[0:00] Educating, informing, serving. Fact TV, keeping government honest.
[0:10] Well, I believe I'm sitting in. All right.
[0:15] Can Glenn call you, Elijah, and discuss this with his friends? Sure.
[0:20] Directly, rather than- Yeah ... go through us and just you talking.
[0:25] If we had a couple of light poles get struck by vehicles, and the
[0:31] engineer drawing originally where it was going to go originally, I think
[0:37] Glenn looked at it and said, "That's just going to get hit by a car,"
[0:42] and I just had to make some adjustments.
[0:45] I think you need to talk to Glenn directly and see what he's doing.
[0:49] Yeah, I just, I wanted to get it on public record-
[0:51] Yeah
[0:51] ... because sometimes things get brushed aside.
[0:54] I just, I don't want to have that happen.
[0:57] Thank you. Nice. And duly noted. Pat.
[1:02] Yeah. I just wanted to remind everyone that, as a justice of the peace,
[1:08] we have a vote coming up in November, and we all should've received ballots.
[1:12] They were mailed out. I know I got mine a couple of days ago.
[1:16] So, um, please use that ballot either by dropping it off at the town
[1:22] clerk or in the ballot box outside the building, or bring it with you to the polls.
[1:27] Because when we mail the ballots, we don't have a lot of ballots usually
[1:33] at the Masonic Temple. So, like last time, I think we had to get some
[1:39] printed over at the library because we ran out of ballots.
[1:42] Hmm. It's okay.
[1:43] Use the ballot that you were mailed, bring it back with you when you go to turn it
[1:48] in. And if you do mail it in, make sure, I think you have to sign things inside,
[1:53] and make sure you do that, follow the procedure so that the ballot is good.
[1:57] Now, that's only for state offices. It's not the presidential ballot. No.
[2:03] What?
[2:04] This ballot we got.
[2:06] Yeah.
[2:06] It's not for the-
[2:07] I know, but that's the upcoming election.
[2:09] All right. Well, I'm just asking you, is that the way it's supposed to be?
[2:12] Yes.
[2:13] Okay.
[2:13] All of the ballots were sent out to make sure that they were-
[2:17] All the state ballots. I understand.
[2:19] All the ballots were sent out. The Secretary of State wants to make sure that-
[2:24] Right
[2:24] ... we have our ballots and that people use mail-in and other
[2:30] options. And if someone needs to have their ballot picked up by the
[2:36] JPs, they should contact the town clerk, and she'll make arrangements for two JPs
[2:41] to go out and pick up their ballot.
[2:44] So who mails out the presidential and national ballot? This is...
[2:50] I don't think this is the- This has nothing to do with it. Okay. Sorry.
[2:54] I have a question related to, I've had my hand up for a bit.
[2:57] Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Delilah.
[3:01] Back on what Elijah was speaking about.
[3:04] I think it's all well and good that he reached out to Glenn to get the information
[3:06] directly from Glenn. As a new select board member,
[3:10] I would appreciate an update on that project from Glenn when he's back from
[3:14] vacation and to understand how things have changed and where it
[3:20] stands now as far as the timeline and the budget and the design
[3:26] questions that Elijah had.
[3:29] So Glenn returns on Thursday, this coming Thursday? Glenn returns. Oh, sorry.
[3:33] Glenn. Oh, Glenn returns on Thursday? That's what I know. Okay.
[3:39] So would you be willing to
[3:41] tweak the issue- We're supposed to get together to organize budgets, so I'll
[3:46] ask him. Okay. All right, so there's some follow-up on that.
[3:51] Okay. And returning, I think we wrapped up the ballot question.
[3:53] Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that people got their ballots.
[3:56] They should have gotten it in the mail, and to use those ballots for voting and
[4:02] bring them in if they go to the Masonic Temple or mail them or whatever.
[4:06] Excellent.
[4:09] Aaron, managers report. Yes, I have one thing to make. Mm-hmm.
[4:12] It's actually
[4:14] work progress. So for the one Center Street
[4:21] issue that's been ongoing, this is the superior court's
[4:27] contempt proceeding that
[4:30] was completed, and the motion was signed and ordered.
[4:35] So he has 30 days, and then after that,
[4:42] we'll have an opportunity to go in if we deem that the proper course.
[4:48] Yes. So one of the key things we talk about in department meetings for things like
[4:53] this is do we have a budget and should we have a budget.
[4:56] So when we go into the budget cycle later on in the meeting,
[5:02] a couple of these things we should earmark in terms of
[5:07] brush trimming is something that the
[5:10] trustees are very interested in for their budget. Mm-hmm.
[5:13] You might take note of that. And also,
[5:17] addressing these kinds of things, either through legal means or through
[5:23] actual cleanup, using a contractor to come in and clean things up, that will
[5:28] continue to be a conversation item. Has Mr. Benchwick been informed of this decree?
[5:35] Well, it came out on the 2nd,
[5:38] and we've all received it and passed it around.
[5:40] So the court has said the clock is ticking, and we're just waiting now.
[5:46] I can't speak for Mr. Benchwick.
[5:50] All right. So, you have further items for your report? No, sir.
[5:56] We have quite a few other things to go through, so I'm keeping it short for you.
[5:59] All right. I've got a quick question for you. Yeah.
[6:01] The Atkinson Street-School Street intersection project has been delayed for multi
[6:05] years. We got a pretty good-sized grant for it, or we were about to.
[6:09] It's been scaled back. I don't want to get into the details right now, but if you
[6:13] could find out what's up with that. Atkinson and School Street? Yeah.
[6:17] Gary knows about the grant funding.
[6:21] And again, I will bring up the question of the town report.
[6:24] In the past, I remember Megan
[6:28] spent hours and hours and hours on it. It's a process that has to begin about now.
[6:33] And I know you're in the process of some hiring.
[6:36] Would that fall under the purview of the new employee?
[6:41] Well, we have Alyssa online. She's back from vacation. She was two weeks away.
[6:47] Okay. And she and I put together the budget cycle before she left, and we've mapped
[6:52] out all the dates for when everything is due.
[6:56] So it's going to be a collaborative team effort.
[6:58] All the department heads are going to send their information in with
[7:04] all the budget work we'll have to get done. Mm-hmm.
[7:06] And then probably myself and two or three of the other staff will work on
[7:12] the report itself. Okay, because it was a lot of chasing people down who don't turn
[7:17] their stuff in, one has to. Thank you. All right, sure.
[7:21] Any other questions for the manager about his report or any other issues that would
[7:24] involve the manager?
[7:27] Okay, thank you. The consent agenda.
[7:31] And Delilah, you had raised some questions by email about the consent agenda.
[7:37] Do you mind if I read what you have? Or has everyone seen it? Well, I updated it.
[7:41] Oh, good. So that's something that could be of interest.
[7:46] And Amy's not here to give us her expertise, so we may have to table
[7:52] some of that, but-
[7:55] Did another packet come out or?
[7:58] I was just explaining.
[7:59] Where was-
[8:00] I think it was handed out. Was it- I'm just explaining now. Mm-hmm.
[8:06] So we have the agenda up. The agenda's online.
[8:10] And because the consent agenda is broken out from the actual
[8:15] agenda,
[8:18] and Delilah had some questions about could we itemize which minutes were getting
[8:23] corrected. Mm-hmm. I included those on updated consent agenda and posted that-
[8:29] Yeah ... to the website, and you can see both are there. I see it.
[8:34] So the public can, if they're on Zoom, they can all go through the website and pull
[8:39] that up and take a look.
[8:42] Okay.
[8:43] And I have some questions on the warrant.
[8:47] Okay. Which, yes, there's the payroll warrant or the AP warrant?
[8:53] I just go by date because nobody has explained to me the difference between which
[8:57] is which. So-
[8:58] Okay. Well, it's not 9/24, 10/08
[9:02] I had the, I'm trying to get it up on my email here. Sorry.
[9:07] I'm working with just one screen right now, so
[9:11] go trying to find out that thread where I had the question. It's okay.
[9:17] I can read it for you if you want,
[9:20] your email. Sure.
[9:23] Oh, here it is. Okay. Yeah. So,
[9:32] thank you for reposting that, Aaron.
[9:40] And I thought I delineated it in here, but
[9:45] there was an item on the, I believe, the
[9:50] October dated warrant. Laura Sierra received $187 payment for
[9:56] an overcharge at the transfer station, and I was just curious about
[10:00] how that occurred.
[10:03] So, she came in, and I worked with her in Alyssa's absence.
[10:10] She had gone through the weight scale with her vehicle, and
[10:16] her ticket was for $78.
[10:19] When she went to
[10:25] process the payment, they charged her $266.
[10:31] So
[10:33] the woman in the booth, and I apologize, I've forgotten her name. Yeah. What is it?
[10:39] She tried to reverse that charge,
[10:44] and
[10:46] was unable to reverse the car charge, so she came into the office and we did the
[10:51] research and we talked to
[10:54] the recycling center, and we sent her back there because
[10:59] we had figured out how to reverse the charge.
[11:04] The system would not allow them to reverse the charge. Yeah.
[11:10] So she came back to the office and we had the
[11:15] AP warrant, which is all the checks to all the vendors and all the payments,
[11:22] still open and hadn't been finalized.
[11:25] So we did all the paperwork to include her check on that AP warrant, and when it
[11:31] was done and processed and signed off by the town clerk, we called her back in
[11:37] and she came and picked up the difference for what she was owed.
[11:41] But that's how that was resolved. Okay, great.
[11:44] And then I had two other questions related to
[11:50] on the 9/30/2026 warrant, there was a listing of
[11:55] fall cleanup for the cemeteries.
[11:59] It broke it out by the five cemeteries totaling cost of
[12:04] $36,000.
[12:07] And I just wanted to know how much is of that 36K is part of the to--
[12:14] what part does it make up of the total for cemetery maintenance budget, and what
[12:20] all does the fall cleanup entail?
[12:23] Those are all great questions. I did look at that in individual payment in Alyssa's
[12:29] absence, and it was a contract that Scott Pickup had signed, and it was
[12:35] very clear that the $36,000 fall cleanup was itemized as a separate payment.
[12:43] The contract, which I don't have in front of me, so I really can't speak to it,
[12:48] was very clear about when the payments would be presented to the
[12:54] town or when the invoices would be presented, and how they would be paid.
[13:00] Unfortunately, again, I don't have it in front of me, so I can't speak to the total
[13:05] off the top of my head. But I do remember going through and then,
[13:10] because it was so well-documented, I signed off on the
[13:17] payment
[13:19] for Melissa to run for that particular warrant.
[13:21] But if you would like more information, I'm happy to either send it to yourself or
[13:26] all the board, a copy of that particular contract.
[13:30] It's all in order, and we can pull that together for you. Okay.
[13:35] And then the last one was just, it looked like in the 9/23 warrant that
[13:42] Russlyn Cemetery was mowed twice, and there was no mowing at Meeting House.
[13:47] I just wondered if that was a typo or if indeed Russlyn was mowed twice and Meeting
[13:51] House wasn't mowed.
[13:53] We happen to have the chair of the cemetery committee with us.
[13:57] The past chair, but-
[13:58] Past chair, sorry.
[14:02] I am unaware of why that would be unless it has to do with the schedule of people
[14:06] being at the Meeting House. I don't know why Russlyn would need it twice, except
[14:11] there was an enormous tree that fell there, and so it may have just meant that
[14:15] there were two trips, or it needed it twice to get cleaned up.
[14:19] Mm-hmm.
[14:20] The question that I would have about the payment is that fall cleanup isn't
[14:24] scheduled until October, and
[14:28] if anything, it should be late, so are we pre-paying for the fall cleanup?
[14:32] I don't remember off the top of my head. I looked it over very carefully.
[14:36] Scott and the vendor had outlined a very clear
[14:41] payment process. It is October. It is underway.
[14:47] And it did say exactly when he was going to present the payment with invoice
[14:51] render. So unfortunately, again, not a perfect memory here, but-
[14:55] No, that's-
[14:55] It was part of the process that we went through.
[14:58] So the committee would love the opportunity to look at the new contract before it's
[15:03] signed off for the committee. So if that's possible, that would be fine.
[15:06] I haven't met the gentleman, and don't know how that process yet works.
[15:11] Okay.
[15:12] So I do have a real interest in it after having gone through that.
[15:16] But I'm not there yet myself, so.
[15:18] Okay.
[15:19] Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you. That's good. Okay.
[15:23] So, we have the updated consent agenda, and that includes four
[15:29] sets of minutes, and I should just mention those now. Boom. Yeah.
[15:34] Two of them are for executive sessions. Yeah.
[15:35] So they're simply the motions to go into an executive session and then the
[15:40] adjournment. They're brief one-pagers, and they are posted online.
[15:46] Good. And I see the
[15:49] agendas for September 22nd and the agenda for our retreat, held last Sunday,
[15:55] September 27th. So those are all part of the consent agenda can be voted upon as
[16:00] one. They were all posted in a timely on the website, so that anybody could
[16:06] go in and read the draft ahead of time.
[16:11] So I think the consent agenda stands as its own thing.
[16:14] So, it's consistent with the original consent agenda- Yes ...
[16:20] that was posted last Thursday evening.
[16:25] So I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda.
[16:29] I move that we approve the consent agenda.
[16:32] Second.
[16:33] Motion made and seconded to approve the updated consent agenda.
[16:38] Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.
[16:42] Aye.
[16:43] Aye.
[16:43] Aye. 21 aye. Okay, and any opposed or abstentions?
[16:49] Seeing, hearing none, the motion passes.
[16:54] Okay, so that brings us to the business of the meeting under
[17:00] the business headings here.
[17:04] And we want to start with the social service agency appropriation policy.
[17:11] Do
[17:12] you want to give a little background on that, Aaron? You want me to- Sure.
[17:15] Happy to. Thanks, Roy.
[17:20] There was a conversation
[17:23] in May primarily about visiting
[17:28] nurses
[17:30] and about the process that the select board goes through to determine
[17:39] which agencies the town will include in the town meeting warrant.
[17:49] And they get posted. It's based on a five-year schedule.
[17:53] So they get posted it for the anniversary of the five years in the town
[17:59] warrant, and yet they get voted on in subsequent years rather than listing them all
[18:04] out with their individual contributions to those agencies.
[18:08] It's a lump sum that carries for the remaining four years.
[18:13] And this is a policy that's been in place.
[18:17] You can see this was filed at town clerk's office in 2018, so it's been
[18:23] approximately eight years-
[18:24] Mm-hmm
[18:25] ... or nine years.
[18:31] As with all policies of the select board
[18:36] or trustees, if you're sharing them,
[18:42] especially when it comes to purchasing and budgeting,
[18:47] they can be waived.
[18:50] They're the board's best practice to manage the process by, so that
[18:56] everybody knows what the process will be.
[18:59] But it is something that you can waive, you can change, you can vote to amend.
[19:04] And I believe that based on some of the discussion about,
[19:12] basically, the question is: What do you do when a social service agency that
[19:18] you've been working with for a long time either closes its doors,
[19:23] is bought by a much larger company, and really stands on its own now, it doesn't
[19:27] need the local support as much, or
[19:32] changes its mission,
[19:34] and no longer really works in the Rockingham footprint, or has
[19:40] inconsistent guidelines compared to when it first came through.
[19:45] So those are a number of different scenarios under which a select board might
[19:49] choose to review
[19:51] and update the social service agency list.
[19:57] And,
[19:59] I also think I remember that there was some parts of that discussion
[20:04] where I think the board felt that it might be cumbersome to
[20:09] go through a process like this, and then have one of those four or more
[20:15] instances, and then not be able to make a change because you were locked into a
[20:20] five-year cycle, or it was unclear how to amend or
[20:26] suspend, or waive the policy.
[20:29] So my understanding is, is that the board wants to explore
[20:35] how to amend this policy or waive it, or how to better use
[20:41] the schedule.
[20:43] Thank you for that summary. I would also note that five years is such a long chunk
[20:48] of time, and lots of new needs can emerge, COVID, whatever.
[20:53] Things come up, and if you're locked into five years, you really have no
[20:56] flexibility in how to address the changing social needs of our community.
[21:01] So the first step then would be to waive the current policy and then come up with a
[21:06] plan of how we will create a new policy?
[21:09] I think when you waive a policy, you're better off to waive a portion for a
[21:16] specific instance or reason.
[21:18] Mm-hmm.
[21:20] I think if you're interested in amending this policy, then you should probably do a
[21:24] work session and determine with the other board members, how best
[21:30] to address the five-year schedule, the current list of applicants.
[21:36] Do you need to have them send in their pro formas or their marketing materials
[21:41] to explain or to see that they're still on the same trajectory that aligns
[21:47] with the town's needs?
[21:49] Mm-hmm.
[21:50] Can we do something like
[21:54] just insert a clause that says,
[21:58] we want every agency to submit, like you said, a pro forma
[22:03] every year, and we reserve the right to rescind or adjust
[22:09] their
[22:12] appropriation accordingly.
[22:14] Yeah. So it's one, two, three, four, five, the sixth paragraph, it says,
[22:20] "Those social service agencies that had an appropriation request approved at the
[22:25] most recent annual town meeting are not required to submit a petition if the amount
[22:30] requested is the same or less than the amount approved by the voters in the
[22:34] previous year." And so
[22:36] that was meant probably to streamline the process for-
[22:40] Right. So that they don't need a petition or anything, but we would just like to
[22:44] see a report every year on what they've done with the money.
[22:47] It does say that they do have to submit a letter.
[22:49] They don't have to get a petition, but they do have to submit a letter every year.
[22:54] I think what Bonnie is saying has more to do with their financials.
[22:58] Yeah.
[22:58] Yeah, their financials. And we reserve the right to adjust the appropriation
[23:05] accordingly if it's needed.
[23:07] Yeah.
[23:07] Something like that.
[23:08] I think that's a great discussion to have with the other board members.
[23:11] Yeah.
[23:12] So if Danny returns on the 20th, would we want to dig into this topic then, or do
[23:18] you want to do something tonight, Erin? What's your preference?
[23:22] Well, I think the intention of the board, as I understood it back in
[23:28] from May, was to address this particular policy
[23:33] in time so that you could address your budget cycle.
[23:36] Mm-hmm.
[23:37] Which we're going to talk about a little bit later on tonight.
[23:39] So
[23:42] Elissa has December 22nd as the general fund
[23:46] discussion. There's probably also some date on this list where we
[23:52] talk about the Rockingham budget.
[23:57] That's not an actual department, it's more about the administration,
[24:03] and this will be part of that discussion.
[24:05] So we will have enough time if we're in the December or January
[24:11] range for that conversation coming at the end of all the other departments to
[24:17] address this policy well before then.
[24:19] Good. I would note that Deb Wright led a committee about, what is it?
[24:23] Three years ago? That studied all these agencies and tried to come up with some
[24:28] kind of a metric, because there's so many good causes out there, and we only have
[24:33] 99,500 is what we gave at last year's town meeting.
[24:36] So it's a kind of a three-dimensional chess game, trying to figure out who gets
[24:40] what, and this committee tried to bring some order to that process.
[24:45] Whether we want to take an approach like that, or whether we want to just decide
[24:49] among us on the select board how we want to do that.
[24:52] So you would suggest we bring that up then?
[24:55] Well, I was actually speaking more about the construction and the outline and
[24:59] structure of the policy itself.
[25:01] Yep.
[25:01] And not necessarily about the list of agencies.
[25:06] So the five-year thing stood out as the thing for me, but if
[25:12] the list of actual agencies is what also stands out to the board, then maybe some
[25:18] discussion about how to go through that process would be good.
[25:21] Okay. Should that happen on the 20th?
[25:24] We can put it on the
[25:27] agenda for the 20th.
[25:28] So colleagues, what do you feel?
[25:31] Eleanor, Bonnie, John?
[25:33] I think we should talk about it, yeah.
[25:37] Okay.
[25:37] I agree that we should talk about it.
[25:39] I would say in addition to evaluating some of the
[25:44] particulars of the existing policy,
[25:48] I think the reason it came up in discussion back in May,
[25:54] was that
[25:59] should there be a change,
[26:02] what happens to those funds? Because I think we spend a lot of time trying to
[26:05] figure out, well, who gets these funds? Does anybody get the funds?
[26:09] Do they just go back into the pot unspent?
[26:12] And what does that process look like?
[26:15] Does it get
[26:19] handed to the next agency or something?
[26:21] But that was, I think, what initiated this entire discussion, and so having some
[26:26] sort of
[26:29] statement in that policy about what happens to funds if an entity goes
[26:35] out of business or
[26:39] we no longer deem as a viable recipient,
[26:43] how do we handle the reallocation of the funds? Or do they reallocate?
[26:46] So I think we just need to say,
[26:51] we reserve the right to rescind the appropriation and
[26:56] reallocate it,
[27:00] as the select board chooses at that time.
[27:05] Something like that. Because remember when-
[27:08] Well, I don't want to solve it right now.
[27:09] I'm just saying that we need to know that that's one of the things that we should
[27:13] discuss at the upcoming meeting. Right.
[27:15] Okay.
[27:16] Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
[27:17] I corresponded with Alyssa today, and the VNA has not billed us for their amount,
[27:22] which is the largest amount of any organization this year, and we can't pay
[27:26] anything without an invoice. And there was much debate about how appropriate, VNA
[27:31] having been absorbed by a two billion dollar entity,
[27:36] and how appropriate it was for us to contribute our little money to this giant
[27:40] thing. Anyway, so let's get back to this on the 20th then.
[27:45] All right.
[27:48] I think there was also a question that they were no longer serving our area.
[27:52] Right.
[27:52] That was a major issue with the community.
[27:56] Yeah. This Abeda company, the one that we talked to-
[28:00] Whatever, they were not going to be taking care of us.
[28:04] Yeah. Good point. Okay.
[28:07] Are we ready to move on to the next item on the agenda?
[28:12] Yep.
[28:12] Okay, so that brings us to the
[28:18] trustees of public funds. We have three representatives of that entity with us
[28:22] tonight. Thank you for being here.
[28:24] And policy revisions are under discussion.
[28:29] Mm-hmm.
[28:29] And you have proposed them to us.
[28:33] Yes. So the policy came from a template, there's no surprise, we got from the
[28:39] Vermont League of Cities and Towns.
[28:42] Mm-hmm.
[28:42] The document that you have is now color-coded and lined through in the things that
[28:48] we've changed. So anything that is lined through, we took out.
[28:52] Things that are new or changed are in green.
[28:56] And our goal tonight is to have the select board
[29:01] authorize us to move forward with this as the policy.
[29:05] And then, we'd like to quickly go down the five items that we submitted
[29:11] when we came the first time, not for the discussion, but just to say why we're not
[29:16] dealing with all of them until we get the policy set.
[29:20] Thank you. I see the document with the
[29:23] crossouts and the green new text. So do you want to walk through that now?
[29:29] We can.
[29:29] Just the changes.
[29:30] Just to bring us back to where we were before, the only change that was brought up
[29:35] at the last meeting as a question had to do with the collateralization, and Aaron
[29:40] was asking questions about that.
[29:42] Okay.
[29:42] And that's where we realized, "Hey, wait a minute.
[29:44] That's actually something that we had cut." He was suggesting it should be
[29:48] discussed for possible elimination, and the trustees had already cut that section.
[29:55] So I don't know if there are other areas that the select board members wish to
[29:59] discuss. We can
[30:01] walk through it together if you'd like.
[30:07] I just had one question. Underneath that section that was
[30:12] cut out, the collateralization section, there's the safekeeping and custody.
[30:17] Mm-hmm.
[30:18] And, in that, there's one little addition in green,
[30:23] "Securities will be held by an independent third party custodian selected by the
[30:28] town treasurer." Who is the town treasurer?
[30:35] Kathleen.
[30:35] Kathleen Kelly.
[30:36] Kathleen. Okay. All right.
[30:39] I just wanted to clear that.
[30:41] Is Kathleen the most appropriate person? Would Alyssa have had a role there or not?
[30:46] Oh, it's interesting. In the state that I came from, the trustees of
[30:52] public funds would be similar to the trustees of trust funds.
[30:55] Mm-hmm.
[30:55] And the whole point of having a trustee of trust funds is so that you don't have
[31:00] the treasurer holding their funds, that there's a separation between what the
[31:05] treasurer is doing and what the-
[31:07] So it's a check and balance.
[31:09] Well,
[31:11] these are all trust funds.
[31:13] Mm-hmm.
[31:13] And so the trust fund trustees are responsible for, and they're
[31:19] in New Hampshire, you report to the Attorney General's office.
[31:22] Mm-hmm.
[31:26] But both of them come to the select board, both the treasurer on one hand for all
[31:31] of the general funded accounts, and then the trustee of trust funds, they both come
[31:36] to the select board for the
[31:42] expenditure.
[31:43] Yes.
[31:44] The approval of the expenditure.
[31:47] At the time that we picked up the old policy, which you have the 2008
[31:52] policy in there, it actually had the three trustees sign the policy.
[31:57] So-
[31:58] You did
[31:59] ... we explored that, and we believe no, the policy is actually supposed to be
[32:04] approved by the select board.
[32:06] Okay.
[32:06] So on the flip side, and we don't know the date when this started,
[32:12] at this time, the three people who sign to make any changes in the accounts are the
[32:18] town manager, the finance director, and the town treasurer.
[32:22] So three people who work within the town offices and not any of the trustees.
[32:28] So one of our requests in the five points that we made is to have at least one of
[32:33] the trustees take the place of one of the current three, and we
[32:39] would look to Aaron to decide whether that was the treasurer or someone else.
[32:45] It takes two of the three to make any change with Bill Stevens' office, and it
[32:49] needs to happen anyway because at this point, it's still listed as previous town
[32:54] manager. So it's time to go there and make this change.
[32:57] We just need the direction from the select board to Aaron or
[33:02] from the select board directly for what comes next as far as who should sign and
[33:07] who's going to approve this policy.
[33:09] Alyssa has spent so much time on this, her knowledge is very deep of it.
[33:13] I don't know whether Kathleen's been aware of it or not.
[33:15] So my thought would be that Alyssa would make the most logical person.
[33:20] She's on top of the whole accounting and all that stuff.
[33:24] So I'll look to what my colleagues think about that.
[33:26] I agree with you.
[33:32] I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it.
[33:33] Hello?
[33:33] I'm fine with it.
[33:34] Okay. So-
[33:35] Do you have a preference which of the three of us would
[33:40] be the other one to sign? So we're all three trustees.
[33:43] There's not one of us that's the chair. We serve in three-year terms.
[33:47] So Pat, she's in the last of her years.
[33:55] I'm good.
[33:55] Dave is in the middle, and then I'm in my first year.
[33:59] So, we just need to make a decision about, I would put it not as the person.
[34:04] I would say either it's always the person who's in their last year, so it changes
[34:10] often, or it's always the person in their first year, so it doesn't change often,
[34:14] is how I would set it up if I were. Or should it be somebody that the trustees
[34:18] decide? That's up to you guys.
[34:21] Is it ever the case that one of you is not available, like if somebody's on
[34:26] vacation or something, and something needs to be signed?
[34:29] Or is it so infrequent that it can be worked around that?
[34:32] It only requires two of the three people to sign.
[34:36] I see.
[34:36] And so it would be really infrequent that you wouldn't be able to achieve any
[34:40] emergency activity.
[34:41] Okay.
[34:41] Mr. Chair, can I ask a couple questions about this?
[34:45] Sure, go ahead.
[34:45] So
[34:49] when you compare and contrast your intention for the new
[34:56] green line policy-
[34:57] Mm-hmm
[34:58] ... versus this is the older policy that's been in effect, and I
[35:04] think my take on what you've described to the board so far is that you're
[35:09] interested in not only the investment side, but also ensuring that
[35:16] the income that comes in gets allocated and that the spending
[35:22] through the town is earmarked appropriately and so on.
[35:26] And at the same time as that's
[35:30] extremely altruistic and good, this former policy
[35:36] functioned
[35:39] strictly as the investment policy, and it provided a format
[35:44] for how investments will be handled and how the
[35:50] funds in these trusts are allocated.
[35:55] So if I could, the policy was developed in 2008, and there is no evidence that it's
[36:00] been used responsibly since then.
[36:03] Okay.
[36:05] And as a trustee, I never had anybody else with me.
[36:08] And when I tried to get information on the investments, I was kind of stonewalled.
[36:14] So that's good commentary. So that's good background.
[36:18] However, the
[36:20] funds and the way that you're requesting-
[36:26] To be included in the spending,
[36:29] decision-making is fundamentally different from what this
[36:35] was a vehicle for. And this vehicle, which
[36:41] carried the format for and the guidelines and the guardrails
[36:47] over the investments themselves, was all signed by the trustees, because that is in
[36:52] fact their actual job. And then similarly, they come to the select board, and the
[36:58] select board says, "Here's what we need to use these funds for," and sign off on
[37:02] the release of the funds. It goes back to the checks and balance.
[37:05] This is getting to be a little bit different.
[37:08] When the trustee becomes on the spending side and has a
[37:13] role in allocating the funds, that's fundamentally different in terms of the
[37:20] policy
[37:22] objective than this was. Now, doesn't mean that this was being done effectively.
[37:28] It doesn't mean that it was done well.
[37:30] It's just at a higher level, apart from in the weeds about
[37:36] how it was allocated, how much cash was here, how much was invested in these kinds
[37:41] of securities and so on. This is two very different situations that you're
[37:46] contemplating, and I think the board might want to take a look at that-
[37:51] So-
[37:51] ... is my suggestion
[37:53] I agree. But the implication in the way that you're saying it is that we wish to be
[37:58] involved in the spending, and we do not. We specifically do not wish to be.
[38:03] We wish to make sure that spending happens, because for the last 18 years in this
[38:09] town, it did not. And so the select boards, the auditors, everyone
[38:14] involved has just missed over, just skipped spending this money.
[38:19] Yeah.
[38:19] And I think it will be easily two cycles before we're able to spend the money
[38:25] because we've got to straighten things out.
[38:26] So we are stepping forward to say if we have the title of trustee,
[38:32] we're being asked not only to make sure that the money's invested wisely, but the
[38:37] town lives up to using it for its intended purpose.
[38:42] We're not going to say what to spend it for.
[38:43] We're just going to keep showing up to select work meetings and town meetings to
[38:48] make sure it gets spent.
[38:51] Sure.
[38:51] Yes, go ahead, John.
[38:52] So who makes the recommendation of what to spend the money on?
[38:56] That's unresolved. That is not included in the policy.
[39:01] And that may likely be why no money has been spent, because-
[39:04] It can take years
[39:05] ... there's been nobody to say, "Here's a need.
[39:09] We have these funds that support that need.
[39:11] Here's what we believe the $20,000 that was earned in the last fiscal year should
[39:17] go for."
[39:17] Right. And it seems that they just lost track that they even had the money.
[39:21] So this is what I would characterize as a stewardship-
[39:25] Right
[39:25] ... policy, and this is getting to be a little bit of a hybrid.
[39:30] Not for all, and not for any negative reasons.
[39:33] It's just, it's a significant change between one type of activity, which as
[39:38] the testimony
[39:42] comes across, saying that it got broken somewhere along the way.
[39:46] But it had a particular function.
[39:49] It did. The hybrid thing that-- A lot of work that the current trustees have done,
[39:55] and what they've developed encourages me to support the hybrid approach, noting
[40:00] your difference and the fact that almost $800,000, is that what it was,
[40:06] this accumulated debt to hand?
[40:08] Yeah. It's not quite 800. It comes and it goes.
[40:11] Right.
[40:12] It was 200,000 back in 2008, so it's been significant that it's had a chance
[40:17] to-
[40:18] Well, it sounds like we need to incorporate into the policy
[40:24] some kind of designation
[40:27] of who or what agency or what committee has
[40:32] responsibility.
[40:34] And that's on the fund. Some of the funds describe what they're supposed to be used
[40:39] for. It was just ignored, and funds were taken out of the regular coffers instead
[40:44] of using these funds.
[40:46] Right.
[40:46] The only thing that was actually charged to these funds were the flowers for
[40:51] certain graves.
[40:52] Right. I understand that part.
[40:54] But it seems like they still didn't need either, but they were at least allocated.
[40:59] At least the flowers were done.
[41:00] Right.
[41:01] But few of those funds are the care for cemeteries.
[41:06] Right.
[41:07] And the town has a cemetery committee.
[41:10] Mm-hmm.
[41:11] So I would imagine the cemetery committee would be the one that would spend
[41:18] funds designated for care of the cemeteries with the trustees' approval.
[41:24] But there are funds-
[41:26] Mm-hmm
[41:26] ... the Hildreth Hospital Fund, for instance, we have no earthly idea what that was
[41:32] for, and there's no such thing as a Hildreth Hospital.
[41:36] So that has to be researched, and then the trustees, I imagine,
[41:43] would make a recommendation maybe to the select board of what the appropriate use
[41:48] of those funds would be, or to discontinue them and fold them into other funds.
[41:54] That makes sense to me.
[41:57] Well, I think the policy needs to sort of say that.
[42:00] Who's going to make recommendations on the disbursement of- Well- ... the income?
[42:06] I would argue against that because it is our understanding that this tells
[42:12] the trustees how to behave and that the how to spend it is at the
[42:18] discretion of the select board.
[42:21] All right. Well, the main policy will have to say that too.
[42:25] But it just seems like it needs to be stated somewhere.
[42:28] These are very different.
[42:29] I agree with Anne and the trustees' sort of view,
[42:35] is that they're functioning as stewards. They're making sure it gets spent.
[42:38] They're going to be coming to these meetings when we get requests or moving
[42:43] forward, how under the guidelines, how we update things that are no
[42:49] longer clear, how we move forward to make sure the monies get spent in the way that
[42:53] they should be. I think that this
[42:59] updated approach, from 2000, what is it?
[43:03] 2008 or I forget what the state's from,
[43:07] to now is
[43:09] a good first step in the direction to make sure that this keeps going.
[43:14] And as Anne said, it's probably going to be a couple of cycles before the wheels
[43:19] get turning again on this.
[43:22] Thank you, Delilah. Alyssa, your hand was up.
[43:26] Alyssa-
[43:26] Yeah. My hand was up. Sorry, my camera isn't working.
[43:31] I just wanted to just touch base on what was commented on about the
[43:37] hospital fund.
[43:41] So I brought that up and a while ago, and have been unable to figure
[43:47] out exactly. And I thought that
[43:51] Marty was going to investigate that further,
[43:56] just because it seemed like if that money was intended for
[44:02] the hospital-
[44:03] Invested
[44:03] ... building that-
[44:04] Yeah
[44:05] ...
[44:07] but we also have to research how that money got put there and if we legally can
[44:11] change it without... We might have to put an ad in the paper to say if somebody has
[44:16] any-
[44:19] Yeah
[44:20] ... interest in these funds, they need to come forward.
[44:23] There's like a certain process that has to happen before you can just decide to do
[44:27] something different with that money.
[44:30] Okay.
[44:30] I just want to throw that out there.
[44:33] Thank you very much, Alyssa.
[44:35] Yeah.
[44:35] And in addition to the Hildreth Fund, the itemized, five itemized lists that
[44:41] we gave you break down many other details about these funds that have to be sorted
[44:45] out, and the high likelihood that it will require some legal advice.
[44:50] Because the trustees can have an opinion and offer it, as far as what we would hope
[44:55] would happen with it, but we do not have the legal expertise to tell you the steps
[45:00] that you'll need to go through to carry that out.
[45:03] Thank you.
[45:03] Or something like that through the court system.
[45:05] And John wanted to say something?
[45:06] Yeah. The
[45:09] document that was in our packet
[45:11] that had Dorney Aldrich as the contact,
[45:16] was pretty specific about how the asset allocations are and all of that.
[45:22] So it's pretty detailed about the funds themselves and how we,
[45:26] where they're allocated. It does-
[45:32] Talk a little bit about funding of withdrawals and distribution.
[45:35] Fiduciary funds have requirements and expectations for periodic withdrawals for
[45:39] programs and expenses. And so to me, it seems like there's a portion of this
[45:44] that's good in that it has very detailed instruction about how the investments are
[45:50] to be made.
[45:52] But where we lacked was knowing what's the amount that it
[45:59] grew- Mm-hmm ... and what portion of that growth do we allow to be spent,
[46:06] and what should it be spent on. And since that was so
[46:11] unclear- Mm-hmm ... I guess maybe that's why it hasn't really happened.
[46:15] So I guess I feel like it's the withdrawal and distribution of funds that
[46:21] seems to be critical- Mm-hmm ... now and should get cleaned up.
[46:25] I like
[46:28] this document. It's concise. Mm-hmm. It's easy to read.
[46:33] This gets into a little more detail.
[46:36] So I think we do need to be aware whether if we're replacing one with the other-
[46:42] Yeah ... are we losing some of the detailed information about the asset
[46:47] allocations? Mm-hmm.
[46:50] Unless we don't want, unless we or the trustees
[46:56] aren't concerned about the asset allocation piece of it. But- Okay ...
[47:01] I think I agree with the manager that they're pretty different documents. Mm-hmm.
[47:04] One serves a better purpose
[47:07] from a spending standpoint, the other has a greater purpose in this.
[47:12] Investment allocation. And so maybe there's a better mesh of those two, or just
[47:17] adding more of the spending part- To the old policy ... to the old policy. Okay.
[47:22] Aaron, and then Anne.
[47:25] So, in a former life, I was a trustee in another state for a long time.
[47:29] Mm-hmm.
[47:30] And did this role for many years.
[47:34] So the
[47:37] original policy was geared to help the trustees work with fund managers,
[47:43] and it's an investment policy.
[47:45] Right.
[47:45] So what types of
[47:49] securities and what are your cash and what allocations and so on.
[47:53] Yeah, the risk levels.
[47:54] And it's a very narrowly defined document.
[47:57] Mm-hmm.
[47:58] And there was a really key phrase that this gentleman, I apologize, said.
[48:02] He said, "With trustee approval," and that's never been
[48:06] a thing in my experience where I worked.
[48:11] It was always the select board. So there's a fundamental difference that you need
[48:16] to be aware of, I think, in this case, and at least look at.
[48:21] That moving from a fundamentally very narrowly defined
[48:28] program that is--
[48:32] You can talk to your auditor as well, but your investment policy is a required
[48:37] policy from their standpoint as well.
[48:41] And it's not the same thing as this.
[48:46] Not to say that this is wrong or
[48:49] it's not correcting something-
[48:50] Mm-hmm
[48:52] ... but
[48:54] that trustee
[48:58] permission, that's something very different.
[49:02] And typically, it's not something in my experience, again, not in Vermont, but in
[49:06] another state, I would look very closely at that.
[49:11] Okay. So is there any way we can hybridize these documents?
[49:17] I still have some-- I've got a hand up.
[49:19] I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead.
[49:22] So I think from our initial...
[49:27] This is the third time the trustees have come to us.
[49:30] They discussed why it wasn't as detailed when they first came through.
[49:35] We didn't have the materials before us at that time.
[49:38] It didn't make it into the packet then.
[49:40] But they discussed the philosophy of it not being that prescriptive in this
[49:46] document
[49:48] that we're seeing, that they're presenting to us.
[49:52] And that's because the philosophy is broadly stated in this document that we're
[49:58] seeing that will guide them. But they can have sort of separate guidance principles
[50:04] as the trustees that will help them.
[50:06] But I believe that
[50:10] being that prescriptive also ties people's hands.
[50:15] And I see Anne shaking her head, so I'll let her speak.
[50:17] I mean, I will go to the chair and allow the chair to recognize someone.
[50:21] Okay. Yeah.
[50:23] So I would remind the group that the reason we went to the Vermont League of Cities
[50:28] and Towns for a policy template is that we were told by our advisor, Bill Stevens,
[50:35] that the 2008 policy was literally no longer actionable.
[50:39] He could not function under that policy. It is too strict.
[50:43] Things about it are self-contradictory and contradictory to current best practice
[50:47] for him. And he said, "So if I have to use this, Edward Jones is going to tell me I
[50:53] cannot. We need a new policy." He recommended we pick up the template from Vermont
[50:58] League of Cities and Towns, and we did.
[51:00] So that's why it is so much
[51:03] similar.
[51:03] Mm-hmm.
[51:04] I did want to ask Aaron, when you're saying that there was a mention of trustee
[51:10] permission or trustee approval, regarding what specifically?
[51:14] The staff mentioned it in the context
[51:18] of
[51:20] allowing payments.
[51:22] And I don't think that we are saying we do anything
[51:28] other than watch the payments happen, which-
[51:32] Let's be real clear. I'm not pointing fingers.
[51:34] I'm simply telling the board in an advisory capacity about a significant change
[51:39] that they need to be aware of as the critical aspect of the difference between
[51:45] going from a prescriptive-- And even if you've been told that this is not
[51:50] actionable, that's fine. But at a higher level, this is
[51:57] a document that describes a fundamentally different approach, and it has
[52:04] a function as an investment policy that is, in other
[52:09] states, as a requirement
[52:13] for the auditor to go through the books with, right?
[52:17] We're a policy driven organization and those policies for purchasing,
[52:24] and then so investment is very similar.
[52:26] So what they do when they do their audit is they go through and they look, are you
[52:30] following your policy?
[52:32] Right.
[52:32] And that's what the whole process is about.
[52:35] What you're being told is, hey, the
[52:41] weeds of this policy are not actionable.
[52:45] They can't do some of these things now. The world has changed and so on.
[52:50] But at a
[52:52] higher level, the policy itself is a vehicle, but it's a very narrowly defined
[52:58] vehicle. So I'm describing to the board in my advisory capacity that this previous
[53:03] policy was very narrowly defined and allowed for
[53:08] the trustees to work specifically with the fund management.
[53:11] And this other thing that you're talking about, which has been a failure,
[53:17] is a failure because this would've led them to believe that they got very silent
[53:22] about what their actual job was, right?
[53:25] They didn't actually go to the next step and say, "Okay, this policy is how we deal
[53:29] with the fund managers so that the auditor can look over our shoulder and make sure
[53:34] that we are practicing good risk management."
[53:37] So
[53:39] yes, I
[53:42] agree with everything you just said.
[53:44] So it's no longer-
[53:46] That's good
[53:47] ... but going back to the permission or approval, there's nowhere in here that we
[53:52] give ourselves permission or approval.
[53:54] The closest that it comes to it is on page three, standardized spending request
[54:00] procedure. We say in the concert with the town, the trustees shall
[54:05] maintain a standardized procedure for spending allocation requests on the public
[54:10] funds. If you prefer to say, we will monitor that procedure that is devised
[54:16] by others, we're fine with that. There just needs to be a procedure because nobody
[54:21] knows how to spend this money.
[54:23] Yeah. All I'm saying to the board is that the crux of the
[54:30] potential change, that's a very important
[54:35] aspect that when you get back to Anne's discussion about
[54:42] Um, checks and balances. It was set up originally a certain way.
[54:47] So when you start changing a fundamental thing, like starting to allocate,
[54:53] um, permission to the trustees for how the money is spent, that's very--
[55:00] So I'm not saying that's what you're doing.
[55:01] I'm saying to the board, "Hey, pay attention." This is the key here that you have
[55:07] to keep track of as you're going through.
[55:09] We have policy, we're changing the policy, here's a new policy.
[55:13] Mm-hmm.
[55:14] That's a critical aspect of
[55:17] the checks and balance on either side.
[55:19] And, sorry, I want to say a word here.
[55:23] The VLCT policies tend to be very well-researched, and I'm a big fan of
[55:29] them. Second thing is, we, the select board, still retain control over the
[55:33] spending. For me, that's the critical piece in terms of checks and balances, so I
[55:37] don't see why they're recommending things to us as any change.
[55:40] That's the key. That is the key right there.
[55:42] You're explaining exactly what I'm saying.
[55:45] So in your mind, you're already all done. That's great.
[55:47] I'm just saying, hey, for the record, the key thing here is the
[55:53] permission base stays on your side.
[55:55] Exactly. That's what I see.
[55:57] Does that say that here somewhere?
[55:59] If you want to go to that line that I'm talking about and instead of saying "shall
[56:04] maintain," we can say "shall recommend."
[56:08] No, this is on page three.
[56:10] It's on page three under Standardized Spending Request Procedure.
[56:15] Well, I read that as
[56:19] you're recommending a procedure for spending.
[56:21] So you're not actually-
[56:22] You're not actually telling us what the needs.
[56:26] Right.
[56:27] And I think that's where
[56:30] I feel like there isn't a procedure yet for
[56:35] someone telling the select board, "Here are the needs that these funds can
[56:42] help
[56:44] fund those needs."
[56:46] I think that's separate and apart from this policy.
[56:51] Mm-hmm.
[56:51] I think that's a separate task that needs to, that doesn't need to be
[56:58] sort of fleshed out more, but I don't think the procedure needs to be part of this
[57:02] policy.
[57:04] So in terms of the spending objectives, if the policy just says, "You need to spend
[57:10] money
[57:12] and nothing else," but there's no way for the board, we're going into budget
[57:16] cycles, we don't even have a good sense of what those funds
[57:23] can fund, what we can spend the money on from those funds.
[57:27] I don't think that there's a really clear
[57:31] and easy-to-understand document that says, "Here are the funds.
[57:37] Here are the things you can spend the money on."
[57:39] Mm-hmm.
[57:40] Yes.
[57:40] And then when we get to the budget, we can say, "Okay, fire department, there is a
[57:45] fund that you can spend money on the fire department from, and here's the
[57:51] allocation of the money. In this fiscal year, you have this much money that you
[57:55] could spend."
[57:57] And I think that's probably why the money hasn't been spent.
[58:00] It's just been sitting there, but nobody-
[58:04] Yeah, I agree. And I think Alyssa was very clear that there needs to be more
[58:09] investigation in that realm, and there might even need to be, like she said, public
[58:14] noticing and to really clarify what those funds can do because it's
[58:21] still a little murky. But I don't think that we need to have that part solved in
[58:26] order to approve this part, this policy.
[58:30] And then-
[58:30] But can
[58:33] this policy state what the role of the trustees are in informing?
[58:40] The recommendations.
[58:42] Like, it should say, I feel like it should say that,
[58:46] "We have this fund.
[58:51] It was donated for this purpose."
[58:52] Yep.
[58:53] "Here's what it can be used for."
[58:54] I know that, well, we have this, but I don't know that we need to state that in
[58:57] this document, in this policy. I think we can have a separate document that says,
[59:03] that outlines what the funds are that this policy pertains to.
[59:07] Otherwise, we're going to stay where we've been at with nothing, with our investor
[59:13] not being able to make investments because he's unable to proceed under the current
[59:18] policy.
[59:18] I guess I would vote for if we could have as much information on one document
[59:22] rather than three different documents that all pertain to similar things.
[59:26] It's just much more straightforward.
[59:28] I also love that.
[59:29] I'm not going to let the perfect get in the way of the good.
[59:32] Yeah.
[59:33] Okay. All right. So
[59:36] Ann, and then Alyssa, did you want-- I think you almost... Okay.
[59:40] Anyway, Ann, go ahead.
[59:42] So glad to have this wordsmith, but the intent of that
[59:48] section there is that the work that you're talking about actually happens within
[59:53] the town. We're the trustees that watch the funds be invested, watch
[59:59] that they get moved around to best save them from risk and raise as much money as
[1:00:05] they can.
[1:00:06] What we are adding is, and we watch the town and make sure the town is doing
[1:00:12] the work that is required to then spend the money.
[1:00:16] So that's why this begins in concert with the town.
[1:00:21] And the only reason that the word "maintain" was chosen is because maintaining a
[1:00:26] standardized procedure, it's going to change, like who with the town does exactly
[1:00:30] what. We just watch it and make sure that pop that procedure-
[1:00:35] It exists
[1:00:36] ... that it exists and that it is being used and that it's being updated when it
[1:00:40] needs to be. We're trying to be a backstop in service to the select board.
[1:00:46] We're not trying to take on the role of deciding how the money gets spent.
[1:00:51] We specifically do not want any responsibility for people saying, "Hey, I need the
[1:00:56] money." "No, I need the money." "No, I need the money." That is not what the
[1:00:59] trustees-
[1:01:00] That's our fund duty, yes.
[1:01:02] So maybe what you need to say here is,
[1:01:07] request-
[1:01:09] For sure
[1:01:10] ... to the select board for the use of public funds or something.
[1:01:14] You need to say somewhere clearly here that the select board
[1:01:22] is going to be the one deciding.
[1:01:25] To recommend to the select board, right?
[1:01:27] Recommend.
[1:01:29] So where I would put that is under required full reporting from the town,
[1:01:35] on the last third bullet, as decided by the select board.
[1:01:40] Alyssa still has her hand up. Oh, sorry, Alyssa.
[1:01:45] I just want to say,
[1:01:47] that it seems like we're trying to create a new policy when we're not really sure
[1:01:52] that a new policy is what we need, but we need something right away, so
[1:01:59] that we're not going against the policy that we have.
[1:02:03] But do we have to rewrite the whole thing, or can we take out the restrictive
[1:02:08] wording right now so that Bill can do what he needs to do, and then
[1:02:15] we can
[1:02:18] try to get it more specific, after we get it to where it
[1:02:24] says what we need it to say, so we can use the document, and then we can tailor it
[1:02:29] to be more specific in the other ways that you guys are trying to figure out on the
[1:02:34] fly?
[1:02:36] Well, John brought up a point that we, the select board, need-- Everyone else comes
[1:02:41] to us and makes recommendations. We need recommendations.
[1:02:44] We can't do a deep dive into the weeds of the Hildreth Hospital fund.
[1:02:47] We require the expertise of others to tell us what to recommend.
[1:02:51] We decide finally, but I think that-
[1:02:53] It sounds like that's not their role.
[1:02:55] Yeah. That's not their-
[1:02:56] So-
[1:02:57] So who would make those recommendations then?
[1:02:59] But I hear what they're saying, that money hasn't been spent,
[1:03:05] and as trustees, they want to make sure that we are spending the money.
[1:03:10] That's what it's intended for.
[1:03:11] Yeah.
[1:03:12] But they're also saying-
[1:03:12] I hear that money hasn't been spent, but money, the investment, it's getting hard
[1:03:16] to even just make the investments, which means that the funds aren't being well
[1:03:20] managed.
[1:03:22] Well, they were in American-
[1:03:23] I'm not saying that they're not being ill managed.
[1:03:25] I'm just saying they're not being managed to the best of the way that they could be
[1:03:30] managed.
[1:03:31] So they're
[1:03:33] overseeing these funds.
[1:03:35] Mm-hmm.
[1:03:36] And they want to see that not only is it invested properly, but that we're also
[1:03:40] using it to benefit the community by spending the money on useful things.
[1:03:44] Right.
[1:03:45] But they're not-
[1:03:47] They are not tasked with telling us what to spend it on.
[1:03:50] Yeah.
[1:03:50] I'm hearing that loud and clear, and that we need to figure out a process for how
[1:03:54] do we know-
[1:03:55] Mm-hmm
[1:03:55] ... what the needs are and what we can spend it on. That's fine.
[1:03:59] I think-
[1:03:59] But it sounds like this other piece is, and we want to be able to oversee
[1:04:05] how you are spending it. So we're overseeing
[1:04:10] the investment portion, and we're creating a policy that you spend it.
[1:04:15] Mm-hmm.
[1:04:15] And we want to oversee how you spend it.
[1:04:18] That's the piece that I'm sort of-
[1:04:19] Is that accurate?
[1:04:21] Yes. But we list it not as oversee, but as reporting from the town.
[1:04:25] Because to date, in the years that Pat's been involved, because I'm new-
[1:04:31] Right
[1:04:31] ... it's been difficult to get a routine of, we get the investment reports, and we
[1:04:37] get the spending reports. Partially because there wasn't spending.
[1:04:39] So while we're at it, we're saying, "You know what the spending is, just give us
[1:04:45] the whole paper trail." We invested it.
[1:04:47] If we said you could take this much of it, you took this much of it, you decided to
[1:04:52] spend that, so that the whole process is complete.
[1:04:55] Each time that
[1:04:58] a spending allocation is made or just an annual report to say, "You guys-"
[1:05:03] That's today.
[1:05:03] "Please give us an annual report on what's being..."
[1:05:06] We ask for it monthly, but that is up for debate.
[1:05:10] If you feel that it's on us to try to do it monthly, we would be open to a lot of
[1:05:14] conversations, enforcement.
[1:05:16] Okay. So I-
[1:05:16] Can I-
[1:05:17] ... recognize Alyssa.
[1:05:19] Can I...
[1:05:21] Darn it, I just lost my train of thought.
[1:05:24] That's quarterly.
[1:05:25] Mr. Chairman.
[1:05:26] Yes, come back to us when the train comes back, whatever.
[1:05:29] I think you're very close, and the only thing that I was saying was don't lose
[1:05:32] sight of who's responsible for what ultimately at the end.
[1:05:36] Yep.
[1:05:36] But a couple of quick changes here will probably capture this easily
[1:05:42] and make it a little bit more clear.
[1:05:45] And I'm happy to work with the trustees and come up with one sentence or a change
[1:05:50] to one of the sentences and bring it back to you.
[1:05:53] We're going to come back to it in two weeks?
[1:05:56] Well, or unless you want to authorize me to sign off on it with them, then we can
[1:06:00] do that too. So.
[1:06:02] I would certainly-
[1:06:03] I think at the end of the day, it's
[1:06:08] the select board that's supposed to sign the, you know.
[1:06:13] I would just like to be on the record that I don't support going back to the 2008
[1:06:17] policy and just scratching things out of that because I don't believe that it
[1:06:20] captures the full scope that this newer one that's based on the template from the
[1:06:26] VLCT encompasses.
[1:06:29] And so I think that maybe with some changes to this,
[1:06:36] the VLCT template, if we could get to where we need to be.
[1:06:41] But I don't agree with just scratching out some things from the 2008 policy.
[1:06:46] But we're talking about just making a minor change here or there in this one.
[1:06:50] And that's-
[1:06:50] That's where I would stand. I don't know where others stand.
[1:06:54] So why don't you just work with them and-
[1:06:57] Come back to us
[1:06:58] ... it seems like you have some real concerns.
[1:07:01] No, I'm just sharing with you what I think is the crux of the check and balance
[1:07:05] between the select-
[1:07:06] Right
[1:07:06] ... and public trustees.
[1:07:08] So if you'd like to work with them, and then at the next select board meeting,
[1:07:14] after we've spent all this time being the source of that, it gives me a
[1:07:20] real quick decision to say, "There we go.
[1:07:23] We got compromise."
[1:07:24] Send it around, and then you can put it on the consent agenda, and it'll probably
[1:07:27] be something-
[1:07:29] Right. That everyone seems to be okay with that approach.
[1:07:32] Okay with that, Delia?
[1:07:36] Okay.
[1:07:36] How about Don, you okay?
[1:07:39] Yeah.
[1:07:41] There are still some things I have questions on, but.
[1:07:43] Well, then talk with Erin.
[1:07:44] Yeah. We'll work with everybody and get it all done.
[1:07:47] Okay. Thank you. Given our, we've got a lot of agenda to get through, so we've got
[1:07:51] to move on. Yep.
[1:07:52] If I could just make one point, I don't want to review it in detail or discuss, but
[1:07:56] I did want to bring the select board members back because these five bullets that
[1:08:00] were submitted way back on August 24th-
[1:08:04] Mm-hmm
[1:08:04] ... those really outline the full work that lays ahead of the trustees, and it is
[1:08:09] substantial, and we need select board
[1:08:13] enforcement that does get handled in a timely fashion, or we won't be spending
[1:08:18] money out of these accounts for a long time. There's a lot to be figured out.
[1:08:22] Okay. So do you need a motion to that effect, to set those points, or just
[1:08:25] consensus?
[1:08:26] It's not even a consensus. If you are not familiar with what those
[1:08:32] five points are, I would ask that you review them again and make sure that we're
[1:08:37] really clear, and that maybe it's just a directive to Erin, work on these five
[1:08:42] points. So for the most part, they're all things that happen at the town level,
[1:08:46] changing signatories, researching the funds, moving funds that are in the wrong
[1:08:52] accounts. There's just a lot of cleanup that needs to happen.
[1:08:55] So you don't need our permission to proceed with that, do you?
[1:08:58] We don't proceed. We need to tell Iris to proceed.
[1:09:02] After-
[1:09:04] There's probably some legal research that needs to be done about
[1:09:09] who donated how much and what it was for, so that we know what donor intent is, so
[1:09:13] that we can-
[1:09:14] Yep
[1:09:15] ... make sure that we're doing everything legal.
[1:09:18] Thank you for all the work you guys have done.
[1:09:19] Yes.
[1:09:20] It's clearly been a lot of work. You've made more sense of it, which I'm
[1:09:24] appreciative of.
[1:09:25] Well, Alyssa got it started.
[1:09:27] Good.
[1:09:27] We'll give her where credit was due.
[1:09:28] For everybody who's been involved, thank you very much.
[1:09:31] Thank you.
[1:09:31] Absolutely. Yep. All right. Thank you.
[1:09:34] We're going to move on now to item C of the schedule for the 2027 budget
[1:09:40] cycle.
[1:09:41] Thank you all. Bye.
[1:09:42] Thank you. Bye. And Erin, there's a handout that you provided for us.
[1:09:46] Yes, I did. If you don't have a copy there, you need a copy?
[1:09:52] I have one over there for you, sir. It's right behind your laptop.
[1:09:55] Oh, there we go. Yep, got it.
[1:09:56] Is there a way to show this on the screen?
[1:10:02] Unfortunately, no. I just typed it up at 4:30. I apologize.
[1:10:07] But that was in writing anyways.
[1:10:09] Okay.
[1:10:09] You're good. Scan it.
[1:10:11] We're going to scan it and send it to you right now.
[1:10:15] But we're going to send it right through.
[1:10:20] Okay. Thanks, John. Okay. So Erin, what would you have us note here?
[1:10:25] Well, we're just
[1:10:28] showing you what
[1:10:33] the meetings
[1:10:35] schedule is until we get to town meeting.
[1:10:38] And so there's a couple of key dates there.
[1:10:41] But essentially, we have letters from both unions, Local 98 and the
[1:10:47] police union for the village indicating that they want to start talking.
[1:10:53] And so we have to fit that in. I believe you're going to be working with me on
[1:10:58] Local 98. And then in terms of you wanted to work with the
[1:11:04] opera house and cinema, I threw in recycling that night.
[1:11:08] Mm-hmm.
[1:11:09] And then we have some other major departments, fire department, and highway to
[1:11:15] go through.
[1:11:18] And then you do your administrative budget.
[1:11:21] But you need to be all done and
[1:11:25] as outlined on the schedule there.
[1:11:28] By January 19th, it looks like?
[1:11:30] Yeah.
[1:11:30] Okay.
[1:11:32] All right. This makes sense to me.
[1:11:35] Glenn and Sean, key players in some of these departments will be speaking with us
[1:11:41] face to face.
[1:11:42] Yeah.
[1:11:43] Okay. I think that's important.
[1:11:44] So Alyssa and I are going through the budgets with them now, and then we get it to
[1:11:49] a point
[1:11:51] where their projects are set, and then when we do
[1:11:56] wages with the unions, then we'll have a better sense of-
[1:12:02] Okay
[1:12:02] ... how to fill in.
[1:12:03] So,
[1:12:06] I'm a library trustee, so our deadline would be November 24th.
[1:12:12] Department budgets-
[1:12:14] Sean has my copy.
[1:12:15] Right.
[1:12:16] No, you're good.
[1:12:19] He generally comes in to see us by himself and-
[1:12:23] Yeah, I know
[1:12:24] ... explains that to us.
[1:12:25] But our date would be the 24th of November.
[1:12:29] I think you're a different governing body, Bonnie.
[1:12:31] So-
[1:12:32] Oh, we're not a department
[1:12:33] ... when we say that, we're talking about our departments.
[1:12:35] Oh, okay.
[1:12:35] We're just internal to town of Rocky Hill.
[1:12:38] So you don't know when we would do it?
[1:12:39] Yeah. Ian will help you work through that.
[1:12:42] Good. Well, we just met last night, and we weren't sure.
[1:12:45] Right.
[1:12:45] That's why I thought I'd ask.
[1:12:46] We'll talk about it. We'll figure it out.
[1:12:48] Okay.
[1:12:48] It'll be all good.
[1:12:49] Okay. So I think that covers it for the budget cycle.
[1:12:53] Yeah.
[1:12:53] All right. That moves us to item D, the tri-board follow-up
[1:13:00] And
[1:13:02] I had one too about the retreat follow-up.
[1:13:04] I don't have much on the Tri-Board follow-up.
[1:13:05] Is there anything you would-
[1:13:06] Well, we had a conveyance.
[1:13:08] Yeah.
[1:13:09] And we happen to have a star witness in the room who could tell us that that's been
[1:13:15] finalized, but I don't think it's been recorded upstairs just yet.
[1:13:19] But it's on its way.
[1:13:20] It's been, yeah, it's been finalized and sent down.
[1:13:23] We need to have a transfer tax form with it for themselves. But it's final.
[1:13:29] Yes. We're waiting for it to show up.
[1:13:31] Good. So thank you for your action on that, Steve.
[1:13:35] You're welcome.
[1:13:37] That's exciting.
[1:13:39] So can we then move on to the police pilot agreement?
[1:13:43] I have that here.
[1:13:44] I've seen it.
[1:13:45] In the folder. This is
[1:13:49] We can make copies. I've got a lot of copies here that we made.
[1:13:52] That's just the overview that the chief wrote-
[1:13:56] Oh, okay
[1:13:57] ... for the Tri-Board session. But this has that in it, but it also has an upfront
[1:14:02] agreement, which we had handed out at the micro meeting.
[1:14:06] Mm-hmm.
[1:14:07] But it's now ready for you. Dave and I went through it together.
[1:14:11] And so the pilot agreement is here for you to take a look at.
[1:14:15] Okay. And will the village trustees look at it at their next meeting, or have they
[1:14:19] already?
[1:14:20] Well, if you're ready to sign it tonight, they'll sign it on the 13th.
[1:14:25] Okay.
[1:14:25] Chad, I know there's some question from, in the Village of Saxon River and their
[1:14:30] trustees about how this applies to them.
[1:14:33] I think we should clear up any
[1:14:38] confusion as to whether this affects the Village of Saxon River or not.
[1:14:43] My understanding from our Tri-Board meeting was Saxon River Village is part of
[1:14:47] Rockingham-
[1:14:48] Yeah
[1:14:48] ... and it is included.
[1:14:50] Right.
[1:14:50] We should make sure that there's communication to the Village, sector of Village
[1:14:54] trustees that they are included in that.
[1:14:57] Okay.
[1:14:58] So I would like to amend John's statement just a little bit because,
[1:15:04] the chief did go and officially see them in their meeting last night.
[1:15:09] Okay.
[1:15:10] And provided a chance for them to ask questions and get answers, and it's really a
[1:15:15] village thing. So it's up to the police chief and the village trustees to
[1:15:22] work with Saxons River on this going forward.
[1:15:25] But essentially, it boils down to a couple of points.
[1:15:28] And one is that as part of Rockingham, they will get services.
[1:15:33] Okay.
[1:15:33] And the police department will answer calls for services.
[1:15:37] And I specifically spoke to the trustees at the Tri-Board meeting if they had the
[1:15:41] question about,
[1:15:43] why wouldn't we just piggyback on Rockingham?
[1:15:46] And I said, "Well, if you're really interested, and you have all been right along
[1:15:50] in speed enforcement, and you want to ensure that you have a
[1:15:56] considerable amount of time devoted to speed enforcement, very likely that you
[1:16:02] would want to enter into a contract for that particular service to ensure that you
[1:16:08] get enough speed enforcement activity in your area."
[1:16:15] And would that be part of this intermunicipal agreement or a separate and
[1:16:18] standalone agreement?
[1:16:20] This intermunicipal agreement is simply for a 90-day pilot for them to collect data
[1:16:24] on, and isn't really set up to handle this level of
[1:16:30] question. I think we need to get on the other side of the 90 days, and then when we
[1:16:35] have some data about calls for service, different types of service, how active was
[1:16:40] it out in outer Rockingham, then we'll start looking at the difference between a
[1:16:45] more settled area like Saxons River versus a more rural area like the outer part of
[1:16:51] rural Rockingham.
[1:16:52] Okay.
[1:16:53] But this
[1:16:56] 90-day trial will have some speed enforcement as part of it in other areas of
[1:17:01] Rockingham.
[1:17:01] And that's up to the chief's discretion.
[1:17:03] Okay. But it will not include any speed enforcement in-
[1:17:08] No. I disagree with that. I think it could.
[1:17:11] It could very well have a speed enforcement in Saxons River.
[1:17:15] Okay.
[1:17:16] He's treating them as part of Rockingham.
[1:17:19] The concern that I tried to address with the trustee is they have always wanted,
[1:17:26] and they have contracted with the sheriff to do specific speed
[1:17:31] patrols in their footprint.
[1:17:34] Which Lower Parkersville has done.
[1:17:36] We're paying the Windham County sheriffs
[1:17:40] to do that-
[1:17:41] That as well
[1:17:41] ... in Parkersville. Isn't that the same?
[1:17:43] I'm just keeping it in a different bucket.
[1:17:47] Saxons River has their own contract with the sheriff.
[1:17:50] Yeah.
[1:17:50] Their opportunity, if they want very specific
[1:17:55] patrols that are
[1:18:01] sufficient in their eyes, and they can work that out with the chief of police.
[1:18:07] It's less expensive for them to go with Bells Falls PD than it is to go with the
[1:18:12] sheriff. And the sheriff came in and stood up here and said, "Listen, you should
[1:18:15] contract with the Bells Falls PD."
[1:18:17] Okay.
[1:18:18] Not both for his program, and he's happy to do the things, but he was very
[1:18:22] forthright about that whole-
[1:18:24] I remember
[1:18:24] ... the whole process. He said, "Work with your police department to create a
[1:18:28] police department."
[1:18:29] So the unique solution, John, is that Ellen talked with the chief and made sure
[1:18:34] that
[1:18:36] Saxons River's needs are brought into consideration when they assign this 90-day
[1:18:40] patrol schedule.
[1:18:41] I guess I would just ask is, are we
[1:18:48] wanting data
[1:18:51] from that area
[1:18:54] so that we can make an informed decision about the needs of that, or are we just
[1:18:59] saying, "Saxons River, if you want to find out
[1:19:03] anything, you need to figure..." Just-
[1:19:07] I'm feeling less clear now
[1:19:08] ... you need to include them.
[1:19:09] This gets to my question about this agreement.
[1:19:12] No, I would like to include them, but it doesn't sound to me like they are being
[1:19:17] included.
[1:19:18] They are included.
[1:19:19] Yeah.
[1:19:19] Yes, they are included. But it's up to them if they want specific speed
[1:19:25] enforcement in the future, similar to the way they've contracted with the Windham
[1:19:30] County Sheriff's Department. They can contract with that separately on their own as
[1:19:34] they have.
[1:19:35] I'm asking whether we want to know whether speed enforcement in Saxons River is a
[1:19:41] real concern because this 90-day trial ends up saying, "Boy,
[1:19:47] there's a real speeding problem." But we're saying, "Saxons River, if you want to
[1:19:51] know there's a speeding problem, you need to hire separately outside of this
[1:19:57] 90-day trial." I was under the impression this 90-day trial was all of Rockingham.
[1:20:02] It is. It is. I'm sure Saxons River-
[1:20:03] And we're doing speed enforcement as part of that-
[1:20:07] Yeah
[1:20:07] ... in certain areas.
[1:20:08] Mm-hmm. Including Saxons River.
[1:20:11] Could be. That's our idea.
[1:20:14] Yes.
[1:20:15] It's 90 days. You have a limited amount of funds, and you're
[1:20:20] getting data collection.
[1:20:22] So as long as-
[1:20:22] Well, and that's where my question is
[1:20:25] ... speed enforcement in other areas of Rockingham, also
[1:20:32] Saxons River is included in that sort of equally so that we get a good picture and
[1:20:37] not, "Well, we did a bunch of speed enforcement on 103, but we didn't do any in
[1:20:43] Saxons River-"
[1:20:44] We didn't do any in Saxons River.
[1:20:44] And I have to... Yeah.
[1:20:45] "... Windham County."
[1:20:47] Delilah is desperate to speak. Go, Delilah.
[1:20:50] Look, I would like, and
[1:20:55] I don't think it's fully
[1:20:58] spelled out in the concept paper, which is a good first outline.
[1:21:04] I think as part of this pilot, we need to be more specific in what we are
[1:21:10] expecting along the lines of what John is suggesting, which is we need
[1:21:17] every 30 days a report that tells us about how many hours have been
[1:21:23] put towards this pilot, what the call logs look like,
[1:21:29] and were they seeing any
[1:21:33] issues in deploying people as calls came in.
[1:21:38] So that's 30 days in. Sixty days, how is it looking financially?
[1:21:44] How much has been spent?
[1:21:47] Do we have some mapping of the call density? Where are the calls coming from?
[1:21:51] What kinds of calls are they? What is the traffic enforcement information?
[1:21:55] Towards John's question, is there a lot of speeding here, not a lot of speeding
[1:21:58] there?
[1:22:00] And at the end-
[1:22:02] So basically, we're getting a report every 30 days on how the pilot's working, so
[1:22:08] we don't just get a data dump at the end of 90 days.
[1:22:11] We're sort of seeing it and able to maybe work some things through as it's going
[1:22:15] on. At the end of 90 days, getting a comprehensive report
[1:22:20] summarizing all of the things that they've been telling us, and maybe including
[1:22:26] some feedback from the officers who were working, who were out on these calls, how
[1:22:32] it worked for them. Just some information that fleshes it out so
[1:22:38] that we get a picture of what it's looking like out there and how far that money
[1:22:43] went, what sorts of calls there are, things like that.
[1:22:47] I think that's what's missing. The agreement doesn't need to have a formal
[1:22:51] inter-municipal agreement, but I think the expectation to have some sort of
[1:22:55] reporting and data is important for us to evaluate this.
[1:22:59] So can the chief be--
[1:23:02] He, at our last meeting, pretty much promised to give us the feedback.
[1:23:05] We can be more specific in our request for feedback, but I think we've got to leave
[1:23:11] some of this in the chief's realm. Yes? Isn't it his department?
[1:23:17] I think every 30 days coming to tell us how it's going is at least a minimum that
[1:23:20] we can ask instead of waiting until the very end.
[1:23:23] Okay, fine.
[1:23:26] Isn't there a substantial difference between responding to calls and
[1:23:32] patrolling for traffic?
[1:23:37] There's really-
[1:23:37] They're going to be doing all that
[1:23:38] ... Right. But they're really two different things, and there's only so many
[1:23:44] cars. They can't be constantly patrolling all of Rockingham.
[1:23:50] That's why these different areas get a contract with the county
[1:23:56] sheriff to do that kind of patrolling,
[1:24:00] and where they think it's really needed, where the local police cars
[1:24:06] are just not out on these rural roads that frequently.
[1:24:12] My feeling is the thing that we really need help with are calls.
[1:24:17] People that live at Saxons River and out where Rick lives or at Bardville,
[1:24:23] there's no one they can call if they need the police for an emergency
[1:24:29] or something like that. And that's the thing that we really need to start figuring
[1:24:34] out how to provide.
[1:24:37] Worrying about speeders, I think if they're really concerned about that, it's a
[1:24:43] good idea to have a contract with the county sheriff because he does that.
[1:24:48] He's sending his guys out on patrols looking for speeders. So I don't know.
[1:24:52] That's just my input here.
[1:24:55] Okay. As a resident of rural Rockingham, we haven't had police coverage for
[1:25:01] 20 years maybe. When the state police began to fade away.
[1:25:06] So we're in the position now, our people out there don't even know that there-- We
[1:25:10] have to publicize this service for us to see, to get calls.
[1:25:14] So depending on how this shakes out tonight, he was planning on putting it on
[1:25:17] Facebook.
[1:25:18] Yeah. Okay, so I'm hoping that we can take-- I agree with you about 30-day
[1:25:23] reporting along the way. That will enable us to get the data we need, Delilah.
[1:25:28] And I agree with John that we, I think, have to be specific that Saxons River is
[1:25:33] included. I'm pretty sure the chief made that-
[1:25:35] He made that abundantly clear.
[1:25:38] Okay.
[1:25:39] That's why I think some-
[1:25:40] Make sure he gets it done.
[1:25:41] The mapping is important.
[1:25:43] The 30-day reporting may be showing mapping of where they went, what their coverage
[1:25:48] is looking like.
[1:25:49] Yep. Okay. Will you convey that to the chief?
[1:25:52] Absolutely. All right.
[1:25:54] All right, are we ready to move on then to approve or disapprove this agreement, is
[1:25:57] that right?
[1:26:00] If you want to get started and have, like, an October 15th start date so that you
[1:26:05] can get done in time to still be in budget season.
[1:26:10] And I think Delilah's
[1:26:12] very insightful request is an excellent way to get data well before it ends
[1:26:18] in case you're running up to the end of budget season.
[1:26:21] Yep.
[1:26:21] So yes. I think if you are comfortable with the document, then
[1:26:28] we would start entering in as of the 13th on the trustees.
[1:26:33] But I'd like to bring that, too, that it be signed.
[1:26:35] All right. I would accept a motion to approve the inter-municipal police agreement
[1:26:39] between town of Rockingham and village of Wells Falls.
[1:26:42] I move that we approve that document.
[1:26:45] Also stipulate that we do request 30-day reports.
[1:26:49] Okay.
[1:26:50] I'll second that.
[1:26:51] Okay. All right. Motion made and seconded to approve the agreement we've been
[1:26:55] discussing. Are there any further comment or conversation?
[1:27:00] Hearing then, all in favor, please say aye.
[1:27:03] Aye.
[1:27:03] Aye.
[1:27:03] Aye.
[1:27:03] Any opposed, we abstain. Motion is unanimous. The agreement is approved.
[1:27:09] Okay. Select board retreat. I can be brief on this because we have
[1:27:15] Attorney Ancuda, being someone to respect his time.
[1:27:22] I sent you a summary of what Susan still-- First of all, I think Susan did a
[1:27:26] tremendous job. I think there's a very rich menu of options for us to pursue.
[1:27:34] The one that I would like to, and we will have to decide which and how we want to
[1:27:40] pursue. The one thing that I want to think about tonight is that we thought of
[1:27:44] having a once-a-month strategic discussion, and that is where we
[1:27:50] begin discussing implementation of her recommendations.
[1:27:54] So, I would put that out to my colleague select board members, as something that
[1:27:59] would begin on October 20th at our next meeting.
[1:28:07] And this would just be an item on the agenda or-
[1:28:10] An item every once a month.
[1:28:13] Once a month.
[1:28:14] We would devote time to strategic planning.
[1:28:18] I like that idea.
[1:28:21] Yeah.
[1:28:22] I'd like for the focus to be on the conversation amongst the members of the
[1:28:28] board for those strategy sessions.
[1:28:31] Mm-hmm.
[1:28:33] Just so that we can make sure that we give each, whatever the topic of discussion
[1:28:38] is, our full attention.
[1:28:41] Okay. So that is my recommendation as to how we should proceed.
[1:28:45] And also, I'm hoping everyone has studied the document that Susan sent around.
[1:28:48] It's very detailed and some great suggestions that I hope we can pursue.
[1:28:53] But tonight, I just want to get that first piece of here's how we're going to
[1:28:56] approach it, and it looks like there's consensus.
[1:28:59] So it was John's suggestion in that meeting that the board
[1:29:05] work on strategy. That was the-- and strategic planning is like,
[1:29:11] certainly falls underneath that.
[1:29:13] But I think
[1:29:16] at some point on the 20th, if John could spend some more time talking about what
[1:29:20] his thought was on that, because it was a really pregnant conversation, and it'd be
[1:29:25] really interesting to kind of drill down on how the board actually works.
[1:29:30] And that was what I think he was driving at, if you don't mind me-
[1:29:33] Yep
[1:29:33] ... I don't think I'm putting words in your mouth, Matt.
[1:29:37] And I think that was the kind of the key takeaway
[1:29:42] for most of that meeting for me.
[1:29:44] Good. And I just want to stress that, and why my question was, is it an item on the
[1:29:50] agenda? I think that we will be very challenged
[1:29:57] to think strategically and act strategically if it's an item on a
[1:30:03] busy agenda.
[1:30:04] Right.
[1:30:04] We will.
[1:30:06] I think it should be a standalone
[1:30:09] meeting. That's the sole purpose-
[1:30:12] Especially
[1:30:12] ... strategy. There is nothing else.
[1:30:15] So we show up tonight, if on the agenda tonight was a strategy discussion, it's
[1:30:20] going to get squeezed.
[1:30:21] Right.
[1:30:21] It's going to get squeezed. It's going to get lost.
[1:30:24] We're not going to get the benefit of it.
[1:30:25] I think that's a superb suggestion.
[1:30:27] So you want to have a special meeting every month?
[1:30:29] Well, no. I think we can talk about it on the 20th to have further conversation
[1:30:33] about how do we organize strategy sessions on the board.
[1:30:38] I'm just saying I don't support it being an item on an agenda once a month.
[1:30:43] It should be a standalone thing. How we decide we're going to do that, whether it's
[1:30:46] monthly, whether it's quarterly, whether it's whatever, but it should be the only
[1:30:50] thing on the agenda for that meeting is the discussion.
[1:30:53] Yeah.
[1:30:53] Good point. Good point. The urgent dries up important.
[1:30:57] Yeah.
[1:30:58] Yeah.
[1:30:58] It's exactly the case.
[1:30:59] So the work session is what I prescribe.
[1:31:02] Yeah. Okay. So that wraps up our discussion of this then.
[1:31:05] Everyone agrees that we will plan on the 20th how we will set these, whether these
[1:31:11] become early to a meeting or we have a special meeting on a separate day.
[1:31:14] Yeah.
[1:31:15] Okay, great. Thank you. Other business?
[1:31:22] Okay.
[1:31:23] We talked about a lot of things that are happening on the 20th.
[1:31:25] Anything else that folks want to add?
[1:31:28] No. On other business, I will be attending the BLCT Town Fair tomorrow, so I'll
[1:31:34] report back anything that-
[1:31:35] Oh, good.
[1:31:36] Delilah, I'll be there.
[1:31:38] Okay, great. So if there are topics that you guys see on the agenda that you would
[1:31:43] like some information about, I think because they're all concurring, so Delilah and
[1:31:47] I can try to
[1:31:50] divvy up on who goes to what-
[1:31:51] We can
[1:31:52] ... make sure we can capture the things that this group feels are most needed.
[1:31:57] Beautiful. And as you know, I attended the VLCT annual meeting this afternoon for
[1:32:03] close to three hours. And,
[1:32:06] the most interesting part is what I sent you by email, and that is the policy items
[1:32:10] that VLCT will advocate for, the policies, and they get down to some pretty
[1:32:14] specific issues, and I won't go into detail.
[1:32:17] But I would love to have you look at the document I sent around-
[1:32:19] Yeah
[1:32:19] ... and get back to me. Okay. So,
[1:32:24] the tri-board meeting agenda, that's pretty far, off December 29th.
[1:32:30] I don't think we need to discuss that tonight. Do we? Anything? No.
[1:32:34] Okay, so executive session.
[1:32:38] Well, we don't have Amy's wording here.
[1:32:40] Do we need-
[1:32:41] I believe I have it.
[1:32:43] Thank you.
[1:32:46] Am I able to stay in this?
[1:32:49] Yeah.
[1:32:49] Yes.
[1:32:50] Yeah. Oh, in terms of the-
[1:32:53] Yeah, what-
[1:32:54] ... those recording type thing. Oh, I have it somewhere here.
[1:33:01] I don't know if there's anything recording.
[1:33:04] And we have it.
[1:33:11] Administrative area.
[1:33:21] Also same thing.
[1:33:28] Moving to make that move.
[1:33:30] That's great. Thank you. Mm-hmm.
[1:33:34] I move that we go into executive session
[1:33:41] concerning negotiating or securing real estate purchase or
[1:33:47] lease options.
[1:33:50] The appointment or employment or evaluation... No, well, I say all that. No.
[1:33:56] There's no legal, isn't it?
[1:33:58] Also, make sure to name who's joining us in it.
[1:34:05] We're going to discuss
[1:34:11] contracts and grievances, tax grievances.
[1:34:15] And we invite the town manager and-
[1:34:19] Let me help you.
[1:34:20] Yeah. I don't know what to say.
[1:34:25] So you're in...
[1:34:32] It's the pending or probable civil litigation or prosecution to which a public
[1:34:38] body is or may be a party.
[1:34:41] Okay. I move that we go into executive session to discuss pending or probable
[1:34:47] civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or may be
[1:34:53] party.
[1:34:55] And I move to find that premature general public knowledge of stated
[1:35:01] above reason will clearly place the municipality at a substantial disadvantage.
[1:35:09] Okay.
[1:35:09] And I move that we invite town manager, Alan Pratt, and town attorney, Steven
[1:35:15] Ankuda, to join us in executive session, please.
[1:35:19] Second.
[1:35:19] Okay. Motion to go into executive session has been made and seconded.
[1:35:23] At this point, I would ask those on screen to, except for Delilah,
[1:35:29] to depart.
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