to fill it out. Just have to score them in that order.

Yeah.

In the airport advisory board, what

we did was anything. They

made a decision. Yeah. And then in this form, they said give highest number of masks to whoever everybody decided, same number. And then staff just took that off.

Yeah. I I I think I can I can handle that? Yeah.

I mean, it seems ridiculous to go over this enough.

I know. Because we went through each of them last time, so I think that's something that

So this is where we ranked them.

Yeah. Can you can you give us

the ranking, at the order one more time, please? Yes. Deandra?

So we had Deandra first, Alex Wicks second, Rachel third, Kelsey Bebo fourth, Casey Kipple fifth, Ian McKnight, sixth, and Tanya McKnight, seventh.

So we just have to have their totals be in that order. We're tied. This is what

I did. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

But then we have to grade their question answers on

all of them. I did that last month.

You're gonna do our part.

Yeah. Because, we did that last month.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's

once again, I feel like there needs to be some direction

There's no

the board, and maybe this is because we are now a home rule. And before, we were statutory, we were going by the statutory laws, but this seems like a little much without specific direction

Yeah.

From an ordinance or something of some maybe it doesn't need to be an ordinance. I don't know what it needs to be, but it needs to be

Or maybe someone from the clerk's office to do it the same way with every board.

I mean, it needs there needs to be some specific language and specific legal direction

Yeah.

For this. This doesn't seem

I mean, the way we did it last month.

I mean, it doesn't

it doesn't

see like, where is this in our ordinances? I don't think it's there.

I mean, it could be in policy. It doesn't necessarily

I think it's in policy. Yeah. I don't know that we have it.

It's it's fault. I think it does need to be buttoned up, and I think that's the clerk's office is trying to do is is the because this is the What?

It looks like where is Yeah. Your numbers are backwards because I'm happy to follow whatever Andrea We need to follow, but it feels like highest score, not the lowest score.

I can

It's coming No. I just wrote down their rankings.

No. But that's not what this is. This is a scoring sheet.

See, it doesn't

How often do you Right?

It doesn't mean Obviously, you're not. It doesn't mean to reinvent the wheel. No. I mean, the is a tricky one.

It is they went through and they went

through question one, and you ranked it.

Number. Then

they Question two in the application. So

that when they ranked

down the line, and that's what they're

I see. That that would be perfect. Or

yeah. Yeah. It's just like a copy Just give them all fives. Don't give it Andrea five. Okay.

If you wanna copy my children, he's gonna write down. It feels like it's going the same as Right, Harry? Yeah. Okay. The town. And, like, I'm

sorry. I'm sorry.

To copy.

This should not be

Okay. I'm gonna do it like this. Rank We're ranking crosshairs 20. So it's in my opinion. If Alex is second, should we give him 20 or 19?

I just think that's ranking

for simplicity.

Yeah. Simplicity. You're opening But I have

If if you want, I can Do

you wanna go? If it's opening people up to apply to to various boards, I think you should apply to one specific board. Sorry. And that's all you should apply for.

If we

if we didn't have we wouldn't have to do the ranking process if everyone just applied to one board.

But I don't I think I only remember one person on here who applied for two.

But I there were other, it was communicated to us that some people applied to various sports.

I think both Ian and Tanya did, but I I think I think there have been many years where we we didn't have enough interest in all the boards. So the reason the reason I think we encourage people I I think, actually, we encourage people when they apply to select multiple boards if they're interested in multiple boards because we frequently get a lot of interest in things like planning commission, but there have been past years where we didn't have enough applicants to Copy. Tree board or staging out to the tree board.

Came there.

I know, but that's what you have to do because this is a scoring sheet. Is where the There.

That's right.

You know what?

So you

have to have the totals be in There's

no sensor reinventing the weave.

Okay. That's fair.

Same thing happened in the

board

board AED.

Yeah. And then they were the ones who

did that. We already did this. We should do it again.

This is my point. In in effort to make it more streamlined, it's become more complicated.

I agree. I agree.

That's my 2¢. This is because

I think in the past, we would just talk

And then

we're now we're now we're not being truthful about the questions because we don't even have the questions in front of us.

They're well Mhmm. I mean, it would take us a long time, I'm sure, but I I do

It would take us an hour or two hours to go through what it'll do.

To have this before the meeting tonight. Like Yeah. So we would know what to put down. Like, we can't yeah. This is

So as far as I'm

I think that's good feedback for next time. Yeah. It is.

It is.

So I would so as far as I'm concerned, I would just since the same four come out on top, it's the same four. Now we don't would be untruthful. I think you're untruthful.

I did also wanna

We did ask.

Know not to complicate it more, but so I

It's the we have to do this all over again a month.

Well so Maybe. So we talked to we talked to Michelle, and and if if you're not ready to make this decision, that's fine. But if if we wanted to use you know, Laura last time told us that she's stepping down at some point. And so if if we wanna use the same process and not have to go through this again to appoint a member when Laura steps down, we can do it, but it would mean you'd have to tell us tonight that tonight is your last meeting.

It's official.

It's official. Effective at the end of the meeting. I

I I would disagree with that. I think she needs to give her

No. I mean, no pressure. Yeah. If you if you wanna if you wanna

It should be a totally different situation.

It can be. It can be. Yeah. Mhmm.

Okay.

I I

don't I mean, you I

don't want you have to, like, assign a spot in there. But

I've not sold my house,

so so it's not official.

I've not sold mine either.

Yeah. Nothing

is moving.

And nothing fine. Yeah. But we wanna just, like That's I know that's Yeah.

I'm happy to keep it.

I can't guarantee. I know Well, I also summertime gets a little crazy for me.

So I

also think it would

be a conflict of interest to have a husband and wife on the same board. So I that's another reason why I think we should not do that right now.

I I I'm happy to stay on those things Which should also be addressed. But I but I do think there's certain things in this process that I that's the one that concerns me the most is is the idea of, I don't know how you if you're voted in, you're voted in. So, you know, they should be allowed to be on boards. I'm not saying, like, one has to pick over the other, but it is weird to have

It's unethical. It's just unethical. It may be legal, but it's unethical.

Two words from the same ones.

Right. Just it's it seems a little interesting. And I I don't know how we we get to the bottom of what these things should or shouldn't be or who should be in charge of deciding what these rules should be. It seems like a big

Let me see this.

Being said, it doesn't even happen right now.

But as, you know, as far as I'm concerned, we followed the rules last time.

Yeah.

Well And the

I yeah. I

Well yeah. No. So let me give you some additional

We followed the rules as they were last month.

I I know it was Nobody knows what their rules are. Confusing last month. But but what we ended up with last month was was fine. It was these other the other boards that didn't have a quorum when they made the decision and more so that some of the applicants that didn't get picked protested the process, which

Oh, shit. Which is my exact point. Like Where?

It's here this information. Yeah. And this is new.

There's one or two

It's all individuals. Okay. Till they were mad.

There's It wasn't us. So Yeah.

When you don't know what the process is and no one knows

what the process is.

That's the problem. That's my point.

I I think in the future, it'd be helpful to have maybe have the clerk's office come the month before we have to do this process and give us a little overview.

They should've especially if we're supposed to do that.

And then, yeah, give us a heads up.

I think she's trying I don't think there's anything wrong with the way we did it before. We review all the applications ahead of time. Right. And then that night, we discuss as a group. If they wanna show up that night and introduce themselves, I think that'd be great. Yeah.

You're free to do that.

Not necessarily.

They used to come.

They used to yeah.

And then we go on the four with alternates in case they join a different board or change their mind.

The only time I ever had to do that was two years ago when planning

But I think I should

They got first choice, so we had to list one to nine.

Absolutely.

And whoever got picked, they just picked the next one up.

Should be transparent. I think she's trying consistent. To apply the the bidding system for contractors for the town of Erie, which is a a whole legal process to board members, and it's not the same thing.

Yeah.

So I it's becoming more complicated than it should, in my opinion. Yeah. The more you complicate it, the less transparent it is.

Can I get a motion that states that we nominate the same four?

Well, I think We've already done it.

I don't think we have to do anything now. Right? That's just goes to the I'm assuming. Like, we don't

Yes. Let me just double check. Double check here.

Nominate if we have to turn in a ballot. Like, that that's another thing that doesn't

Because if they you're the only one of the three existing that is here.

Right.

So you like to lean your bro.

Well, you're not gonna hurt my feelings if you don't. You're right. One that I've Can't

do chocolate this time, D'Andre.

That shot of I should not drink. Or this. We've gotten minced before. We had a price. Maybe I have one or two.

Come on, guys. Let's get back on topic. Yeah.

Okay. I mean So so we, like, once again, do we do we nominate, and do we I by acclamation? Like, shall I say?

I'm trying to find

this. Like I say

Very simple straightforward process before tonight. And

and and I think they're doing this because somebody protested. I don't know.

And you I mean, those of us that have been on the board for a long time, we've done this a lot. It's it's like it's been pretty straightforward. I've been

on a

lot of boards, and it's never been

I mean, I mean, the decision on Tanya was she put in there. She would prefer to do this than this and put her at the bottom.

Pretty sure Robert's rules of orders had nothing to do with this. Yes. They do. What

are the midterms for this election? Are we doing it now?

We ready to move on?

Yeah. We don't we don't need a a motion. I'll just

give the

score sheets to Michelle.

I moved do you present these score sheets? She's, flirt. Well

Sure. Yeah.

Rachel told told me she already got called.

She did. Yeah. So so some of the boards that had already Yeah. Made that. Yeah. So so so, like, HPAB

and This is

You've been reappointed.

Yeah. So those those members have already reached out to you and said congratulations.

Oh, We

have to Except, you know, they're they're always, like, the final step is still sound counsel, but the board

didn't Yeah.

Yeah. So then they have to reach back out to those people and say

Back at the seven.

Actually, we the time, but So

nobody wanted to second my vote? They just gonna create it. Our balance

Oh, I think you're supposed to tally it now.

Why why don't we do that? Why don't we do that just for No.

I'm serious. Because if it comes up with a tie, then you have to just you have to That

is true.

You have to deal

with it now. Here. I have a spreadsheet prepared for this, Serge. Yeah.

I think we all put the same numbers down. I hope so. Yeah.

Yeah. Not Well, this is yeah.

This is a governmental an advisory board. Yeah. We have no actual power. I did take one semester of

Just go on with your thing. I'm gonna do the meeting.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. It's a historic district.

Planning report.

And then I don't think I have anything fresh for you today.

Okay.

I think of anything better than I'm meeting all that. Yeah. Let's see.

K. Historic district.

And I got it taken.

Sweet. Thanks. Laura, good, good work on the letter.

Oh, thanks. Well, everyone needs to have their input or 2¢ on it. This was, in conjunction with Alex who assisted with some of this tax credit information. So it was kind of a

And, Cesar, you had your input on this. Right? No. You were doing tax with Alex. Okay.

Yeah. They're into minutes to one thing, then that QR code to be changed to a business QR code. There's just some slightly different questions in that survey. In relation to that, so the idea that would be that this would just go to all homeowners and business owners. Yeah. And in relate with it, that sheet I don't know if I have one with me, but so, Noni, that's, like, the that red one. It's not red. But

I like your line that said local historic dish is not about limiting homeowners, about empowering them. Was this there's this there's this thought around town that we are here just to say no.

No. I think what the the whole idea of this, especially, hopefully, once they would get to the survey is that it would, and this is the that other sheet you guys have seen and what we've printed out. Anyone recall?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Go along with it.

Yeah.

It would be folded up in the same letter so that they could understand, a little bit. That's also on the survey. Like, that's accessible. So the whole idea would just be to kinda push them towards this survey to really get their feedback and put them in the driver's seat to understand what any and all of this is. And I think our biggest pickup is that we can put this information at our booths and whatnot, but really Old Towne area residents are all coming by the the booth. And and so we really need to contact them directly since they're the ones who would be in and make the decision.

And really like the fact that we're giving this out to them so they are part of this instead of being have something they don't want forced upon them.

Question.

Yes.

So there's nothing on here that says town of Erie. Is that is there is that done on purpose?

I I don't know what's allowed.

I'll Okay.

I mean

Yeah. I

I don't know what the this was just kind of like the the verbiage, but I if it can go on, Townebury can I think of the word? Letterhead. Letterhead. Thank you. The thing at the top.

That would be ideal, you know, to make it more official. Or, you know, it's something that I have talked about previously. There there are some benefits to being sometimes No. Divorced of that. So, you know, I don't know that. I think those are all decisions and conversations to be had.

Mhmm. Yep.

Because I think the board is meant to be more representative of the people to get back to the town of Erie as opposed to being a working arm of the town.

Makes sense.

And so I I I think we probably are better positioned to leverage that relationship in that way as opposed to being a mouthpiece for the time. Be my 2¢. Well said.

Yeah. We're and so as far as the the okay that we got from the town, and we're still in the in the information gathering phase.

That's all this is.

So after this, then we move into the more formal part. And then that's when and at my brief, I'm gonna I'll talk about

it. Okay.

Right? About what the next steps are. Sounds good. Yeah.

We're good.

No tie.

No. The results probably won't surprise you. It's a Andrea Biting. First. Alex Wake, second. Rachel fold Folder, third. Chelsea Biva, fourth. Alex Kipple, fifth. Ian McKnight, sixth. And Tanya McKnight, seventh.

Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, I'm

sorry. Casey Kipple. Casey Kipple.

Casey, I

mean, they all had way smarter than me. But

thank you, guys.

Okay. Hey. Thanks thanks, Laura.

Question mark would be, what is the next step, though? And how soon do we wanna send out something like this? What you know?

Well I think

that's our problem is we do these things and then nothing really happens with them. So I guess my my thing would just be to know, like, what if people have edits or have things changed or have thoughts there to do them, or or give that feedback and then just kinda determine what our timeline would seem. Does town legal have to review it?

And then I definitely don't know. Get sent out.

I would say not town legal. I would I would let for it.

I'd yeah. I'd like planning.

Well, was say Maybe planning, but Gabby.

And your boss? The comms person?

Yeah. I mean, yes. Gabby and Maggie, if you're okay with that.

Yeah. Because yes. Let's give it the if if you have it online, then send it to Harry who can send it to Gabby. I got it. Can you just We

make a do

we need to

make a motion that it has approval to be sent out or anything?

I don't think we're there yet because I

think I can do

that stuff. Because it it has to get through the town.

Right. But if it can get through the town and mailed out before next month, then that'll

be Yeah. It'd be nice to have it done for a meeting in June.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I guess, maybe done if you feel like making a motion, yeah, to agree to send it out pending the review by the company.

Clarify, this would be sent out to Old Town residents whose homes are eligible for historical preservation, I think.

No. It's everybody in Old Town. Okay. Because if we established a historic district, every home within that bound boundary is falls under this. Okay. Just making sure. Two

No. We're still an extension. And then It's a little more complicated than that, but yes.

That it is, for what it's worth, yeah, probably easier to get the mailing list together for everybody in Old Town.

Since you spoke, do you wanna do the motion? And

just to make sure you're notified, are is this QR code It's live code. Sorry. Live Yes. Is does anything need to be