[0:00] You don't have a
[0:04] fish now?
[0:06] We do.
[0:12] Oh yeah. 14.
[0:16] Yeah, we had a
[0:20] really split the difference.
[0:29] Alright, well ladies
[0:31] and gentlemen, the hour is upon us and we have a quorum.
[0:34] So I'd like to call this meeting to order.
[0:37] This is the Central Vermont Career Center
[0:42] Special Meeting of the board, Monday,
[0:44] August 25th, 2025.
[0:51] Do we have any special gifts
[0:55] other than routine individuals?
[1:01] Any comments for items
[1:03] that are not on the agenda from the public?
[1:09] Any comments from anyone online for anything
[1:11] that is not on the agenda?
[1:17] All right, we'll move forward to the consent agenda.
[1:21] We have to approve our agenda first
[1:26] before we move on to the consent agenda.
[1:28] So I need a motion to approve the agenda as printed.
[1:33] I move that we approve the agenda. Okay, Jan.
[1:37] Alright, any discussion? Hearing none.
[1:42] All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[1:47] A Ladies and gentlemen, on on,
[1:53] on online, we will accept your, your eyes.
[1:58] And now the consent agenda.
[2:02] The consent agenda is for the approval
[2:03] of the minutes from the August 11th, 2025 board meeting.
[2:08] Any questions or concerns?
[2:13] Deletions or additions?
[2:17] Hearing none. I need a motion to approve this agenda.
[2:22] Minutes. The minutes? Yes. I'll get there Minutes.
[2:26] Move to approve the minutes from August 11th? Yes.
[2:30] I need a second. I'll second. Okay. Thank you gentlemen.
[2:35] Any further discussion? Hearing none.
[2:38] All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[2:44] Any nays? Any abstentions? Hearing none. Motion carries.
[2:49] Board reports, committee reports, facilities.
[2:55] Is there a facilities report?
[2:57] We actually have a presentation. Okay.
[3:00] So we will move that report
[3:02] to our presentation moving forward.
[3:07] The board discussion
[3:08] and action items, which is the facilities project, budget
[3:13] and bond projection, and then the marketing updates.
[3:16] So we'll move this committee report to facilities to 6.1
[3:20] and include it in there.
[3:22] So let's proceed with facilities,
[3:26] project budget and bond projections.
[3:31] Who would like to break the ice?
[3:34] I will start and I'll ask Cam data to help.
[3:38] And would you sir, please identify yourself? Sure.
[3:41] My name is David Epstein. I'm with Trucks Collins.
[3:44] And we're the architects, one
[3:46] of the architects for the project.
[3:49] Hi everybody. Good to see you in person.
[3:51] Usually we are all floating heads.
[3:55] The this is a, an abbreviated version.
[3:58] Is there a possibility
[3:59] of turning some lights off or dimming lights?
[4:02] Yeah. Thank you. See, that might help everybody see,
[4:11] Think up above there. I
[4:13] Was like, these are pretty minimal.
[4:21] Next slide, please.
[4:23] Excuse me. I just wanna check,
[4:25] can everybody online see these slides?
[4:30] Yes.
[4:33] Okay. Are
[4:39] Jenna, Todd, or Corey can?
[4:41] Yes. Canice says yes. Thank you. Okay, very good. Okay.
[4:44] Yes, so it's very short, it's very abbreviated.
[4:48] Last time we were here, we gave a very long, not long
[4:53] but detailed presentation.
[4:55] So we'll start with the site design
[4:57] and the building design show a few of the renderings
[5:00] and then really the, the meat of the presentation.
[5:03] We'll be talking about what is the cost impacts from a tax
[5:06] standpoint, and then talk about next steps in the,
[5:11] the media campaign.
[5:12] So next slide please.
[5:15] So as everybody knows,
[5:19] the Site 16 Baptist Road is the site we're going.
[5:22] You can see right here, this is relative
[5:25] to the catchment area.
[5:26] It has a, those qualities, this is a location plan.
[5:31] You can see the building right here. This is Rock of Ages.
[5:35] You can see the quarries.
[5:36] If you go to the next slide, this is one of the updates is
[5:41] that the traffic study showed
[5:44] that there were two section intersections of concern,
[5:49] middle Road in Graniteville
[5:51] and Baptist Road in Graniteville.
[5:54] They calculated the number of trips.
[5:57] They, you know, made some assumptions about distribution
[6:00] and, and they're not even sure that, you know,
[6:04] there's any improvements that need to happen.
[6:06] But they, what happens is when there's a certain number
[6:09] of trips, additional trips at an intersection
[6:11] that triggers the review,
[6:16] they didn't have any issues with the ingress
[6:18] and egress out of the site.
[6:20] And it's distanced from this intersection.
[6:22] But this is something that say when the bond vote passes,
[6:27] we will have to look at further and we've budgeted money.
[6:33] There's an impact fee that you have to, if you have to do,
[6:36] you don't have to, you don't literally have to pay
[6:38] for the improvements, but you have to contribute to a fund
[6:42] that might improve those intersections.
[6:44] And we've budget for that in the project budget. Next slide.
[6:48] This is just a little bit closer view
[6:51] and go to the next slide.
[6:52] So the site plan,
[6:55] and I apologize, this site plan is rotated so that north is
[6:59] to the right before we were looking north up the page,
[7:03] we had to modify this front area here
[7:07] because of wetlands.
[7:09] And we, when we had the wetlands delineated, we discovered
[7:15] wetlands up in this area here that are,
[7:18] we did not know about.
[7:20] We knew about the ones off to the south of the site,
[7:25] the left on the page.
[7:26] And so we, what, what we did was we modified
[7:32] the site plan to get all of the parking out of the,
[7:36] the wetlands and the buffer.
[7:38] If you go to the next slide, there'll be kind
[7:40] of a blow up to make it can see easier.
[7:42] So this is the 50 foot wetland buffer here
[7:46] and the wetlands are, are right here.
[7:49] So we moved everything out of there.
[7:51] We sent those to the regulators
[7:53] and we got a positive, some positive feedback.
[7:58] We showed the original plan
[8:00] and we showed this plan to show that we're making, you know,
[8:04] every effort to avoid
[8:08] impact on the wetlands.
[8:09] There is one class three wet. This is class two.
[8:12] There's one class three wetland
[8:14] that's right in the middle here that
[8:18] we are impacting.
[8:19] And there is a, once again, another mitigation fee,
[8:23] which has been budgeted for.
[8:26] But so far we've got, we've got like, I don't know,
[8:30] would you say one and a half thumbs up or two thumbs up?
[8:34] Tell we're waiting for the to be to be candid.
[8:37] We're waiting, we're still waiting for feedback from the
[8:39] US Army Corps of Engineers.
[8:40] Although that's less nerve wracking than the,
[8:45] and we have some other, we have some other ideas if we
[8:48] have to go further.
[8:49] But we like this site plan a lot.
[8:52] So we're gonna stick with this if, if,
[8:54] If it gets a blessing regulated.
[8:58] Okay, so next, Jay,
[9:00] do you wanna talk a little bit about the building?
[9:01] Yes. Just a couple slides here.
[9:03] So if you don't mind me presenting for the back.
[9:05] I'm Jay Ty, I'm one
[9:07] of the other architects that's working on the project.
[9:08] I'm from Resinger.
[9:11] Our specialty is the lab planning, looking at the actual
[9:15] spaces within the building.
[9:17] So just a quick recap
[9:18] because I know we've, we've talked
[9:19] to you about this at great lengths before.
[9:21] This building has two round levels.
[9:24] So at the, the way the, so site slopes,
[9:27] it gives us two opportunities to get materials
[9:31] and things in and out of the building.
[9:33] So at this level, which is the lower
[9:35] of the two levels is the main entry, which is
[9:37] that red arrow you see, which comes into admin,
[9:40] which provides a series of doors.
[9:43] So safety and security, we can make sure students are safe.
[9:46] And then as you move further in, there's another set
[9:49] of doors that can be locked to keep the students
[9:51] safe within the building and still have access to some
[9:54] of the arts and business and hospitality spaces up front.
[9:58] Which in this one are the, the culinary dining space
[10:01] and the cosmetology space that can now service the public
[10:04] and still keep the students secure.
[10:07] In the center of the space is the heart of the building.
[10:09] We'll see in 3D in a few minutes,
[10:11] but that's really the stair, the meeting area,
[10:14] the gathering area, kind of the, the, the Greek
[10:19] agora stair that that learning takes place on.
[10:22] So that's, that's the heart of the school.
[10:24] Off of that, we've got some common spaces,
[10:26] which are your gymnasium and some locker rooms
[10:29] and some bathrooms and some service spaces.
[10:31] And then as we move down the, the corridor,
[10:34] you see the health and natural resource science spaces
[10:38] there, which we have plant
[10:39] and animal, we have natural resources, we have
[10:44] childcare, I'm sorry, human services.
[10:48] Yeah, human services, human service,
[10:49] Emergency services and medical professions.
[10:52] And they're all, they're all working together to create a,
[10:57] a cluster that, that has a center
[10:59] or has a space that will let natural aid in
[11:01] that becomes their home, within their home.
[11:04] So this would be some class cross pollination that happens
[11:07] between these programs.
[11:10] As we move up that stair, that main stair, that center,
[11:14] we move up and we have design construction,
[11:16] manufacturing down one side,
[11:18] which has our electrical trades, our building trades, our
[11:23] welding or HVC
[11:27] and our advanced manufacturing, manufacturing spaces home.
[11:34] Thanks. And, and those spaces again have a heart
[11:37] or have a space that's around them
[11:39] that becomes their cluster home.
[11:41] That collaboration between these
[11:42] types of programs would happen.
[11:44] As I said before, they're all like, great,
[11:46] they all have doors outside for project yards
[11:49] and space to get materials in and out.
[11:51] And at the very end we have transportation,
[11:53] which is automotive
[11:54] and our, our heavy diesel spaces
[11:57] that are working together there at the end, as we move back
[12:00] to the heart of the school, the center of the school,
[12:02] we have some spaces which are our arts
[12:06] and business spaces, which are the art is actually media.
[12:11] So we have digital media and film media that happens there.
[12:15] And then the business space,
[12:17] which is the business program that happens there.
[12:21] Also off that heart we have the library,
[12:23] which is a important space to be part of that,
[12:26] that central commons
[12:27] and the support space for students to be able
[12:30] to receive support that's right in the center of the school.
[12:34] And further down you'll see kind of the, the reddish spaces.
[12:37] Those are the exploratory and flex spaces.
[12:40] So these are really trying to get younger students
[12:43] or early students interested in really engage
[12:47] in a bunch of programs.
[12:48] That's the feeder programs that will happen there.
[12:51] Hit everything Jody,
[12:54] These are some views of the exterior and interior.
[12:58] So this is the what as you come up the drive.
[13:02] Next slide please. Here you can see the
[13:06] parent drop off.
[13:07] At this end you have the childcare area, whether,
[13:10] whether the playground,
[13:13] that upper large feature window is into one
[13:15] of the exploratory laps.
[13:16] And in the distance you can see the entry,
[13:18] which we'll see in the next slide.
[13:21] So this is the entry, you know, as we've mentioned
[13:26] before, the base is this kind of rust located stone
[13:30] buried granite, you know, we want it
[13:33] to be evocative of the region.
[13:35] And then up on the upper is a more lightweight
[13:40] panel system, could be metal or, or some kind of resin.
[13:46] So here you can see it from above.
[13:49] Once again, you have student parking in front,
[13:51] you've got the bus and car drop off.
[13:55] There's the, the playground.
[13:57] And as we go to the next slide, you'll see the back
[14:00] and you'll see the solar panels.
[14:04] The, the roof is being planned for the solar panels.
[14:07] We're approaching it.
[14:09] They're not in the project budgeted for it,
[14:11] but it's approaching as a lease.
[14:15] We did a, a winooski, they leased the roof
[14:18] for a very large solar array
[14:20] and they get the benefits of it without having
[14:22] to put any money down the back.
[14:25] This as, as Jay was talking about, you can see the
[14:29] project yard and the doors directly to grade.
[14:32] There's the loading dock and back.
[14:34] That's the gymnasium projecting out.
[14:37] And then we'll move to the inside.
[14:40] So this is the injury I was talking about before.
[14:42] You can see we have cosmetology
[14:45] and dining that happened here
[14:46] and there's a set of secure doors further down at your left
[14:49] here is that admin that monitor all this.
[14:53] As we move into the heart of the school, that's stair
[14:56] that learning stair, it becomes the, the, the space that
[15:01] most school can gather together.
[15:03] That it can be all school
[15:04] meetings, you can be groups together.
[15:06] This also becomes the cafeteria.
[15:07] Just really a multifunctional space that really
[15:11] engages the whole building.
[15:12] You see above natural light being poured in here.
[15:15] Again, these are, this is a really deep building,
[15:17] but when we get natural light,
[15:18] these spaces really energized.
[15:23] It's just another look at that, that's the top
[15:24] of the stairs now and spin
[15:26] around looking down at the presentation wall.
[15:29] So this, this space will have presentation capabilities
[15:33] and with the, the, the media department right
[15:37] behind can now provide support for presentations
[15:40] and things that have happened in this space.
[15:45] And this is one of those homes, those center cluster homes
[15:49] where you have cross pollination of these different programs
[15:53] to be able to work together on projects or, or things.
[15:56] So this is one of those spaces
[15:58] with natural light coming down
[15:59] and a variety of seeding
[16:00] that they can work on different projects.
[16:07] So the next part of presentation
[16:11] talks about the project costs and impacts.
[16:13] And I'll, I'll turn it over to Michelle for that.
[16:17] You've all been waiting for.
[16:21] Yeah, sure. So I just wanted to make some notes like
[16:26] to start off, so
[16:27] before I just show you the numbers,
[16:30] these are all good faith estimates.
[16:32] They're based on the most recent data, which is FY 26.
[16:37] We assume a home value of $300,000
[16:40] income sensitivity is not modeled here.
[16:43] So in Vermont, most of you, if not all of you know
[16:46] that some households qualify for property tax adjustments
[16:49] and it reduces their tax bill based off income,
[16:54] not just their property value.
[16:55] So that means that some families, the actual impact
[16:58] that we're gonna show may actually be less s
[17:03] the tax impacts will vary depending on the future state.
[17:07] We don't know what the overall
[17:09] education spending's gonna look like.
[17:10] The statewide yield, the common level of appraisal
[17:13] with pupil counts.
[17:15] So our goal tonight is just to give you a reasonable range
[17:18] of the likely impacts so that voters can have a clear
[17:22] and transparent information.
[17:24] So the best available information
[17:26] that I can give you at this moment
[17:32] cut off.
[17:36] So I think it'll take a little bit of time.
[17:38] But brief digest this amount of information.
[17:42] I tried to actually, I had someone else help me
[17:45] 'cause my graphs were like four pages long
[17:47] and I was like, no, I need all this information.
[17:49] And they're like, no, no, we're gonna show you
[17:52] just the big numbers.
[17:53] Again, this is based off a $300,000 house.
[17:57] This is this year FY 26 tax estimates.
[18:01] So if we had to pay it back this year,
[18:03] this year right now, yep.
[18:06] If payments started this year, if they started this year
[18:11] tomorrow, they were kind of sort of,
[18:15] but then we go into six semester
[18:18] hours and that sort of thing.
[18:19] So anyway, you could see the highest tax increases are East
[18:23] Montpelier Cals in Berlin.
[18:24] But the lowest being Cabot more counted in the field.
[18:28] It ranges from about $99
[18:31] to $420 per household tax bill.
[18:34] So this is not per person, this is per taxable.
[18:38] $300,000? Yes.
[18:41] The average is about $297.
[18:48] Yes. Do you have a number for Worcester?
[18:50] I don't, I don't, I haven't got their appraisal yet.
[18:52] Has it come in yet? Do you know? I don't know. Okay.
[18:56] The last I checked last week hadn't come in yet.
[18:58] So that's the one I'm waiting on.
[18:59] You said 2 97 per household?
[19:02] 2 97 is the average through all
[19:05] of our districts, all of our accounts.
[19:09] The minimum being 99
[19:10] and the highest being four 20 based off a 300,000 bucks x.
[19:19] The next slide just goes into some
[19:21] assumptions that I'm making.
[19:22] So I can give you again, the most clearest possible answers.
[19:27] The total bond is $149 million.
[19:32] We said the average payment is $9.4 million over,
[19:36] over the course of 30 years.
[19:38] Again, that could be different.
[19:40] We're using the level debt services,
[19:42] meaning we're gonna pay the same amount every year.
[19:44] That's the model that I use to estimate these numbers.
[19:48] Sometimes you can pay back a lesser amount at the beginning
[19:51] and higher in the end,
[19:52] or you can do vice versa,
[19:54] pay back a higher amount at the
[19:55] beginning and less at the end.
[19:57] But I chose the most, even peel one that I could.
[20:02] So I could really just kind of keep everything level.
[20:06] How this gets paid back is through tuition payments.
[20:08] That's the only way that CTE that we the district are able
[20:12] to pay for any of our expenses right now.
[20:16] Right now. So tuition payments again is a
[20:21] reminder for you folks or anybody listening?
[20:25] It's based on a six semester average.
[20:27] So what this means for me is that I can estimate what
[20:32] the proportional value
[20:34] of each sending school district will have.
[20:37] So if a school district sends 50% of the total population
[20:41] of students that we have, they'll be responsible
[20:43] for paying about 50%
[20:45] of the bond total cost back, if that makes sense.
[20:47] So we use a six, six semester average.
[20:51] The percent of students from each
[20:53] district remains fairly constant.
[20:55] It goes up about a percentage or two.
[20:58] So what I did was I chose this year with my past three years
[21:03] to make sure it was within range
[21:05] and I estimated of that $9.4 million, what's percentage,
[21:10] what's the allocation that each district
[21:11] would be responsible for?
[21:15] And then I allocated of courts to each district
[21:18] and based off $300,000 house this year.
[21:23] Again FY 26.
[21:26] And that's how I came up with the numbers.
[21:29] Is there any question on how I came up with the numbers?
[21:34] Do you assume an equal setting population from
[21:37] each district of the 18th?
[21:38] I mean just 9 million divided
[21:40] by 18 is half a million dollars.
[21:41] No, that's not, no,
[21:43] because each district sends a different amount of students
[21:46] and we're only able to bill.
[21:47] But how did you calculate
[21:48] It based off FTEs?
[21:50] So okay, yeah,
[21:52] Today.
[21:53] Today, this year. Yep.
[21:55] And we built tuition based off a six semester average.
[21:58] So we have two, last year we had 220 students.
[22:01] I, I'm only able to actually go for 194 students.
[22:05] It takes the last six semester averages.
[22:07] That's what I'm able to bill.
[22:10] And did you model in how it's gonna be UNE amongst the
[22:13] Towns? I did.
[22:14] That's the last slide. Yeah, that's,
[22:17] that's, sorry to jump in.
[22:19] That's why go back. It's a different amount for each town,
[22:22] Right?
[22:23] That's why it's not like you're gonna pay a million,
[22:25] you're gonna pay a million, you're gonna pay a million,
[22:27] half a million, whichever the number is.
[22:29] It's each town has an adjusted amount of
[22:31] that total $9.4 million that they would be responsible
[22:35] for paid back in tuition.
[22:37] Like in my case I live in Berlin.
[22:39] It really comes down to the number of students
[22:41] who originated in Berlin
[22:42] and then up gonna the career center.
[22:44] Correct? Yes.
[22:48] Someone had a question.
[22:51] Peter Anthony, Mr. Anthony, you have a question?
[22:54] Yeah. I guess just refining the
[22:58] preceding statement about allocation across districts,
[23:02] I assume there'd be a lag time for those communities
[23:06] who have not sent a great number of students
[23:11] here to, for for whatever reason
[23:14] and they increase their sending of students.
[23:19] There would be obviously a lag time in terms of catch up
[23:23] of recap, re reallocation of the proportion
[23:28] amongst the collective members of the
[23:33] career center catchment area.
[23:34] Is that not logically correct?
[23:38] That's correct. That's why we use a six semester average.
[23:41] So if you were to spend 20 additional students
[23:44] to me this year, I'm going off a three year,
[23:47] six semester average.
[23:48] So this year you're not paying
[23:50] for an additional 20 students.
[23:52] But over the course of three years,
[23:53] those 20 students will be worked into our average
[23:55] in which we're able to pay.
[23:58] I just to observe, I mean part
[24:00] of the reason we're doing this,
[24:01] and I applaud it, is we're having to turn down two out
[24:05] of every three applicants.
[24:07] So they're obviously sending towns whose participation will
[24:11] dramatically increase once we open.
[24:14] And so there's, there's gonna be a shift,
[24:17] but it will be, if you will, into the future
[24:20] because it's lagged if it's a six semester average.
[24:25] Correct. Yep, you're right.
[24:28] Will, let's have the added knock on benefit of,
[24:31] of tapering the increases because you,
[24:36] because you're gonna have, it'll take you six semesters
[24:38] to get up to full enrollment
[24:42] Billings, presuming that's, that remains for CTE.
[24:45] Oh right. With the foundation formula. We really don't know.
[24:49] We, so that's part of why we had to go with the numbers
[24:51] that we have this year that we know
[24:54] and the way that we budget and tuition now
[24:56] because that's what we know and we can't predict the future.
[25:00] I joked to somebody just yesterday
[25:02] or maybe it was this morning, that I don't,
[25:04] my crystal ball's not working.
[25:06] And so we're doing the best we can
[25:08] with what we know right now. Yeah. Patrick,
[25:11] Thank you.
[25:13] This something we, we discussed a bit at the Washington show
[25:16] meeting was what, what's the ratio of, of students
[25:21] that apply versus students that, that attend at,
[25:25] they were obviously consent were specifically for E 32,
[25:28] but do you have those numbers for each school and
[25:31] and is that appropriate to work into the estimates or
[25:34] or do you feel like it's pretty even?
[25:41] That's a really good question.
[25:42] I don't, I'm trying to think of how we break it out.
[25:45] We break it out by school district
[25:50] when once they've been accepted,
[25:52] but we haven't broken it out that way in who's applied
[25:57] so that we have the data.
[25:59] We can go into it that way this year for the first time.
[26:02] And actually I asked them to go back to last year, I asked
[26:06] how many actual people, single people applied
[26:10] because we have students who if they don't get in the first
[26:12] round, they'll reapply Right.
[26:14] The second round for others.
[26:16] And so there was really, I'm gonna have to dig to find that,
[26:21] but I think we had 400
[26:24] and I'm gonna guess wrong probably,
[26:27] but 424 applicants for this year.
[26:30] And 404 of them were single.
[26:35] I only applied once, sorry, looking on it earlier.
[26:40] Yes, I was. You go to the bottom.
[26:42] Okay, so total applicants this year, 443,
[26:46] but individual applicants was 414.
[26:49] So really we did have over 400 individual students apply.
[26:53] Right. And we have 216
[26:55] that will be starting with us on Wednesday.
[26:58] Yeah,
[27:00] I guess the question is, is the proportion
[27:01] of kids from each sending school the same for the, the 218
[27:06] as for the 414?
[27:08] Right. So that's, that's a really good question
[27:11] and I don't have that information in
[27:12] front of me, but I can ask for it.
[27:13] Thanks.
[27:16] One thing I'll, I'll one thing I'll note. Excuse me,
[27:18] I'm, could you just identify
[27:19] yourself for the record please?
[27:21] Thank you for the request. My name's Camp Featherston.
[27:24] I'm senior associated tr cullins.
[27:27] So when, when I first looked at the, at the
[27:32] impact, this comports very, very closely
[27:36] with the initial projections of the
[27:40] burden on the 18 towns as a whole.
[27:44] And what that tells me, especially
[27:46] as we talk about these things, as populations may change
[27:49] and this town may send more in the future
[27:51] and this one may send less, is that that range of costs
[27:54] that we're seeing is may shift back and forth,
[27:57] but it's, it's, it's, it's gonna be in
[27:59] that same ballpark, right?
[28:01] Because it's, it's the same amount
[28:03] of money that has to be raised.
[28:06] It's just, it's being paid for,
[28:09] it sounds like it's being paid
[28:10] for proportionally based on the number
[28:11] of students from each town that are going.
[28:14] So the proportions may shift as the popul relationships,
[28:19] which seems fair.
[28:21] But it, all I'm saying is that this comports very closely
[28:26] with the overall projections in this range
[28:30] is what we expected.
[28:37] No,
[28:37] You got it.
[28:40] So Michelle, yeah, the,
[28:44] the projections that,
[28:46] that we're looking at the very fancy graph, I love it.
[28:50] So that
[28:55] we know is not going to be the case going forward. Right.
[28:59] This is my best estimate as of right
[29:01] Now.
[29:02] Absolutely. And with the, the legislation that passed,
[29:05] we don't know yet the effect of the foundation formula
[29:10] and we don't know.
[29:14] And the truth. So this is additional to
[29:19] what already is being paid by the school district.
[29:22] If the school district were to shift change
[29:27] what they're paying that will also affect tax rates.
[29:31] So if schools paid exactly what they're paying now
[29:35] and I had to add $9.4 million on this is what it would be.
[29:39] Gotcha. Presumably if we are taking double the amount
[29:43] of students, we're increasing our enrollment from 220
[29:46] to 500, between four
[29:48] and 500 students, that would change
[29:51] what sending schools are are
[29:54] paying presumably.
[29:57] So if theirs went down a little, even though they owed more
[30:01] to the CTE again, that can Yeah. Decrease tax.
[30:05] Yeah. Oh absolutely.
[30:06] And I guess I'm, so the, the, the first students
[30:10] that would ever make it in would be in 2029.
[30:14] When do, when do the
[30:17] taxpayers start paying on the bond
[30:21] The next, it depends when we fully allocate our bond.
[30:26] So when we take the money out,
[30:27] but I would presume it could be
[30:29] that first year that they're in.
[30:31] So during construction there's no, I,
[30:35] I need to verify that, but
[30:37] because of the short timeline of between construction
[30:39] and starting, I don't presume that would be much before.
[30:43] Yeah. Okay, cool.
[30:45] Yeah, I think, yeah, that's definitely a,
[30:49] I'm trying if you can figure out, I'm trying
[30:50] to figure out all of those things that we don't know
[30:53] but we know are likely to change.
[30:54] Right. And so the other, the other question I have, sorry,
[30:59] is the potential for,
[31:03] and Jody maybe this is a question for you.
[31:05] The potential for the change in
[31:08] CTE governance in the state.
[31:11] So if that, if we go to one CTE district,
[31:18] what are the potential impacts on, or even if you know
[31:22] It, it depends what they determine about
[31:24] what would happen with bonds, right?
[31:25] Because does does it then get spread across the entire state
[31:29] or do the sending schools that are originally voted
[31:32] for it in these towns have to continue to carry it?
[31:36] It's a really good question. I don't know
[31:40] Right now this is assumes that the cost will be
[31:44] amongst the 1870 towns and not the entire state. Correct?
[31:48] Correct. And historically
[31:52] the state paid a hundred percent for CTE centers.
[31:56] There was no bonding No.
[32:00] Through legislative. Yeah.
[32:01] It was just that they didn't build a lot of 'em
[32:05] and you know,
[32:06] but that's to your point of a, of a single district
[32:10] and the whole state supporting the CTE center,
[32:15] that's essentially what was happening in the past
[32:17] through different mechanisms.
[32:19] Yeah. So again, the, the assumption
[32:21] of this is we are not getting our bond our any kind
[32:25] of our census tape through any other means
[32:27] besides this bond.
[32:28] Right. Which I do not know as of right now.
[32:33] As of right now, I'm gonna assume
[32:35] we are paying for the whole thing.
[32:37] At some point in the future there might be other means in
[32:40] which could pay help pay for this.
[32:42] And I truly hope that there is
[32:44] and we don't mind searching for those things either.
[32:47] I will find every pot of money.
[32:55] Any additional questions or concerns.
[33:01] I see the, the, are we do, is it for simplicity's sake
[33:05] or are we, or
[33:07] or what's, what's the status of the 149 versus 140
[33:13] price tag gymnasium?
[33:15] No gymnasium decision.
[33:17] I think the direction we got from the board when we last
[33:20] talked about this was just let's move forward
[33:23] with a full amount and just do the whole thing.
[33:28] I think there was some discussion at that time of if we,
[33:32] if the bond vote failed in November, then we might come back
[33:37] later without the gym portion of it.
[33:41] But that it made sense to go move forward with the vision
[33:44] of the board for the full day and to have that there. Okay,
[33:48] Thank you.
[33:51] So kind of finalize my portion of the presentation.
[33:54] I just wanted to emphasize transparency.
[33:56] For the best available estimates that I have right now,
[34:00] I am committed to providing with ongoing updates
[34:04] as new data becomes available,
[34:05] I'm still waiting on one town.
[34:07] So when I get that information, I'll share that
[34:09] I hear anything about construction cost
[34:13] coverage or anything like that.
[34:14] I definitely, or if you hear anything,
[34:17] definitely share it my way
[34:20] and I'm just really excited.
[34:23] Really excited. And so the,
[34:28] the last slide here is just the project schedule.
[34:31] So tonight the board hopefully will reaffirm
[34:35] that it wants us to move forward
[34:37] with $149 million bond vote.
[34:40] We will warn that vote, assuming
[34:43] that happens on September 8th at our next board meeting.
[34:47] And that would take place on November four.
[34:50] The votes would be comm mingled on the November 6th.
[34:53] So we would not know on November four what the outcome was.
[34:55] We would know by end of day on November 6th.
[34:59] And then if it was a positive outcome, we would move forward
[35:03] with building design and permits, then construction
[35:05] and then with the plan of opening in September of 2029.
[35:09] Jody. Alright, go ahead. I saw Paul Malone and then
[35:15] Thank you.
[35:18] I have a little bit of history here with the career center
[35:22] as well as the high school.
[35:24] I was a chair of the high school board for a number
[35:27] of years, which incorporated the CDCC.
[35:30] I also became the chair of the new BUSD board
[35:34] for the first two years of that.
[35:36] That was fun with COVID and everything else.
[35:38] So I'm, I'm really very rational with numbers
[35:42] and data pours outta my ears.
[35:44] It's just what I, I have some concerns and some issues.
[35:49] The first one, I, I would ask you to indulge me
[35:52] for about five minutes because when I was looking at the
[35:56] news article and I was looking at the,
[35:58] the historical framing of this
[35:59] and also looking at the sites, I, I served on a couple
[36:01] of the boards as its chair in the town of Perry as well.
[36:05] So I have a little bit more of an insight,
[36:07] a little bit more knowledge.
[36:08] And since this is being proposed
[36:09] to be constructed in our backyard,
[36:12] I thought maybe I would come forward
[36:14] and share some of my thoughts.
[36:16] There is an affordability factor that is,
[36:19] has risen in this state.
[36:20] Just over a year, year and a half ago, there were dozens
[36:24] and dozens of communities in this state
[36:26] that defeated their school budgets.
[36:28] Affordability became a very, very real thing
[36:31] and it still is, hasn't gone away.
[36:34] This led to a shakeup in our legislature, change
[36:37] of the balances and so forth that there was just part of a,
[36:41] a radical shift
[36:42] because people had reached at
[36:45] that time the end of their agenda.
[36:48] This hasn't changed much.
[36:50] This led to the current redistricting proposals out there.
[36:54] We're not sure how that's gonna end up
[36:56] and what that's going to do.
[36:58] This may even have an, an effect on the existing buildings.
[37:02] We may have buildings,
[37:03] we may be closing some buildings in the state.
[37:05] I'm talking about education from a 30,000 foot elevation,
[37:09] something I'm used to doing
[37:11] and looking at what does this look like for our area.
[37:15] And a lot of the really small schools that when you go back
[37:19] to Act 60 was kind of intended to close a lot
[37:22] of those smaller schools 'cause they became very,
[37:24] very expensive at that time.
[37:26] I remember Roxbury for example,
[37:28] the average cost per pupil under
[37:30] that particular formula was somewhere
[37:32] around $46,000 a year for student.
[37:35] Which I thought was equivalent to a Harvard education.
[37:38] I won't go into that, but the declining enrollments in
[37:42] students across the state of Vermont
[37:43] and the general cost of education increasing the idea
[37:48] of tacking on another eight
[37:49] or 9% on top of everything else for the next 30 years
[37:54] is difficult to really fathom for a lot of the people
[37:57] who make my phone ring off code sometimes
[37:59] because they still think I'm still seeing on a board,
[38:01] which I am not the, the concern that we have is
[38:06] that over the 30 years time, even if everything was frozen,
[38:11] there was no increase in the cost of education.
[38:13] Which I don't think anybody's sitting on a board
[38:16] will recognize that as being the case.
[38:17] Costs just seem to be going up
[38:20] and generally speaking it is gonna go up a rate
[38:22] that's higher than nutrition.
[38:24] It has done so for the last, oh I don't know,
[38:27] 25, 30 years since I've been gone to schools
[38:31] building the state of the art building may be,
[38:34] but it's not necessary as far as what most of the people
[38:38] that talk to me about, if Randolph can accept 40 students,
[38:44] there's probably a lot of other school systems where there
[38:48] to declar enrollments that are affected
[38:50] the same way Randolph is.
[38:51] They could take in students,
[38:54] maybe we're looking at it from a different point of view
[38:56] that we should be looking at satellites.
[38:59] There are a lot of school districts across the country when
[39:03] I was in Virginia saw that there were district satellite
[39:06] entities and they seem to work very well.
[39:09] True enough there's gonna be ***** no matter what you do
[39:12] as far as where you set things up, whether they be satellite
[39:15] or you have the state of the art building.
[39:18] The graniteville district kind of concerned me
[39:21] because that's their water district.
[39:22] And the water district from my understanding,
[39:24] doesn't have the capacity for this.
[39:26] So I have a real stranges quirky question.
[39:29] My back of my head is,
[39:30] where will the water come from to supply this?
[39:33] 'cause right now that needs a tremendous upgrade.
[39:36] I don't know about the sewer capacities.
[39:38] I know we, we are coed with Barry City for that.
[39:44] And as was mentioned on your presentation,
[39:49] there is some concerns about traffic.
[39:51] Those of us who live in the town, you're gonna have
[39:54] to come up some state hills.
[39:55] You're gonna come to some interesting intersections to get
[39:58] to this location.
[39:59] Which passing understanding is in the farthest corner
[40:03] of the district that this is a interesting place
[40:08] and, and most of us who lived
[40:10] around these general areas knew that there were wetlands
[40:13] and other concerns and obviously not
[40:14] showing up in their maps.
[40:19] We had a response
[40:22] after we had formed our Act 46 group
[40:26] and we realized there were so many other acts
[40:28] that the state was throwing at us.
[40:30] We just couldn't keep up with it.
[40:31] Act 1 73, which dealt with the special ed formula, caused us
[40:36] to buy a piece of property
[40:38] and build what we called as the sea building.
[40:41] And that was the intent
[40:42] to bring in our special ed kids back in
[40:45] because we didn't want to get hammered.
[40:47] 'cause we were told at the time it might cost us a million
[40:50] or two a year, an extra expense to the district.
[40:53] So it made sense to maybe put a couple million
[40:55] dollars in building, building.
[40:57] However that project went 50% over.
[41:01] And we also found out that
[41:04] the way the X 2073 panned out to, we built it basically
[41:10] on a theory and it never panned out.
[41:13] As much as I believe in tech schools
[41:15] and I do believe in tech technology
[41:17] is is very, very important.
[41:18] I believe in education or I wouldn't even be here
[41:21] tonight to talk about it.
[41:24] I'm aware of many of the neighbors in my community that said
[41:28] that they've hit the maximum what they can pay.
[41:32] So if you say an average cost of a home is around 300,000,
[41:36] you are looking at something between oh 110
[41:40] and $140 per house at that range.
[41:45] That's, that's a sizeable increase when you look at it
[41:49] in the real scale of
[41:51] what housing in Vermont has gone since COVID came in
[41:54] those housing numbers.
[41:55] I'm not even sure $300,000 will get you
[41:58] into a decent house anymore.
[42:00] I know there's a lot of people that are in Barr Town,
[42:02] particularly the town that I live in
[42:05] who have properties are way more than that
[42:08] and a lot of 'em are probably paying one to
[42:13] one and a half thousand dollars per month.
[42:15] That used to be a big mortgage many years ago.
[42:18] Right now that's just the ordinary tax.
[42:21] I would encourage you to look at, you know, the,
[42:26] the facts that we're going
[42:27] to have continuing education increase
[42:29] and maybe look outside the box.
[42:32] Whenever I was designing buildings and
[42:34] and doing construction so forth, we looked at, you know,
[42:38] optimum ways to stretching that dollar homeowners
[42:41] and businesses wanted that from us and that was important.
[42:45] I know these gentlemen have done a good job.
[42:47] I mean when we were involved with our C building,
[42:50] I was involved with that committee very directly
[42:52] and talked about its expansion
[42:54] because we thought that's exactly
[42:55] what was going to have to happen.
[42:57] And we allowed for an expansion
[43:00] by planning its infrastructure
[43:01] but that purpose we're not fully filled on
[43:05] that building at this point.
[43:07] That kind of concerns me too.
[43:08] 'cause that's another thing that we are concerned about.
[43:12] It's not that I'm against technical education,
[43:14] quite the contrary.
[43:16] I think it's a very, very important habit.
[43:19] But we are in a state, this is not northern Virginia,
[43:21] we're in a state right now
[43:22] where people are actually having a hard time, A,
[43:25] getting housing B, being able to afford housing
[43:28] and C are having a hard time making all ends.
[43:31] B we are a state of older population.
[43:35] I hear gives testimony to that.
[43:37] And as a result of that, there are a lot of people
[43:40] who are on fixed incomes.
[43:42] We have a difficult time making ends meet.
[43:45] They shouldn't have to choose between their medicines,
[43:49] their their food, clothing and shelter.
[43:53] And they have a tax burden on top of that.
[43:55] 'cause every one of them making that, not to mention energy,
[43:58] energy is a real big problem right now
[44:00] and in this state we've gone in these directions
[44:03] and made it next to it possible.
[44:05] I don't think the legislators really had a clue as to
[44:08] what was gonna happen with Act 1 27.
[44:11] But it was a big blow up. The idea change in models.
[44:14] Once again, coming back to special ed, we don't,
[44:18] we don't know what's gonna happen in the near future.
[44:21] That's the problem we're talking about.
[44:24] What happens to this school system.
[44:27] For example, our population is drawn tremendously
[44:32] and some days we have maybe four
[44:34] or 500 kids in this building, which used
[44:35] to have 13, 14, 1500 kids.
[44:38] That's just one building
[44:39] and we're watching our populations decline.
[44:43] We no longer have, you know, three or 4,000 students.
[44:46] We're now headed towards under 2200 students
[44:48] for this entire district.
[44:50] That's Barry and Barry down,
[44:52] which in this circle is the largest district.
[44:56] What is the burden?
[44:58] I was listening to
[44:59] how this bond might work out if students shift, does
[45:03] that mean that the bond ratios that been put together
[45:06] for the 18 towns also shift?
[45:08] It sounded like it a minute ago.
[45:11] And that's leads to another thing of uncertainty.
[45:15] And we shouldn't go into something
[45:16] with an uncertainty principle.
[45:19] I hope it didn't discourage you,
[45:21] but I just thought somebody had
[45:22] to say it was my ears been getting bent quite a bit on it
[45:25] and I just thought I'd share that. Thank you. Thank you.
[45:28] Thanks.
[45:34] This isn't clear. I thought somebody else
[45:36] Had No I On a different issue.
[45:39] Okay, let's roll with this one.
[45:42] I just wanna say I am a strong support of the test school.
[45:45] I think it's awesome what they offer
[45:47] and I always feel bad for the students that want to go
[45:50] that can't attend for that year.
[45:53] 'cause I know it impacts their,
[45:55] their plans and their future.
[45:59] Speaking about this district, Mr. Malone is,
[46:03] is accurate when he says we just this one year we've lost
[46:06] eight students at Swanley High School
[46:09] and which is quite concerning
[46:13] because it was, it used to be 1600 students here.
[46:17] I went to school here and I remember when it was packed.
[46:20] But anyways, and,
[46:21] but they have a $70 million budget here that we're paying
[46:26] for taxes and in addition to all the property taxes.
[46:31] So I really would like to see this happen,
[46:35] but I just have some questions before we get there.
[46:38] Was there a cost benefit analysis done on
[46:43] the existing building versus the new deal as far
[46:47] as getting your needs here to,
[46:50] do you know if that was done at all?
[46:54] Yes, we actually had the architects design
[46:57] what it would look like to add the spaces here
[47:00] for us to be able to do that.
[47:02] Okay. It doesn't fit. Okay.
[47:04] There are some concerns about this being a floodplain.
[47:07] As you know, we have not had this building tested for PCBs
[47:11] yet, so there might be some mitigation there.
[47:13] Okay. So there's, there are a lot of potential factors
[47:17] and if we're renovating any part of the space to become
[47:21] lab spaces, there are very different spaces than
[47:24] classroom spaces.
[47:26] Okay. So it's a pretty significant shift as far as heights
[47:29] of ceilings ability to carry weight.
[47:32] So we did look at that
[47:34] and we did actually bring it to the very board.
[47:36] You did? Gosh, it was a while ago, two years ago, Joe,
[47:41] I'm not sure if it was two, but it was a while ago
[47:42] Was, wasn't there also an issue that,
[47:44] that we don't own this building?
[47:48] Right. And so I can't remember
[47:50] what it was until I thought that.
[47:52] Right. Honestly,
[47:54] I don't think anyone's answered the question
[47:55] of if CT has become a single district
[47:58] who owns the CTE spaces
[47:59] because the, the funds were direct CTE funds
[48:04] that pay for the spaces.
[48:06] So that's a, that's a really good question,
[48:07] but right now we can pay a facility to use fee for a lot
[48:11] of the infrastructure that is part of the full building.
[48:14] Yeah. Well and we also have the issue that we can't use
[48:18] our grant funding for upgrades
[48:21] because we don't own the building.
[48:22] Right. Question.
[48:26] So beyond the students, which I think would be great.
[48:29] Is there any other plans
[48:30] and you probably haven't got here yet, like for
[48:35] adult workforce training?
[48:37] Yes. Okay. So one of the, one of the things
[48:40] that I've been doing a lot of research on is just
[48:44] CTE across our country.
[48:46] And there are a lot of benefits in just
[48:50] training students here, high school students
[48:52] and what they get and bring to our communities
[48:54] because more of them tend to stay in the communities.
[48:57] And of course I think Lyman, you were talking about this
[48:59] before the meeting started, the average salary
[49:02] that they get coming straight out of tech school instead
[49:05] of straight out of high school
[49:06] and entering in as an apprentice
[49:08] and as an electrician for example,
[49:10] is much higher than their peers
[49:11] that they're sending schools.
[49:13] So their earning potential
[49:14] and their ability to potentially settle here
[49:16] and be part of that tax base is also higher.
[49:21] We are on the precipice of signing an agreement
[49:25] with district six emergency services to do all
[49:27] of their training and the funds that they get for the grants
[49:31] that they get for their training.
[49:33] And some state grants are coming to us to pilot this so
[49:36] that we do it all here, partly
[49:38] because we have redundant equipment
[49:41] and so they won't have to keep investing in equipment
[49:43] that we already have and we have the spaces
[49:45] to do the training instead of having
[49:47] to pull the firetrucks out of the fire station so
[49:49] that they can do a training day.
[49:51] So that's something that we're soon to sign off on.
[49:54] I would say within the next two weeks
[49:58] we have a new adult ed coordinator who's working
[50:01] on some other pieces.
[50:02] And so we're looking at growing not only
[50:04] where our high school students have access,
[50:06] but also any training for adult education.
[50:08] So it, we're hoping
[50:10] that this new facility will be a much better hub for all of
[50:13] that and to support all
[50:15] of the workforce development in our region.
[50:18] I have one last questions to her.
[50:21] One, if one
[50:22] of the sunny districts will know, we won't know.
[50:27] We won't know. Our votes are commingled,
[50:30] so we just have the end result of yeses and nos.
[50:33] Okay. So it's a majority.
[50:35] And from these towns it seems like it's gonna be
[50:37] hard for them to budget.
[50:40] Will there be like a heads up
[50:41] or some kind of That's a really good question
[50:46] and we're gonna do the best we can
[50:48] to provide all the information that we do.
[50:49] As you've sat through a couple of my roadshows in December
[50:53] where I go and let everybody know where's our budget at,
[50:56] what, what's the impact on you?
[51:00] But we're all gonna have to wait and see what happens.
[51:03] There are so many things
[51:04] that we just can't predict right now that we're,
[51:06] that's why we're sitting with these FY 26 numbers
[51:09] because that's the only thing we have that's real right now.
[51:13] And there's nothing that we can predict.
[51:15] So are these numbers real?
[51:17] No, because they apply
[51:18] as if we were paying back something this year under
[51:21] everything that's currently happening.
[51:23] And any change to that shifts those numbers.
[51:26] Thank you so much.
[51:30] I just wanted to address one
[51:32] thing, Mr. Malone, is that right?
[51:33] Yes. Line and gas.
[51:36] The, the idea of Randolph that I had the same idea you did,
[51:41] which was if Randolph could take 40 of our kids
[51:44] and other schools could take some,
[51:46] we'd be set and we'd be fine.
[51:48] And Jody, I thought you responded very well to me, which was
[51:53] now we're talking about a kid somehow getting from Cabot
[51:57] to here, Cabot from their house to cab school to here
[52:03] to Randolph in the middle of winter
[52:07] is a long way away.
[52:09] They'll, they'll spend more time on the bus than they
[52:12] will in the building.
[52:13] I believe it'll be right around the same.
[52:16] And so that's not an ideal.
[52:19] Well I I would add to that,
[52:20] that if you've been watching North Southwest has had two
[52:24] meetings with Pain Mountain School District
[52:27] where they're trying to talk about should they move forward
[52:30] with a merger idea ahead of
[52:33] what the legislature is gonna do.
[52:34] And some very folks, very board folks were there to listen
[52:39] at their last meeting last week, which is the same time
[52:42] as the Washington Central meeting.
[52:44] And basically what I interpreted was
[52:47] that Orange Southwest is saying Randolph school has,
[52:50] is going to, in the near future,
[52:52] have some pretty big failures that are gonna cost them a lot
[52:55] of money and that they would need a new building.
[52:58] And so they were looking for Paine Mountain
[53:01] to potentially join 'em
[53:03] and build a new regional high school in
[53:05] Randolph with a tech center.
[53:09] Our new center could potentially take care of our region
[53:14] and the Randolph students
[53:15] because they're 106 with our students.
[53:22] I'd like to respond to you.
[53:24] I'm the kind of a person that likes
[53:26] to think outta the box.
[53:27] In fact, I usually pretend there is no box.
[53:30] You know, Randolph was a long ways to go.
[53:32] My, my first commentary to that would be
[53:35] that there are a lot of buildings in this district,
[53:37] the overall what might be a new state district, who knows?
[53:41] But there's an awful lot of space that is trying
[53:43] to be created in a lot of the schools
[53:45] to constantly closing schools
[53:47] because there's that much space
[53:49] and small populations kind of forces you to that.
[53:54] So two, two ways of answering that is maybe to look,
[53:57] look at all the schools that we have right now, which are,
[53:59] you're sending the schools and say, is there, is there a way
[54:02] to maybe do satellites
[54:03] or another way to look at that is go ahead the bond go,
[54:07] if it fails, then you come back
[54:08] to looking at maybe some satellite programs.
[54:12] I don't see any other route to that,
[54:14] but that's, I I don't serve in your capacity
[54:17] and you have a a, a way in blaming these two. But it is
[54:22] No, I I I think these are all things
[54:24] that we've been discussing over the past couple of years
[54:28] and there's a lot of yes, ands, let's do this.
[54:32] And there's also a well, but this doesn't work
[54:35] because of this reason.
[54:38] We've kind of been juggling all of those things for,
[54:42] since the district was started.
[54:44] And
[54:46] If, if the state was building tech centers like they did
[54:50] before, go back some time to when this meeting was put on
[54:55] and they were gonna do that a hundred percent.
[54:57] There's no question in my mind. I like the pretty pictures.
[55:01] I like what, what you're trying to do.
[55:02] I like the idea you expanded program,
[55:05] but what's going to be the thing that holds everything up is
[55:08] how do people who actually pay for this,
[55:12] I'm not speaking for myself personally,
[55:16] having put poor kids through college, I can tell you clearly
[55:20] that it's, it's, it's an interesting path
[55:24] and, you know, education costs.
[55:26] But in this reality, in this day and age
[55:29] and being in the state, Vermont
[55:31] moneys are drying up in a lot of different quarters.
[55:33] And you are, our economic growth is,
[55:36] is not really like it was say cir
[55:39] nineties, eighties and so on. That's all I say.
[55:43] Thank you.
[55:49] Anyone online have any questions or concerns?
[55:55] Come on Guy.
[56:02] Can can I ask another quick question? Michelle?
[56:05] I was looking in your, what remains uncertain yield
[56:08] and CLA adjustments are in there.
[56:10] And is that only for like taking, like figuring out
[56:14] how much a specific town would,
[56:18] it would cost a, a 300,000?
[56:20] It's not the actual like proportional. Right. Okay, cool.
[56:24] Right. Yeah, it's simply like XX number
[56:28] of students on average over the last six semesters came
[56:31] from Montpelier.
[56:32] So that proportion of the, the bond bill is paid
[56:36] by Montpelier and then you divide up based on the property.
[56:39] Yep. By grant risk, whatever. Yeah. Fantastic.
[56:42] Now I'm ready to explain the tax system.
[56:48] I mean at, at the end of the day it seems like it has test
[56:51] for me because broadly speaking
[56:54] the project is gonna add about 4.5%
[56:57] to the total expenditures of the 18 towns.
[57:00] And we saw that there's an average about five
[57:02] and three quarter percent
[57:03] or something like that, which probably accounts
[57:05] for financing costs
[57:06] or variability in the, in the
[57:09] translating my rough numbers to real numbers.
[57:13] So to me it passes the sniff test.
[57:15] It may be a little conservative,
[57:20] which is probably where you want to be.
[57:26] Todd, I heard something from my, I thought so.
[57:27] Thought so too. Did anyone try to raise a hand?
[57:33] Alright, well that brings us to
[57:38] conclusion of our discussion.
[57:41] What action does our career center need from the
[57:46] board at this time, if any?
[57:50] I don't have that. We do, sorry to close my computer,
[57:54] but the authorization to draft a warning to get this
[57:59] to our taxpayers.
[58:03] I do have the warning, I do have the language
[58:05] for this summary, but we're just drafting,
[58:08] we're agreeing to draft one.
[58:10] We're not authorizing the warning at this time. No. Correct.
[58:12] I just need you to authorize the ability to drop the warning
[58:16] to bring it to the taxpayer.
[58:18] Okay. So we need a motion for the board to draft a warning
[58:23] announcing the, the bond vote
[58:27] and allowing all those who have
[58:31] significant input to put that together.
[58:34] So I need a motion to draft a warning for the bond vote.
[58:38] I'll make that motion. Alice. Thank you. All right guy.
[58:42] Need a second? A second. Patrick, any discussion?
[58:50] Any questions? Hearing none.
[58:54] All those in favor, please say aye.
[58:56] Aye. Aye. Aye.
[58:58] Aye. Okay. We got everyone in the room.
[59:03] Everyone online. Okay.
[59:07] Any dissension?
[59:11] Any abstentions?
[59:14] Hearing none. Motion carries.
[59:22] Now who will work on that?
[59:24] Me, we're gonna bring it to legal counsel
[59:27] and then we'll bring you the morning for official approval
[59:31] next September 8th.
[59:34] All right. So we will hear from our school administration
[59:39] and legal counsel on September 8th.
[59:43] Can I, for the purposes of our tenants, can I ask,
[59:47] who is the phone number that ends in eight six?
[59:53] This is Yara Mosquito. Oh, thank you Yara.
[59:59] Okay, thank you. All right,
[1:00:03] Just a process question.
[1:00:04] Yes. So we just need to get that vetted warning
[1:00:08] to the town clerks, like, whatever,
[1:00:10] 40 days or something like that.
[1:00:12] 30 days, whatever they're Yep. Before,
[1:00:15] Yeah, before vote.
[1:00:17] I had to start a Google sheet. 'cause there's a
[1:00:18] Lot of, they all have
[1:00:20] In all the different towns. Thank
[1:00:23] You.
[1:00:24] Thank you. Thank you guys.
[1:00:27] Work my way backwards on this one.
[1:00:29] On on that same note,
[1:00:30] the question I was gonna ask earlier was,
[1:00:32] we have the town clerks on to process the votes.
[1:00:38] They're all aware. They're all aware.
[1:00:40] They've had some conversations,
[1:00:41] they've asked some questions.
[1:00:42] Okay. But they know it's coming
[1:00:44] and they've been providing me with
[1:00:46] where the voting will take place
[1:00:48] and the the hours they'll be open.
[1:00:50] So we're updating that information. Awesome.
[1:00:55] All right. Moving forward. Marketing updates.
[1:01:02] I'll have two tomatoes and a zucchini.
[1:01:05] Careful when asking the zucchinis
[1:01:13] uc.
[1:01:16] So a lot of doors around here.
[1:01:19] Last week a small cohort of folks had the opportunity
[1:01:22] to look at three campaigns.
[1:01:26] I think Todd was probably the only board member there.
[1:01:31] Options that the marketing team had put together
[1:01:35] and to give some feedback
[1:01:36] and we did give some pretty direct feedback that was linked
[1:01:40] to some documents the board got.
[1:01:44] And later the next day, August 21st, Michelle
[1:01:48] and I received a, like the media plan
[1:01:53] in the original agreement.
[1:01:54] There's, I have a couple of concerns,
[1:01:58] but one of which is that they've decided
[1:02:00] to take away a direct mailer.
[1:02:02] And I think that our, I wanted
[1:02:04] to get feedback from the board
[1:02:05] because I feel like our communities expect
[1:02:07] our budget postcard.
[1:02:09] And so not doing that for a bond vote worries me
[1:02:14] that people will be expecting it and they won't get it.
[1:02:18] I wonder if I should just present the media piece
[1:02:22] that they asked us for feedback on
[1:02:26] Somebody in the packet online, right?
[1:02:28] I think I sent it today. Yeah.
[1:02:31] Be updated. Yeah.
[1:02:33] Strongly recommended to direct mail or to constituents.
[1:02:36] It's the most surefire way to hit everybody. Yeah,
[1:02:39] People like it.
[1:02:41] We've gotten the most feedback on our direct mailers than
[1:02:45] anything that we, so there was a recommendation
[1:02:47] that the majority of the majority of what they were going
[1:02:50] to do would be through social media.
[1:02:52] So we do, we did upgrade our Facebook to a paid Facebook
[1:02:57] and we've upgraded all of our Instagrams
[1:02:59] for every single program so that they're all linked to it so
[1:03:02] that we can push out information on Instagram and Facebook
[1:03:07] and so can our marketing team, they will do lawn signs
[1:03:11] and brochures for
[1:03:14] print purposes.
[1:03:16] And the lawn signs and brochures are probably what's coming.
[1:03:19] First. They propose some 32nd radio spots
[1:03:25] on three channels.
[1:03:28] So they are froggy
[1:03:31] and Frank and one other.
[1:03:35] DEV? No,
[1:03:37] We said no, No,
[1:03:39] No.
[1:03:40] The point. No, no, we said no. Sorry.
[1:03:43] Let me hold it Up at DEV. Okay. That's,
[1:03:46] Oh, okay.
[1:03:47] And, and you are searches for the
[1:03:49] Record.
[1:03:50] Memel is my name. Meyers Rome.
[1:03:52] Okay, say that one more time.
[1:03:55] Memel. M-E-R-M-E-L. Okay. First name Meyers. M-Y-E-R-S.
[1:04:01] So froggy, Frank and the penguin.
[1:04:03] And they did note that WDEB said no
[1:04:08] and then placing ads in the times RES basically
[1:04:12] every other week between our, our warning decision
[1:04:16] that happened September 8th meeting
[1:04:18] and up until the bond vote.
[1:04:22] I'm curious about the statement about why they
[1:04:25] didn't include direct mail.
[1:04:27] While we love the impact of a well-designed mailer,
[1:04:31] we have found other channels
[1:04:32] to be much more efficient in reaching the right people.
[1:04:37] And yeah, I just,
[1:04:41] So we have to provide feedback to them by the 30th
[1:04:44] and I'm happy to do it actually by tomorrow, but,
[1:04:48] and that's one where I feel like that was part
[1:04:51] of our agreement with 'em, is
[1:04:52] that there would be a direct mailing
[1:04:54] and that we have to hold them to that.
[1:04:56] Yeah, I would push back on that
[1:04:58] and ask if, if they have any, like to provide some sort
[1:05:02] of rationale evidence support for those, for that statement.
[1:05:06] 'cause
[1:05:08] And of the three campaigns, the strongest one was honestly
[1:05:11] based on education networks, which is our tagline
[1:05:15] and which they actually created all of our, our tagline
[1:05:19] and our, what am I talking about?
[1:05:23] The images? Logo. Logo. Logo, thank you. Several years ago.
[1:05:26] So it's not anything new that they're providing in this,
[1:05:30] it's building off of what they had created before.
[1:05:33] Jody, can you explain a little bit on the, the notes
[1:05:38] that you have on that, that sheet
[1:05:41] and this idea that a lot of this stuff That's
[1:05:46] whether it's we're doing it, they're doing it.
[1:05:51] Yeah. So I shared with the board
[1:05:55] just a spreadsheet of here's what was in our contract,
[1:05:59] here's what we've gotten so far as far as the deliverables
[1:06:02] and the date that we received it.
[1:06:04] And then a few concerns just,
[1:06:08] I think this is their first bond vote.
[1:06:10] And so helping them to realize what we can
[1:06:13] and can't say, we can't put line on signs out to say,
[1:06:17] vote yes, we can say please vote.
[1:06:21] So, you know, those sort of nuances
[1:06:23] that we've been working through.
[1:06:25] There was at one point a time when Michelle reached out
[1:06:28] to have a meeting with 'em 'cause we were concerned about
[1:06:30] our timeline and we weren't seeing anything yet
[1:06:33] and we were declined that meeting.
[1:06:37] There's a lot of phrasing in the first, the three campaigns
[1:06:40] that they offered us that ha have some negative statements
[1:06:43] like education can't wait
[1:06:46] or were, were out of capacity in the space.
[1:06:51] Not outta Hope. Outta hope.
[1:06:52] Which didn't land well for anyone on the committee
[1:06:54] that heard that one, honestly.
[1:06:57] And we're like, that's no, that's not,
[1:06:59] that doesn't feel right for us ourselves against Hope.
[1:07:02] Right? And so what I can say is nobody was afraid to share
[1:07:06] that these, this did not resonate with us.
[1:07:08] And that the education networks really was the best option
[1:07:11] so far that they had been working with.
[1:07:13] And they understood that and they took those notes
[1:07:15] and they got that feedback.
[1:07:17] So I feel like we're going to see that shift.
[1:07:20] It was just, it, it feels like we have a short timeline
[1:07:23] and it's not happening as fast as we would like it to.
[1:07:25] And it's not looking as beautiful
[1:07:28] as I would hope right away.
[1:07:31] We have been collecting information about key stakeholders
[1:07:34] and Yara, you're on the phone, thank you so much
[1:07:36] for your willingness to be interviewed.
[1:07:39] Should they reach out to some of our alumni.
[1:07:43] And that's a hope that we have.
[1:07:44] And we're using those stakeholders with our other consultant
[1:07:47] for our comprehensive local needs as assessment as well.
[1:07:50] And we're currently, you'll see in this week, we'll
[1:07:54] that we're reaching out asking alumni
[1:07:55] and parents, if you are willing to be interviewed for part
[1:07:58] of this process to talk about why you might support this
[1:08:01] or why CBCC for your kiddo, or how, how our education works.
[1:08:07] That's, those are people who are hoping that we'll volunteer
[1:08:10] and let us know so that they can be interviewed
[1:08:12] by both sets of consultants.
[1:08:15] We're wondering about the world.
[1:08:16] A lot of people, as I think Todd wrote to me earlier today,
[1:08:19] lots of people read it just for the obituaries.
[1:08:21] But we might be in there
[1:08:24] and be able to get some, we do some advertisements in there.
[1:08:27] Why wasn't the world mentioned?
[1:08:28] Is Vermont Digger someplace that we're gonna reach out to?
[1:08:31] Is WCAX someplace we're gonna reach out to?
[1:08:34] Our videography class is gonna be doing a podcasting unit.
[1:08:37] They're wanting to do some of this work too
[1:08:40] and see how they can share stories.
[1:08:44] One of our teachers said, what about a lobbyist?
[1:08:47] And I know Myers, you're here to talk about
[1:08:50] what you're thinking we might need, which is different than
[1:08:53] what we've been presented with.
[1:08:55] And so I just wanted the board to have a conversation about
[1:08:58] what are, what are our expectations for this marketing team?
[1:09:02] And we set them and hold 'em to them.
[1:09:05] Or at what point if we feel like they're not making those
[1:09:10] expectations happen, what do we wanna do about that?
[1:09:14] Jenna question?
[1:09:16] Yeah. Yeah. I just was wondering if everybody had posted
[1:09:19] on Front Porch Forum.
[1:09:21] I haven't gotten any feedback from my post,
[1:09:24] but I was just wondering if, I mean,
[1:09:26] that seemed like a good vehicle,
[1:09:28] but it seems like until the bond comes up
[1:09:31] that it's a one shot thing.
[1:09:33] Until now we have to wait.
[1:09:35] I don't think we can keep posting the same kind of thing.
[1:09:39] And now we have to wait and remind people to vote.
[1:09:43] Yes, they'll be including some op-eds
[1:09:45] that was part of their plan as well.
[1:09:48] But as you know, that's that one
[1:09:49] that I asked you to post I created.
[1:09:52] Right. No, that was good.
[1:09:54] I put my name to it so that they could see it was local.
[1:09:58] But the other thing is,
[1:10:03] well, since I just forgot
[1:10:05] what I was gonna say, just forget it.
[1:10:08] So I'll just go away.
[1:10:12] Don't go away, guy.
[1:10:16] Yeah, a co a couple things.
[1:10:18] Follow up on the direct mail stuff.
[1:10:20] I'm, I'm of two minds
[1:10:23] and David, don't take offense to this
[1:10:25] 'cause it's not your fault, but I get my newspaper in the
[1:10:29] mail and I still haven't gotten my weekend newspaper
[1:10:32] and it's gonna be easy probably by the time I get it.
[1:10:36] So, but having heard some of the
[1:10:41] testimony tonight based on, you know, who some
[1:10:45] of the voters are, there are not a lot of, of people
[1:10:50] who are elderly
[1:10:51] and on fixed incomes who necessarily follow social media.
[1:10:56] So I've got a little bit of concern about that,
[1:11:00] but I also know that direct mail is,
[1:11:02] you know, can be expensive.
[1:11:04] The other thing I wanted to second is, you know,
[1:11:07] certainly the Washington world is,
[1:11:10] I think a lot of people pick it up.
[1:11:12] It's a freebie. And I also wonder about the
[1:11:15] Waterbury Roundabout.
[1:11:17] And I think it's an area where, you know,
[1:11:20] perhaps doesn't get reached by, you know, some
[1:11:23] of the other newspapers.
[1:11:25] And quite frankly, I think they were the only ones
[1:11:28] that appeared at, at some of the presentations that we did.
[1:11:32] So I certainly would give them a shot.
[1:11:35] And the last thing I would say, even though WDV has has
[1:11:40] stand us down or you know, is not interested in advertising
[1:11:43] or they're too expensive, they do have the Vermont Viewpoint
[1:11:48] Show where we could, you know,
[1:11:51] strategically get an interview on.
[1:11:54] And I'm more than happy to, you know, to contact, you know,
[1:11:59] certain people to, you know, to get Jody
[1:12:02] or you know, somebody else on to, you know,
[1:12:05] talk about the project.
[1:12:08] I think that's a great opening. Yeah.
[1:12:10] Let's just go to Lyman and then we'll go to
[1:12:12] Mr.
[1:12:13] Mayor. Just really quickly,
[1:12:13] I'm wondering if we could put together just some very short
[1:12:17] two or three sentence from porch forums,
[1:12:20] because I don't read anything.
[1:12:23] It's eight paragraphs along from anybody
[1:12:29] I, I read because, because I should,
[1:12:33] but I really think just some, let's hit 'em hard
[1:12:37] with these little blurbs
[1:12:39] that we've been talking about, I think would be great.
[1:12:42] Alright, Mr. Burl, do you have a presentation or something
[1:12:46] To say?
[1:12:47] Well, just something to say actually. Okay.
[1:12:49] I, so I'm the incoming owner at WDEV Radio Vermont.
[1:12:52] So I'm taking over what a great man started at Ken Squire.
[1:12:57] And we cover these 18 towns.
[1:12:58] We were recently ranked by Nielsen as having,
[1:13:01] as being number one across all age groups, 12 to 65
[1:13:05] with WBB across all of central and northern Vermont.
[1:13:08] We're 73% ahead of our next closest competitor.
[1:13:13] So we're very, we have a very fortunate place
[1:13:16] where we've earned the trust of Vermonters,
[1:13:18] but we also, we hear a lot of things.
[1:13:21] And so when I was approached by one of the,
[1:13:24] the media brokers, I know you don't have any money to spend,
[1:13:27] but I'm not here to ask for money.
[1:13:30] I'm here to, I'm here to ask you to point me in a direction.
[1:13:33] But let me tell you why. When I was first approached,
[1:13:38] they said, well, why didn't you just do five days
[1:13:40] of advertising for 10 days
[1:13:41] of advertising right before the vote?
[1:13:43] That's not enough. That's not even nearly enough.
[1:13:46] This is gonna be the second highest bond vote
[1:13:49] in the state of Vermont.
[1:13:50] And your towns,
[1:13:53] my my own eighth great grandfathers buried Perry.
[1:13:56] I know these towns, right, they don't have a lot of money
[1:13:58] to spend, but this is an investment to
[1:14:01] to, to turn things around.
[1:14:02] I wish Mr. Malone had stayed. Everything he said was right.
[1:14:06] People don't wanna make those decisions.
[1:14:08] But here's an, here's a chance
[1:14:10] to make an investment in these attempts
[1:14:12] to keep people together, to keep their families together,
[1:14:15] to provide jobs for their own children.
[1:14:18] That will turn the demographics around that alone.
[1:14:22] This is probably one of the most important,
[1:14:23] if not the most important project
[1:14:25] that Vermont is considering today.
[1:14:27] This is a construct of project, not a destructive project.
[1:14:31] Look at energy, healthcare, public safety,
[1:14:35] none of those things are working.
[1:14:36] Here's an opportunity to actually turn something around.
[1:14:39] So we're, we're very much in favor of this.
[1:14:41] We, we typically don't, don't get behind public project,
[1:14:45] but we want to get behind this one.
[1:14:46] This is very important.
[1:14:48] And our concern is, one of the things
[1:14:50] that Mr. Malone mentioned is that if this project doesn't go
[1:14:53] through November, that it's gonna be split into 15 different
[1:14:56] pieces because the new education agenda
[1:15:00] and that you're not gonna be able to consolidate people.
[1:15:02] You're not gonna build a project that you want to build
[1:15:04] that, that frankly our children deserve so
[1:15:08] that they can stay here and work here.
[1:15:10] AI is going to gut literally a lot, you know, 30 to 40%
[1:15:15] of these college graduates.
[1:15:16] But you can't, AI is not gonna replace somebody that comes
[1:15:19] to your house to fix your plumbing or your HVAC
[1:15:23] or drive the ambulance to come and get you.
[1:15:26] These jobs are gonna stay.
[1:15:27] And these are good paying jobs that, that will allow people
[1:15:31] to build, build equity in homes and buy homes
[1:15:34] and stay here, build families.
[1:15:35] So in that regard, our thought was, you know,
[1:15:39] there are 18 pounds and we were thinking of it more
[1:15:41] as a political campaign.
[1:15:43] John Rogers, you know, plumber hate took his first $40,000
[1:15:48] and spent it in WDE and built up this huge grassroots base
[1:15:51] because people listen to the radio.
[1:15:53] We have an older population, they typically don't go
[1:15:55] to digital, but we have a much better coverage of,
[1:15:59] of the population than, than the small papers do.
[1:16:03] So there's an opportunity sort of build grassroots support.
[1:16:05] But as I, as I talked to Jody, it's not clear that
[1:16:09] because you haven't had a lot
[1:16:10] of public attendance at these meetings,
[1:16:12] you don't really know what the public is thinking, right?
[1:16:14] So I've talked to the elected representatives, they,
[1:16:16] they're all negative, they're like, not gonna work, right?
[1:16:20] It's too much money. We, you know, not now,
[1:16:23] but what we thought might help would be a,
[1:16:27] a very quick poll of these 18 pounds,
[1:16:30] because it's not just money.
[1:16:32] I think Vermonters are naturally fiscally conservative,
[1:16:36] but they'll take risks, right?
[1:16:38] And they'll do, they'll stand up
[1:16:40] for the right And I think when they understand
[1:16:42] how important this project is to the wellbeing
[1:16:46] and the fiber of these towns, that they'll wanna support it.
[1:16:48] But you need to find out where, where your votes are.
[1:16:51] I mean, every yes vote regardless of
[1:16:52] where it comes from helps, right?
[1:16:54] So a poll would be able
[1:16:55] to isolate likely voters within these 18,
[1:17:00] within the 18 towns
[1:17:01] and point you in a direction that with additional media,
[1:17:04] and I mean very heavy advertising over the next two months,
[1:17:08] that you might be in a position to overcome.
[1:17:10] So I know that the board doesn't have the, the money
[1:17:12] to fund this, but what I wanted to, what I'd asked Jody is,
[1:17:16] you know, could you point in the direction
[1:17:17] of your five biggest supporters, right?
[1:17:20] We're willing to contribute as well.
[1:17:23] We can't, we can't volunteer at all
[1:17:26] and we certainly can't pay the pollsters,
[1:17:28] but would it be possible for me to meet with your,
[1:17:32] my biggest private company supporters?
[1:17:34] I know private companies have want this thing to succeed
[1:17:37] that will enjoy the, we will enjoy, like we will hire people
[1:17:40] to come out of this, out of this project.
[1:17:43] So would it be possible that I could talk to the,
[1:17:46] the private companies that are supporting this project
[1:17:49] and see if I could get support among them for something
[1:17:51] that's a little bit more robust?
[1:17:55] I I, I really think you need to hit it as hard as you can.
[1:17:58] People are coming back from vacation.
[1:18:00] I mean, they're gonna focus on, on the next 60 days.
[1:18:02] And it may have start,
[1:18:04] it may have should have started earlier,
[1:18:05] but you've got 16 days.
[1:18:06] It's not over yet. And so if you can really bear down
[1:18:09] and I'm more than happy to help if you can point me in the
[1:18:12] right direction for people to talk to.
[1:18:13] I know I'm not alone. So
[1:18:15] that's why I'm here to, to ask the board.
[1:18:20] Mr. Coleman, you have a question.
[1:18:24] Well, thank you very much. I see Guy had his hand up
[1:18:27] as well, but I'll, I'll take this.
[1:18:29] I did attend the marketing meeting with Jody and others.
[1:18:32] Michelle was there. And so I just wanted to reinforce some
[1:18:36] of her concerns about this marketing firm.
[1:18:39] And I know this is public
[1:18:41] and I'm gonna be as gentle as I can,
[1:18:43] but I don't feel like there was an urgency on the,
[1:18:48] from the people at the marketing firm
[1:18:50] because as this gentleman from WDEV,
[1:18:54] I'm sorry I didn't get your name.
[1:18:56] I just pointed out we don't have that much time.
[1:18:58] There's a lot of urgency
[1:19:00] and I felt like they hadn't really even done their homework.
[1:19:04] Of course they hadn't mentioned the world,
[1:19:06] they hadn't mentioned some
[1:19:07] of our local papers like the bridge, any of these sources.
[1:19:12] I know they reached out to DEV
[1:19:13] and they didn't feel like they got a warm reception.
[1:19:16] But again, the creativity
[1:19:21] that they were putting forth, as Jody pointed out,
[1:19:24] was also very limited.
[1:19:25] It was based on what they've done in the past.
[1:19:28] Not much real thought, I think was put into the,
[1:19:32] the taglines they came up with and the, the media messages
[1:19:37] and they kept going back to the survey that they created
[1:19:41] and presented to us.
[1:19:42] Well I think that survey was very simplistic.
[1:19:47] They've probably used versions of it in the past
[1:19:50] and the sample size was very limited.
[1:19:52] So I had some great
[1:19:56] about this firm.
[1:19:58] And so moving forward, I think if we do wanna continue
[1:20:01] with it, we need to give them very specific direction.
[1:20:05] And I think Jody mentioned many things.
[1:20:08] This board has brainstormed some great tactics
[1:20:12] already tonight.
[1:20:13] And I think those specific directions need to be
[1:20:18] given to the, to the directors there.
[1:20:21] I also wanna reiterate the, what
[1:20:25] I mentioned about mailers.
[1:20:29] I reached out to my good friend, my former student
[1:20:32] who was the director of tourism
[1:20:33] and marketing for the state of Vermont
[1:20:35] through three governors.
[1:20:36] Steve Cook, he just got back to me.
[1:20:39] Three of his children have gone through the career centers.
[1:20:42] He's a big support of that.
[1:20:45] And he said
[1:20:46] that he thinks mailers are a really important tool.
[1:20:50] I do too because I think they get to people's mailboxes.
[1:20:54] People like to get mail, they keep it on their tables.
[1:20:56] They might read it several times. They'll think about it.
[1:20:59] You put a URL on there
[1:21:01] and maybe not just one mailer, but maybe several.
[1:21:04] I know it's expensive,
[1:21:06] but we need to be in front of the public consistently.
[1:21:11] I think the gentleman from DEV made a very important point.
[1:21:14] And I was thinking about this when
[1:21:19] the gentleman was talking about Mr. Malone was talking,
[1:21:24] we need to invest in the future here in Vermont,
[1:21:26] we're very stagnant.
[1:21:28] People know that we're at a crossroads.
[1:21:31] We know young people aren't staying.
[1:21:33] Perhaps if we invest in our future,
[1:21:35] like this beautiful center, it will attract more families
[1:21:40] to come here and help our tax base.
[1:21:43] So we can't stay still. We have to move forward with this.
[1:21:47] And we have to look at it as very
[1:21:50] positive about the polling.
[1:21:53] Just just a comment about polling.
[1:21:55] I don't know a lot about it, but I know
[1:21:56] that it's small sample sizes
[1:21:59] and you can't predict the outcome.
[1:22:00] Typically with a poll we'll know who's against it,
[1:22:05] but we have to assume that people could be sprayed.
[1:22:09] And so with our, a good marketing campaign
[1:22:12] and effective tactics, not efficient,
[1:22:15] like maybe social media is efficient,
[1:22:18] but it's not always effective
[1:22:19] because as people have pointed out, it's difficult to reach
[1:22:25] who live in rural areas through social media.
[1:22:28] Sure, some of them may use Facebook marketplace
[1:22:30] to buy their backhoes or their tractors or whatever,
[1:22:33] but are they really gonna see something about
[1:22:37] the career center on Facebook?
[1:22:39] I don't, I don't know. I don't think so.
[1:22:41] Maybe just because I'm old fashioned.
[1:22:44] So I guess my message is,
[1:22:46] I was concerned about this marketing team
[1:22:49] presentations we've seen from them.
[1:22:51] I think we need to empower Jody to be very forward with
[1:22:55] that team and make some specific
[1:23:04] ourselves lawn signs.
[1:23:07] I don't know how effective they're gonna be,
[1:23:09] but we could go to a printer and have lawn signs made.
[1:23:13] So I just wanna throw all that out.
[1:23:14] And that's just my, my take on this at this point.
[1:23:19] I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any
[1:23:26] Guy, do you need to add to anything?
[1:23:33] The news guy? I just wanna say,
[1:23:35] I just wanna say have me a hello.
[1:23:40] I would just, I would just add
[1:23:41] that there's no comment section for people
[1:23:44] to argue with on a mailer.
[1:23:54] Alright, so we're looking at
[1:23:59] drawing up specific actions for this marketing team
[1:24:04] and who will be responsible for delivering
[1:24:09] that message to the, our marketing team.
[1:24:14] Correct? Yes.
[1:24:17] So let's start with
[1:24:21] talking about some specific actions first.
[1:24:27] Anyone have some? So it, it appears that we seem
[1:24:31] to be in
[1:24:35] acceptance of the fact that we need to have a mailer.
[1:24:41] Anyone have any? Okay.
[1:24:42] So we'll make sure that they, we know
[1:24:45] that that a mailer
[1:24:48] One point that was brought up by Mr. Malone, which,
[1:24:52] you know, of course I don't want to,
[1:24:55] I don't want be in a position where I'm trying
[1:24:57] to rebut against people who are offering their opinion
[1:24:59] and public testimony.
[1:25:00] But I would offer that this comes up on every single job.
[1:25:04] There's always at least one person that says,
[1:25:06] but all the people on fixed income, they can't afford it.
[1:25:08] And this is one reason to perhaps drill down a little bit on
[1:25:12] the income sensitivity question.
[1:25:14] Because people
[1:25:15] who have on a fixed income are generally on the low end
[1:25:19] of the income spectrum.
[1:25:21] And they generally have a lot of relief from these kinds
[1:25:25] of tax increases
[1:25:26] because of tax income sensitivity in Vermont.
[1:25:29] So it's one of these things that's kind of like,
[1:25:31] I don't know, I don't necessarily know how to answer
[1:25:33] that question because I can't give strict facts and figures
[1:25:36] and I don't want to be accused of being wrong
[1:25:38] or having rose colored glasses.
[1:25:40] But I know in other projects they have calculated that
[1:25:44] and that threshold is actually fairly high.
[1:25:46] It's well above what most people are getting
[1:25:48] for likes social security
[1:25:49] and even if they have decent pension.
[1:25:52] So that's, and I don't know if that's something
[1:25:54] that can be explored in the future
[1:25:55] or if that's just a talking point that you give,
[1:25:58] that you have with people who have that concern.
[1:26:01] Because without saying, oh hey, you know, if you're,
[1:26:04] you make less than this, your tax impact is
[1:26:07] zero Short of that.
[1:26:08] I think you just have to sort of make them feel comfortable
[1:26:10] that the tax impact will be mitigated
[1:26:12] by income sensitivity for low income people.
[1:26:18] And then how, just as a question, a follow up question.
[1:26:22] The business people though, they certainly are going
[1:26:26] to have some kind of a concern about this.
[1:26:33] We would need to say something to them as well.
[1:26:36] I landlords and,
[1:26:38] and what, when you start talking about individuals
[1:26:41] who are landlords, that that affects the tenants
[1:26:45] because the rent goes up.
[1:26:48] So that's all.
[1:26:50] And I say this from the, the perspective
[1:26:52] of having been on the berry board for so many years
[1:26:55] that I have seen the ease
[1:26:57] with which some budgets were pla passed
[1:27:00] and the stress with, with others.
[1:27:04] So, and, and those were our
[1:27:08] biggest challenges was making it clear to tenants
[1:27:12] and landlords and business people that commercial operators.
[1:27:16] I just realized it's probably not clear why I brought
[1:27:18] that up, but it was, I was thinking ahead about maybe it's
[1:27:21] not even, maybe it's not just one mailer,
[1:27:23] especially if you're thinking that a mailer is the best way
[1:27:26] to reach people who, again, I don't know if,
[1:27:29] if the stereotype of, you know, people
[1:27:31] who are older aren't on social media, I find that a lot
[1:27:34] of them are, but do, do you want
[1:27:39] to craft mailers for specific people
[1:27:41] or with specific information?
[1:27:42] 'cause the mailers also have to be very concise
[1:27:46] or else they won't be reviewed.
[1:27:49] So that's, you have to be good to be pick picky and choosey.
[1:27:53] And of course we can help counsel on
[1:27:57] what we've seen in other districts that has helped
[1:28:03] It is the big cost of the mailer.
[1:28:06] The postage or the printing.
[1:28:09] The printing and post the printing.
[1:28:10] And yes, for the large mailer there's a significant
[1:28:14] reduction in postage.
[1:28:22] Can we afford it? Double that?
[1:28:28] Can we afford two? Can we afford two mailings,
[1:28:35] Jenna?
[1:28:36] It depends on how we're spending the rest of our money.
[1:28:38] So if we may be asking them to shift
[1:28:42] how we're, what we're funding. So,
[1:28:44] Okay, so like we can do it in the middle and then just
[1:28:47] before the bond vote.
[1:28:49] Well, no, but you can't do it just before
[1:28:52] because it won't actually get to people until after.
[1:28:55] No, I mean before. Before. Just before.
[1:28:59] Yep. And also I think lawn signs,
[1:29:03] I don't think we should poo PPO lawn signs.
[1:29:05] Do we have the capacity to print?
[1:29:10] Yes. So we, so that doesn't cost us anything.
[1:29:18] It doesn't cost as much as if someone else does it.
[1:29:21] Right. I think we should print long signs too.
[1:29:25] Okay. Patrick,
[1:29:28] I'm concerned that we're, we're second
[1:29:30] guessing our contractor.
[1:29:31] Yeah. And if we're, if we're, if we're,
[1:29:34] if we think we know better,
[1:29:36] if we don't think they're doing a
[1:29:37] good job, we get a new one.
[1:29:40] Do we have time to do that? We have other bids
[1:29:43] that we looked over.
[1:29:45] Do we have time to switch?
[1:29:47] I would not suggest switching.
[1:29:49] If we choose to terminate this contract, we would continue
[1:29:53] with what we think that we should have done it.
[1:30:00] What they're offering right now is no different
[1:30:01] than what we will have done.
[1:30:02] What we were hoping for was some out of the box awesome idea
[1:30:06] that we're like, oh duh, we never thought of that before.
[1:30:09] We've thought about Facebook ads, we've thought about print,
[1:30:12] we've been thinking about these, the mailers.
[1:30:14] We've done this in the past, we know how to do it.
[1:30:17] We were hoping for something above and beyond
[1:30:19] and something that just hit every nail in the head.
[1:30:23] Not that we do not have time to move on with a new company.
[1:30:28] Okay. We could transition some
[1:30:30] of those funds into polling if we felt
[1:30:33] that was the right thing for more mailers.
[1:30:38] And so transitioning, so sorry guys, just one second.
[1:30:42] So ing a polling would tell us where
[1:30:46] to focus more resources.
[1:30:49] So we do polling in September,
[1:30:52] then we get an answer in October,
[1:30:55] you could get in two weeks.
[1:30:57] Okay. So we waited answer in September, a sample size of 300
[1:31:01] or the 18 towns would be likely voters would be by phone
[1:31:05] and you could probably te probably tease out 20 questions
[1:31:08] so you could understand what the objections are.
[1:31:10] And it's more interactive
[1:31:12] because you don't know the level of of objection.
[1:31:15] Right. You'll be able to identify
[1:31:18] and segment certain objections by size.
[1:31:21] Okay. Right. Which you aren't gonna get in these kind
[1:31:24] of one way communications.
[1:31:25] Right. The digital is one way you might get some comments,
[1:31:28] but people don't necessarily participate.
[1:31:31] A lot of people don't like their opinion to be known
[1:31:33] to, to their neighbors.
[1:31:35] Right. And with a mailer, you don't see it.
[1:31:36] Mailers are cheap either.
[1:31:38] I mean, a mailer could be 10 grand. Yeah. Right.
[1:31:40] Two mailers is $20,000. Right? Yeah.
[1:31:44] I'm just trying to work the timeline. So if we, we do,
[1:31:46] if we do the polling in September, we know in two weeks
[1:31:49] and then we know where to put the mailers
[1:31:51] and the other other resources.
[1:31:52] You know what to say. Yeah.
[1:31:54] Yeah. That that's the we're not,
[1:31:56] What I'm saying is you know what to say
[1:31:58] Than too much fully will get that feedback. Yeah.
[1:32:01] You know, which points to specifically articulate Right.
[1:32:05] Or which ones to highlight.
[1:32:07] I mean, you may find a very
[1:32:08] favorable block in some of these times.
[1:32:10] You may want to accentuate that,
[1:32:11] try to pull those people out.
[1:32:12] Right. But you know, those people can swamp that nose.
[1:32:18] Do we have the capacity in house to do that?
[1:32:24] We have some folks who are interested
[1:32:26] and we may be able to pay them a stipend for above
[1:32:29] and beyond their contract to support the work
[1:32:35] pay for my here to not be gray.
[1:32:40] That's, I'm sorry.
[1:32:43] Yeah. I mean, against time.
[1:32:45] Michelle, I, I'm a scientist, right? I like, I like data.
[1:32:50] My concern is, is we get that information
[1:32:55] and then the value is what we do with it.
[1:32:58] And do we have the capacity
[1:32:59] to actually act on the information, right?
[1:33:02] Yes. Polls are not precise,
[1:33:05] but they do give you information that you can then
[1:33:08] base your actions on.
[1:33:09] And so that's the piece that,
[1:33:10] and I forgot we asked the question about do
[1:33:12] we have the capacity?
[1:33:13] And so yeah. That, that, that is my concern.
[1:33:16] And I, and I recognize that like time is
[1:33:18] of the essence, right?
[1:33:20] And so yeah, I I'm, I'm more in favor
[1:33:24] of being very clear with the,
[1:33:29] the contractor, like, these are the expectations,
[1:33:33] this is what we want.
[1:33:35] And, and not,
[1:33:38] not just they're, they're experts, right?
[1:33:40] Like we chose them because of their expertise
[1:33:44] and now we're second guessing they're,
[1:33:45] I'm not a media expert, right?
[1:33:47] Like, right. And so I I I wanna sort of hold back that,
[1:33:53] that, that feeling to second guess the experts who we chose
[1:33:57] to, to help us.
[1:33:59] Yeah. And to recognize that urgency is,
[1:34:01] is probably playing a pretty big role
[1:34:03] in that second guessing.
[1:34:05] And I, I don't wanna dismiss the, the Mr.
[1:34:10] Mur, my, my bad.
[1:34:13] The the request that that you made.
[1:34:15] And I just don't know, like where, I don't know
[1:34:20] where the line is for like, us to be able to like,
[1:34:23] make connections versus, like those connections happen
[1:34:27] amongst the community.
[1:34:28] I'm, I'm not a legal expert, so
[1:34:30] I think I can reach out to advisory board members and,
[1:34:33] and let them know of this interest
[1:34:35] and give them your contact information so it goes that way
[1:34:39] that they can reach out and take that step.
[1:34:41] I think that that is a great idea.
[1:34:44] I love that it, if that the community is is,
[1:34:47] or there are folks within the community
[1:34:49] that would be willing to support this.
[1:34:53] Yeah. I think there are, when you think about the jobs
[1:34:55] that we're gonna be creating for the next three years
[1:34:57] and, you know, the construction companies
[1:35:00] and just the landscape, like there's
[1:35:02] so many big projects going be going on here
[1:35:05] that it's going to be worth it.
[1:35:08] And, and I've asked this question of you, Jody,
[1:35:10] in the past, and I'll shut up after this,
[1:35:11] but like, where's the state?
[1:35:12] Right? Like we've heard from the state government,
[1:35:16] we've heard from the federal government, like the importance
[1:35:18] of CTE, right?
[1:35:19] And so yeah, I,
[1:35:22] Again, we did have a member of the Agency
[1:35:24] of Education on for a little bit here.
[1:35:26] I think she's also a very resident, so
[1:35:31] that might be one, but they're not here anymore.
[1:35:36] And getting the support
[1:35:37] of the business community is powerful.
[1:35:39] Yes. Whether it's through funding a poll,
[1:35:42] but just their visual, you know, being interviewed,
[1:35:46] being in the videos, whatever you can do to get them
[1:35:49] to come out and support the project is really good.
[1:35:54] I, a couple of thoughts, having been doing this
[1:35:57] for a long time, I I I,
[1:36:03] I'm not sure what a poll will tell you.
[1:36:05] You know, what the complaint's gonna be. It's expensive.
[1:36:10] Right? Right. I, I don't, everybody is for CTE.
[1:36:15] It's an overwhelmingly positive addition in the community.
[1:36:20] And the only downside to the project
[1:36:22] that people will probably say is, wow, it's,
[1:36:25] it's really expensive and my taxes are high.
[1:36:27] So I, I guess, and, and then,
[1:36:31] and then maybe a more sophisticated polling would yield more
[1:36:35] nuanced responses so you could craft the message.
[1:36:38] But I, given the timeline
[1:36:44] and the urgency of getting media out there, i, I
[1:36:49] personally question whether the poll is
[1:36:54] a worthwhile thing
[1:36:55] because that delays everything
[1:36:56] for even more time. Anyway, that's just,
[1:37:01] I think we could maybe move forward with both.
[1:37:02] Maybe it's an and. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:37:04] I, I agree with David.
[1:37:08] If we had a lot of time polling would probably be
[1:37:11] worthwhile, but since early voting starts
[1:37:15] probably the third week of October,
[1:37:17] and we need to get those people that are, that vote early
[1:37:20] and then head out of town for Florida or wherever they go.
[1:37:24] We, we really don't have time.
[1:37:26] And I know data's great to, to gather,
[1:37:30] but we also know that thousands
[1:37:33] and thousands of people vote in favor of the budget
[1:37:37] for this career center.
[1:37:39] Every, every time there's a, there's a vote
[1:37:41] for a budget vote.
[1:37:43] And we went through those numbers last time
[1:37:45] and it was overwhelmingly like 75%
[1:37:48] of the voters were in favor.
[1:37:51] So we know, like David says, there's a lot
[1:37:53] of positivity around it.
[1:37:55] It it's just about our messaging, the urgency of
[1:37:59] getting consistent messages out there as soon as possible
[1:38:03] and then right up to November 4th.
[1:38:07] So I think we've got multiple tactics
[1:38:10] to get messages out there and we have to begin using those.
[1:38:14] And so if Jody puts together a list, some
[1:38:17] of the things we've spoken about, some of the things me, she
[1:38:20] and Michelle have talked about
[1:38:21] and present that to the marketing team,
[1:38:24] hopefully they'll say, yeah, we're ready to do that.
[1:38:26] If they don't, then I feel like we have the resources in
[1:38:30] house to do much of what they would be doing anyway.
[1:38:34] What we're doing is buying time
[1:38:35] because none of us have time to do this.
[1:38:38] And certainly the administrators at the school
[1:38:41] do not have a lot of time.
[1:38:42] But if we have to, we can make that time.
[1:38:45] So we use our 40,000 plus
[1:38:48] dollars wise.
[1:38:55] I think, I think what we've begun
[1:38:56] to sketch out just from the discussion is
[1:38:59] what the deliverables are that we're looking for from the
[1:39:04] marketing team that we're hiring.
[1:39:08] The question of the mailer, is that one, or is it two?
[1:39:13] Is it one that's dedicated to citizens
[1:39:15] and another that's dedicated to businesses?
[1:39:18] How does that, how do we wanna break that out if we need to,
[1:39:23] making sure that we have enough information, whether
[1:39:28] that is through polling or advertising
[1:39:31] and getting the businesses on board
[1:39:35] for their support, not only financially,
[1:39:37] but also verbally,
[1:39:42] outspokenly what I, to have that kind of
[1:39:46] presence from the business community saying that we are
[1:39:49] behind this endeavor
[1:39:50] because of what it'll bring not only for us as a business,
[1:39:54] but also for the community and, and the, the students.
[1:39:59] Anything else that needs to be added to that?
[1:40:01] I like that Alice,
[1:40:05] I agree with op-eds are free, right?
[1:40:10] And we're talking about the value of the, of the support
[1:40:12] of the business community.
[1:40:13] And so if there is a coordinated like effort
[1:40:16] of our supporters to be outspoken in
[1:40:21] that was redundant in support of the,
[1:40:25] we're not the ones saying go out and vote.
[1:40:27] Yes. We're, we're getting,
[1:40:29] we're getting people to go out and vote.
[1:40:31] That's what we're doing, right?
[1:40:33] Folks in the community can speak in
[1:40:35] favor or against the vote.
[1:40:37] And so, you know, I, I do think that those types of
[1:40:42] efforts in Montpelier, we, we have like op-ed,
[1:40:47] like a schedule when we come up to a, a board budget vote
[1:40:52] of like who's writing op-eds when.
[1:40:54] And so I think, you know,
[1:40:56] something along those lines might, might also be helpful.
[1:41:00] Ms. Palmer? Hi there, my name is Danielle Palmer
[1:41:05] and I am a 1998 graduate of Spalding High School.
[1:41:10] I participated in the career center
[1:41:12] and I think just inviting everyone to think outside the box
[1:41:17] in respect to telling people's stories.
[1:41:21] So for example, maybe soliciting someone like myself
[1:41:25] to share about how the career center benefited me
[1:41:29] and my career path and
[1:41:31] or seeing if there's multi-generational, I have a child
[1:41:34] that's going to partake in the exploratory program, so nice.
[1:41:38] Just looking outside the box sort stories sell.
[1:41:43] So if you are aware
[1:41:45] of people even you can approach it from the angle
[1:41:47] of business owners, the benefit of of students,
[1:41:51] and then eventually them becoming higher
[1:41:53] and the benefits to that.
[1:41:55] So you can really just really invite anybody think
[1:41:57] outside the box and I'm happy to participate
[1:42:01] or help generate more ideas.
[1:42:05] Thank you for that, Danielle.
[1:42:08] That that's something that the marketing firm did not
[1:42:12] address and we had recommended that many times
[1:42:14] and I think we forgot to mention that that's a,
[1:42:18] they dropped the ball on that.
[1:42:19] And so yes, we need to have those testimonials,
[1:42:22] those representatives and should have been started already.
[1:42:26] But the marketing firms still
[1:42:29] putting together their proposal.
[1:42:32] Well, they did ask for some stakeholder information
[1:42:34] and I have provided them with some,
[1:42:36] and I keep adding to that.
[1:42:37] And I think that is where they, Todd,
[1:42:40] when they had those social media posts
[1:42:43] where they had pictures of,
[1:42:45] they weren't our students in those pictures
[1:42:47] for the examples, but that they, the intent was
[1:42:50] to use alumni and other business partnerships and parents
[1:42:55] and to be able to post really quickly short stories.
[1:43:00] But I, the value of a story is really important.
[1:43:03] And I think we, we also heard that from our co consultants
[1:43:05] for the comprehensive of local needs assessment.
[1:43:08] And, and that's something we're trying
[1:43:09] to gather some of those.
[1:43:11] So I really appreciate you saying that Danielle
[1:43:13] and I will be adding you to the list.
[1:43:15] So I'm glad you're up for that. And yes,
[1:43:18] You're Welcome.
[1:43:20] Yes. The parents can tell the story better than the,
[1:43:23] than actually the student can
[1:43:25] because the, the parent is watching the growth
[1:43:28] of their child through the educational system.
[1:43:33] Teachers. Yep.
[1:43:36] Sorry, I'm behind you. That's
[1:43:37] Okay.
[1:43:39] One thing that these small papers,
[1:43:42] people mentioning the world in roundabout the
[1:43:44] Bread, They are desperate for content.
[1:43:48] And if you, you can literally write the article,
[1:43:52] give 'em the photo, and they'll clean it up and,
[1:43:55] and you know, and post it.
[1:44:00] We've, so anyway, I think that's an easier way
[1:44:04] to get content out if you write like press release
[1:44:07] or more like a more info article about maybe with,
[1:44:12] with some of these testimonials from students to parents
[1:44:17] and, and then, you know, talk
[1:44:21] to the different small newspapers
[1:44:23] and a lot of them are connected, so it's the same publisher.
[1:44:26] We'll do three different towns or three different regions.
[1:44:29] And so you, you can propagate an article that way.
[1:44:37] Circling back to your question about deliverables. Yes.
[1:44:39] I think the most important deliverable, the one
[1:44:41] that I was most troubled by was urgency.
[1:44:46] And I think that's come up a couple of times,
[1:44:47] but I just wanted to, to say that to me that's the most
[1:44:51] important thing I think that we need to see out
[1:44:55] of them moving forward is a real sense of urgency.
[1:44:59] And that probably comes down to giving them a, a set time
[1:45:03] by this time really to have this.
[1:45:05] And that's, I'm not trying to
[1:45:07] Your business, but Michelle just did the countdown.
[1:45:09] It's 51 days till the first person
[1:45:11] could vote for that early.
[1:45:13] Yeah, exactly. It's, I think urgency is the
[1:45:15] most critical thing.
[1:45:16] And I would, I would offer that in addition to
[1:45:19] that was left feeling that it was, that the,
[1:45:22] maybe the content wasn't this way,
[1:45:25] but the presentation itself felt a little slick.
[1:45:29] You know, like I was looking
[1:45:30] for a little bit more authenticity
[1:45:33] or a little bit more like it was of this place
[1:45:37] and not, I guess I, it's,
[1:45:39] it felt like a marketing presentation from a marketing firm.
[1:45:43] And maybe that's to be expected.
[1:45:47] Maybe that may be a nothing burger comment, but
[1:45:49] Well, like to your point, when you,
[1:45:51] you helped prepare the slide for tonight,
[1:45:53] but it still looked like us.
[1:45:54] It was our colors. Even though you all,
[1:45:57] we all kind of did it together.
[1:45:58] Like when you're preparing something for us,
[1:46:01] whether it's internal
[1:46:02] or to be shared, it should still look like us.
[1:46:06] So for the, if I can build on the urgency point,
[1:46:09] the September 7th, they have their first, their first
[1:46:12] item on their timeline is the times, August print a
[1:46:16] and so maybe asking to see that week beforehand
[1:46:20] or something could be a double check on,
[1:46:26] on, on, on the urgency.
[1:46:28] Yep. It could have been the way they
[1:46:29] rolled out the presentation too.
[1:46:31] So they were kind of taking their time.
[1:46:32] They had a plan and I could feel everybody in the room
[1:46:35] and kind of chomping feeling get to it, get to the point so
[1:46:39] that could play into it.
[1:46:43] Yeah, I mean to your, to your point just there, right?
[1:46:46] So they want approval of the strategy by the 30th, which is
[1:46:50] a week before the first.
[1:46:52] So it's like, all right, well where's your,
[1:46:53] what's your ad look like?
[1:46:55] You know, because that's a, that's a week and a day. Yeah,
[1:47:00] Yeah.
[1:47:01] And you don't send it on the day it's gonna be in the
[1:47:02] Print. Exactly.
[1:47:04] So do we have a, a list that we need
[1:47:08] to present to them or how are we, I'm marking on one.
[1:47:12] Okay. I also been Oh, thank you. Writing down as well.
[1:47:17] Okay. You read it out and add Yeah.
[1:47:22] Thank you. Knowing that at
[1:47:26] the overarching premise of all of this is the urgency.
[1:47:29] Yeah. That we don't have a lot of time. Okay.
[1:47:33] Is every is everyone on board with that,
[1:47:35] Patrick? Any suggestions?
[1:47:37] Yes, just one more thing and then separately, we'll,
[1:47:38] we'll provide, we'll we'll pull, we'll talk to the stake
[1:47:41] to our, I'm sorry, advisory councils that you said to,
[1:47:44] to give them Yes.
[1:47:46] Miles. Great.
[1:47:51] Any other questions or concerns? Mr. Todd?
[1:47:56] Guy Jana? Anything? Corey? Corey.
[1:48:04] Okay guy. I'm good. You're flashing us guy.
[1:48:11] I'm
[1:48:13] Not literally Okay.
[1:48:18] Your, your, your,
[1:48:21] Honestly I've got my, I've got my sign on.
[1:48:24] It's covering everything. Okay.
[1:48:31] Sandwich board again. Yeah, there
[1:48:35] that guy is
[1:48:36] Ready to go.
[1:48:37] He knows urgent sign.
[1:48:40] We haven't talked about the guy sandwich board.
[1:48:44] We need to add that in. Add.
[1:48:46] Alright, so we need to
[1:48:49] One thing, Alice?
[1:48:50] Yes. Yes.
[1:48:52] Okay. Just one thing, Jody, I'm wondering when you come
[1:48:55] to our schools to talk,
[1:48:59] what can we be doing to bring people out
[1:49:04] other than the postings that we did?
[1:49:07] And could you give me
[1:49:10] alarm signs when you come so I can give, distribute them
[1:49:17] My, I will.
[1:49:19] That sets a very firm date
[1:49:21] for when we need those lawn signs, so yes.
[1:49:24] Okay, great. Thank you.
[1:49:28] I i it it appears that our next situation is
[1:49:32] that we need a motion to
[1:49:38] empower the administration to go ahead
[1:49:40] with this conversation with the marketing team
[1:49:43] and bring to them our discussion of urgency,
[1:49:48] activities and deliverables.
[1:49:51] So moved exactly as you said it.
[1:49:55] Exactly. Alright. Any further discussion?
[1:50:02] I would just like to amend that to say the administration
[1:50:05] or their designees, so we have
[1:50:10] that as, as clear.
[1:50:11] Is that acceptable? Okay. To do that.
[1:50:14] All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[1:50:20] Aye. Very good. Any any dissension?
[1:50:24] Any abstentions? Hearing none. Motion carries. Thank you.
[1:50:30] We have one item that was not on our agenda. Okay.
[1:50:34] Our lovely clerk.
[1:50:36] Oh, I was gonna say too, so I decided
[1:50:39] to step down from taking board minutes.
[1:50:42] It was a really difficult decision for me
[1:50:46] as I've been doing this this year forever.
[1:50:49] I know I three years, three years for the district
[1:50:53] and then three years for governance and then events as well.
[1:50:57] And I wanna focus on my curriculum this year
[1:51:00] and continuing my education doesn't mean I'm not gonna stop
[1:51:04] and for board meetings, but this was a really difficult
[1:51:06] decision as I've learned so much.
[1:51:12] Oh my God.
[1:51:20] We do not accept your resignation. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
[1:51:23] Write that down. Could we put something,
[1:51:26] something on the record?
[1:51:28] Yes. That expresses our appreciation. Yes.
[1:51:30] We, we are, I think, I think everyone, every, each
[1:51:33] of us really appreciates the work
[1:51:36] and has appreciated the work that you do as well
[1:51:39] as the contributions that you have made to our meetings.
[1:51:42] Because without that, that's a kind of an inside view
[1:51:46] that you have that we don't always have
[1:51:48] as board members, you know?
[1:51:49] And, and I've thought a lot about it
[1:51:51] and, you know, I definitely may hop on
[1:51:54] to board meetings for that.
[1:51:56] 'cause I do, you know, this is my 11th year at CBCC
[1:52:00] and I really strongly believe in what tech ed does.
[1:52:04] And, you know, I've seen my brother benefit
[1:52:06] from going to a tech center.
[1:52:08] I did not get the chance to go to a tech center.
[1:52:12] But seeing our students success and,
[1:52:14] and just seeing what this does for our community,
[1:52:17] I'm very invested in that work.
[1:52:19] I really am. So I'll still hop on,
[1:52:22] but it was a really difficult decision.
[1:52:24] It really was. Motion of appreciation.
[1:52:28] Thank you for our recording secretary who we will miss.
[1:52:33] I thank you. Cry sunglasses.
[1:52:38] I, I appreciate you. I miss you already.
[1:52:41] Oh, I'll hop on. Don't worry. All right.
[1:52:47] Do we need to vote or just accept the fact
[1:52:50] that we will no longer have a vibrant personality
[1:52:55] as part of our staff?
[1:52:57] You guys are all vibrant. Don't worry.
[1:53:00] Well, thank you very much from all of us.
[1:53:02] We really do appreciate your work. You're welcome.
[1:53:04] I really enjoyed it.
[1:53:06] It was just so cool to see the, the back ends
[1:53:09] and not many people get to see that.
[1:53:12] And I wish they would. You know what I mean? I really do.
[1:53:15] And also thank you for being here
[1:53:17] and in person to tell us that
[1:53:20] because it would've been horrible if
[1:53:22] we had just gotten an email.
[1:53:25] No, no, no. I didn't wanna do that.
[1:53:26] We wouldn't have an opportunity to have to, to fret over it
[1:53:30] and, and miss you. All right. I'm gonna,
[1:53:35] I'm gonna make you a gone fishing sign
[1:53:40] Guy.
[1:53:41] I have so many fishing signs at my house.
[1:53:44] Well, you're getting another one
[1:53:48] That you can wear
[1:53:51] sandwich in my classroom.
[1:53:57] All right, so we're set with that.
[1:53:59] Your long side God vision, lawn side.
[1:54:02] It's officially God vision.
[1:54:05] So I think it's
[1:54:10] pretty clear what we have for ahead of us for our meetings.
[1:54:16] As always, if there's anyone who believes
[1:54:18] that there's anything that we can do
[1:54:20] to improve our meetings, to go ahead.
[1:54:22] I, I think always, I really find the discussion that goes on
[1:54:26] among this board and the interplay
[1:54:31] among the all, not only the members, but the public
[1:54:33] and people who are here.
[1:54:35] I think that really adds to our efficiency.
[1:54:40] And it also is a testament to just how well we,
[1:54:43] from different districts not seeing each other all the time
[1:54:48] come together in support of the career center.
[1:54:51] So anyone else?
[1:54:54] Comments, conclusions, all as always.
[1:54:57] We appreciate our administration for
[1:55:00] what you do and how you do it.
[1:55:02] So there's no question about that.
[1:55:06] Any other questions or concerns to come before this board?
[1:55:09] Then I need a motion to adjourn. I will adjourn.
[1:55:15] Jana, you wanna second it? Second.
[1:55:20] We are officially adjourned.
[1:55:22] Thank you very much everyone, everyone at home
[1:55:25] and in the, in the building.
[1:55:28] Thank you Jan. Emojis in there.