All [Music]
right, we'll call the meeting to order at that one to be approved if we don't. 6:32 rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Welcome to the select board meeting of July 21st. I have to check the date cuz not all days.
All right. So, we have an um actually we're a little late because it's actually 6:33 now. You're supposed to be 631. Um, so we apologize in advance or behind. Either way, no worries. So, uh, I asked to come and speak with
you because, uh, we're down in employee since we had that retirement and we're looking to hire a replacement. Um, we're not gaining any staff. We're just looking to put another one on. um as well as eventually promote a
lieutenant, promote a sergeant. And only one difference is Tammy and I were talking and thinking about trying to see if put put out fillers for a single part-time officer just to see what we could get to help supplement some of this overtime and try to help pick up some of these extra shifts. Um it's in
the budget already. Again, like I said, I'd like to get get the process moving. Um, I would uh I don't know how we're going to do with trying for a full-timer. I'd like to see if we could get somebody that is already trained. I don't know that that's going to happen.
Um, part-time, I think we may have a couple candidates. Um, the sergeants, I believe off the top of my head, there's six or seven people that could go for it. And as far as a lieutenant, uh, two people could go for it. Um, I would like to see if we could get this moving and
like have the police have a sergeant exam sometime in September. have the police advisory board interview everybody and then um probably come to you beginning of October for with the sergeants uh candidate um and then we'll
see when we can come to you for the uh full-time and part-time position as well as the lieutenant. I just want to have that interviewed with the police advisory board, but then I just want to go back over my budget one more time to make sure that we can do all of this within the numbers we have. All right, Tammy, did you have any
recommendations? No, I'm okay with it. After we discussed it, he does have it in the budget for both and the overtime. So, and we did talk about even a grant that we have. Are there um how what are the budgetary implications for are we increasing sergeants and
lieutenants for the number of them or No, it's it's exactly what we had prior to the former lieutenant retiring once once once this all shuffles out. Yeah. I have to hire. Yes. It would have be one lieutenant, two sergeants. So basically just your your back feeling and with back filling is
trickle down effect. Exactly. Okay. Do we need to you're going to make a motion and motion to appoint a full-time officer? A full-time officer, a patrolman, a full-time and a part-time officer and to
promote a sergeant and a lieutenant. Okay. Well, I'll make a motion that we allow the chief to uh hire a full-time patrol officer, part-time patrol officer, and uh begin the process for
promotion for sergeant and lieutenant. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I I Thank you. You want to stick around and like we could ask you other questions? I can. I know. Do you need me around for the I know Deer Creek is here. You need me to stick around for that for any reason or
Looks like she'll get out of hand. No, no, no. I just I know we have to do those one day permits. That's I just want to make sure they've done it before. So, yeah. Yeah. So, you're good. They They know. Yep. Exactly. They know the drill. They know the drill. Exactly. Thank you. Thanks,
does she need to come up or do we just We're all set. I think you just you want to skip over to it cuz she's probably have her explaining to us but this is the special license for I can make the motion that uh yeah why don't you make motions and
then we'll talk about anything we need to talk about. I'm going to make a motion that we approve for it's a one-day legal license for the one um for to be purchasing with this. Let me see here.
It is for uh Deer Creek located at excuse me 193 uh Grammy Mass. Uh they're having an event and there's three separate events. Uh it is one is August 2nd,
August 16th and August 23rd of 2025. Uh they're looking to purchase their um alcohol from the Wine House Vineyard and Jame James New Farm and Oakham Brewing Company.
I will second the motion. Um can you just tell us a little bit about what you'll be doing on those days? Sure. Um sure. So, we're hosting a series of events. Um, they're ticketed and they're capped. Uh, it's a way for us to bring people
into our farm. We grow thousands of, uh, flowers in our two flower fields. We do upupic sessions. Um we're bringing in some acoustic live music and um we're just doing this to bring people through the farm and you know um just gain
exposure and have people through the store and just give them an experience an evening out familyfriendly something in the community that's that's fun. All right. So August 2nd, August 16th and August 23rd. So all those in favor I
I set. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. You too. Do I know what their maximum capacity is? I'm That's just curiosity. It has nothing to do with what we already voted
on anyway. All right. Okay. So, we had Ken Kia coming in in 10 minutes. So I can do mine. Okay. So we'll do the correspondence first. I'll take those back. Sorry. No, that's okay. Those back just want to keep this all together.
Yep. She all the information yelled at. I was risking my life. All right. Um so correspondence. We have a board of health public hearing. Um,
I'm just going to read it. Notice is hereby given that the public hearing will be held at the Graanby Board of Health via Zoom meeting on July 29th, 2025 at 6:45 to review and hear comments relative to the proposed board of health regulation entitled Graham B septic regulations more stringent than defined
in title 5. Proposed policies in the draft regulation include percolation test, title 5 inspections and septic system design regulations. That's one update. And then the other correspondence, again, I'm just going to read it. It's from Xfinity and it says that they are
committed to keeping the customers informed about any changes. And one of the changes is the TV update effective August 15, 2025. Warner Brothers Discovery will discontinue its HBO Family Movie Max, Outermax, and Thriller Max linear TV channels. HBO family
programming will remain available on demand with the HBO Max subscription. Movie Max, Outer Max, and Thrillin Max programming will continue to be available on demand with a SIM Max subscription. Well, they basically maxed that one, right? They can't do any more BS. And then I just want to make a few
updates. The CLA van uh the escape out there has been registered and uh we received that. So everything's that's ready to go. We just have to put decals on it. And the other thing I just want to bring to your attention is ADP is what we had originally. Right now
we're in the process of trying to switch over to Vadar ADP. And after ADP isn't it's not really working so well. So we have decided to go with Hopppers. It's actually cheaper 14,000 versus 38,000. So Hoppers is definitely a better fit
for us and a lot of municipalities actually already use it. After talking with the treasurer, decided to go that route. Just wanted to keep you informed because it's something that's in the process and I right now I've been with me and Kathy have been doing the town accounting part of that side. So, and
it's important that we start getting up and running rather than just that falls under the treasure. It does. It falls under Steve so he can go forth with that. But just keeping you in the We don't um have anything on the other side. second mark. But last time we had
a vote on the board to accept AB. We can do that too if you want to vote for I just want to make sure that we're doing it right. That's all. I know. So I talked with Steve and he said that but we can do the vote too. Let's do it both ways then we'll both be set. Doesn't matter. He was going to sign the contract. So
yeah, you want me to sign the contract? We'll do it on the board. Who signs the contract? He said he was going to sign the contract for Harpers. Who signed the last one? Yeah. I I tend to be like overly academic. I just wonder whose authority it is. If it's like if it's treasures
authority or didn't we give Chris permission to sign the last one because he was interim. Yes. So was he was still So is he the one that signed ATP last time? I thought we made a motion to
allow him to sign for it because that's what we had agreed. All right. Why don't we do the same route then with hoppers if you don't mind rest to go forth with the hoppers cuz it does need to get done. We only have a little bit left with LBA so we'll be getting motion to authorize. Are we
in a contract right now? We are having Brian look over ADP and they'll be coming out and hopefully we can start hoppers ASAP. ADP will be but we have a contract for them. We do. But Steve said we should be able to get rid of ADP. They haven't given us anything. We're going to be sitting
stagnant for a while. I understand that we have a contract with them. We do. So, are we in under any obligation with them? I check with Steve. I have not seen the ATP contract. So, so before we take it. Yeah. I don't mind authorizing, but I'll
talk with Steve on. Okay. So, motion. We can table that. Oh, you're contingent. Sorry. Yeah, it depends. Can you wait two weeks or not? Wait, please. You know what? LBA is only going to give us so long. So worst case scenario, I
guess you can do manual checks. I mean, it's getting under the gun. Let's make it contingent upon that. Let's we can get take off as soon as possible. So motion. So I'll make a motion that we switch the payroll provider to Harper's. Yeah. Quite contention for you.
Okay. uh from ABP allowing town administrator to sign off on it with the understanding that it goes through town council doing sure we're not yes and any violation of the current
contract with ADP right and that's what we are Brian is looking at it actually I will second the motion all in favor I I was a good catch so after Bron looks at it which Steve is supposed to Send it over to him. You're all set with us going forward with
parters. If it work, too. Yeah, me too. Brian looked at it. Save $20,000 a year. I think it's a nobrainer. Yeah. All right. That's all I got. All right. Are you Ken? Yeah.
Oh, why don't you come on up? He is Ken. I'm Could you just state your name for the record? Yeah, sure. Ken Kia um Hiner Valley Planning Commission. Hey Ken, how you doing? How you back? Good to see you.
Good to see you. Hi. You Ken, how are you? Nice to meet you. My name is Martin. Yeah. All right. Um so you are here in reference to the zoning file update project. You are call a consultant. Yeah. Um we're still working on a
contract, but um we yes, we are looking forward to getting ready to get started on the project. Um, I think one of the big things, um, if you didn't know, um, currently
working on a zoning diagnostic, which is a basically a review of the zoning, um, and that was done through the district local technical assistance grant through the PVPC for this calendar year. um and that is going to supplement the work
under the grant um that you received from the executive office of energy and environmental affairs. So, um, yeah, and what I'll say is that, uh, this particular project, um, I understand that there's a committee. I actually
still have to get pledged, you know, have to go to the town clerks. Um but um yeah when we when we start that work whenever that starts um we'll start full speed ahead I think working with the
committee finding a routine schedule components of the work include some community engagement working with the committee on what's going to be a rather iterative process that's going to be looking at the bylaw um after you know
we present the diagnostic that we're working with the planning board on to the committee which I should have formalized by the end of uh August um as I mentioned to the planning board. Um
but basically it takes into account the work and the community planning work that you've done um from the master plan through your open space plan um through your hazard mitigation plan and that has also identified other types of
regulatory tools um all within the realm of zoning bringing that forward um through what's going to be you know I think a pretty iterative let's go through this section of the bylaw. Here's what we identified in the diagnostic, what we share with the
planning board, and then go through line by line. Um, and it's probably not the most fun project. Um, however, it I think is one that um is needed. Having worked for the planning board or with the planning
board um over the past five years or so, um I think that they've identified we've identified some conflicts within the zoning that hopefully this will rectify that. Um but yeah, I'm here to present um or here to answer any questions that
you may have. Um we are doing this in two other communities at the moment. So this um this one is being funded through the executive off of office of energy and environmental affairs. The other two are being um um the grant funded through the uh
community onetop program. Um and that's for the towns of Lello and Southway. So we're doing myself and two other land use planners who are zoning focused on zoning are doing that work. Um, and it's likely they will also come join me on
this project. But yeah, well maybe I didn't maybe you're saying I didn't uh understand it as such. The zoning diagnostic, what does that entail? So that that's just a review of the zoning um through um identifying
conflicts that I actually have a list of based on my work with the planning board in addition to comments from the planning board. um having reviewed some of the community documents uh identifying things that may be
missing from the bylaw uh and just putting that into a report. So, the diagnostic is truly a report of um either best practices that seem to be missing or um items that um other
communities like yourself um may have in their bylaw or may not and just bring that to your attention as to whether or not that's something you'd want to explore. Um, as you get further along in this process, um, there's also
identifying a strategy to get something passed. Um, is it a wholesale overhaul, um, which some towns will repeal and replace, or is it knowing that there are some specific bylaws that you truly need to amend and then you do it kind of
peace meal over time? Um, because obviously there's risk in a repeal and replace. Um, but there's also community education that's that's part of this particular process that I think is going to be very important. And um, having worked with your planning board and um,
understanding some of the things that are going on in the Pineer Valley, um, I think that there's I think it's a good time to be looking at the bylaw and bringing attention to some things that, you know, may need some attention to. Okay.
So, would you be like going line by line? Can you say through every piece of it or you have specific ones that you're going to look at? It it I mean it is going line by line through um that's part of my review is going line by line and identifying
changes and bringing that forward. Whether or not we do that collectively in a committee or you the committee has homework um in identifying that um it really is dependent on how committed the committee is to to um push back slash
you know address the questions that I'm bringing forward um because there are some questions you know is the is the intent of the town this or that um and things like that but it is line by line at least my review is line by line um and and from the board's the
committee's perspective is how we go about getting a document that reflects what you want the bylaw to look like. Okay. All right. Any other questions? You're welcome to stick around if you'd like to, but otherwise you're free to go.
Oh, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure um as always and continue to work with the planning board and um you know really looking forward to these next couple months. Great. Thanks Ken. I know you do a lot of work with the planning board. We definitely appreciate it.
Yeah, of course. No one's taking up that state. [Music] All right. departmental reports. Is that where we're at? We'll be that's nothing else.
All right. I'll make a motion to accept departmental reports. I will second the motion. All in favor? I do. We have any citizen participation. I could go out there and pretend like crowd time.
house on Amber Street complain about you, too. Huh? So, I uh I did the minutes through Chat GPT just as a test and I gave them to Tammy. He said, "Give them to Dale." I took the transcript. Uh
Patt had given me the way to get the transcript from YouTube. So, I took it YouTube, I put it in a word document and then I like cut it and pasted it into chat. You can see I got the thing and at the end it gives like two comments and it was a light-hearted
good good humored meeting. Well, that's good. It's like it it only gave us three stars, but Well, they should get the How many stars we possibly get? Next time we'll go for four. I had a good joke, too. I can't remember
now, but these are all payable. Yep, that's okay. Right. I'm going to make a motion for Bill Pay Warren dated June 30th,
2025 in the amount of $653,731.94 bill warrant number 80. That's for fiscal year 25 though. Is that correct? It is. Yes. I will second the motion. All those in favor I
last time I was in this position. Mhm. Mark was on the board then too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you will have done as many years as I've been. Yeah. And then of course, you know, another six years or so, come back. They'll come back. Yeah.
I'm retired, too. Yeah. All right. Uh the next one if you That's the same one. That's the same. Oh, that's all we have for today. Oh, I have another one for you. I'm gonna All right. Thank you. I'm with you. Trying to help you.
I'll confuse myself. All right. And then it says two of them. And that's that one. Perfect. All right. So, bill payable warrant for payroll for um number five
for 38,000 I'm sorry 389, $91155. I'll second the motion. All in favor? Hi. Hi. This one includes the selectman salary. Selectman vote out of necessity for
select board. Yeah. Salary. It is the selecting salary. Tell anybody that was it. How much we make then? About 300 about 130 a piece, right? Yeah. I'm not good at city.
We could all use that, right? And in the nine years you've been gone, I think it's gone up $150. Yeah, I'm getting a check. Sure have gone down. I'm getting like 126 every two weeks. So I think that's $10 more than I first
I used to say I get 50 bucks a week. Now I can say I get 60. That it for maintenance. That's it. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. We have any common licenses? No. Okay. Oh, moving right along here. How about
the firm appointments for zoning bylaw? Yes. So, you have to pick one. Um, you have either Jay Joyce or Micheline Turan. All right. Um, my recommendation would be Jay Joyce just based on Jay
spent some time on the um planning board. He's also spent time on the select board. So, I mean, I actually I can go either way with either one of them. Uh, but I know Jay has spent some time on the planning board, which I think is helpful
as well. I mean, you talk about bylaws and zoning and things like that. So, I can go either way. That's true enough. I guess he has he does have that experience on Micheline's been on a lot of uh committees. She does have experience in
town. make this motion or we're not affirming, right? Because we have to choose one. Need to choose one and then you got a point. You want to nominate I'm nominate uh Jay Joyce.
Like I said, I just do like I know J. I'm going to leave it up to you, Mark. I'm going to nominate Micheline Tur. [Laughter] So, you choose. Thanks. Actually, I don't think that's how you do it. I think we don't know. Yeah.
Well, you got to vote one down and Yeah. Well, we have two nominees at this point. Yes. Okay. So, we actually need to I think we have to second a nomination. You do? So, so there's no second on it and it doesn't forward.
So, if I don't size anybody then uh it doesn't go out. All right. I'm sure that's not the way it works. All right. I will second Glenn's motion to uh appoint Jay Joyce.
All right. So, now we have a nomination. You want to make a motion to affirm? Well, it's that that's the nomine. He's already on the list, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I So, just to make an appointment, make a motion to appoint him.
All right. So, I'll make a motion to appoint Jay Joyce to the zoning board of appeals. That's right. Yes. Yep. We should be filming techn. That's right. I'm sorry. I do. I forget. I do the appointment here. All right. Make a motion to affirm the appointment of Jay Joys to the zoning
board of appeals. All those in favor? I second the motion. a second or even going to go in order here. All right. Yes. I All right. All as a favor. I now we're good. Fire and ambulance. Perfect.
That was the email. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. As your fire chief. Yes. Which is embarrassing. Um so um I guess you again this is affirming.
So you actually appointed him because you're the appointing authority as the um you fired. So do we just let them know about it? Okay. So it's justformational. Okay. Um so we are this is good. We were um
Yeah. Seems to me nowadays like you just can't have enough EMS personnel. It seems like every town, some towns are better situated than others, but seems like every town has has had a shortage. So, we have a full-time ambulance person and
a call firefighter. That's excellent. Excuse me. Um, do we have any update on the the chief process? I know they're doing the assessments tomorrow and I'm hoping within a week or two maybe the next
some next meeting. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. Okay. So, it's getting very close though. Okay. Anything anybody else wants to talk about? Nothing. I don't mean anything personal, you know. Any uh are we confirm affirming that did
you are we are you are you appointing someone full time on the Who was it? Um, that's in the email that he receives because I'm I'm a strong sheep by the wild if you want, but I want everybody else to hear it. All right, I'll read it out loud.
I just want to have a name so people. Um, so because we we have the actual fire chief responsibilities covered like the things that actually involve running the department and putting out fires, but I am the fire chief of record, I
guess. Um, I do not go to fires. I do not tell anybody what to do because I don't know, but I do have to do things technically. So, as fire chief, I hereby approve the hiring of Juan Rivera for the open and funded career position as firefighter and medic and Zach Spencer
as a PDM firefighter and medic. So, that was me as a strong chief. Very strong. Very strong. I'll make a motion to affirm the appointment of Juan Rivera for the open and funded career position as firefighter and medic and
also Zach Spencer as a PDM firefighter and medic. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I uh what's going on with Forge Pond Taming? Any any words? I haven't I haven't heard anything about Forge Bond yet. I still have to check. I
know Dave said made a comment that we don't own it or we do own it. I know he mentioned it to you. He didn't actually mention. Yeah, it's that's more like inside baseball at this point. The next thing is like they filed the notice of intent, right? Which I still don't really quite understand what that is, but um so if
anybody knows, I believe it's letting the public know what's going on, right? Notice of intent. Um and we still have the uh engineer or can consultant. As far as I know, that's nothing. I haven't done any more. That was last I think the last place we were with them was
Yeah. talking about the engineer what they what they recommended for the uh the dam, right? Yes. So I just didn't know if there was anything else that came forward. Not that I'm not aware of anything. Last thing I think I think I signed something
uh I brought it to your attention. That's the last thing I've heard about it. So for a couple that's a good point. Why don't we Why don't we look for an update on that for our next meeting? That way a deeper level. That'll be good. And then
the Republic the guy from Republic could not come in when they Yes. So that isn't until our second uh meeting in August. And I did reach out to Desie kind of been going back and forth. I just left a phone call for them
waiting to hear back from them. So, I'll keep you updated on that as soon as I get u an answer for them to come out and talk. Okay, good. Sounds good. I do have one thing. Our first scheduled
meeting in September is actually Labor Day. So, how do you usually do the Tuesday after that? I mean the We usually do I'll be on vacation the 2nd through the 10th of September. So, feel free to meet without me. Yeah.
Well, you'd love to, wouldn't you? I just I won't be around that week or the following week. So, kind of make Yeah. So, maybe we should try to be on the second. Yeah. Um, if you want, we could probably do Zoom. Well, we might be able to do Zoom. It's a flip of a coin whether it actually work. Um, I'll be in Disney World. I'm going to
say no. Be the Magic Kingdom. I'll take you on a ride with me. So, be the second. Yeah. September 2nd. Thank you. What's that? You got something, Dave? No, I don't have anything. Actually, let
me look at my other excitement. Oh, you're retired. Every day is a vacation day. It's like Well, it's not. It's like I didn't work last summer either, so it's still just summer, but it takes me a really long time. That's true. You haven't You don't feel I spent an hour cleaning my closet
today. Found some stuff I didn't know I had. Um then so you kind of like feel like in September like yeah maybe I'll feel it in September. It's like I had a dream the other night about like my colleagues which is kind of weird. It's like take personal just let me relax you know relax. I put
on some kind of crime show on TV. I'd lay on the couch and try to fall back asleep. Keith Morrison is very used to do children's books. He's very relaxing. Pay and uh August were the 4th and the 18th. Correct. Yeah. So August 18th is when Republican
uh Eric is coming out just to give information just a Yeah, they haven't been following the discussions on South Hatley site and some of the issues they have about like having to keep their trash can and recycling can like exactly I don't know four feet
apart or something. There were some quite specific things and then they had service town provided service every other week. So, some people had contract contracted with um private haulers for that week that they weren't there.
So, um for people at home, we're going to be looking into trash. Not your own trash personally, but um we are going to be looking into waste disposal. Um cost of curbside pickup has increased with the cost of trash in
general. So, we're going to really have to look at the program we have, which was I think Chris told me about a couple hundred,000 more expensive than we originally um did an override for. So,
um stay tuned. All right. All right. Well, with that, I'll make a motion to adjourn. I love that motion. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I