##VIDEO ID:KwTH9oIHzu8## for e e e e e e e e e e e e e hi Dale oh thank goodness this worked what I said thank goodness this worked oh yeah right meaning I was like scrambling before I'm like I don't even know if I'm in the right meeting I think I think I've got it now oh no this is this seems to be right on right on the money yeah oh hello hello Craig welcome thanks I get my lighting better here still not great oh well it's hard to believe that there is more snow on the ground in New Orleans Louisiana than there is here in shury okay it's even harder for it's even harder for them to believe I know yeah yeah how much how much did they finally end up getting eight to 10 inches I think which is yeah that'll shut a city like that down yeah it sure will and most of the rest of the South as well yeah well I made it out cross country skiing today it was very cold oh but it must have been good scheme because the snow's ideal isn't it it's yeah yeah it's really nice it it was good fast snow not that I'm fast but the snow is fast yeah wow but it's but it's still fairly thin no oh yeah there's there's some rock scrapers uhuh yeah did you go around um Ames Pond perhaps on the walkway yep yeah I was one that's I still can't get over what a beautiful job they did of building it it's amazing I agreed I agreed I I guess we we all paid for it in one way or another probably um probably through um CPA money I think I I I don't know where they got the money to do it but it was a hugely expensive project but very well done very well yeah yeah and it's gonna It's Gonna Last like you know a really long time all the um you know the boardwalk is fully out of the water this time yeah the the the galvanized steel pylons that they they drilled into the ground I was talking you know I spent a lot of time talking to the guys who are who are doing all that they actually drilled down till they hit bedrock and some of the most he said most of the poles um especially in the center section where the chair is um are 20 feet down can you imagine a lot of Steel and a lot of a lot of work doing just that alone quite amazing yeah yeah all right we'll just give it another two minutes for Graham to join and then I'll I'll start because technically we have Quorum MH I assume we're expecting Graham yeah this part of the meeting is being recorded isn't it because I don't see the little blinking red um warning light that it is at least on my uh um screen here oh um yes you're you are correct um I was at a um uh a fcog MBI meeting right before this and so I was using the alternate background hold on let me turn on the Red Dot there we go the but when I just joined the warning came up or announcement came up that the meeting was being recorded and I clicked okay so um how did your is the login issue all resolved uh I think I've got it now um yeah a little bit of scramble before this meeting but um yeah it's I mean it's really confusing because I have my own personal login that I use for for my you know my day job and everything and then um I have to get out of it and then get into shoots sp's kind of identity every time and sometimes the settings save and then um what happened last week is that they're consolidating certain groups to use just certain logins and so yeah the town is yeah and so our login changed um and then with two- Factor authentication those those emails to authenticate don't go to me right they they go to a random Gmail address not a random one but you know one that the town has set up so um yeah we got we got it all all all um s sorted out now um I don't think we were the only committee that struggled a little bit with it um so how does it work now with that two-factor authentication turned it off oh okay yeah yeah yeah I suggested to Grace just just turn it off there's too many people using this to have to have this work right and it and expires after 15 minutes so like if I have a problem I need to get a hold of Grace who needs to be at our computer at email to get the code within 15 minutes it's like no we can't do this yeah welcome Graham thank you good good that they solved the zoom problem yes yes yes yes we should we should be good to go um now and if ever I'm uh unavailable um you know somebody else can even host the meeting so all right well let's let's kick it off um welcome to the first meeting of 2025 uh this is the January 22nd meeting of the MLP and Broadband committee I am Gail Huntress MLP manager facilitating the meeting this meeting is fully remote participating remotely we have MLP board men members Jim Hemingway Graham sepon and Steven Schmidt and plus Broadband Committee Member at Large Craig Martin uh we don't have any guests at the public today and after our regular business is over we'll be moving into an executive session um probably around 6:m and stopping this recording although the meeting will continue and this is done in accordance with General Law chapter 164 47d the MLP is exempt from open meeting law in cases where competitive pricing information is discussed so we'll include in the minutes that we moved into executive session for purpose of discussion of a renewal of our intergovernmental agreement with sheld for ISP and network operator Services uh will redact any pricing details in the minutes we do release this is uh will ensure that we do not compromise the competitively sensitive nature of this information at the request of Sheldon ensure that uh we keep information private that may be need may be uh need to be used in the bidding process later if we go that route that is my long spiel to say that the reason for the executive session I will repeat parts of that when we move there okay and well said thank you I did have to write that out ahead of time okay so first um order is approving the previous um meeting minutes from uh December I move that we accept the meeting the minutes second thank you all in favor Hemingway Hemingway yeah we're supposed to do roll call so Jim Steve and Graham okay good still I yeah all right um Hut report Graham anything special or cold little is holding temperature not too much the temperature is doing good um and um the Simply Safe I saw the uh I got a a smoke uh troubles message so um it needs a battery it needs uh a battery placement in the simply and the Simply Safe device or or probably the temperature um the smoke detector but anyhow there spare batteries in the Hut I I vaguely recall so I'll go and do that um next and I'm not sure it also says um uh to update the Simply Safe software and I'm assuming you've got the management right on that so maybe if you can look at that and and up upgrade the um do the latest U um uh software um upgrade um revision whatever uh so I'll leave I'll leave you to look at that one um okay just in case just in case I fail on it um they are good now um they had for years they were not or for a long time they had not been phoning when you go in the Hut but now Simply Safe as phoning again um and you have to you have to remember the uh the safety word or U or no doubt things would go to hell um and the other thing to say was um oh yeah I vacuumed um the um the filters on the indoor units of the many splits so um there's hardly any dust on them 6 months is more than um that keeps them totally clean so yeah well thank thanks for doing the housekeeping there um Graham I I checked my email I don't see anything from Simply Safe about the the um heat smoke battery or update does it have a message does does do if you look at events um um you you might see a I'm assuming we can see the same Simply Safe dashboard um events in yeah I couldn't when I I got some sort of um message from them and then I and then I and I couldn't see anything when I went to the dash Board of Simply Safe but then I looked at in uh events or something like that um and it it said something for that but anyhow if I'll look again and I'll send you a um uh if you can't find it I'll I'll I'll send you a screenshot no okay we don't have to spend meeting time doing no it's it's a trou yeah okay I'll I'll I'll check check the battery goes totally flat it won't give a smoke alarm it'll just it'll just say goodbye no all right all right um Maintenance and Service um we got a pretty normal uh month 31 tickets on there were seven tickets from um our I I won't say the name here for privacy but our community member who is the only one outside of this group who has been testing out our manage router um so um the manag router um she had uh purportedly failed and needed to be replaced another visit happened and because that didn't fix the problem did it it did not fix the problem it did not fix the problem so the Saga continued um they rolled it they they rolled another truck um and um the customer had a network extender that blew out in around Christmas in December due to one of our storms and a power surge around that time after that all of the Wi-Fi in the house got a little wonky and all the troubleshooting happened and they determined that it was the router they took the router back and tested it it worked perfectly and they replaced it thinking that was it it was the TP Link the entire time it would come in and out not and when it came on it actually interfered with the um the main router uh so really interesting um I think it was a learning experience for them that you know that's I I guess that's pretty rare um and also during the first couple of visits the customer did not know that there was that there and didn't say that did not know that she had an extender um iped it was a little unclear of like either she didn't know or she didn't mention it or the the technician didn't ask you know the it's kind of hard to back diagnose these issues um pumped into that customer what she said was it was working in a m after that storm or surge damage it was working somewhat and uh and it's a mesh extender but it's not a mesh extender so therefore it's not actually talking to it in a proper way and that's how come they didn't you know that they if it was intermittent it wasn't working properly when they yeah so yeah so there it is so so I'm confused here though because the whole wonders of the of the remote managed router they should have seen that as a device right the router can see everything that's connected to it including that device and so they should have seen it maybe they wouldn't know exactly what it was I guess but I don't know I mean this doesn't bode well for Remote Management no it doesn't well they could have done better on that yeah yeah there's a couple of options they didn't know what it was and thought Oh it's just a a thermostat or or something so they may not have known who what does two they may seen it either if it was offline when they looked that could be it might not have been working that day yeah so but but still it's not you know these managed Riders are not foolproof and so um and in fact they were there they were there long enough when they replaced the router to set up new stuff so it wasn't interfering with it at that point um at least briefly for that period when they're setting it up so therefore you know it it wasn't causing a problem to the replacement router initially and then later it was so uh yeah it'd be interesting to know I will have to ask them the question did it show up as something was the diagnostic um able to see it um because it's a good question the first question I want to know is did they even do a remote Diagnostic in my case they just immediately said we'll roll a truck they didn't do any Diagnostics on mine in the end I called them off because yeah yeah they didn't even they didn't even look so and I'm I'm curious that they were using this nonix extender because I mean when I got and I assume the rest of us here got our KX managed routers it came with an the uh the extender in a separate box I never set the extender up which I probably should just to you know if I'm testing the thing I had to test all but um so but apparently she didn't she didn't get given she didn't get given an extender okay the other the other thing is that these extenders are supposed to be able to work with with other vendors they're it's not supposed to be obviously it's better if you use one from the same brand but they're supposed to work across equipment they're supposed to bet G absolutely true things work together that are designed to work together the and comp backwards forward up down this way that way but it's never as good as um yeah but apparently in this case it wasn't the different brand that was issued but that was it the extender or the router or both that was failing yeah intermittently failing the extender yeah it was the extender apparently Zapped by a a power surge is that what it that's the theory yeah yeah or or or dying dying of old age I mean you know when you think about it you don't know what causes Electronics to go intermittent really yeah unless you see the lightning bolt and you know yeah so anyway another another fascinating call and then um it as a coincidence the customer had also called in a third-party um uh Tech company to come in who came in and also could solve the problem all right so I've forgotten that detail yep yep and I ended up talking to him on the phone because I'm researching third party vendors to come in and do senior help and had a conversation I'm like so you know that call you went on and he and you know he's just like oh okay then that makes sense um and you know just like the shell Tex he was like well it was working when I left because it was an inter right no intermittent is always is always intermittent is horrible yeah yeah and that's that just why and that's one reason why the uh the history thing has some potential and they're not there yet but but but a r log has a lot of information and you can log it and they will get better at that artificial intelligence will kick in this patent recognition stuff this is this is going to be yeah I I it's not really artificial intelligence it's patent recognition there's not intelligence in it but one day know that that is the future because the scientist in me says I want them to spend 10 hours figuring this out and blah blah blah but of course a business person says no let's just cut our losses and move on we don't want to spend 10 hours looking into this exactly right yeah yeah yep that's it yep um so otherwise a quiet month on the uh a quiet month ex seven calls and well more calls than that if you start counting into January right that was that was just December so by by one one customer but this isn't this isn't actually abnormal we you know we see we see this a lot of of during during a month that there's more than one call for to to actually resolve an issue it's usually not one and done yeah so Gail This was um a TPL link mesh unit as opposed to a TP Link router correct okay because I was going to say I've in my experience of servicing as you know I do a lot of it in leate one thing or another um the TP Link stuff I'd stay miles away from it's just this is just the kind of problem that I've seen But seen in various other guises um so it doesn't surprise me to hear the story for for TP links specifically that they for for for TP links specifically yeah I'm not certain but I added one to my my father-in-law's house he has a frontier router and it's been working great so um but since then I I think the frontier router is an ero and so since then I added in ero hoping it would do even better but they perform the e is a little bit better but I'll I'll do more checking when I'm back again in a couple months or another month actually yeah I think that's another really tough thing when we're talking about Hardware is that you know you have initial setup yeah and then and then you have you know how's it per how how does it perform in then in the first month or two and then you know a year two years um and what's a reasonable expectation for a lifespan for these and when they go bad how do they go bad let right we want I mean something like the TP Link failing intermittently and kind of working but not really is the worst type of failure you know you just like I just if something's not working you just want it to to fail done you're done instead of the the uh intermittency um causes tons of tons of problems like this that's why I'll bet um they'll start selling um whe whether or not you get it from your your ISP they'll start selling um and there are already are some smart um evaluation tools that you can use on your own router um and and that they're just that's where they're going to go with it I'll bet so it'll get better and better it you'll get an email that this is what's happening you know or something seems wrong here you know so just like my power meter tells me now so all right well it does it it does raise the question of you know whatever router we go with next uh or even with our current router customers are going to buy their own mesh networks because in particular for the the KX one their extender is great but I think it's a hundred bucks or more if if a customer needs to buy it yeah it's not it's not cheap yeah yeah if I were if I were a even though I can afford the hundred bucks my they should be I want to go buy that TP link for for $25 on Amazon because you know it worked just as well um and so we do have to recognize that our our customers are going to be doing this well that was one of the reasons as as Jim Hemingway would remember I was running around the house trying to run in and out of the mesh on a on a a voice over yeah yeah a Wi-Fi calling and uh and and I couldn't and and it handed off really well you know so um yeah so yeah yeah and I think if we do offer the you know manage routers as an option to customers whether we pay for it or part of it or all of it that there should be some kind of incentive to get the um a a managed mesh router to because I've seen enough of these issues um caused by the the extenders either just being poor interference or um you know like a people connecting their Dev but they're they don't understand that they're only they only connected to the to the extender you know there's all sorts of wacky setup stuff that can that can happen so um yeah trying to get people to use like okay if you're going to use the manage rou or just use this for your whole home system don't don't start frankensteining stuff together um if we can afford it that's another question but I think I think most people don't understand how those mesh rouers work also and so placement is is super critical to Performance but I will guess 80% of our customers don't understand how that works or or right right and you know and and here's you know what I'm imagining is it let's say we do do kind of a townwide upgrade here that the setup is part of the installation of and I don't think when we first did this we actually did a great job of it I mean we were under time pressures and we well money pressures too of like no we it just goes in the basement if you if you move it up to the first floor it costs extra you know we had we had we had to um but now I think we might be able to be a little bit more Mindful and what we know is if you know if that if initially it's set up really well it's kind of good to go right that you know once you set this up and as long as you do the customer education and here's you know here's how you connect here's your password that the amount of service calls once a network is up and going is so low um and and so putting some upfront um resources towards really really good full home setup and then being able to be hands off for years I I think is a is a really nice model and it just makes a customer happier too right of having a better experience no you know that they they have Full House coverage that they don't have to fiddle with it they don't have to call uh tech support um so anyway all right um no matter what we always end up talking about routers it always yeah yeah yeah okay all right let's move on um so financial report um we are cash positive right now um still doing great in the amount of about 27 27,900 um let's see um Jim uh sent around a message about uh fincom moves to a new open check software for transparency um and um it sounds like if the town adopts this I have full belief that our finances will also be part part of that because we are an Enterprise fund so we are just we're like subsection account of the main Town account unless they take active um uh you know settings or whatever to to obscure us it's going to all be open I see no problem with this this is fine um uh and especially if the fincom members think that it would be a good investment for the town to make um yeah and yeah so I I guess the only the only thing that we need to be a little bit prepared prepared for that I could imagine is that we may need uh to do some justification of our decisions um and um I'm fine to do that and field questions about our budget um all I would need from all of you is kind of backing on that if any any you know because I the way I I'm like trying to think steps ahead here of like okay our budgets open there might be people in town are like you know why are we you know spending x amount on digital subsidy and then I will explain that to them then I'm like and then if it gets into a thing I'm like you need to come and talk to our board about this um and and so that could happen except that the digital subsidy now we realizing that isn't is not an expense it's just reduced Revenue um so that's actually not going to even show up in the town's um uh basically the town's checking account is is what this is is uh proposed propos so how many checks do we how many checks do we write in a year and for what kinds of things um ball broad broadly speaking broadly speaking I yeah um we let me let me think about it three about 80 about 80 okay yeah yeah and and the treasur the treasurer writes all those checks is that true yes it's not so no no we are a just another town department just like you know the the highway department the police department the income that we get which is 12 checks a year from um sheld plus a few miscellaneous things goes into the regular Town checking account it's not it's not a separate account for us or anything the bills that are paid come out of the regular Town checking account the whole Enterprise fund is just a a uh an accounting uh um system within that but yeah Jim yeah um I might add that the open check the latest the latest update on on whether the town goes ahead with this or not depends on whether open check software will report all of the expenses that the school makes and all the checks that the school writes because currently they write them on in their own little world over there and we we although we the town supplies them with all this money as you know uh you know to run the operation over there um how they how they write checks or what the checks are all that kind of stuff is is like you know in their world and not in ours and if we and if open check doesn't uh reveal what the what the school is doing um there's no way the finance committee is going to approve or recommend the purchase of open you of open check software that's the latest from the finance and is just out of curiosity is this software GNA create new headaches for the people who write the checks and is it gonna be harder to issue checks no no no they just most of the things that most of the things that UMass implements to make our lives easier make them a lot harder I can just tell you well well fortunately um open check it we we use Vadar software accounting software um pretty much 100% throughout you know throughout town hall and uh and and open check is very Vadar sensitive or Savage so so that'll make it easy from that point of view but I don't know about the the school the how the school and you know and U Union 28 and all of that I I don't know quite how this is going to work but it but it'sing Union 20 a school Union is financially very different from a Regional School System a Regional School System the ammer pal Regional School System that is a financial entity they uh and so the town just writes them one check roughly a year or you know it's done quarterly for the town's assessment for that and they run their whole financial thing a school Union is not a financial entity it just it hires the superintendent for the T four or five towns that are in it it has Financial people that do work but the the teachers at the SHP Elementary School are employees of the town of shuberry unlike the high school teachers are employees of the Regional School District so financi very different organization so it's it's puzzling to me that this software wouldn't capture the local Local Schools but I'm not totally surprised at that either when I use the highway department and the police department as examples that were similar to us I purposely didn't say the school because I really wasn't sure just how the school yeah yeah work so so anyway that's all right I assume this would be something that would be a town meeting vote adopting this software don't know um um it I I I think the select board may may want to weigh in on this but ultimately it's going to come back to the finance committee as to whether they recommend purchasing it it's about $55,000 initially and then there's so much per year it's about 1,500 to 2,000 a year to to maintain the service so um you know it's a it's an expense and and let me tell you this is going to be a very difficult year for the town of shutesbury um you have no idea how um how expensive things have become you've probably heard the news on the you know on the radio about about um how much trouble you know Municipal um facilities like ours are having paying you know you know you know the amounts are just way way way way up this year and uh we're we're really in a we we don't know quite where the money is going to come from this year and that's going to be a problem so so they may just root you know they may not go for it simply because it's just another it's seven six or $7,000 expense and we just can't afford it I don't know I have no idea but so it seems like it would be in the next town budget which is voted at town meeting so yeah um at the very least seems like town meeting would have to approve the expenditure yeah well if it's it could be put into the accountant's budget you know I mean it be slid in almost you know those questions those questions haven't been answered yet but um the initial question of of of whether we should invest in this at all is still on the table and it may not get any further than that yeah my honestly my like my suggestion is if if the town just wants more public transparency just slap up the monthly account reports that g is running anyway and sending to all the town of you know departments or is it or is a problem really that they want more transparency with the school specifically and they're reluctant well well those reports are are now online so anyone can go and take a look at the monthly reports so that's that's a little bit right put them online yeah yeah that's all online right now so that this would take it a step further obviously and I I I don't know whether it's going to happen or not but we we did have a discussion about it last night okay at the fincom meeting all right surprise Jim is this gonna mean that we're gonna have people in town calling up the town or calling up Gail and say tell me about that $15 check I want want to know what it's about it's possible sure sure sure it's possible and and that's and if that happens that's another added expense for the town in terms of yeah that that would be that would be horrible wouldn't it yeah yep yep um yeah and I I'm if if anyone calls I mean I'm glad to have that discussion it will take time um and also we have nothing to hide like of course of it's like right and and and I feel um I feel like we're very fiscally responsible as a department and can can justify every single expense very easily um I agree I agree all right um let's see well in good news on Friday the ndia announced their Trailblazers and there's a really nice article in The Gazette today that included I missed it I'm gonna have to go look Y what was that again NBI it it was yeah the N the ndia the national digital inclusion Alliance it's the it's the award that we won that was um finally announced on Friday and so I sent a press release to The Gazette and they did a little story and they included furog in it and they included Hadley in it um and uh yeah just a really nice little piece of press it's really funny if you go to the ndi website and it's like the 60 communities that won this award and it's like the town of like the City of Austin the city of Denver the city of Seattle the town of shsy right we're in the big legue at last yeah yeah I think I didn't I didn't do deep dive into the like all the 60 communities but I think we are the smallest one by far although Franklin Regional County of governments did did get get a um an award too yeah good job no thank well thank you it's uh yeah group effort here it what's this award called again I'm sorry sure sure so it's an it's the NDA the the national digital inclusion Alliance mhm and it is a trailblazer award for 2024 I'm gonna try to download it and I'll I'll email it to everybody I'm looking at my Gazette online right now and and I haven't found it yet maybe it wasn't on the front page no not on the front page oh no it's not a headline it's it's buried it's on cities and towns it's on it's on uh B1 or whatever yeah no A3 A3 A3 A3 yeah okay National digital in inclusion Alliance inclusion okay just sounds like it'll be shut down by the new regime for uh for sounding too woke the word inclusion oh yeah it might be we should we should enjoy enjoy it while we can yeah yeah okay another news um oh Jim I wanted to check with you about our annual report a I was afraid you're gonna ask that yeah well here's here's wait I have I have an idea I have an idea if you haven't started it you want to hear my idea good because I haven't started it okay good good um I I I have a suggestion and that is we take all of our past minutes and feed them into um an an AI aggregator and see see how it does I've been playing a lot wow um and it it it it you can't rely on it for like um final output but it does great first drafts that then just need to be edited so um yeah so Jim um let me I just I'm actually really curious how it will do so let me do a first pass if it completely fails we'll work on it over the next week together okay okay that sounds good okay um Got a notification from National Grid that it is going back to spreadsheets for their poll application process they're closing down their app that they've been using called that's hilarious that is so funny Yep they're moving to Smart sheet back to pencil and paper not quite that bad um not quite as bad as it was in 2017 when we started but um it is in in my opinion a step backwards um luckily we don't have to do this very often there's very few polls we have to apply for um we you know we got in under the wire for that wendle uh Road Extension um but oh my God what a painful painful process um so that's happening um run that by me again Gail I'm sorry sure no no problem National Grid is closing down their smart app app the smart app app and going back to spreadsheets smart app app it causes confusion right with the name it does just in the name smart app app how smart um I got a letter from Handover insurance which is the underwriter that covers our um Insurance um they are going to renew our insurance that's the good news the bad news is that um the earthquake and flood coverage which was 25 Grand is now going up to a 100 Grand uh that's the um deductible or the yeah yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry yeah yeah the dedu deductible for those two major events due to what is going on on the national stage I read it very carefully for fire um and it seems like it's just earthquake and flood but they also say and all other perils do you think that that probably includes fire too well well the real our real issue is um snow is snow wind wind yeah Bree yeah earthquakes not so much fires definitely but but even well yeah fires certainly burn all other perils that's the uh yeah that's the worrying thing definitely need to get clarification on that because $100,000 deductible uh not this half the town yeah yeah that's not um that that's not good so um when our new binder comes out I will pursue that of what what exactly does this mean um and if it gets bad enough you know we may need to look at self-insurers yeah um um so or I mean we could look into another carrier but I suspect that uh yeah we're getting we're getting such a deal through Mia yeah yeah when yeah I just saw some chatter on the wired West thing and I ignored it about insurance are they talking the same thing do you know what they're looking at um I don't know no I don't I don't I'm not included in those anymore oh you're not all right I will find them no because I still I still do get them okay yeah because our deductible it had been 10,000 and then they bumped it to 25 was that 15 15,000 right yeah it was 10 we paid well they bumped it but we paid more to to get it to get the the $155,000 coverage it was going to be what was it yeah it was going to be 25 we talk we kind of like talk them down with a more with a bit that was how it went yeah yeah down down to 15 so um this is this is different this the earthquake and and flood is different than the other types of um damage coverage it's like it's like a I don't know what to call it a rider maybe on on the all other per okay yeah it sounds like an all other yeah it's like an it's earthquake flood and all other perils yeah but it it sounds like the primary problems are covered in the in the thing that's not the rider you know again I will get I will get confirmation and and and clarification when the binder comes out I don't I don't toly understand this but I do know that they're moving the the deductible for the earthquake flood and perils from 25 to 100 and the reason I'm saying it's something different is because that that was never ours right like the 25,000 wasn't our our deductible for for other damage it was but that was like something we specially negotiated so what what did you actually get was this like a an email a letter or something yeah it was just it was just a letter that said um we're renewing your policy with um a with a conditional renewal and the conditional renewal is that earthquake flood and all their perils is going from 25 K to 100K so yeah so more more to come on that yeah we poles are pretty poles and cables pretty safe on earthquakes you know I mean well even even if it All Falls Down the um the fiber is yeah right yeah exactly yeah yeah just just just put it up gently back up gently yeah yeah yeah let's see what else is in the works so I'm still working on the digital Equity plan um turns out as like all government things getting the grant was the easy part of uh finding all the resources to meet the plans requirements and the paperwork is the hard part um um right before this call I had a meeting with um a a contingent of five towns that was being spearheaded by the town of Northfield with the help of furog to work on Cyber seniors which is a program where they um hire uh GCC work study students to to spend a couple hours in every town like at the town hall or the library um and it's just kind of an open house and and um seniors can come in and get help with their um smartphones with their laptops so it's it's onsite help um for for for Tech issues I still don't know if it's a if it's going to be a great match I'm thinking of do maybe doing a pilot program running it for like six months and seeing how it goes um it seems really expensive for what you get like it's it's high on overhead right because you have like a lot of the money is going to a coordinator who has to coordinate work study students and then set them up like match them with sen like match them with seniors and then the appointment times and make sure that the senior can get there and if not reschedule like so it's really admin heavy and part of me is like oh my gosh why don't we just take this money and hire somebody like Greenfield Tech you know um uh you know a private company that does inhome tech support to go whatever you need just you know they they'll come to your home instead so I'm looking at the options there um I'll I'll probably come to a uh you all with a proposal and to talk through it and make sure I'm not missing anything next next month um oh and then to complicate things Northfield the town that was coordinating all this um the person who was the coordinator uh is got a new position and is leaving as of tomorrow so the whole program is like oh boy yeah oh the the dangers the dangers of working collectively oh I love the idea it just it's so hard I'm all for providing support to our customers but we have to be careful about opening up some open-ended expense that could if it gets too popular be incredibly expensive right yeah yeah yeah there there's either way there's definitely going to be like you know limits on it and you know the C cyber seniors is bounded in the way that they you know you only get like two hours a week or something um on site at at the library that's it these other things of um hiring in third- party vendor and and you know so and I can't there's no way we could pay for it totally but I'm looking into offering some kind of subsidy where you know normally the first the first hour is 100 and shoots be residents can get it for 70 something like that um for more but you know we have to think about how much it is and again bound it in a in a um uh a money or a time uh experiment to see you know is this is this working does it do do what it it needs to do and when the new library opens we could imagine some group uh session type things that could be much more cost- effective um absolutely absolutely yeah but we do need space for it um the thing that that doesn't solve though is the inhome stuff right like setting up your smart TV or um you know how do you connect this printer kind of thing which people desperately need yeah yeah yeah um okay so next I want to talk a little bit about our structure of our Broadband committee I was contacted by Gail fles Shaker about our our website because the town is doing this effort to clean up all the Committees there it just there you know there's a lot of people on committees that have left there's a lot of committees that are just defunct because they don't have enough members um and so they're making a big effort to consolidate and then also to um um just make it make sure it's it's accurate and there's new for new committees that have been formed recently like the lake RI Safety Committee so it's just it's messy they're just is trying to um you know uh make sure everything is is accurate and and orderly which makes a lot of sense um so I'd like to request that I write a letter to the sh Sperry select board that they discharge the shutesbury Broadband committee and close it down and just say it has done its work um we do not we no longer need this committee it's just extraneous right now the only member um that is not part of something already me being the manager three of you being on the MLP board and then Craig is the only one um who's on the committee it's a committee of one so i' so I've I've already talked to Craig about this and yeah I'm perfectly fine with that yep and so my my thought is that we change Craig's position into Community advisor and have him listed on on the website so there is an official capacity this does two things it keeps him keeps him in our fold and it also I'll be in your fold regardless and also it um gives an Avenue for interested community members to get involved for someday to run um for one of the elected position you know assuming um you three board members don't want to do this forever and ever um so that it it would give an Avenue for interested members to come to our meetings to get it get a title and then to run anybody could run they don't have to do this but it kind of gives us an official pathway of like well we recommend that you start as a community adviser and you know start attending our meetings and then when it comes time you run for one of the positions when they're open um should we do a motion to appoint uh to to to deputize him right now yeah well first first let's discuss what what do you think any my only my my only concern is the title I don't want people saying calling me up and saying give me some [Laughter] advice you can just say call Gail how about yeah but but Gail my concern here is that I don't think we the MLP can just create a a position like that I think it would need to be probably the select board create we're still we're we're abolishing one entity the Broadband Comm is fine but we're creating a new one and so it would have to say well how many people are are going to be Community advisers or whatever tile it is is it you know are how many slots are available is it unlimited can it be as many or few as we want um yeah do they have to go through the the official vetting through whatever it is that yeah we all get P to yeah you know my Clin is I'm happy to have no title if and when um you guys want me in the MLP and I need to run for it I can just say with all honesty I've been to 95% 865 meetings over the past over the past X years and nobody else can say that right so I I I don't need the title for myself don't worry about it I'll show up regardless um and yeah and and of course anybody else can do the same thing right there's nothing special about me anybody in town can join these meetings oh there's definitely something special about you but you're right anybody can come yeah but yeah but see I'll bet you're right there's rules about changing the shape of one's organization and select board would have the call yeah I mean I like the idea of having this sort of farm team position not that Craig is you know on the farm team but um to for if new person wants to join and you know there is a current MLP board member who is indicated he only was taking this for a limited time and wants us to find a replacement form I think I've got one more year okay that we would you know put the word out townwide that you know we're looking for somebody please log into one of our meetings if you're interested in finding out what we do um but we don't want it that somebody has to be appointed to the community Advisory Board in order to do this they that might be you know kind of pushing back we want just just log in you know it's a public meeting listen to what we do um see if it's a good fit for you yeah I'm I'm fine with that um I I don't put this on my CV so it's not going to bother me I'm not I I think a lot of online committees like our remote meetings are going to have trouble getting new members because it's not quite as much fun uh as meeting people even though that's inconvenient I didn't want to drive anywhere tonight that's for sure but uh yeah so yeah interesting problem I kind of miss going to the meetings myself but I miss zius cookies that's what I miss especially cookies you know ever since uh asha's mother laugh um that kind of went we went to hell you know asha's the kind of person if we asked she'd probably ship us all cookies tomorrow probably would every time H yeah okay well all right it sounds like then what we're kind of moving towards here is just um maintaining the MLP board and then an ad hoc um anyone who wants to you know come get involved come on over um and we'll deal with recruiting for the MLP board positions um when when the time comes is is that where we're headed here yeah I don't I don't think we need to go explicitly recruit a bunch of people I think every every town meeting we should just say these are open to anyone and and you're welcome to join in and just remind people yeah um the more people we get involved in these meeting if we if we were lucky if we if we got what we wanted and got 10 people signed up these meetings it'd be more difficult they'd be tough yep all right um all right um are we still going to approach the select board and suggest they dissolve the um Broadband Committee just because it's it's done its job and yeah and we actually need an official discharge from them to to close it down so if you all agree with that action um if one of you can make a motion and do a vote then I'll I'll take care of the the letter um and get it taken care of I move we contact the select board and let them know that we no longer need the uh Broadband committee it's its task is being performed by the MLP great second thank you all right let's let's I I can't second then and I can't second later and but I'll second like like a Google employee you've been laid off there Craig yeah all my benefits are going to go away oh jeez and it might not be an efficient uh committee so uh you know we're big on government efficiency now so okay yeah there you go we're doing our bit we've been we've been approved by the Dodge committee yeah oh yeah yeah um okay uh I'll simply ask that I'd be kept on the mailing list for when you announce you know meeting changes or new meetings or anything like that if that's legal I think I think it is it is absolutely legal yep um and because it's open to anybody anyone is welcome to join our meeting notification mailing list oh great yep while you're talking about changing the website today I clicked on on a link that was at the very front of the for a page that took me to the My Town page for us and it had a mytown entry for the Broadband committee and it said there was a meeting tonight and the link that said uh video meeting took me nowhere I had to go back oldfashioned back into the main so I don't know what you know about the my toown side hopefully we're not migrating to that or if we are we're going to do a better job of you know what I'm talking about I do I do because that's yeah that's how all the meetings get set up and then Grace kind of like copies it over into I couldn't get to this meeting from that page maybe I just didn't find the right link but the one that said video meeting or something like that didn't take me here all right so my my town here hold on let me share my screen Craig so we're we know what we're talking about sure okay so here I am on the uh my town and then yeah so click on Virtual click on virtual meeting and it takes me here uhhuh and I don't see any place to click the address is in the is in the cloud Google Maps has us correctly in the crow Cloud but there's nothing to to click on how how about if you click on either the Broadband or on the details in agenda you can you can do that you you can do that you'll you'll get to the same thing but go ahead yeah yeah so it it looks like location this is just Google Map link and so it goes nowhere goes to Blue virtual nothing and the details in agenda then you okay I didn't click on that I didn't click on that one that's weird I thought I did yeah so all it looks like all of these virtual meetings go to black blue virtual where complely but if you click on on a one without that virtual that does have the the location since the virtual meeting doesn't give you any useful information the link simply shouldn't be there at all yeah agree correct from a user interface it is very poor yeah yeah we don't yeah I don't know who's who's the admin of this there we go Joshua Smith oh they're from Barry Oh I probably went to high school with him okay good yeah this is a great little site um H all right I'm going to make a little note to send send a note to see if virtual meetings can go elsewhere yeah or they could go to the right link I mean that would be the but just showing a blue cloud in in Google Maps is is kind of useless yeah it could be it could be the same link as the details couldn't it the one that does work you could just make that right both the same hold on I'm just making note of this anyway minor concern I know where to go yeah all right great um well we we actually have to do an official vote so I'll just do a roll call vote for the motion that was just um introduced to write a letter to the select board to um disband the Broadband committee uh Graham hi Steve I and Joe I great okay thank you and I hope the acceptance comes back with a letter of thanks you would hope I mean how often you did that's so great like a committee we formed it we did it and we're like we can close it down now it's done they're gonna have a big party for us and then covid hit so we yeah we still we still have a couple Grand in our in our in our little donated fund that's not taxpayer money we could still go out and have a Maj it's not too [Laughter] late all right it is 602 so um I think it is time to um unless anybody else has any other open business I'll ask that first well other than our general budget discussion but that's dependent on or certainly close related to the ISP discussion so um maybe that's something that we can go to next next meeting yeah I think we have to kick that into executive session because to talk about our general b budget and the um uh MLP fee that we'll be charging we will need to say publicly the charge to the customers so that has to be private of course our whole budget after you know it will be public um on the at the out of this but let's save that y um all right anything else for open meeting okay I'm gonna I'll say the shiel and then the procedurally um I'll ask for a motion to move into executive session when you'll make that motion and then we'll vote on it and then we'll close this meeting I'll stop the recording and we'll keep going okay so uh this meeting has been convened in an open session and notice has been given the purpose of this upcoming executive session is to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining for upcoming Network operator and ISP discussion for a continuation of our intergovernmental agreement contract Mich sheld where competitive pricing information will be discussed uh so this meeting will um include our MLP board of directors as well as the loan member of the Broadband committee Craig Martin and myself the MLP manager um can I have a motion to move this meeting into executive session so moved thank you uh we will now vote to move into executive session second oh thank you all right Graham I Steve I and Jim hi wonderful all right well thanks everyone I will now uh stop the recording and we'll continue I need to ask a question before after I pose it h well either one uh okay my new non status does this mean I will not be allowed to attend the executive committee meetings no you still can I can we we can yeah we we can bring in people to Executive sessions that are relevant to the discussion yeah yeah there there I think that's in yeah that's in executive session option this yeah well have to because there's instances for example when we would invite um members of of like the general operator of sheld to come to a discussion or fincom members stuff like that yeah yeah yeah fincom members so my understanding is that we can um invite anybody who needs to be there for the for the for the stated purpose okay you have expertise Greg are you're a community adviser well yeah all right um let's see but you know what Craig I'm I'm I would hate for for us not to have your wise counsel on on other matters like this um so even even though I'm like 90% sure that we can invite anybody that we want um let me get confirmation on that I agree I think that's a good thing to do because um let's say that I do run for MLP next time and I say you know I got to do all this stuff and somebody will say well how come I didn't get to go into or or somebody could come along and say I want to go into executive session with you and then you have to explain to them why Craig gets to go but they don't that could be that could become contentious yeah what I said I'm thinking better double check that with somebody that really knows I I think you should I agree yeah before before if you have to leave me out if you have to leave me out it won't be a disaster but I think I can contribute to let's do this before you contact the select board about abolishing the Broadband commit good point um you know just ask Donna I mean you get the real answer yeah yeah well I'll probably ask Grace every time I talk to Donna it's 15 bucks uhhuh yeah yeah all right all right are are we good then yeah I'm good okay I'm still I'm still legitimate you are you're still legitimate right now at this moment still legit not not disbanded yet yeah