[0:00] Educating, informing, serving. Fact TV, keeping government honest.

[0:06] You're watching a Fact TV presentation of the Town of Addons select board meeting.

[0:15] The work to sort of- All right, we will call the meeting to order ...

[0:18] harmonize and think about some of these-

[0:20] Certainly

[0:20] ... maybe then. And any adjustments to the agenda?

[0:25] Can we move up roads to-

[0:27] Yes, the same time as earlier, so- Yep

[0:29] ... we can get out of here?

[0:31] We can do that.

[0:32] Where do you want to move it to?

[0:33] I will move it probably after public comments.

[0:36] Oh, copy it after. I can't.

[0:40] Yep.

[0:40] All right.

[0:42] That's not that you're moving the thing-

[0:45] Yeah

[0:45] ... it's adding or subtracting something.

[0:49] Minutes from the prior meeting?

[0:50] I will accept those too.

[0:52] Question. Did you get the minutes put on the website?

[0:55] Yes, I have them.

[1:01] And actually, that's two sets, right?

[1:02] One from the regular meeting and one from-

[1:04] There haven't been any minutes posted since July.

[1:09] Really?

[1:10] You said... Well, they're not posted, but you said you-

[1:13] Yeah, they should be. I try to send them out the same night so you should-

[1:16] Yeah, I know. Yeah

[1:17] ... get them. I know I didn't post the last meetings, but I didn't know.

[1:19] But I don't think the regular meeting from August or the special one was posted.

[1:23] No, they're not posted, but I have copies of them.

[1:26] Yeah.

[1:26] So I can say I have them too.

[1:28] Okay. That's fine.

[1:29] So I am approving both sets.

[1:31] Yep.

[1:32] I will second

[1:34] that.

[1:35] I will double-check that.

[1:36] All in favor?

[1:37] All in favor? All.

[1:38] Aye.

[1:39] Aye.

[1:40] All right.

[1:42] Public comments.

[1:43] I was going to public comment. I guess I thought roads were supposed to be before

[1:47] public comments.

[1:48] No, they're coming after public comments.

[1:50] Okay. That's it for me.

[1:52] Public comment. I don't have anything. Public comment.

[1:56] You don't have to knock if you come in.

[2:01] All right, roads.

[2:03] The big truck's been giving us some headaches, just simple maintenance things.

[2:08] I got tires ordered. They're coming Monday to put them on because we blew a tire

[2:13] Wednesday morning. Christopher probably woke up from the gunshot.

[2:19] Can he sleep like a baby now?

[2:20] I hope.

[2:22] And

[2:24] the backhoe broke, the extended boom, one of the hoses on the inside, one of the

[2:29] O-rings let go, so Kat came down to fix that.

[2:33] They're coming tomorrow to finish putting it all back together.

[2:37] So, I see how many hours did we use it?

[2:39] That was under-

[2:40] That happened Tuesday.

[2:41] Okay.

[2:42] But that's under warranty, right?

[2:45] Yep. There's still a charge for service call.

[2:49] I believe it's around 300 bucks, but that's still better than footing the whole

[2:53] bill.

[2:53] Yeah.

[2:56] Let's see.

[2:58] Grants and aid projects almost done.

[3:01] Going to bring up a little bit more gravel up on Herring Hill,

[3:05] and that one will be all finished. And then we got the section on

[3:11] 35 where we started removing the trees on Scott's Tracers.

[3:15] We got that to clean up and finish. I'd like to have somebody come in with an

[3:20] estimator and push the trees over that are right next to the road, so we're not

[3:24] playing in traffic that long. So we can get them all cleaned up and removed.

[3:30] That should take about a half a day, so it should be that for 20.

[3:34] Right.

[3:36] Do you know how much we have in the fund for the big truck replacement fund?

[3:41] Replacement?

[3:43] 100,000, right?

[3:45] Oh, for the replacement. Oh.

[3:48] How much is that?

[3:49] I don't know. I'm sure I'll have to-

[3:54] That's another thing. Do we want to replace that truck or do we want to refurbish

[3:58] that truck?

[4:03] So-

[4:03] Refurbishing it would be sending it back over to Fairfield to have a new back body

[4:07] put on it, and plow waste, and new hydraulic lines, and all that.

[4:11] What's the mileage on this one?

[4:13] 77,000.

[4:16] My concern is when they start getting older, it's like throwing money away.

[4:21] I understand what you're saying about not

[4:24] trying to save it and get as much out of it as we can.

[4:27] But to replace it,

[4:29] it would be cheaper to refurbish it than it will be to replace it right now.

[4:34] Cheaper.

[4:35] To buy a truck like we got this last time, in the condition, I was told by

[4:41] down at ATG it'd be about 100,000 for a used truck.

[4:44] What's a refurbishing cost?

[4:48] I don't even-

[4:49] Townshend just had one done, and it was about 55,000.

[4:55] For the new-

[4:56] For a new body and all that.

[4:57] What about the engine, transmission, and everything?

[5:01] That's-

[5:01] But that's not part of refurbishing.

[5:03] No.

[5:03] It's pretty much just the body.

[5:04] The transmission's going to, the rear end.

[5:06] So the rear end is going to run you anywhere between 5 and 8,000 on the high end.

[5:11] Transmission, I would say between 10 and 15.

[5:15] A motor between 30, right around 30,000.

[5:19] I don't know these numbers to be exact, but that's what I would call off the top of

[5:24] my head with today's prices.

[5:26] Yeah.

[5:27] Might be high, might be low. I don't know.

[5:30] Well, maybe the budget committee can give us some ideas on that instead of

[5:34] something going all to hell with it.

[5:36] Yeah, because it's at the point where, right, we need to think of what we're going

[5:40] to do.

[5:41] We need to do something.

[5:41] We have 60. As of last year, we had 67,000 in the large replacement.

[5:47] 60 what?

[5:48] 66.

[5:48] How long of a process is that? How long will you be without it?

[5:52] Fairfield said it's, so we send it over there.

[5:58] If they can get it right in, it doesn't take them very long.

[6:02] Maybe a month, six weeks.

[6:05] So that's something you'd have to do in the summer.

[6:07] Yes.

[6:10] If I were thinking about it and on top of things, I would have had it done this

[6:13] summer instead of-

[6:14] So 67, and how much did we put into that in tier 10?

[6:18] Oh, so far, I think. So far right now it's 11,000, I think.

[6:24] So that'll make it 78, 76.

[6:28] Oh no, I'm sorry. I was thinking of the repair fund.

[6:34] Oh, the amount we put in.

[6:36] Yeah. It might be around 8.

[6:41] We saved what, 39,000, and it's broke down to...

[6:48] Because I've talked to HP Fairfield, they haven't given me any solid numbers.

[6:52] There is Viking

[6:55] from up north we can talk to too.

[6:58] Danny would know that guy a lot better because that's where they grafted most of

[7:01] their bodies from, was Viking. I believe.

[7:04] Okay.

[7:06] Well, why don't you look into it, think what you can think about it.

[7:10] Maybe the budget committee can give us some ideas what to do to go from there.

[7:14] And while I have you here, just yet, ATD, the Freightliner was in for just a couple

[7:20] small things stuff.

[7:21] Yep.

[7:22] And that's holding up okay?

[7:24] Yeah.

[7:24] That's the big truck.

[7:25] Yeah.

[7:26] Yeah, we just lost, we had an air tank, had a problem with it. A couple air lines.

[7:32] Little things that normally go.

[7:36] Right now it's getting new tires put on because the other tires were weather

[7:40] cracked and starting to blow. So we got to replace them before I can keep running

[7:45] it.

[7:47] Now was it that truck that we did the DEF system on, or was it before that?

[7:51] Yes, it was that one.

[7:57] Anything else?

[8:00] I do have a little matter for executive session, if we can pop into executive

[8:03] session real quick.

[8:06] What type of matter is it on?

[8:09] A personal.

[8:11] Okay.

[8:14] Anybody have any objections to that?

[8:16] Nope, I don't.

[8:17] All right.

[8:18] Hold on. Let me...

[8:20] Is it to evaluate someone?

[8:24] No.

[8:25] Something obvious.

[8:28] Let's see.

[8:31] It's loading.

[8:35] She's got specific criteria.

[8:37] Well, it's not me.

[8:38] I know, I know.

[8:39] It's the law.

[8:40] It's the law. So if it's in any way to evaluate someone, so that could be their

[8:45] performance, compensation, benefits.

[8:49] Nope.

[8:50] Just a head's up.

[8:53] Lead issues?

[8:54] Nope.

[8:57] April?

[8:58] Is it... Sorry, I'm trying to

[9:03] help.

[9:07] So if it-

[9:09] Employment though, isn't it employment?

[9:11] No, it says it's for the... Are we hiring someone?

[9:14] Nope.

[9:15] Pointing?

[9:16] Nope.

[9:17] Just the evaluation. So evaluation could fall under benefits leave, performance

[9:21] updates on leave, updates on benefits, updates on performance.

[9:24] Yeah, plug it all in on that one.

[9:25] Okay. Okay. So I make a motion that we go into executive session to discuss

[9:32] the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee,

[9:36] provided that the public body shall make a final decision to hire or appoint a

[9:39] public officer or employee in an open meeting and shall explain the reasons for its

[9:42] final decision during the open meeting.

[9:44] I'll second that. All those in favor?

[9:46] Aye.

[9:48] And it is, uh-

[9:52] 10:17

[9:52] ...

[9:54] 10:17. Session and none are to be made at this point.

[9:59] We'll move on to boards and officials.

[10:01] Wait, could you, since we're still on roads, was Amber going to give an update on

[10:04] the town truck?

[10:04] So I can make an update on the town truck.

[10:07] Yeah.

[10:08] I had sent the pictures of the doors to the factory.

[10:14] I hadn't heard anything for a couple of weeks, so I followed up with them the other

[10:17] day, and they said that they're waiting for measurements of the door, and how

[10:23] large we would like the stickers to be put on.

[10:26] And I said, "I didn't receive anything asking for that." I said, "So I will get

[10:31] that as soon as I can," and I hadn't had a chance to hook up with Matt this week

[10:35] to-

[10:35] Okay

[10:36] ... do that. So I have to go measure the doors and see how big we want the label.

[10:40] Have we gotten a price from them on how much it would be?

[10:43] Nope.

[10:43] No, you can't get a price if you don't know what size.

[10:45] You can't get a price until-

[10:45] It's all just still. I mean-

[10:47] It'll be...

[10:49] Yeah.

[10:50] It won't be crazy crazy.

[10:52] Shouldn't be too bad, but-

[10:54] No

[10:54] ... soon as I get that number.

[10:56] Yeah.

[10:57] All right, we'll move on to our boards and officials.

[11:01] Don, how did the center meeting go?

[11:05] Uh, well, we never met. Uh.

[11:11] Always a dust meeting. They got

[11:14] the chairman and the construction project manager.

[11:19] They've got about the same performance level than our zippers.

[11:23] All right.

[11:24] That good, huh?

[11:26] Amber, anything from boards and officials?

[11:29] Uh, nope. The

[11:33] expenditures or reports you guys have, there is one correction that I noticed that

[11:39] jumped out at me when I was quickly flipping through it,

[11:44] that

[11:45] trash removal under

[11:50] Highway Garage, that was mislabeled, so I need to move that to the correct

[11:55] location. It was a trash removal for trash recycle removal.

[12:02] It just got-

[12:03] Put in wrong

[12:03] ... the wrong line item. So-

[12:05] All right

[12:05] ... that will be taken out of there, uh, and corrected.

[12:09] And then the other thing was the freight liner.

[12:12] The what liner?

[12:13] The freight liner. The old truck.

[12:15] Oh, yeah.

[12:17] That that was coming up to be a little bit older than what we budgeted for.

[12:22] Um,

[12:24] but yeah.

[12:25] All right.

[12:26] Yeah.

[12:27] And, oh, tax season went well.

[12:34] There's

[12:35] a handful or two that haven't paid, but there's a bunch of them that have contacted

[12:40] Hannah and I, and they should be coming in.

[12:42] So our list should be, hopefully, pretty short.

[12:46] Sounds great.

[12:48] Jen?

[12:49] Um, I'm still watching the commercial pricing from Dead River.

[12:56] I kicked myself I didn't sign on in

[13:00] July when it was $3 or something. Now it's-

[13:03] Which is a lot.

[13:08] It is $4.93 for heating oil, and it is

[13:14] close to five for diesel right now.

[13:18] All right.

[13:18] But I did see barrels going down ever so slowly.

[13:22] Okay.

[13:22] So hopefully,

[13:24] um, and they'll send out pricing until the end of December, so.

[13:29] All right.

[13:31] Um, I know that some places have not been able to get a guaranteed price and amount

[13:37] and stuff, just because of the volatility.

[13:41] I think it's because we contracted with them-

[13:44] With them before

[13:45] ... and we built the account, so.

[13:49] All right. That's good.

[13:51] I talked to Chris Canty from Windham Regional, and since

[13:58] Bobby Anderson had moved, I believe moved to Springfield-

[14:02] Yes. Mm-hmm

[14:02] ... uh, he was wondering if there was anybody in maybe the planning commission to

[14:07] look into anybody that wants to serve on the Windham Regional Commission.

[14:12] Um,

[14:14] Andy Chapter is one, and Bob was the other.

[14:17] Um, Windham Regional sometimes has trouble getting enough Windham people there for

[14:22] a forum if they need to vote on some things, or maybe the planning commission can

[14:26] look around and see if anybody wants to do that.

[14:28] It can be a Zoom, it's a Zoom meeting usually, I guess.

[14:32] Yeah, Hillary would be interested in that.

[14:34] Oh? Mm-hmm.

[14:36] We haven't had a meeting since the,

[14:39] the plans passed.

[14:40] Mm-hmm.

[14:41] I did see that Hillary,

[14:45] the, uh,

[14:47] rolling mayor, and I mentioned to him about getting together and just going over

[14:51] and seeing what flood plains, bylaws and whatever.

[14:56] Mm-hmm.

[14:57] So I'll reach out to them, see if we can set up-

[15:00] Mm-hmm

[15:00] ... an appointment and do the, uh, make inquiry,

[15:07] see if somebody wants to.

[15:08] And, um, we should post that out front there that's a-

[15:12] Yeah

[15:12] ... empty position. If anybody wants it, they can certainly, um, apply.

[15:19] So

[15:21] anything else boards and officials?

[15:23] Um, not offhand.

[15:26] Trish?

[15:26] So, yeah.

[15:30] For the school, if you go onto the school's website, through

[15:35] the SU, there's the report from the consultant that's published.

[15:40] Uh-huh.

[15:40] So long story short, immediate closure wasn't recommended.

[15:45] There were some other, hold your breath, there were some other things that were

[15:48] recommended. However, at the last school board meeting, it became clear that with

[15:53] the penalties imposed by the state,

[15:57] we don't know what's sustainable. So there'll be more information about that.

[16:03] So long story short, from my understanding, what was recommended by the consultant

[16:08] just doesn't seem in line with what's possible from the tax penalties from the

[16:14] state. Um, Harvey Merrill's kind of our guru, uh, financial

[16:19] person.

[16:20] Mm-hmm.

[16:20] And so I'd asked him if he could have some,

[16:25] like, exact numbers because he's saying how much it's gonna go up, but it's a

[16:30] certain cent, right? And so it's just very difficult to imagine the actual impact

[16:35] when you're talking about

[16:38] a cent amount.

[16:40] When is the recommended, like,

[16:42] when should this all start to take place? I mean, it's not for this school year.

[16:47] There could be a vote as early as town meeting.

[16:50] March. So then that would probably be-

[16:52] Close to September.

[16:54] Yeah. So we don't know. So

[16:57] I got put on the consolidation committee.

[17:00] So the state isn't technically doing forced mergers,

[17:06] but with the penalties, it's kind of like call a spade a spade.

[17:10] Like, 'cause one of the things is you have to have 2,000 kids per school district,

[17:15] so that's just a hefty

[17:19] number.

[17:20] And is that Windham Northeast or Eastern?

[17:23] We don't even have that in our district.

[17:26] Um, so I'm on, I got put on this, I'm the

[17:31] representative from Athens-rafton, and then there's a representative from other

[17:35] school boards. Then we have consolidation meetings about what

[17:41] that could look like going forward.

[17:45] Admittedly, I'm a bit confused because the Bella Falls, I'm calling it like the

[17:50] Bella Falls District with, like, a high school, was the state put us on a map with

[17:54] what you would call Wheeling and Gray's towns.

[17:57] But something's happened where, for whatever reason, I guess we're not in talks.

[18:02] So it's just gonna be me and representatives from the rest of the SU school boards.

[18:07] So Rockingham High School's got a board in Westminister.

[18:11] But none of them are, that doesn't equal 2,000 by a long ways.

[18:16] Nope. And then the other issue that came up is we were talking numbers, and even

[18:21] if-

[18:22] Even if, let's say Saxon River was to accept us and we were to go

[18:28] there, that is not a proposal right now. I'm giving an example.

[18:33] Even with us doing that, we don't know if we would have enough kids-

[18:36] In Saxon River

[18:37] ... Mm-hmm.

[18:38] Okay.

[18:40] But again, nothing's in stone, that's a conversation that's still a

[18:46] ways out, but it's just that's the stuff that came up at the last school board

[18:49] meeting.

[18:52] Yep.

[18:54] And then there's disagreement among even board members on our board of

[18:59] next steps or what

[19:03] may be best for Athens kids may not be best for Grafton kids, and

[19:08] it's just a lot of uncertainty.

[19:12] Between Athens and Grafton, everything is so spread out demographically.

[19:18] Ideally, each family would want to make a choice to the nearest elementary school

[19:22] to them.

[19:23] Yeah. Then that becomes difficult.

[19:24] It's how are the kids getting there?

[19:26] I know.

[19:26] Then it would be a non-factor.

[19:28] Yeah. So one of the things is Marlborough closed their school this past year, and

[19:34] they are somehow a school district themselves, so they were able to have a bus.

[19:40] So they were able to provide transportation from Marlborough to Putney, which is

[19:45] where a lot of kids went.

[19:47] We went and talked in that situation.

[19:52] Especially now because Windham Northeast has the buses.

[19:55] Years ago, they were in the individual towns.

[19:58] Yeah.

[19:58] So what were the towns? The town can't do the buses themselves?

[20:04] So if we became our own school district, we possibly could.

[20:08] But the problem with that becomes, okay, what school is our one

[20:14] little school bus that's supposed to take Athens and Grafton kiddos to take them

[20:19] to? Because this happened with high school. I went to Lilian Gray.

[20:21] We didn't have a school bus. But there was enough of us.

[20:24] I'm sure Nicole had this happen with Green Mountain.

[20:27] Yeah.

[20:28] My grandson goes down to Lilian Gray, and so again, there's-

[20:32] Yeah, because

[20:34] the teachers that live down the road would come to your house in the morning, and

[20:38] it was like a bus stop between the kids from Grafton would come over, and me, and

[20:42] then we'd go into Suburban.

[20:45] What's tough is the families that are going to be okay are going to be okay, and

[20:50] the families that are struggling are going to be the ones that are hurt the most.

[20:56] When they first decided to do school choice, we did transportation in the morning

[21:01] for Green Mountain, and transportation from Lilian Gray.

[21:06] Yeah.

[21:07] So one way-

[21:07] For school

[21:08] ... one way for the town.

[21:10] Yeah.

[21:11] We first did that.

[21:12] Yeah. That was when the towns had the buses.

[21:16] Yeah.

[21:16] Now it's Windham Northeast, and so there's some options.

[21:23] There's talk about somehow it's becoming like an-- And I encourage everybody to

[21:26] read the report. I don't want to mistrust the report over me.

[21:29] Where is it?

[21:29] It's on the WNOCC website. So it was published, the Grafton News also shared it.

[21:35] One of the main priorities was not school closure recommended.

[21:40] It talked about the positive things is our numbers are academically in

[21:47] line with other larger schools. So there's not an argument that our kids are doing

[21:51] worse because we're in a smaller school.

[21:55] There's also things like our environmental-based education because of the nature

[22:00] museum and the involvement in the village.

[22:03] We have a lot of opportunities that if you go to other schools that aren't as close

[22:08] to those nature-based things, you're not going to have

[22:12] as well as high community involvement and very

[22:16] normally high parent community satisfaction.

[22:22] So yeah. There's potential concerns about socialization,

[22:27] about how many kiddos do you need in a class to hit peak socialization.

[22:34] The other thing that's difficult is the incoming numbers are higher than the higher

[22:40] grades. So the number of kids in lower grades have more than

[22:46] the upper grades, if that makes sense.

[22:50] Something the state would mind its own business, we probably would get by.

[22:53] Well, the real issue is that the state's both saying that this is going to save

[22:57] taxes, and there's not a-

[22:58] Oh, yeah

[23:01] ... single study that shows that closing schools actually lowers the tax burden.

[23:08] So instead, though, we're going to be getting hit with penalties.

[23:11] So I don't know the exact amount. If you watch the school board meeting, Harvey was

[23:16] saying the cent basis, but to me, if you're talking about 10 cents, that doesn't

[23:20] sound like a lot. But he's like, "Oh, no, that's a lot."

[23:24] So hopefully we'll have numbers at the next one.

[23:27] But again, I don't want to be a speaker, speak for anybody, so I just encourage

[23:29] everybody to read that report. So there's that.

[23:35] And then the Community Center Committee is having our chili cook-off Saturday.

[23:40] Hope you all come.

[23:41] Is that with Mel's French restaurant?

[23:43] 100.

[23:44] Oh.

[23:47] But you get a trophy and an apron, and bragging rights for a year.

[23:52] Do you want to increase the prize money and put that in next year's budget, Andy?

[23:57] I'm not sure we can do that.

[24:00] And then there's going to be an open house this

[24:03] Sunday at the Meeting House. The Meeting House is also putting together a candidate

[24:07] forum for next month. So

[24:12] Tom Charlton, who's the current representative, and Will Hoser,

[24:18] his opponent, are being invited to a community forum.

[24:21] So they'll take questions from the community.

[24:24] Candace Damon will be moderating it,

[24:28] and that'll be happening in October.

[24:30] Do you know the date on that?

[24:31] It's the week that we're gone. Is that the third?

[24:34] Or two weeks later.

[24:38] I believe it's either October 3rd or 4th.

[24:43] All right.

[24:46] That's that.

[24:47] Anything else?

[24:49] Did you have anything for the health inspector regarding the-

[24:53] No

[24:53] ... crash? Okay.

[24:54] I don't have anything additional related to that.

[24:58] I guess I should've said this in public comments, but it is technically a health

[25:01] hazard we avoided. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is keeping its birth center open,

[25:06] which is a great thing for this community. Yeah.

[25:10] So thanks to the Selectboard for being one of the voices that stood up for that.

[25:15] Okay. That's good. Yeah, I had read that, that they were planning to do it.

[25:20] Now it's for this year, but it's not a guarantee that it's perpetuity.

[25:26] Nothing's permanent, but my hope is that this was the...

[25:33] I don't know. I don't have any additional information.

[25:37] Well, we are delighted. We are very happy Christian will not have to deliver our

[25:41] baby on the side of the road.

[25:42] As somebody married to somebody who is six months pregnant, I'm very glad that

[25:48] birth services will continue locally for at least this pregnancy.

[25:51] And I think Christian would want it, but

[25:55] If push comes to worst, you just call a neighbor and say, "Help."

[25:59] Daniel.

[26:00] All right.

[26:00] I've delivered puppies, never really babies, but-

[26:04] They're a little different

[26:05] Little different.

[26:06] Yeah.

[26:07] Denise, do you have a blood bank at your house in case we-

[26:10] No, I don't.

[26:11] ... have bad

[26:13] happen?

[26:13] No, I don't.

[26:14] And this really isn't board official, but- ...

[26:17] there was a

[26:19] note of a dog lately that took off.

[26:23] Yes.

[26:23] They've all been found.

[26:25] Yes, and that's been found.

[26:26] She came to here today, and-

[26:30] The animal?

[26:30] ... I contacted them, and-

[26:32] She just showed up here?

[26:33] No. This lady pulls in and she comes in and she's all nervous, and she's like, "I

[26:38] have a question." And I was like, "Okay." And she's like, "I have a dog in my

[26:43] truck." And I was like, "No, really?" Because all I could think of was the dog that

[26:47] was missing. And she's like, "Yes." I was like, "Wow." I could see the dog's name,

[26:51] and the dog just freaked out. And I was like-

[26:53] Where did she get the dog from?

[26:54] It was, I think, just up the road, past around your house.

[26:57] Hmm.

[26:58] So-

[26:59] Well, that's nice of her to pick her up

[27:00] ... she was all excited. Gave her water and stuff, and-

[27:02] And your dogs came home.

[27:04] My dogs came home.

[27:05] And I had to go to my house to make the phone call.

[27:08] Man, I had the bath then, so it must have happened-

[27:10] Good one

[27:11] ... yeah.

[27:12] All right.

[27:13] Oh, my goodness.

[27:14] So we'll move on to the garage project and the community center.

[27:18] Okay.

[27:20] I've only been about a quarter of the way through my punch list.

[27:26] It's about a 60, 65-hour punch list.

[27:30] Okay.

[27:31] I've been pulled away a lot

[27:35] Sandy is getting a knee replacement on October 16th.

[27:40] I would like to be done with the town stuff before then, if I can.

[27:45] I need to have late days like I had today, if that's going to happen.

[27:53] I don't have a detailed financial report, but

[27:58] the final payment on the heating system, HB Energy, was about $9,300 less than I

[28:03] was expecting.

[28:07] Brian Herndon has been terrific in

[28:13] working the design-build on the heating system.

[28:17] And

[28:18] I was

[28:20] kind of agitated early on in the progress, but he's wonderful.

[28:25] He's done the town really well.

[28:29] We're still waiting for them to get started on the ventilation portion of the

[28:33] project, so I have asked them for a written agreement that we can sign so the state

[28:39] knows by September 30th that we have this work under contract.

[28:43] Because we've been doing so well on the MERP stuff, I had a-- And this goes

[28:49] back a couple of years. Thanks to Mike McConnell at Windham Regional, he had the

[28:54] foresight to get a scope of work amendment for all the Windham County

[29:00] towns. You're putting in heat pumps and other stuff, you might need to upgrade your

[29:04] electric service and that. And we've had to do that with both our buildings.

[29:08] We needed a panel at the community center.

[29:11] The panel in the garage was okay, but we needed to upgrade the

[29:17] cable coming into the building. It wasn't big enough, and Green Mountain Power had

[29:21] to update the transformer. We had a small copay on that.

[29:28] The total cost between Green Mountain and our electrician, John Murphy, was

[29:33] $10,600.

[29:38] That qualified for

[29:42] MERP, but at the beginning of the project, to say, "That's nice, but we don't have

[29:46] the money in the MERP budget." Well, it turns out

[29:50] we did have the money in the MERP budget.

[29:52] So rather than having to pay that 10,600 out of ARPA, we were able to pay it out of

[29:56] MERP.

[29:57] Nice.

[29:58] So yeah,

[30:00] when the dust settles, and I

[30:03] have the final bookkeeping, I'm hoping that

[30:07] it shows pretty good on... When I say ARPA, what used to be the ARPA.

[30:11] Now it's

[30:16] not reserved. Remember, it's not reserved funds. I don't know the term for it.

[30:22] Earmarked. I call it earmarked funds.

[30:26] So I-

[30:27] Yeah

[30:28] ... I do know that we were possibly going to have a selector meeting there, but

[30:32] then it got postponed because things weren't...

[30:35] Yeah, with me being pulled away and

[30:41] Matt and Robbie being busy on projects, the place is kind of a disaster right now.

[30:45] If I finish my punch list, then maybe

[30:49] we can get one or both of our cleaners in there to give us a

[30:54] leg up on the cleaning. Then we might be in shape, maybe.

[30:59] I know

[31:03] an

[31:05] October selective meeting is possible.

[31:07] Maybe an open house might be a more practical thing to do. That might be good.

[31:11] I don't know.

[31:12] I think that sounds like a good thing. An open house.

[31:14] What--

[31:17] I saw the roof of the community center was extended there.

[31:22] Is that going to be enough to cover the-

[31:25] It's just enough to keep the snow slide from hitting the unit.

[31:29] Okay.

[31:31] Yeah. So we got that. And that's part of my punch list.

[31:34] I have to finish a little exterior painting on that, and-

[31:40] But is that up and running now?

[31:43] Oh, it has been since,

[31:46] oh gosh, late-- sometime in June, I think. Wasn't it?

[31:50] Okay.

[31:50] And then he said we did run the system for

[31:54] about a two-week period, and that would've spiked the June electric consumption.

[31:59] But somebody noticed the other day, in the middle of the day, said, "Huh, the

[32:03] floodlights are on." And so I'm thinking, "Wow, I wonder how long that's been on."

[32:08] So that might contribute to the electric bill, so I need to put a little-- You got

[32:11] to get that single light switch outside the teacher's room.

[32:14] I have to put a sign on that. This is for exterior floodlights.

[32:20] Did you talk to Bolt about hooking up the generator yet?

[32:24] Yeah, I kind of dropped the ball on that.

[32:26] I want to find out this week where we fell on his schedule so I can report that

[32:30] tonight, but

[32:32] I didn't. And

[32:34] he was, when we were out getting prices on the tank installation, he

[32:42] contacted me four or five times. "Have you got the fuel yet?

[32:45] You got the fuel yet?" So now they've had the fuel.

[32:48] He must've known he was going to be tied up on some bigger projects than mine, so.

[32:52] But I meant to get a hold of him before today to tell you guys, and I'm sorry, I

[32:57] forgot, but it should be sooner than later.

[33:01] And we're

[33:04] out of the $375,410 of our MERP grant, there's

[33:10] right around $10,000 left that hasn't been submitted for reimbursement.

[33:15] So on-

[33:17] ... without doing the ventilation system, I don't know us, I'll be closing out the

[33:22] grant end of September, but it'll be early October probably.

[33:26] All right. Sounds good.

[33:28] I would like to bring up the

[33:31] generator service contract.

[33:33] Yeah.

[33:34] You had one from-

[33:37] I hear from Southern Vermont Backup. I don't remember their name as well.

[33:42] Lindsay Shambu there, and her father.

[33:44] And I called Bartlett, and they don't do them.

[33:48] Okay.

[33:49] So

[33:51] they seem to be the reasonable price.

[33:55] I know Power's is up around $500.

[33:58] And HB, how much is theirs? That was three-

[34:00] It was 420, isn't it?

[34:02] Oh, I don't remember off the top of my head. Yeah.

[34:05] I want to say it was 400 something. I want to say $420.

[34:07] Yeah.

[34:09] We just signed on.

[34:11] Let me refresh my memory what was the cost of it.

[34:14] It was $300 through Southern Vermont.

[34:17] Yeah. And that's for once a year, they come in, they go through the generator and-

[34:22] Yeah, they go through things. They change the oil, the spark

[34:28] plugs, and stuff like that. They make sure the battery's swapped out every five

[34:32] years. I did ask about the

[34:35] motherboard failing here at the town office, whether something might've been missed

[34:39] in servicing, and she said no. She said that there was

[34:42] some kind of power surge from a storm or something like that, could've knocked it

[34:46] out, but it's nothing that could've been picked up in the servicing.

[34:51] Okay.

[34:51] So back to the power part for the community center.

[34:57] Since June, the power has been going down, so.

[35:02] Yeah, because we talked about that.

[35:03] Yeah.

[35:04] About the power.

[35:06] Okay.

[35:06] That was it, so.

[35:07] So do we want to move on?

[35:08] Yeah. So you make it a motion that we go with-

[35:13] The Southern-- I mean, technically it's not on the agenda, but we can still do that

[35:18] under-

[35:18] Yeah, that was our project.

[35:20] Yeah. Okay.

[35:21] Sorry. What's the motion? Janet makes a motion that we go with...

[35:25] I might jump the name right here. Southern Vermont Standby Power.

[35:29] For what?

[35:31] Generator.

[35:32] Annual servicing.

[35:34] Generator service contract.

[35:36] Okay. Yeah, Janet makes a motion that we go with Southern Vermont Standby Power for

[35:41] generator servicing contract.

[35:42] Yes.

[35:43] I would second that. All those in favor?

[35:45] Aye.

[35:46] Aye.

[35:51] Southern Vermont Standby Power, yes.

[35:59] All right. Anything else, Don?

[36:03] No, that's it.

[36:05] All right. That's good. Is there any further business?

[36:11] Not that I know of.

[36:12] I will make a motion that we adjourn at

[36:16] 7:53.

[36:18] Oh, man. Wow. Good.

[36:20] Knock, knock. Wait, who second it?

[36:23] I did.

[36:24] All those in favor?

[36:26] Aye.

[36:26] Aye. Thank you for watching this Fact TV presentation.

[36:30] If you would like a digital or DVD copy of the meeting, please contact us by phone

[36:35] or email. Our phone number is 802-463-1613,

[36:41] or email us at fact810@gmail.com.

[36:45] Falls Area Community Television, keeping government honest.

Athens Select Board Meeting: September 17, 2026

Transcript